While we wait for details on the most recent mass murder (the one in Ohio), further evidence is emerging that the El Paso shooter was a Trump-supporting, immigrant-hating white supremacist who was radicalized online and committed his horrific crime to achieve political ends. In other words, a terrorist.
Many lines from the so-called manifesto the terrorist published could have been tweeted by Trump, GOP Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel or the perpetrator’s own US Senator, John Cornyn:
Texas gained almost nine Hispanic residents for every additional white resident last year https://t.co/rbjpkzMGwf via @TexasTribune
— Senator John Cornyn (@JohnCornyn) June 22, 2019
Trump tweeted the following this morning:
The FBI, local and state law enforcement are working together in El Paso and in Dayton, Ohio. Information is rapidly being accumulated in Dayton. Much has already be learned in El Paso. Law enforcement was very rapid in both instances. Updates will be given throughout the day!
Thanks, President Police Scanner. Now go load your ass into a cart and play 18 holes at your self-branded resort on our fucking dime, you worse than useless sack of shit.
Regarding the El Paso shooting, Trump can’t and won’t connect the dots since they lead directly to his bloated orange carcass. The mainstream media is unlikely to connect the dots forthrightly today, if ever. TPM describes the terrorist’s gaslighting strategy:
There’s abundant evidence the shooter is a big fan of President Trump and certainly of his worldview. And yet the manifesto includes a sort of preemptive rebuttal of any claims that he is a Trump supporter or that Trump influenced. He predicts that “the media” will identify him as a white supremacist and blame President Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric for radicalizing him and provoking the attack. Such claims would be “fake news” and such claims will indeed only prove that “the media” is “fake news.
It’ll be clarifying to see which non-Fox News media outlets participate in the white supremacist terrorist’s clumsy attempt at obfuscation. So far, the signs are not encouraging.
But El Paso native Beto O’Rourke didn’t mince words:
We’ve had a rise in hate crimes every single one of the last three years during an administration where you’ve had a president who’s called Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals,” though Mexican immigrants commit crimes at a far lower rate than those born here in the country. He is a racist and he stokes racism in this country, and it does not offend our sensibilities, it fundamentally changes the character of this country and it leads to violence.
Thank you, Mr. O’Rourke. These times demand plain speaking.
JanieM
But hey, the governor of Texas says it’s too soon to talk about politics. Translated: only shooters and their enablers get to engage in politics. Now that we’re having a mass shooting every day, their dream is realized: it is *never* time to talk about the politics of gun control.
Raoul
Pete Buttigieg has been just about as clear. We need every Dem presidential candidate stepping up.
Sadly, Andrew Yang and Bernie Sanders are buying the “mental health” dodge.
Charles Johnson (LGF, is the not terrible CJ) mentioned today that he started picking apart the GOP/NRA mental health malarkey seven years ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
not a huge deal, but he didn’t write this
“Law Enforcement” at the very least would have been capitalize. In my mind I picture Kellyanne Conway texting Ivanka at the golf course, “Make sure he says something about God and prayers when he tweets about this”
Raoul
@JanieM: I was still awake last night when Dayton started showing up on twitter. As someone wryly noted, “Hey, now that we’ve got a new one, it’s not too soon to politicize El Paso”.
lamh36
Literally just sat down to break at work and saw the headline and I swear it took me a minute to realize there was another shooting
my lord
Oh and apparently, none of the GOP pols from texas or ohio agreed to be in Tappers CNN show this morning.
Wonder if they showed up on Fox?
Yep TxLt Gov on Fox blaming video games…cause u know places like oh Japan who don’t have this mass shootings…don’t have video games don’t change know ??
twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1158002536344903680?s=21
Immanentize
There is no such thing as a “lone wolf” in the age of he internet. These are international terrorists.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good point. And the orange shit stain will be huffing back and forth from the cart to kick errant golf balls out of sand traps today, not giving updates.
MattF
Pointing to Trump’s responsibility here is pretty much the minimal non-bullshit response. Glad to see it.
ThresherK
Waiting for Tom Toles or one of the other good cartoonists to do this right. I’m envisioning someone halfway up a ladder to write “1” on “Days since a mass gun murder”, and someone tells them they need to stop.
The Dangerman
@Raoul:
Well, it would have to be part of an “all of the above” strategy. More mental health. More gun control. More police (paid for by taxing the living shit out of gun sales, which goes back to the previous point).
The Right doesn’t give a shit about shootings in Urban areas (as they are now the rump rural party). The Right has been saying for years the only shooting they’ve ever given a fuck about in an Urban area recently was the Scalise shooting.
jonas
@Raoul:
Mental health may indeed be a factor in a lot of these shootings. People in other countries suffer from mental health issues, too. The difference is that in other countries, when someone decides to start listening to the voices in their head, they can’t just waltz into a gun store and purchase a high-powered assault rifle.
geg6
That kind of talk, off the cuff, is why I still have a big fondness for Beto. I’m not a big Mayor Pete fan, but he also opted for straight talk rather than waffling on the mental health garbage and thoughts and prayers.
Jinchi
Nothing like using the president’s favorite catchphrase to prove you don’t listen to him.
Jinchi
@geg6:
He really does well on issues related to Texas. They could use a Senator like him.
B.B.A.
Starting to feel like the First Amendment was a mistake. Only draconian censorship of all media could have prevented these ideas from spreading. Now they control the government and it’s too late.
Jinchi
@lamh36:
Yesterday he was suggesting antifa was the problem.
jonas
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think that’s right. Trump himself would have thrown something in about more people needing to arm themselves, or Build the Wall! or something.
Kelly
@ThresherK: I remember the national tv news displaying how many days the Iran Embassy hostages had been held every night. Days since the last massacre and a running killed/wounded count would only take 10~15 seconds of the broadcast.
Immanentize
@jonas:
My understanding is that the waltz is passe with the gun crowd, although some still do the stroll.
germy
@Immanentize:
Immanentize
@germy:
Did not know that. TY
germy
@Kelly:
I remember those days, and I remember feeling that the networks were trying to heckle Carter out of the presidency.
