I know we are full of faith in the promise of tomorrow, but I also know that to get to tomorrow, we must fight today.
Honored to spend the morning with worshipers at Victory Baptist Church in Las Vegas, who understand the importance of speaking up and speaking out against hate. pic.twitter.com/MfnqZIC5CJ
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) August 4, 2019
Dems have been calling Trump "racist" before now, but you definitely see a dam breaking post El Paso. This Warren clip, for example, happened days ago, but it's now being piled on top of her (standard Dem) call for gun control. https://t.co/PN0WEsHS6t
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) August 4, 2019
This weekend merely highlights a hard truth: since 2017 the United States has lacked a proper head of state. https://t.co/Et6aDyPujZ
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) August 5, 2019
… These are moments when a president can and should attempt to use their bully pulpit to reassure the nation that as the country mourns, action will be taken. As president, Barack Obama was asked to do this all too often. Most of the time he was brilliant at it; sometimes he faltered. The important thing is the man tried every time. Obama understood his function during these moments of trauma, and endeavored to speak for all Americans at such times. Obama was hardly unique; with the occasional exception, the 42 men who preceded him performed the same function.
Commentators can debate all day about President Trump’s performance as the head of government, but there is a rare degree of unanimity that the 45th president is not just a bad head of state; he is essentially incapable of performing that function. This had been clear long before this weekend…
… Trump was completely missing in action this weekend — except for Twitter. On that platform, he tried to mimic what a head of state would say, but it came across as tone-deaf…
The growth of homegrown white nationalism preceded Trump, but his administration has made the problem worse with its rhetoric and staffing decisions. There will and should be debates about the best set of policies to cope with this burgeoning problem. Maybe something will get done; maybe the people acting as impediments to doing something will be voted out.
For now, however, what matters is that America is hurting. Unfortunately, we lack a leader with the ability to serve as a head of state. We have a man who cannot comprehend grieving. All he understands is grievance.
The fundamental reason there’s violence is because Trump is doing what he said he would and the country still isn’t all white. For a radical racist who wants an all white country, what else is there to do
— Hedge Fund with Class Character (@MenshevikM) August 4, 2019
To many people, Trump and the GOP now look like the "state sponsor" of this stochastic terrorism. The institutional figures encouraging a breakdown of Public Order.
And I think that could have electoral consequences come next fall.
(end)
— Noah Smith ?? (@Noahpinion) August 4, 2019
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
JPL
@rikyrah: You also.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Blech.
Baud
Shorter internet: Hillary was right in 2016.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s how I feel.
JPL
@Baud: If only she had been specific. Also emails.
Kay
IMO, they still don’t get it. Trump can’t speak with any credibility or moral authority because he doesn’t have any. He lies and he’s a mean-spirited, vindictive nasty racist. There’s nothing to pull this speech they’re all yearning for FROM. Of course he can’t do it- he’s trying to make a withdrawal from an account that is empty.
It’s more than speeches or delivery. The authority has to be grounded in something other than a title. They have this backward.
debbie
It was notable that people drowned out the Weasel DeWine and turned their backs on him, but the Wedding Crasher in Chief will do absolutely nothing to change anything, apart from his already defined agenda.
OzarkHillbilly
A graphic from Mother Jones:
Kay
It doesn’t “come across as tone deaf”. He does not know or believe these things he recites in these situations. Listen to him fluidly and naturally exhorting a crowd to shoot immigrants compared to his awkward, wooden recitation of “hate has no place here”. He does not believe the second statement, so he’s not believable.
debbie
@Kay:
He doesn’t even bother to disguise the tone of his voice when he’s bullshitting. His head bobbles back and forth like a schoolchild forced to recite the alphabet.
Jeffro
@Baud: Didn’t she say just before the election that if trumpov won, it would be the apocalypse?
(Paused to look it up: actual quote is, “I’m the last thing standing between you and the apocalypse” – NYT, October 15th, 2016.)
Pretty much.
