Steve M has a good post contrasting a Lauren Bobert fundraising email from last night with the usual TP (thoughts and prayers) she emitted on her public Twitter feed and on Fox. Bobert’s from Colorado but she doesn’t represent Boulder. His take:
This is how they do it. They talk like extremists when they think only their fans are listening, then they’re on their best behavior, temporarily, at moments like this. And so our politcal culture clings to the enduring myth that the GOP is a reasonable political party made up of responsible citizens. Don’t fall for it.
Two things: First, I don’t think anyone (or a significant number of people) who isn’t already a Kool-Aid drinker is falling for bullshit like this from gun humpers like Bobert. She’s just ticking the box of “responsible gun rights advocate” for those who buy into her schtick. Kool-Aid drinkers aren’t movable on this issue — if we ever get rid of guns in this country, it will be despite them, not with them.
Second, Bobert, surprisingly, is showing that she’s a hell of a lot more savvy than Marjorie Taylor Greene. Greene is just a noisemaking yokel — Bobert is at least smart enough to tone it down in public. God knows you don’t need to be very smart to do that, but Greene apparently can’t clear even that low bar.
The BFD turns 11
Dupe1970
I noticed that Republicans and the NRA went to immediately defending gun rights and bypassed the “it’s too soon to talk about gun regulation.”
danielx
It would be nice to think so.
ETA: waiting for the howls about “politicizing a tragedy”.
mrmoshpotato
Ummm….I guess all the gunhumping fucks with your brain.
Let this and W’s “compassionate conservative” duke it out.
Mike in NC
The gun bunny and her hubby both have criminal records. Age 32, she has four sons who’ll go on to be future criminals. Apparently these nutjobs don’t believe in birth control any more than they don’t believe in gun control.
yellowdog
Greene is in an absolutely safe seat. Bobert’s district isn’t nearly as red so she has to give lip service to the non delusional part of the electorate.
Jeffro
Side effect of having an extremely fast-moving, proactive, not-falling-for-the-usual-stalling-tactics Dem administration in office. The NRA knows we are coming for them on common sense gun safety measures, and that the public is with us.
Elizabelle
Boulder Police press conference underway.
JanieM
@mrmoshpotato:
As I used to say when the usual suspects blabbered that “United We Stand” after 9/11: Okay, let’s unify behind my program, huh?
But oh, no, that’s not what they meant at all at all. Nor is it what she means, not that she means anything coherent or sincere in the first place.
Alison Rose
Yeah, being smarter than MTG is like me saying I’m taller than a hobbit. It’s technically true, but not by much, and it’s not really something to boast about.
Fuck Bobert.
germy
SFAW
TPM tells me that Fox (in the “persons” of Hannity and Bongino) is/are apparently linking it, somehow, to the BLM protests. The segue/link appeared to be along the lines of
“The Mets roster is looking a lot better this year”
“Maybe, but what about all the free-agent spending by Belichick? I don’t see the Mets doing anything about it!”
In other words: “Grobble gribble grobble BLM is BAD! gribble grobble.”
Scout211
Um, I know I really shouldn’t care, but since I grew up with a last name that was hard to pronounce because It had a “oe” in it, I do. Her name is Boebert.
I know, I know. It really doesn’t matter but . . .
Geminid
@yellowdog: Boebert won her CO 3RD District seat by only 6 points, pretty much the same margin by which trump carried the district. As you say, Greene is safe in the GA 14th, at least from a Democrat. Since it was formed before the 2012 election, no Democrat has won more than 30% in a Congressional race there.
Colorado will gain a Congressional seat next year through reapportionment. The northern and eastern boundaries of Boebert’s district will change, hopefully to her detriment.(her district adjoins New Mexico on the south, Utah on the west.)
cmorenc
@Mike in NC:
Don’t misunderstand me – I am light-years remote from being any sort of fan of Lauren Boebert. Nevertheless, her “criminal record” is actually far less than your post makes it seem: 1) essentially, annoying “Karen” like conduct on two occasions (disorderly conduct at a music festival, and dispute with a neighbor over her failure to contain her pit bulls) and 2) a couple of failures to appear for scheduled court dates regarding those two offenses. She’s also been a scofflaw over tax liens for $20k accumulated unpaid unemployment insurance from 2016-2020 for her “Shooter’s Grill” restaurant.
The main problem isn’t her very petty “criminal” record, but rather that there are just enough voters across the sprawling Co-3 congressional district who are willing to vote for such an egregious “Karen” character because she epitomizes a popular sagebrush rebellion-type “standing up to the man” defiance over the symbolic issue of guns – and that they’re willing to ignore her irresponsibility in paying the unemployment taxes that every other business in Colorado with employees has to pay.
Keithly
@Scout211: I’ve always preferred the spelling Qbert to Boebert, myself.
A Ghost to Most
Just another religious fanatic shooting up America. Take away the guns, and they will use knives, like the rest of the world.
Fix the brainwashed religious assholes if you want this to end. Otherwise, you’re just fooling yourselves.