A few years later, there were hostages under Reagan’s watch and it was barely reported. Same thing with W.
debbie
I am waiting for someone in the LAMESTREAM MEDIA not to ask, “Mr. President, people are saying you provoke these attacks. Do you feel like responding?” but to reframe the question as “Mr. President, why do you provoke these attacks and how can you possibly see this as a winning strategy in 2020?”
Chyron HR
@Raoul:
Bernie “Guns in Vermont are not the same thing as guns in CHICAGO, wink wink, get it?” Sanders said a stupid? I’m shocked.
Waratah
@Jinchi: there are a lot of posts on his Twitter telling him he needs to run for Texas Senator. He has said why he is not and we have some great women running for that position. He is not going to run for senate.
Poll last week including independents and Republicans he would beat Trump by eleven points. Higher than any other candidate. Edited to say the poll was in Texas.
debbie
@jonas:
It’s not mental health; it’s anger — something everything living and breathing is capable of. And if anger is a mental health issue, then the whole fucking world is mentally ill.
B.B.A.
@debbie:
A-yup.
Sab
So the Cleveland Plain Dealer (cleveland.com) chose today to run a long glowing article about an Ohio militia group that trains with guns in the woods in order to be able to “help” the authorities at the southern border.
If they want to be a back-up army they could possibly join the Ohio national guard, but that would require discipline and committment.
ETA Their name is Ohio Reapers. Sounds wholesome, doesn’t it.
Thanks Plain Dealer. I would link, but I am a luddite.
chopper
apparently this shithead thinks this strategy is some sort of genius “magical blame eraser” trick. honestly, i half expect the MSM to fall for it.
JanieM
And yet not everyone even in Vermont thinks it’s that simple. Life — And Death — With Guns In Vermont — scroll down for the longer presentation; updates are listed above it.
Suicide and domestic violence matter too, not just mass shootings by terrorists.
Immanentize
@debbie:
My fantasy news reporter question is to ask Trump, McConnell, etc. After their expression of thoughts and prayers to “Please give the nation, right now, the words of the prayer you said as a model for all the hurting people in the country.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
doesn’t solve the Tivo problem, but…. yeah, let’s be glad for those brief hours when he’s away from his TeeVee
debbie
@Sab:
I hope they receive many angry letters. Idiots. Frankly, even if Dayton hadn’t happen, why would they publish that the day after the El Paso massacre?
smintheus
@JanieM: When you rush into the TV studio, as Mulvaney did, and insist that the shootings had nothing to do with Trump’s rhetoric, you’re politicizing the killings. There’s no evidence to back up those claims, so it’s pure politics to weigh in like that.
By contrast, there’s plenty of evidence to back up Democrats’ assessment of the El Paso shooter’s motives.
debbie
@Immanentize:
I like that! Did you hear the protesters screaming “Moscow Mitch” at his appearance in KY last night? It should be the audio portion of his opponent’s next campaign ad. You couldn’t even hear his voice when he tried talking over them.
Immanentize
@debbie:
Story about a group of militia wanna bees going to the border to save Ohio from the mudblood hordes? Of course they would publish it the day after a shooting in El Paso which doesn’t even have an American name!
SenyorDave
Thanks, President Police Scanner. Now go load your ass into a cart and play 18 holes at your self-branded resort on our fucking dime, you worse than useless sack of shit.
I usually read a line like this and it gives me a good laugh. And I laugh even though it is pretty sad that we are in this situation, having a president who is so tempermentally and intellectually impaired that he is worse than useless. Today this makes me angry because it is so totally true, and if all he did was play golf, stuff himself with MIckey D cheeseburgers and look at the pretty powerpoint graphs they give him to try to study we might be better off than him playing at being president.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
SenyorDave
@Sab: If they want to be a back-up army they could possibly join the Ohio national guard, but that would require discipline and committment.
Plus they would have to deal with some POC, and worse yet, treat them as equals.
The Dangerman
@debbie:
Working on Cuppa #2, and it’s not really kicking in, but I’ll take a guess at it…
…and that is (beyond the fact that I’ve already argued that Trump, etc., don’t give a shit about Urban mass shootings) is that he must know there is zero chance he wins the popular vote in 2020. ZERO. Not gonna happen outside of shenanigans (see Russia, et al).
His only chance of winning is drawing to the inside straight again and win enough of the rural vote to swing enough states to win in the EC. I don’t think that can happen (barring shenanigans again) but I can see the strategy. He will triple down on the whole Baltimore/Urban thing (because when has Trump ever apologized and when has he not been the most brilliant person ever) and try to drive up his rural vote because that’s his only chance.
The people I wonder about are people like Tucker Carlson. While Trump both doesn’t give a shit and have this as his path to another term, I think Carlson, if he keeps up the drumbeat of immigrant bashing, will lose advertisers in droves. I think. It’ll be interesting to watch.
smintheus
@Sab: In woods? For the southern border? Nobody at the CPD thought that signified anything? JFC.
Kay
Trump was so torn up last night he’s pictured wildly cheering himself with a huge grin. This is about the same time they realized a 25 year old woman was gunned down in the Wal Mart, possibly acting as a shield for her infant, who survived the terrorist attack.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: maybe if these guys shagged they wouldn’t be so angry
Kay
Well, if it is a rash of domestic terrorist attacks rest assured the none of Donald Trump’s low quality, bottom of the barrel hires are working today. Any real work is performed by career federal employees. The Trump Administration people should all stay on the golf course. It’ll go better.
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: would like to see a follow up report in five years as to how many of the marriages survived after trump crashed their weddings
Dr Ronnie James DO
El Trompador is apparently going to make “urban carnage”* a big theme in his campaign.
Urban carnage.
We should just start rattling off names of cities like Orlando, Parkland, Las Vegas, El Paso, Dayton.