Baud
@Kay:
Is that assertion based on a poll of Republicans who think he’s a bad head of state? Do all Americans think Trump is a bad head of state?
Kay
One of the grossest and most cynical tricks the Trump Family do at these rallies is ask the crowd a question, knowing that the crowd will respond in the worst possible way. They all think this is very clever- THEY didn’t say to shoot anyone, right? The crowd did! On top of everything else they’re cowards. They use their fans to act as mouthpieces and put a degree of distance between the Trump Administration and the ideology. They do some version of this at every single rally and it isn’t just Trump- it’s the sons or Lara Trump or some other bottom of the barrel hire. They have absolute contempt for the people who go to these rallies. They use them like they use everyone else.
debbie
Asshole’s up and tweeting about “marrying” background checks and immigration reform. He has learned nothing.
Jeffro
@Kay: So true. I’ve been trying to put it to RWNJ friends and relatives as “don’t even white supremacists deserve a better/smarter/more honest/sane/articulate/etc president?”
I usually bring it up when they try to tell me they don’t like trumpov one bit but they “like his policies”. Not letting them off the hook with that BS.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffro: No wonder Evangelicals were all so anti-Hillary. She was going to personally thwart the 2nd Coming of Jesus.
Jeffro
@Baud: Drezner was referring to ‘commentators’ (ie pundits and writers, I guess) earlier in that quote.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t know but I object to the idea that credibility as head of state comes from acting ability or composing speeches. What it comes from is the President’s behavior. That’s where they bank the credibility they need in a crisis- in a pattern of decent behavior. They can’t withdraw it if they never deposited it.
Why can’t he give inspiring and believable speeches in a crisis? Because he’s nasty and a liar every day.
satby
@rikyrah: @JPL: @Baud: Good morning!
@OzarkHillbilly: ? yup, that’s how I really feel.
I have hope that my frightened little feral kitten can be socialized successfully. He’s with the other two kittens and watched me pick up and pet the most friendly of those two, and has warmed to me slightly as the bringer of food. He let me touch him for a second without scooting away. I’m guessing he is about 6 weeks old by his size, but that could be because he was starving.
Wag
We are in London for vacation, and while touring Westminster Abbey this morning the 11:00 prayer explicitly called out the shootings in El Paso and Dayton, and asked that Americans seek peace and an end to violence. It was beautiful.
Kay
@debbie:
They’re so clever, the Trumpsters. Another fucking cheap trick. “Democrats will have to demonize immigrants to get background checks! ” The low quality hires sat up all night coming up with this. Because they’re ultra savvy “dealmakers” and they see some way to benefit from this.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Hillary was right….. about EVERYTHING ?
Baud
@Jeffro:
Who the hell cares then? Talk about navel gazing.
@Kay:
Disagree. Kay. All it takes is one good speech for the media to say Trump became the president tonight.
@satby:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@debbie:
And nothing from Portman. If you watched cable, you’d think that Ohio only has one Senator.
satby
@Wag: ? Honestly, the only thoughts and prayers acceptable to me after one of these slaughters (not incidents, not events: slaughters) are the ones coming from other, saner countries.
Who look at our country with horror.
JPL
@Kay: That’s an excellent point and until the media calls it out for what it is, nothing will happen.
Baud
@rikyrah:
It’s really frustrating because everyone is outraged and I’m like “What did you think was going to happen?”
JPL
@Baud: This is a public service warning don’t watch the orange asshole.
Jeffro
@Baud: Wait…surely you’re not saying that the Village’s collective opinion is not, repeat not, reality?
(Feeling woozy here)
rikyrah
@Kay:
You have had it nailed all along, Kay.
Baud
@JPL:
I almost never do.
rikyrah
@debbie:
Like he is mad that someone is forcing him to say it?
rikyrah
@debbie:
The domestic terrorists were not immigrants
debbie
@rikyrah:
Portman acted as a spokesman for Trump while he was out on the links. I can’t find a quote, but it was weasal-speak worthy of Trump.
rikyrah
@satby:
You are good people, satby.