* of the “[Chocolate City] is a rat and crime infested sh*thole” variety,
SFAW
@Chyron HR:
I’m hoping Cole can add AED functionality to the new website, for situations such as this.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: So gross. I’m sure at least one of his handlers thought about trying to tell him the “optics” wouldn’t be good, but the chance to be the center of attention, and to advertise his tacky hotel to the sort of tacky people who think having that in their wedding pictures is a good thing
ETA:
I had the same thought. I always think of my old boss, who met woman at a New Year’s party, got engaged on Valentine’s Day, married in June, and separated before their first anniversary. They had a screaming fight in the restaurant over whether or not he would wear a pink cummerbund and tie to match the, if memory serves, seven bridesmaids’ dresses. He didn’t. This was more than twenty-five years ago, but if there had a been a trump place to have that reception, it probably would’ve been something could have agreed to.
SFAW
@chopper:
But what about JJ McNabb?
lamh36
This witch Kellyanne
Oh please u and ur bosses and the rest of the GOP are the damn ones design and pushing this white nationalist racist sentiments. your hands aren’t clean ma’am and I hope u and can’t sleep at night cause U know they aren’t
twitter.com/kellyannepolls/status/1158030724856811522?s=21
Millard Filmore
@SenyorDave:
Even worse! What if a POC was their commanding officer?
scav
So, attempting to fix a chronic problem is “politicizing” it. We’ll have to remember that when we stumble across a gun-humper lying sprawled on the ground with a broken leg, asking for a hand up, a ride to the hospital and complaining that there were no handrails on the uneven stairs. SOP should be to intone “It’s too early to politicize it!” and walk off.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They don’t tell him anything. They’re all terrified of him. Not a one of them has a spine. They’re servants of the Trump Family. Trump himself has utter contempt for all of them. The moment they speak up he fires them in the most humiliating way possible.
Staying in his employ earns his contempt, because he knows it’s wholly self-interest on their part. That’s how he owns them. That’s what he has on them.
Yarrow
@Jinchi: I don’t think he’d beat Cornyn but he’s not going to win the nomination this time around either.
wasabi gasp
This is a feature, not a bug. Psycho killers are GOP foot solders.
JMG
I sincerely doubt cleveland.com meant to positively portray those gunhumping clowns, but a simple editing change would have done a world of good and should in fact be followed by all US media. Replace the word “militia” with the words “terrorist cell.”
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Think he’ll stop using the words “invade” and “infest”? //
The Dangerman
@SFAW:
Speaking of AED’s, let me give a shout out to an app called Pulse Point. So far, I’m really impressed, especially it’s mapping of the area to show where the closest AED is. I haven’t a clue what functionality there is if your local Fire Department isn’t part of the program, but my city and county (and places I often go) are part of the program, so it’s cool.
Gave me inspiration to recertify my CPR at least.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
A number of my colleagues in Dayton are in the cohort likely to be in a bar/club at that hour on a Saturday. I don’t know the area and can’t know likely specific locations for any of them. I need to check to (ideally) learn that none were at that one.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36: sounds like the rage is building in and around The Beast if she’s coming out that hard and angry so soon
I couldn’t resist taking a scroll through her husband’s twitter. Doesn’t look like he’s called trump a white nationalist yet himself, but he’s retweeting the shit out of just about everyone who is.
Fair Economist
@geg6: All our serious Democratic candidates are great, even ones like Inslee and Gillibrand who have gotten lost in the crunch. Yeah, I think Warren and Harris are the best but the country will be far far better off with any of them.
scav
@Dr Ronnie James DO: Gilroy’s going to enjoy its elevation to major metropolitan area.
Yarrow
@The Dangerman:
For the presidential race the popular vote is completely irrelevant. Anyone who focuses on it is not focusing on the job that must be done–winning the electoral college. If Trump’s campaign people are focusing on winning the electoral college then they are doing their jobs. Democrats must be doing the same thing or stand a good chance of losing.
debbie
@lamh36:
I’d bet Trump’s started writing her tweets for her.
debbie
@JMG:
Or just pull the fucking story. They know how to do that.
PPCLI
So many disgusting, hate-filled, bloodthirsty Trump moments it’s hard to keep track of them all. Here is another we shouldn’t forget:
Trump to a rally crowd in Florida in May: “How do you stop these people” from crossing the border?
Rally attendee: “Shoot them!”
Crowd laughs. Trump smirks.
Trump: “That’s only in the panhandle you can get away with that stuff. Only in the panhandle.” More laughter.
twitter.com/RobertMaguire_/status/1158014418065776642
West of the Rockies
When teenagers were wolfing down Tide Pods as a dare (they weren’t, actually), everyone blamed the attractive, candy-like nuggets of soapy goodness. No one pointed the finger at dirty clothes, peanut butter cookies, or hunger. Nope, the item of destruction itself got the blame.*
Jim Jeffries is right about how gun humpers never want to acknowledge that f!@#ing guns themselves have a massive role in mass shootings.
*Again, the Tide Pod Challenge appears to be bogus.
Yarrow
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Pay no attention to George Conway. He and wife Kellyanne are working both sides of the grift. When this era is over they want one of them to be in good with whichever part of the Republican/conservative establishment still exists. Neither of them are on the side of morality, ethics, patriotism or anything else that is good or right in the world.
Wapiti
@debbie: This. An open ended question about why.
azlib
I will be curious if the NRA’s disarray will affect the political calculus. Given they have a lot less money to spend on attack ads will some Republicans show the inkling of a spine and will the Dems be bolder?
Fair Economist
As we rail on Trump and his followers for their evil rhetoric, don’t forget #MoscowMitch bears lead responsibility. He was the one he blocked the relatively minor gun law changes that would have had a big impact on preventing exactly the kinds of horrors that have happened this weekend. He kills Americans to get his NRA laundered Russian money.
Yes, I am furious.
The Dangerman
@Yarrow:
Yup.
Kay
David French
The only people who can fix it are conservatives. Liberals can regulate the weapons and denounce the speech, but liberals didn’t cause this so liberals can’t fix it. Modern conservatism can’t continue like this anyway, eventually there’s a backlash, so they have a very clear choice- save some small measure of honor and stop it themselves now or wait for it to collapse in an orgy of violence.
Every day they wait it gets worse. It won’t get better.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
this was in May, video at the link
Barbara
@Yarrow: Indeed. You know the Conways are a united team until one of them files for divorce. I stopped paying attention to George’s supposed dissent quite a while ago. He is just putting up a front in order to be in the running for some future appointment.
MomSense
The president of the United States is inciting violence. He is the White Supremacist in Chief. I don’t believe for a second that he isn’t pleased that he has the power to cause these hate crimes. He’s putting children in cages because he doesn’t see them as human and I think every time one of these little NAZIs commits terror and mass murder, he takes it as a sign that he can keep doing whatever he wants.
Trump kept Mein Kampf on his bedside table reading and rereading those speeches. He knows Fucking well what he is doing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hear, hear! I get so annoyed by the people calling on Obama to speak out, from the Broderist claque and from some on the left (Charlie Pierce). There might be some value in some sort of joint statement from Obama and GWB, or all living presidents, but not as much as there would be in a joint statement from the Bush brothers.
Citizen Alan
@Waratah:
Seems like he’d be pulling ahead of Pence by an even larger margin if he were someone’s VP choice.
Kay
@The Dangerman:
The cynicism is breathtaking. It defines the Trump Administration. Conway’s world view is “everyone is as horrible as I am, I’m just in a position of power to use it and they aren’t”.
Yarrow
@Barbara: I think initially people were interested to see George Conway’s dissent because they thought it could be the beginning of the end of the marriage. After a month or two it became obvious that wasn’t the case. The Conways are a team and they’re smartly (for them) working both sides of the Republican/conservative establishment. It’s on us to recognize that and ignore what George says. He’s not on our side.
Immanentize
@Steve in the ATL:
They believe that too, which is why they argue women must make themselves available sexually to them without charging (incel).
Or maybe you meant, dance to The Shags.
debbie
@Barbara:
Not that it makes it at all okay, but I wonder if maybe Kellyann approves of it because she doesn’t agree with Trump’s policies. How many people in this world take “official” positions that don’t reflect their true beliefs?
SFAW
@Fair Economist:
With some minor massaging, I can see that as being an effective campaign slam for Amy McGrath (or whoever is the nominee). Of course the FTFTFNYT will call her “shrill,” and MoDo will do a revised “Hillary the Hawk” puke-up, but the rational world might latch onto it.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It just won’t work. Obama didn’t make this. He can’t unmake it. He can reach the consequences but he can’t touch the cause. They have to do it, or not. They choose “not”. With 60% of Republicans favoring gun regulation and 57 votes in the senate after Sandy Hook we got all the leaners we’re gonna get. The rest is entirely up to Republicans.
Yarrow
@Kay: It’s not really breathtaking to me because it’s who those kinds of people have been all along. McConnell is in that group. Fox News. They’ve been doing it for 20 years or so. They’re in it for themselves.
The sooner we recognize that the better off we’ll be. It’s easier once you see it. There’s no pretending there’s good or morality or ethics. Why look for it? Look at what they do, not what they say. Pay attention to their actions. Hit back on their actions.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: yes, my joke is much funnier when you explain it!
Villago Delenda Est
Donald Trump is a terrorist. As are John Cornyn, Rafael Cruz, Mitch “Moscow” McConnell, Rand “Russia” Paul, Lindsey “Leningrad” Graham, Greg Abbott, and Dan Patrick.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: Susan Collins, Martha McSally, Cory Gardner, Tom Tillis….
Yarrow
@debbie: GAH! Please waste no energy wondering if there’s good in Kellyanne Conway. There isn’t. Look at her actions. It’s a grift and working both sides by both her and her husband George. They care about themselves and their future and all the money they can make. That’s it. There’s no more there there.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: Be young, be foolish but be happy. . .
smintheus
Another mass killing was prevented in Philly because the shitheel all but announced he was planning to go on a killing spree at Temple University as he was buying armor-penetrating ammo for an AR-15 at a Walmart.
mcall.com/news/police/mc-nws-police-northampton-bucks-walmart-threat-temple-university-20190803-5pjd…
Fair Economist
@SFAW: Because she is running in KY, McGrath can’t go to hard on that kind of messaging. We have to get the sensible people in KY riled up at that traitor McConnell while McGrath soothes the locals. We can’t get disappointed with her when she softpedals things either. We are an alliance, not a Borg. Strength through diversity.
Yarrow
The chans are a real problem. Not the only factor but one factor for sure.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: The Shags!! Aagh! How could you remind me of something in this world that’s so sweetly fucked-up on a day when there’s so much that’s horribly fucked-up!
Hope that Immp is recovering apace.
Elizabelle
I am remembering what it was like to live in the DC area during the weeks the “DC sniper” was shooting up the area. The feeling that a sniper might be watching your moves as you walked through a parking lot or went about your daily routine.
It’s coming to that, again. It’s so lovely to see a movie on a big screen. But what do you know of your fellow movie goers? Not a thought that stops me from going out and living my life, but it’s also an inescapable thought.
West of the Rockies
@Yarrow:
Yes, I don’t see how two people with such different world views can be a happy, nurturing couple. Perhaps neither of them are invested in any of the shit they say. Likely it is all just a dollar-makin’ ruse.
The Dangerman
@MomSense:
Again, Yup.
There will be a dark period of a few days (hours? minutes?) and then Trump will fire up the Tweets about Urban/Immigrants, etc., again. A complete POS (see Legend, John).
Villago Delenda Est
@Kay: No honor left to save. They are Nazis now. Deal with them as they were dealt with in Inglourious Basterds.
Amir Khalid
Another day, another mass-shooting horror. And the coming week will see the same outrageous inability/unwillingness among the politicos to do what is so obviously needed. The same pious humbug about the sanctity of the right to bear arms for their own sake. I feel sad for America.
Walker
@SFAW:
She seems to think this guy is white natiolist. It is the Gilroy shooter, whose social media rants about tech workers taking over Gilroy and raising prices, that is unclear. And the festival he shot would be much better at targeting that group than immigrants.
RAVEN
@Miss Bianca: 2 gg’s The Shag is a dance known mostly in the Low Country.