Keep on working with the new baby ??
Jeffro
@Kay: I’m fairly certain Nancy Smash can and will point out that there’s no need to tie background checks to anything. One and done, just pass it. One position is extremely popular with the American people and one is not, so why would Dems tie the popular one to the unpopular one?
When she points this out, I hope she also calls trumpov and Miller out for throwing up this kind of absurd roadblock.
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah:
Maybe not much, certainly not enough (for us) but It’s not nothing.
Baud
Kind of a weak demand. Nancy will pass a clean bill. I expect Trump to renege and the Moscow Mitch will do nothing.
Baud
@Baud:
Apparently, Nancy already did the deed several months ago.
Kay
There’s something else in the “manifestos” we should pay attention to and it’s that the terrorists are citing people who speak out against racist acts as something that enrages them. The latest shooter said Democrats “pandering” to Latinos was a cause.
That’s a threat. It’s “stop speaking up or I’ll shoot them“. I feel like it’s a new level. The man who threatened the Democratic offocials and pols is getting sentenced today, and that was “threat to Democratic pol”. Direct. This is different. Threat to ordinary people based upon political speech by Democratic pol. It’s ramping up.
JPL
@rikyrah: According to trump mass murderers and immigrants all look alike.
Since we lost that great spokesman, let me add f.kem
JPL
@Baud: Mitch has a strong bill already. He just refuses to put it up for a full vote.
Baud
@JPL:
Maybe we should refocus our efforts and start a letter writing campaign to Putin.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: And then he immediately goes back to being hateful in every way from the petty to the grand. I’m glad he didn’t try to give a “comforting” speech. Everyone would know it’s false, but pundits would have to pretend to take it seriously.
Actually, at the moment, more pundits are willing to say “racist.” We’ll see if that lasts.
satby
@Kay: that threat has always been there Kay; like everything else it just gets wider exposure than it has before. People who have stood up to racism, white supremacy, supported reproductive rights, etc have always lived with threats to their lives and have often lost their lives for their activism.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Are you still winning?
Chief Oshkosh
@satby: Seven out of the eight feral cats we adopted over the years became very loving companions, though three of them never became 100% indoor pets. None of them switched from feral to lovable in the same manner or timetable. One took four (!) years in fits and starts, two just needed a couple of cans of wet food and a month of being inside during a cold winter, and the others in between. Good luck and be Zen about it (if the situation allows).
Kay
@Baud:
Trump’s lying, of course:
It’s an actual written statement one of the low quality hires wrote. He threatened to veto background checks already.
I wonder if Team Trump are less subservient to the NRA because the NRA is collapsing. It would be completely consistent with their character, to have a change of “heart” that coincides with the inability of the NRA to dump huge sacks of cash in their lap
I think they were Trump’s single biggest donor in ’16. He thinks he depleted those cash reserves.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: I am, but the cover I like second after mine is catching up.
satby
@Chief Oshkosh: thanks, I am Zen about it. We have a network of farmers who will take our spayed or neutered ferals as barn cats if they can’t go back to the environment they came from. But this one’s young age is a plus.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I just voted again.
Kay
@satby:
No, true, I agree. But this is overt and NOT aimed at the speaker. “Shut up or I’ll shoot these other people”. That’s a whole new level. It’s one thing to put yourself at risk. It’s another to put a whole city at risk.
I guess we can expect 50,000 words from the NYTimes on this new threat to political speech, like the 5 million words we got on Lefties at 5 elite colleges booing conservatives.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Baud!2020
satby
@Dorothy A. Winsor: uh-oh, it wouldn’t let me vote again, it told me they already counted my vote. Not so rigged.