Yarrow
@West of the Rockies: Pay attention to what they do, not what they say. George has done nothing to distance himself from Trump and that end of the GOP except talk. His words mean nothing.
Mnemosyne
We love guns more than people.
That’s really the bottom line.
Villago Delenda Est
@smintheus: Why is armor piercing small arms ammo available for sale to the public?
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
Stop with the “we.” Do not make all of us complicit in the idiocy of what is actually a minority.
Villago Delenda Est
@Yarrow: Both should be struck by the same meteor.
The Dangerman
@Walker:
Well, THAT’S true. It wasn’t that long ago that Gilroy was The Sticks. Now, notsomuch. I’ve heard of people commuting from King City (though I don’t think it’s possible to do that every day … there must be motelling, office/car sleeping, or something else going on there).
Skepticat
@B.B.A.:
I’ve felt for a long time that the mistake was getting ride of the equal time rule.
Mnemosyne
@Elizabelle:
I can’t take it back today when I’m reading stories about desperate mothers wrapping themselves around their infants to protect them from being shot to death at fucking Wal-Mart. Maybe tomorrow when I’m less enraged.
frosty
@Elizabelle: Yes, the DC sniper. I was walking across a Lowe’s parking lot north of Baltimore, noticing a hill with tree cover and thinking that would be a great location to shoot from.
Mnemosyne
@Skepticat:
As I was just saying in the thread below, it’s the other way around: you can’t have true freedom of speech when your fellow citizens have the ability to murder you using their right to bear arms.
The 2nd Amendment is incompatible with the rights in the rest of the Constitution.
smintheus
@Villago Delenda Est: Popped into my neighbor’s massive tin-can garage the other day. He was cutting 2x4s to create an elaborate stage-facade to erect at the local rural gun club. Some guys want to run around and pretend they’re searching for a bad guy in an urban setting…like they’re doing SWAT training. The same guy turned his garage into a pistol firing range, with no shielding at the back in case he misses the target. He has 2 gun safes and can’t fit all his guns in them – keeps offering to lend me one or more of them, though he knows I have zero training with firearms.
waratah
@Citizen Alan: That poll was for head of the ticket.
38 electoral votes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: If the 2nd Amendment were to be interpreted as the Founders actually intended (militia to protect the country from the English, the French, the Indians, and, most importantly, slave revolts) we wouldn’t be having this problem, as it’s clear that the “right to bear arms” is a collective right contrary to the English notion that the peasants should not be armed.
But that asshole Sicilian got involved and fucked everything up.
immanentize
@Miss Bianca:
That is pretty much the saving grace of this world.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne:
Under your statement, those desperate mothers loved guns more than their children. Who were/are people. So, you see, false.
I expect the news media pundits to make fatuous comments like that. I do not expect it from you. It is obviously false. The problem lies with a minority of gun fetishists, and a majority of Republicans in elected office, who are supported with $$$$ from industries catering to those gun fetishists. Also, people living in fantasy world, where a good guy/gal with a gun is safe and makes others safe. Uh, no.
And I agree that the Second Amendment, as misinterpreted (on purpose, by Scalia et al) makes a mockery of the First Amendment and many others. It is not compatible with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
JMG
I wonder if the 2nd Amendment might get a different interpretation from the Supreme Court if their Executive Protection Service guards were removed.
Quinerly
@RAVEN: At one time I was known for my “Carolina Shag.”
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie:
Let’s be generous here; anyone who didn’t really believe in Trump’s white supremacist rhetoric and still took a job with the administration is gone my now.
Quinerly
@raven: ?❤️??
Villago Delenda Est
@smintheus: Running around firing small arms in an urban setting will end really well. I recall live fire exercises when I was in the Army and the precautions taken to avoid friendly fire woundings/death were elaborate. I doubt some local gun club can meet the standard.
prostratedragon
@smintheus:
Could it possibly have any relation to what he was thinking when he decided to buy all that stuff? (I just had the in-this-case unwelcome voice of Chill Wills go off in my head. And the hateful little idiot’s name is Buhler of all things.) I’d have a hard time not knocking him off his chair for bullshit that thick.
Aleta
The goal of the segregationists controlling US policy (and the fringe they’re speaking to) is to ‘discourage’ non-whites through abuse and state violence. Even the attitude of the US military is now “collateral damage; unavoidable.” Necessary means to an end. (Less openly, collateral damage is included in “persuasion” or “getting their attention”– ugly words that in Macho stand in for any threats by someone wielding power.)
So no, I don’t believe that Faux or the administration are going to care.
Does it matter to them that US citizens are hurt by guns and white supremacists? The discouragement the administration wants the audience to act out includes that of speaking Spanish in public, attempting to vote, being trans in public, protesting, sleeping on the street, and above all running for office.
Villago Delenda Est
@prostratedragon: Buhler blurted out the truth, which in the world of politics is called “a gaffe”.
Villago Delenda Est
@Aleta: It’s just state sanctioned terrorism.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Elizabelle: He was shooting up the neighborhood I had moved out of only a couple months before. It was very weird reading about bodies at places that I knew so intimately. But also weird to be far away and safe while knowing my former neighbors had to worry about being randomly shot while pumping gas.
One of the first victims was at the Home Depot across the street from my house.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
another reason not to publicize the names of these terrorists, and I”ll leave the kid’s name out
Steeplejack
@debbie:
A lot of the parts of a Sunday paper are put together, and even printed, before Saturday.
mrmoshpotato
@smintheus:
Anyone else see a few fucked up things here?
Elizabelle
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yeah. The woman shot in the Home Depot parking garage. The people shot in Michael’s and Shoppers Food Warehouse parking lots. A man (from Philadelphia) shot pumping gas. Gas stations putting up tarps at the pumps so a shooter would not have a target as people filled their tanks.
Redshift
@debbie:
I’ll agree that mental illness is a major part of the problem if they’ll agree that white supremacy is a mental disorder.
“Do you believe white supremacy is as mental disorder?” would be a good question for journalists to ask any politician who blathers about “mental health.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: “by now.”
laura
Heading out to the farmers market this morning hoping community and kitchen puttering will improve my mood. Not betting the rent on it though.
What will it take to stop this craze?
Amir Khalid
The Second Amendment is plainly obsolete, and has been since states quit calling up civilians into armed militias. As things stand, it gives legal cover to those who stockpile guns for their fantasies of armed rebellion, and to those immersed in a gun culture that treats weapons as toys. It lets the mentally unstable have them just because.
It doesn’t appear that America will ever have a “wake-up call” shooting incident like Australia did. Again and again too many Americans would rather just hit the snooze button and live wth a situation that any other country would find unacceptable.
smintheus
@Villago Delenda Est: I mentioned that to my neighbor.
‘Oh we’ve got the covered. There’s going to be a trainer on hand.’
‘And when somebody trips?’
‘uh…’
lamh36
Corny got some damn nerve
“homelessness” are u really using the homeless problem to explain away this gun man who was NOT homeless…really sir…really
You ain’t fooling no damn body!
twitter.com/johncornyn/status/1158048288567955457?s=21
smintheus
@mrmoshpotato: Btw I didn’t mean to suggest it was armor piercing, which is specialized ammo. It was cheap FMJ rather than hollow point, meaning he wanted to kill/wound cops in body armor at least as much as causing massive trauma to the Temple students.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@lamh36: not to excuse him, Cornyn always strike me as genuinely stupid
Amir Khalid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We could all do with a respite post wishing Barack Obama a happy 58th birthday.
lamh36
WhatsMyNym
@The Dangerman:
Just checked on Redfin. They started building heavily in Gilroy in the early 2000’s and the prices were not cheap then. They did take longer to recover after the bust though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
in the last three months….
what impact would a week-long Facebook strike have on Zuckerberg?
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
To its credit the Us Army as an institution does not have, or foster among the public, romantic delusions about firearms.
prostratedragon
@Villago Delenda Est: Yeah, he must have thought, mistakenly, that his blurtings would have no consequence for him. But those statements seem to be part of the charge against him, or to have led to it. Doubt that claiming an arbitrary relationship between what he said and did, or that his deeds were done in some kind of compartment separate from his words, is going to help him.
I guess he’ll become a poster boy for the failing to maintain the strong, silent demeanor. Just buy your grenade launcher without the countertop chitchat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
so he’s probably watching television and reading twitter
Dr Ronnie James DO
Mulvaney is doing the Sunday shows falling back on the “this was a sick individual” excuse. Sure are a lot of sick individuals publishing anti-immigrant manifestos right before they commit a mass killing these days. How many individuals until it becomes a trend, again?
He’s also arguing [para.] “the problem isn’t Trump’s rhetoric.” Because I guess the problem really is just the people who believe it. The MAGAtheads thought Trump was Pepe the Frog; turns out they were the frog… and he was the scorpion. Great job as usual, red states!
Citizen Alan
@Skepticat:
People are still bitching about the Fairness Doctrine, but it’s a dead issue. It was only ever relevant when virtually all television news came via the airwaves which were deemed to be “owned” by the people and therefore could be regulated for fairness by the government. The cable companies are privately owned, and you could no more use a revived Fairness Doctrine to clamp down on Fox News than you could have used it to make, say, the Wall Street Journal give equal time to socialism.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: If it ever changes, it’ll change in a hurry.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just saw a report identifying the Dayton shooter as a 24-year-old white dude. I won’t say his name either. Incel psycho or white nationalist terrorist? Probably one or the other given the demographic.
Citizen Alan
@waratah:
I know. But I’m pretty sure at this point that Beto and Pete are playing for the Veep spot, and Beto can do more to put Texas in play.
Lee
Watching CNN and Jack Trapper:
He is getting REALLY close to connecting the dots between Trump and the terrorists.
He can be a ‘both sides’ tool. But it looks like he is getting close to accepting that one side might be a smidge worse than the other
Elizabelle
I was witness to an assault last week that did not make the news because no gun was involved. It was last Monday afternoon, when I (and others) were still raw from the shooting deaths at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, the night before.
Arrived at a neighborhood grocery store. Noticed two white men fighting in the parking lot nearby. Watched more closely, and noticed that it was one white guy (late 20s, maybe) attacking another younger guy, whose wife stood by screaming. I too started screaming at the attacker to leave the guy alone, and that I was calling the police. (Looked up and saw that a grocery store employee was already on the line with the police dispatcher.)
Turns out the whole thing started when the attacker got after the younger guy for “taking his parking space.” This in a parking lot FULL of empty parking spaces. I am not kidding. It was insane. They had words outside their vehicles, and then the attacker escalated to punching and hitting. He did not have an “off” button. Just kept going at the younger man, again and again, and made moves towards the wife and another woman, also a witness to all this.
This went on for 3-4 minutes while I was there. Finally the attacker stopped. I got the victim and his wife to head inside the store, where it was cool and they’d be safer. We watched the attacker head for his truck. I got an excellent and clear photo of him, the vehicle, and the license plate with my cell phone.
The police arrived just then; missed the attacker by 30 seconds. The victim said that his arm hurt, looked down and —
the attacker had bitten him. Bloody arm, and you could see a full upper bite pattern. Anyway, he is filing assault charges, and I and others wrote up witness statements. The responding police officer uploaded my photo to her cell phone and sent it in immediately.
Talked a little with a second responding police officer. Mentioned I hoped he and the other officers would be safe when they went to engage/arrest the guy.
He told me they “always assume there’s a gun.”
Later, I worried a bit for the attacker. I hoped he would not be an idiot and get himself killed by the police. (There has been no further news on this whole incident.)
As I watched the attacker collect himself, finally, and prepare to leave: he seemed stunned he’d done what he had done. He was moving very slowly, appeared to be in shock. He paused a long time once he opened the truck door. He realized he could not drive off without his eyeglasses and went into the parking lot to retrieve them, where they’d come off in the fight. They seemed damaged, and he winced.
He just seemed so isolated, by his terrible actions. As awful and frightening as he was, I felt for him there, in that profound isolation. He was chubby, and looked lower middle class, and just did not seem that intelligent.