I’ll try from another tablet later. Everyone else, go vote for Windreader. Not just a great cover, an enjoyable read too.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It’s an important bellwether for the 2020 election. You need to win.
satby
@Kay: ah, I misunderstood your other comment.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: I take that as a sign that Trump isn’t running the government, McConnell is. And Trump probably doesn’t even realize that. He’s holding rallies and raking in money and letting his Id run loose.
Sab
We can stop going to movie theaters. We can stop going to festivals and fairs. We can stop going to concerts.
We can’t stop sending our kids to schools. We can’t stop going to store to buy groceries and school supplies.
I am so tired of the rural excuse that guns are part of their culture and that they know how to handle them. Nobody is going out from cities to kill those folks. It’s their kids driving into cities to kill us.
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Done!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Don’t forget to vote for me again. I just checked, still can’t vote.
Raven
Baud
@Kay:
It’s like the Republicans always say, we fight them over there so we can create them over here.
Another Scott
@debbie: The BBC showed the tweet.
He’s so cynical that I expected something like this.
He’ll use anything, anything, to try to get his precious wall and white American nationalism encoded into law.
Nancy and Chuck and other sensible legislators should ignore his demands and continue to press for the legislation that has already passed the House. And continue to work to strengthen it.
Grrr….
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Done.
Spanky
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Moscow Mitch is running the country and is using the only way he knows how: refusing to do his job to move legislation. Not a promising outlook for a budget or debt ceiling.
BTW, Dow futures tanking because China devalued their currency.
Bobby Thomson
Stein’s Law is a banal tautology.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: Try this link instead (if you are so inclined). I think the other one may be what I got after I voted.
ETA: It’s possible it makes you wait 24 hours.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: What would I do without you?
Bobby Thomson
@Jeffro: on the one hand, good. Racists shouldn’t be able to pretend they are something else.
On the other hand, I think we’re just a few months away from 90% of them publicly owning their racism, and that’s not a good thing, either.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JPL: Thank you!
If I win, I’ll split the prize money with everyone on BJ.
Sab
@Kay: So if we try to impeach Trump we are putting the lives of every urban American at risk?
Jinchi
@Kay:
But he doesn’t even pretend on this subject. This is a man who obsesses about being in the spotlight. He could have filmed a somber statement from the oval office that would have been carried by every network in the country, made some empty statements about mental illness, capped it off with “thoughts and prayers” and “God Bless the USA” and all the evangelicals in the country would be applauding him for his statesmanship. Instead he took the weekend off.
And while I agree the man is an amoral monster, it’s not true that his words have no effect. He has repeatedly called for violence at his rallies, and just this May planted the seeds of violence against immigrants at the Border.
There’s a clear call to violence in that first paragraph, other countries use weapons to stop these people, We can’t use weapons, so We can’t stop them. What can You do?….
And the immediate pickup from the crowd “Shoot them”, which he doesn’t bother to shut down.
Trump has credibility and moral authority with people like the gunman in El Paso. He’s given them a target, he’s given them a solution and he’s signaled with his refusal to condemn their actions that he has their back.
OzarkHillbilly
Inside the Race to Stop the Next Mass Shooter
A long read, interesting and informative, but also somewhat depressing in that there are things that can be done to reduce mass shootings, but they are expensive and we know how Americans are about that. Also that there is no way to stop them all.
satby
That fucking bastard.
Guardian live feed here.
Jeffro
I wonder if #MoscowMitch might have had a revelation very recently, sort of like that old saying about bankruptcy, that this whole thing might come crashing down, slowly at first and then suddenly.
I mean, even he must realize that this presidency* still has 15 months to go before the election. 15 months! That is like three decades in trumpov-years.
Jeffro
@Bobby Thomson: Half of them (trumpublicans) will own it and the other half will keep giving us this BS about “not agreeing with the president*s tweets/racial comments but I like his ‘policies’ “
Which of course is a great opportunity to ask them exactly what policies they like, and what those policies have in common.
Skepticat
This.
Baud
@Sab:
Sure. Also, too, if we vote him out of office. It’s baked in so there’s no point letting it prevent us from doing what’s right.