This happened in Virginia. We, the victim and witnesses stood around and talked after about how lucky it was he did not have a gun, because they are certainly sold enthusiastically here. For a little while, we all winced as the attacker neared his truck during the fight, in the event he might have a weapon hidden there, although also realizing he would have gone for it a long time earlier. The younger man fought back very effectively.
And. No gun.
Citizen Alan
@JMG:
It would just lead to the assassination of the 4 liberal justices who would support gun control since all the would-be assassins are on the other side.
Lee
@Betty Cracker: since it was a night club type place, I’m guessing incel.
Divf
@Citizen Alan: But a fairness doctrine would drive a stake through the heart of talk radio/ Sinclair.
Tazj
@lamh36: The GOP loves to try to distract us from the central issues of gun ownership and regulation don’t they? They say it’s a complicated issue but block any funding for scientific research into gun violence. They talk about mental illness but Trump and the GOP tried to end the ACA and Trump himself blocked a law that would have kept mentally ill people form obtaining guns.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Probably considerably less than the impact it would have on all the small businesses he duped into complete and utter reliance on his sociopathically-driven “platform”.
lamh36
FUQ U Rick??
Mike in NC
@Betty Cracker: How are we even to differentiate between an incel psycho and a white nationalist terrorist? Seems like too much overlap.
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
If Sandy Hook and Las Vegas couldn’t do it, nothing will.
USA is putting on a good P.R. campaign for our young French visitor. Two in one day, a week after Gilroy? Merde.
Amir Khalid
@Mike in NC: Yeah, they are not even necessarily different things.
lamh36
Strong Statement for El Paso County Sheriff!
wasabi gasp
@lamh36: There appears to be a concerted effort underway to direct some of this murderous rage towards the homeless.
Citizen Alan
@Divf:
That’s true, I suppose. I’m still amazed that talk radio is a thing. I haven’t listened to a radio station for anything except local football games in at least 10 years.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@wasabi gasp: yesterday a reporter asked the EPPD representative about the shooting being gang-related. She had heard people saying… Made me wonder if Sinclair and/or Fox was gonna somehow try to tie this to MS-13
lamh36
6/9 people killed in Dayton was AA!!!
!!!!!
twitter.com/charlesmblow/status/1158065214933348352?s=21
Betty Cracker
@Mike in NC: That’s a great question. There’s considerable evidence to suggest that misogyny is an effective gateway drug that leads to white supremacy for social awkward, extremely online young white men.
West of the Rockies
@Villago Delenda Est:
Um, hunting? Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the high country and encountered rams and elk in Kevlar vests.
debbie
@Steeplejack:
“Hold the presses!” They could have stopped it.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They’re a gang alright, and their robes match and are perfectly laundered.
Elizabelle
@lamh36: from Cornyn’s tweet:
They are stringently not asking the right questions. Republicans obviously fear “the answers.” In fact, they do not permit studying gun violence as a public health problem, or as a problem with white males turning to gun violence, including mass shootings. Many, many mass shootings.
Ruckus
@Millard Filmore:
Wanna make it worse?
A woman of color as their boss.
If you are going to press their buttons, press every one of them. Maybe they will overload like Mr. Creosote. Now that’s messy problem solving.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: That must have been disturbing for everyone involved. Thank god he didn’t have a gun. Sounds like lots of people managed to keep their heads.
wasabi gasp
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I might have been unclear. My point is the GOP wants the homeless to be included as targets of deadly violence.
MomSense
@Villago Delenda Est:
My dad has the records from the Knox militia going back just after the Revolutionary War. Our ancestor was in charge of regulating the militia and he did it well. If they reported late, didn’t report, weren’t up to muster, etc – he fined them! It was never a free for all of whatever wahoo wanted to carry a weapon. It was a serious commitment and it came with responsibilities. My dad said he would loan these documents to a serious attempt to educate and change the laws. I don’t know if anything will help but we have to try.
debbie
@Dr Ronnie James DO:
Last week, he was defending Trump’s tweets about Baltimore: “They may sound racist, but they aren’t racist!” He’s trying very ineptly to have it both ways.
Steeplejack
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
The one at Seven Corners? I live across 50 from there now.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes. The young man promised me he was off to get a tetanus shot, immediately after.
joel hanes
@ThresherK:
Waiting for Tom Toles or one of the other good cartoonists to do this right.
uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c9e8e310b943f69c3e9856ca8370f38135d98ac649632905d37948739c93bf1f.jpg
Ruckus
@Yarrow:
This.
What’s the old saw? Actions speak louder than words. Inactions even louder.
Elizabelle
@joel hanes: That’s chilling. It’s a good cartoon, just as it is. Very effective.
janesays
Apparently, one of the 9 victims killed in Ohio was the shooter’s own sister. Unclear if she was intended to be a target or not.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Seconded. It’s very scary that violent situations like that can happen anywhere at anytime.
Origuy
The Conways remind me of medieval nobility. During the countless feudal and post-feudal internal conflicts of Europe, the nobles would take one side and send one of their sons to take the other. That way, whichever outcome, one of the family would be on the winning side and the property and titles would stay in the family.
L85NJGT
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The demographic data Cornyn cites are intended to enflame FOX viewers invasion paranoia, but disparities in the native born birth rates are the underlying factor.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hell, upthread someone linked to a Twitter thread detailing numerous instances of Trump using “invasion” in his own goddamn tweets.
Elizabelle
Interesting.
WaPost: Three mass shootings this year began with a hateful screed on 8chan. Its founder calls it a terrorist refuge in plain sight.
I think it’s more than 8chan. I think we need to dial back Fox News and rightwing radio too. Joseph Goebbels could hide behind our first amendment, as practiced. You cannot combat brainwashing, false information, and unreason, as broadcast repeatedly, with facts. You cannot give it a forum in the first place.
Amir Khalid
@debbie:
A fictional trope, alas. It’s not a thing in real-life print media, and probably never was.