Another Scott
In other news, Modi plays dictator to strip Kashmir of special status, seemingly wanting a war with Pakistan:
I expect Donnie and Miller to send a congratulatory tweet to Modi any minute now… :-/
Grrr….
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Well, you better give Baud 2 shares cause he’s carrying the load for me.
Elizabelle
@Sab:
Suzanne had a similar thought on an overnight thread (end of Late-Night Honesty):
We already had a large-scale exercise in this, in October 2002. The DC/Beltway Sniper case. It did change consumer and business behavior. It’s hard to believe it was only three weeks. Many dead, in many locales, during that terror.
I remember feeling like a target. People were zigzag running through parking lots, to try to elude the unseen shooter that might be out there.
Retailers now have to realize, many can be easily replaced by digital commerce. Amazon gonna get even fatter and wealthier.
Theater owners have a real stake in this, too. Where better to shoot up a bunch of hipsters and libtards, sitting there in the dark?
Maybe we can bring some pressure on retailers.
Hasn’t WalMart had at least 3 cases of deaths within its stores in recent years? (Probably many more. El Paso, the toddler who took out his mom with the gun in her purse, the black guy who got misidentified to police [??] and then shot ….)
Immanentize
@Kay:
From one of my favorite songs — at least Raven will also know it:
Can You Get to That — by Funkadelic
Betty Cracker
Trump on Twitter about an hour ago:
If Trump was talking about Fox News, which Elizabeth Warren rightly called “a hate-for-profit machine that gives a megaphone to racists and conspiracists,” he’d have a point. But he refers, of course, to media outlets that are critical of his own precious self.
Kay nailed it at #23. Trump and the low quality hires are looking for ways to benefit from this weekend’s massacres. They think maybe they can use the mass shootings to advance their anti-immigrant agenda or muzzle the press.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ll make a note.
Raven
@Immanentize: Man, when I saw them I had no idea what was up!
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I voted for YOU!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: Your share of the winnings is safe!
How’s Immp this morning?
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: What is this even referring to? The media is making racists murderously upset by showing them too many black and brown people?
Baud
Shorter Trump: I am weak.
Baud
@FlipYrWhig:
I think it’s that people are upset that Donald isn’t being treated fairly.
Maybe also that he’s being called a racist, which is the worst thing one person can do to another.
OzarkHillbilly
@Elizabelle: There was also the guy in Mississippi who walked into the Walmart while pushing shells into his shotgun….
Oooopps, wait a minute, the cops had to let him go (the Chief of Police was livid) because in MS it is perfectly legal to walk into a Walmart while pushing shells into a shotgun (open carry law)
ETA had to give him back his shotgun too.
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: This is just madness.
Baud
OT. Interesting perspective.
FlipYrWhig
@Baud: That would be conceding that the shooters were Trumplings… I thought they were trying to deny that? Who knows, it’s idiots all the way down.
Immanentize
@Raven:
Oh fer God’s sake, Raven, you saw Funkadelic too? Did you just travel about for five years going to the best shows evah?
/S/ Jealous in Boston
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
To be fair, what if there were a black guy shopping while black at the Walmart? Need to be prepared.
Steeplejack
@rikyrah:
Good morning! ?
Immanentize
@Baud:
You’ll know when China really wants to hurt us when it stops buying and starts selling off its US bond holdings. Then it all gets flushed worldwide.
Jeffro
@Baud: “Trade wars are good and easy to win”
rikyrah
A poster from another blog:
I was getting irritated by the folks talking about the time it took for the first responders to get there. I thought it was a celebratory pat on the back from them. But, then, I listened again.
In Dayton, they were able to get on the scene IN UNDER A MINUTE.
A MINUTE.
SIXTY SECONDS.
And yet, that was enough time for him to kill NINE and injure dozens.
How much faster should we expect first responders? They got there in SIXTY seconds.
The problem, therefore, is the guns. And, in both cases, the domestic terrorists had ‘protective gear’ on. The terrorist in El Paso had on those glasses and the headphones. In Dayton, he had phucking body armor.
These were not mentally ill lone wolfs. These were domestic terrorists.
Baud
@Immanentize:
That would hurt China too though. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, but who knows these days.
PPCLI
@Betty Cracker:
I’m sure Kelly Conway will denounce this tweet, given her remarks yesterday about “not pointing fingers” and “Unity” and the peppy “we can do this”. /sarcasm
Immanentize
But there is good news! A fourth! Texas GOP House Dude is announcing he will retire.
Counting GOP retirements is my hobby.
Baud
@Immanentize:
You’re like the Seseme Street Count.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: Kudos to whoever coined “Texodus.” It’s a new favorite concept.
And all the best to the Immp. What is he drinking an ounce at a time these days? Hope he’s off to a very good week.
Jeffro
@Immanentize: I’m excited at the prospect of a GOP wipeout in 2020, seriously.
Within the next few months, it woudn’t surprise me for trumpublican officials to start musing aloud about how to get the Ill Douche to ‘declare victory and go home’, ie, not run again and grab a pardon on the way out the door. I don’t think he’ll do it, but the ensuring GOP civil war should be fun to watch.
Hey a guy can dream, can’t he? =)
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Got that one covered. A black man was walking into a Walmart with his legal, concealed handgun, a white man saw it in the parking lot, stalked him… Ooopps I mean followed him into the store, yelled “GUN!” and tackled him. All the while the black man was yelling, “I have a permit!”
chopper
@Baud:
lol. “china’s manipulating its currency! and why the hell isn’t the fed cutting interest rates more like i asked them to??”
Ladyraxterinok
@Sab: That’s the message I get. You do, say anything I (Trunp) don’t like, my people will KILL KILL KILL
raven
@Immanentize: Lot’s of people played art the University of Illinois back in the day.
Immanentize
@rikyrah:
I had to take part in a number of table top trainings when I was a member of the University’s Incident Management team. One was an exercise about managing an active shooter scenario. In it, the guy was an ex-employee with a shotgun. He was able to kill 5 people in the first 30 seconds of the attack. There is no such thing as a good guy with a gun in such circumstances. And the horror of the slaughter makes people freeze and increases potential body counts. We already know many many lives have been saved only because a gun jammed.
chopper
@Elizabelle:
i remember bolting off the metro whenever i got back home from work. just flat-out running until i was close to home.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Now that’s a hard core training.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle:
An ounce an hour. Clear liquids. By Thursday the amount limit may be lifted, but he will still have to sip. No pounding brewskies with Squi for him!
He is still sleeping this morning, sweet boy.
chopper
@Immanentize:
the aurora incident is a prime example of this. the scene became so chaotic in an instant that any ‘good guy with a gun’ would have been less than useless, probably causing even more death and injury. these scenes instantly degrade into a mess once someone starts shooting. yet so many of these strapped randos think they’re gonna be dirty fucking harry.
satby
@Immanentize:
awww. All the feels for you and your sweet boy.
Citizen Alan
@Sab:
I truly believe that there’s a non-negligible chance that Shitgibbon will fire off a nuke somewhere at some perceived enemy if he’s in serious danger of impeachment or if he loses. I don’t think it’s a big chance because he’s an utter coward, but it’s greater than zero.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
Awww, sweet Immp. His body is working so hard to heal. Sneak some rest in while he sleeps if you can.
Citizen Alan
@Baud:
Ahem.