Jinchi
@lamh36: Santorum always makes my blood boil, but especially at moments like these. Even Trump has enough sense to simply hide from the press today, but Rick feels no shame pushing this NRA BS.
joel hanes
@B.B.A.:
Starting to feel like the First Amendment was a mistake.
Though they were familiar with tendentious broadsheets and well-funded propaganda, the founders did not foresee that a wealthy foreigner hostile to the norms of civil governance would be able to create something like Fox News, nor that an entity such as Sinclair would be allowed to effectively control the “press” over huge areas of the nation.
I think that in the short term, undoing media consolidation is our best tactic. Prior to Reagan, this situation would not have been allowed. Changing that turns out to have been a very dangerous mistake; maybe fatal.
Betty Cracker
@janesays: I read that the sister and her boyfriend were found shot to death in their car, so it sounds intentional.
MomSense
@Ruckus:
I like the way you think!
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Because we have an absolute right to be able to shoot anyone and anything that we want, doncha know?
That isn’t what the second amendment says? Sure it is. The authority that knows all about the second amendment, the NRA, says that what it says, so it must be true……. They have paid politicians for the right to be that authority and say that, haven’t they?
WhatsMyNym
@Amir Khalid: You could still yank the article from your website.
Elizabelle
@joel hanes: Agreed. It’s media consolidation.
Rupert Murdoch became an American citizen precisely because he could not consolidate without it.
Break up the big media companies. They’re a danger to democracy.
Amir Khalid
@MomSense:
Of course. The Second Amendment does specify that state-run militias be well-regulated. A rabble could not hope to do a proper militia’s job — a point that escapes the gangs of armed idiots who style themselves as militias.
Amir Khalid
@WhatsMyNym:
That’s too late to help.
germy
Someone actually made a diagram of the manifesto and showed how it parallels trump tweets and statements:
smintheus
@Steeplejack: For more than a year Trump has been running facebook ads, at a rate of about 6 per day, using the word “invasion”.
twitter.com/natijomartinez/status/1158049182877458433?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctw…
germy
germy
joel hanes
@Walker:
Lousy try.
Legam recommended an old race-war book on his social media account.
Garlic festival attendance over the last decade has run about 50% Latinx — a tremendous number of Mexican-descent families attend every year, as a family tradition. Yes, there are many techies, and many of those are of east or south Asian descent.
In the Bay Area, resentment of tech workers often has a deep undercurrent of racism, because such a high proportion of today’s tech workforce comes from India, Sri Lanka, China, Korea, etc.
Ruckus
@joel hanes:
The founders also had no idea of the ease of printing or publishing because of digital media. Such as what we are doing right here.
That concept was mostly at best a pipe dream when I was born. The concept that someone could connect and interact with so many others with like views without transporting paper could never have occurred to the founders, their were too many steps in between what they knew and today, that concept was basically unimaginable.
germy
Kathleen
@lamh36: I figured that’s why reporter asked in Whalen’s first press conference if shooting would be classified as hate crime. I knew then that African Americans at that club were targets. Mayor and police said they didn’t have enough info to make that claim. I had the sense they were treading carefully and rightfully so.
joel hanes
@The Dangerman:
I’ve heard of people commuting from King City
Substantial numbers commute from Tracy, on the delta.
J R in WV
@Citizen Alan:
You don’t appear to know anything about the use of satellite relay in TV — they narrowcast through the “air waves” up to the sat, which relays that signal to cable centers. Or DISH delivers Faux/MSNBC/500 other channels through the airwaves to your private dish in your yard. But there is radio based communications through the air for all TV at some point in the system!
All we lack is the ability to regulate those entities due to the ocean of money they now control by providing circuses to people.
But agree about the Wall Street Journal, which once had great news coverage for the MOTU and crazed editorials, but now the Crazy is leaking into the news pages, as the MOTU finance folks have other sources of business news, like Bloomburg and private econ research. We could force Faux to tell the truth, but it would be hard.
Kay
Conservatives could try it. Ban assault weapons for 2 years. If the incidence goes down, they stay banned. But they won’t- because they prefer to make excuses.
Ruckus
@Kay:
I think it’s even simpler. They want an army they don’t have to pay for, or actually serve in, an army of hate. It’s been built, it’s here and it’s striking out. All they have to worry about is stray bullets and mis-direction. And considering the army they have built and what it does for them, that is rather unlikely. The Ruperts of the world have that army of hate that they think will rid the world of the people they consider less than human.
Another Scott
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: I don’t remember the name of the place (and it may have changed), but a couple of times in the mid-80s some friends and I went to a place in the Oregon District to hear live music. “The Bad Elvis Impersonators” (they didn’t play Elvis music), some battle-of-the-bands competitions (including one punk band that had the drummer chain down his drums because he beat on them so violently; the singer had the band name tattooed across his chest), etc. Lots of good memories.
:-(
Peace and strength to the victims and their loved ones.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kathleen
@lamh36: I also heard reporter the obligatory, “Was it gang related?”. Mayor firmly said it was not.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: Speculation on Charles Blow’s thread was that her date might have been African American.
Another Scott
DaytonDailyNews has information about the Dayton terrorist.
Cheers,
Scott.
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker: Why not both? (Insert jpg of cute little Hispanic girl here)
Suzanne
We need to give them a choice: they can have gun control, or they can have straight-white-man control.
Villago Delenda Est
@Dr Ronnie James DO: Mulvaney is a sick individual.
worn
Good lord. This is all just too much. Please make this week stop.
Taxesmycredulity
Let us please stop using the term “supremicist.”
Call it what it is, white terrorism, just as former Asst AG Rod Rosenstein did yesterday. It’s not white “supremacism”! Rip that word right away from those cultist low lifes! There is nothing supreme about them, and every time we use their terminology we’re stroking them. They are white terrorists!
r€nato
“I’m not a racist, but I’m going to go out and shoot all the brown people I can find.”
Tehanu
@Jinchi: Nothing like using the president’s favorite catchphrase to prove you don’t listen to him.
I imagine Kellyanne et al. are gearing up to announce that “Obviously we should all trust the statement of a mass murderer and let our great and not-racist President off the hook.”