MomSense
@Citizen Alan:
I’ve been thinking that, too. It’s terrifying.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
How is Little Imma? Sending him positive and healing thoughts :)
JanieM
Yeah. They’ try to suspect elections.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
Sleep well, Little Imma. Gain that strength back, nap by nap :)
Uncle Cosmo
@Kay:
Goddamn shame we can’t hope for a Lonesome Rhodes “Dark Night Of The Soul” confession from Cheeto Benito. (Among other things, Grump’s probably nowhere near self-aware enough.) Problem of course is that he (along with Faux Noise & Stinklair) has so many of his MAGGots epistemically foreclosed that they wouldn’t believe it anyway.
dnfree
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Interesting! I just voted also. Nice cover. I can’t say the one in second place would be my second favorite.
dnfree
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Are the shares of winning anything like when I was on the school board and after a difficult meeting we might joke that we were going to give ourselves a 10% raise? (School board in our state is not a paid position.)
Elizabelle
@Citizen Alan: Do you think the military would let him do that? Would follow his orders? I am not so sure they would.
Citizen Alan
@Elizabelle:
I honestly don’t know. Adam could probably speak to this far better than I could as I have no idea what safeguards are in place to stop a deranged President from starting WW3. I do know that practically every other safeguard I thought would protect us from a deranged President has failed.
p.a.
@Elizabelle: I think there’s a lot of “Dinkum wants X, just hold off a few days and he’ll forget about it” in ALL gvt departments (at least those Dinkum has any awareness of). Which, considering what a kleptocratic, racist sewer the fed executive currently is anyway, gives us some idea of the horrors being ‘filed away’.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@dnfree: Exactly like that.
joel hanes
@Sab:
the rural excuse that guns are part of their culture and that they know how to handle them
Hunting is part of their culture, and they used to know how to handle hunting arms pretty well.
The weapons being used in these massacres have nothing to do with hunting. Gun culture in this nation as a whole has gone septic, directly encouraged in that direction by the NRA and by the boo-yah effect of employing a volunteer military in endless misbegotten wars. It’s no accident that the ammosexuals adopt “tactical” as their fashion statement, dressing in camo and affecting web belts and exaggerated military-styled weapons. It’s no accident that so many of the “militias” comprise ex-military.
Combat breaks something in many people. Part of what’s gone wrong in our nation is just the blowback from our extended bootless wars in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
joel hanes
@Citizen Alan:
I have no idea what safeguards are in place to stop a deranged President from starting WW3
Adam has addressed this.
There are, officially, none.
If the President gives the launch order, there is officially no one to say him nay, no one to save the world.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You think that’s new. I don’t think that’s new. During the Civil Rights Movement, those standing up for Civil Rights, if not Negro, were called ‘ Nigger Lovers’. How is this any different?
joel hanes
@rikyrah:
In Dayton, they were able to get on the scene IN UNDER A MINUTE.
The Gilroy festival shooter was dead in about a minute from the time he first pulled the trigger. Killed 13, wounded 22 in one minute.
ETA: The Gilroy shooter, Legam, could have killed many more but he was apparently too untrained and enraged to actually aim — he just sprayed the crowd.
leeleeFL
@Kay: what makes you believe he’s trying? He is a soulless sociopath. There’s no desire on his part to pull that speech from anywhere. He’ll just wait it out until something else happens. It’s been working just fine so far.
Yes, I am card-carrying cynic. What made you ask? Fucked we are.
PaulWartenberg
Toledo? The motherfucker can’t tell the difference between Dayton and Toledo? I’ve never even BEEN to Ohio and I can read a fucking map. The massacres were in EL PASO AND DAYTON, you dementia-riddling psychopath
leeleeFL
@Sab: Sorry, what can’t we refuse to send kids to schools that can be unsafe? I wonder if a Gandhi-style National Strike might be in order? One day! No school. No shopping. No museums. No concerts. No nothing. Maybe once a month if necessary, until they get it.
If money is their god, then keeping it from them is a punishment they might understand.
majii
The main reason Trump has been MIA on commenting on these mass shootings is because he has no earthly idea what he was supposed to say/do. His reading from the TelePrompter today was very awkward. I got the sense that he really didn’t want to address the shootings at all but had been told he had to do something. His heart wasn’t in it because he lacks empathy for others. Ridiculing, demeaning, bullying, demeaning, and dehumanizing others is his ‘thing.’