Doc Sardonic
@Scout211: I read her name and it translates in my head to Qbert, with apologies to the innocuous pink video game character.
ETA: I see I’m not the only one.
JanieM
@A Ghost to Most:
What is your source for this description?
Jinchi
Here are two news stories from December 14, 2012
Can you spot the difference?
Booger
@cmorenc: …and the episode of mass food poisoning related to her restaurant doing food for some kind of event, details escape me ATM.
RepubAnon
When the Black Lives Matter activists start open carry, and aren’t promptly gunned down by the police, Republicans will again support gun control.
PenandKey
@A Ghost to Most: If the choice is a nut job with a high capacity firearm causing a mass fatality event in minutes or a nutjob wielding a knife attempting to do the same that’s not even a choice. The motive is absolutely part of the problem, but the access to weapons of war makes it exponentially worse. You’re not going to see a dozen plus dead from single attacker knife attack.
Cameron
@Jeffro: I don’t think SCOTUS is with us, though.
SiubhanDuinne
@Scout211:
Thank you. I like to use the ligature: Bœbert.
PenandKey
@Cameron: There are perfectly Constitutional remedies to that, and Roberts knows it.
Punchy
DEAL! I’ll take this deal any day of the week. Show me 10 dead via a Ginsu and I’ll call bullshit.
OGLiberal
Name of suspect released….and there was much rejoicing among the wing nut masses.
jnfr
Well, Mr. J got a vaccination appointment for tomorrow! This is great news!
It’s up in Boulder! This is creepy news.
Though I guess we’re all taking our chances now wherever we go. Police said the gunman actually lived in Arvada, which is practically next door to us anyway.
Oh, and fk the gun nut lady. She’s an embarrassment to our state.
Soprano2
Yep, and all the people who were just yelling at us yesterday that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions about the motives of the Atlanta shooter will promptly jump to conclusions about this shooter based on the name alone.
scav
@OGLiberal: Yes. And suddenly the police are all Face of Evil and not whoops a bad day.
Betty Cracker
@Jinchi: Thank you. There’s a lot of sickness in society that we need to address, including religious fanatics of all stripes. But we’re the only industrialized country on earth where this shit happens on a regular basis, and there’s a reason for that: it’s the fucking guns.
raven
@Soprano2: And all the people bitching about how “gently” they were treating the suspect because he was white?
Elizabelle
@raven: Exactly. Albeit, knowing nothing about the latest mass shooter, no idea whether he was given his name at birth or chose it later.
Result is the same. Ten dead. At the hands of a male firing a gun.
Punchy
I simply cannot believe the guy they showed on the brief video clips is only 21 years old. My spouse figured ~60s, I pegged him at 40s. Apparently I’m not good at guessing ages of mass murderers.
JanieM
@JanieM:
Still wondering.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: It is the fucking guns.
And we have a Big Fucking Deal excellent (actual) President in office, who has the skills and courage to take on our too many guns. We control the House and Senate, too, by a small margin. Use them.
It’s insane to have Republicans bleating about the kids being out of the classroom due to a pandemic, but silence when a bunch of them get shot up in a school. Which did not happen yesterday, but has, and will again, most likely. The only thing that stopped the school shootings was closing the schools. American exceptionalism.
I know the gun nuts are loud and whiny and one issue voters, but they do not match in number the parents and other sane people who are sick of their kids and other loved ones being in harm’s way. Every single fucking day, and in every single fucking place.
Except, I guess, in the halls of Congress. Where the Republican congressweasels are protected through many measures. From guns.
And then they vote to keep the rest of us in danger.
This shit has to stop.
I also think that seeing the good that government can do might wake up and enthuse some voters who bought the “they’re all the same” lies.
Soprano2
@raven: I don’t know. He killed a police officer, so I have to admit I’m surprised he didn’t seem to be more roughed up than he was. I heard the nakedness explained that the police probably told him to take his clothes off because they wanted to make sure he didn’t have a bomb on his body.
raven
@JanieM: It has nothing to do with his name now does it?
wenchacha
It was an incidental remark about the shootings, but do I understand there was a line of people in the store, waiting for Covid vaccines? A witness said the first person in line was shot.
And of course, any of these places where people have to queue for voting, or testing, or vaccine is a vulnerable spot for a person with bad intent.
Joe Falco
Greene has no need to moderate her hate for strategic reasons unlike Boebert since Greene’s district is very red. I still hope though next year will see a lot of voters voting her out if nothing else to get rid of the embarrassment. I believe it’ll depend in part on how far the Georgia R’s in the statehouse will succeed in trying to take away voting rights from everyday Georgians. It may just galvanize more people to come out and vote. I’ve heard Rep Jody Hice (R – Gated Christian Suburb) is planning on running for Secretary of State next year and take the Kemp path to political victory.
smith
@raven: I don’t see any contradiction here. The suspect we saw on the video — a man with pale skin — is what the police saw when responding to the shooting. I don’t think anyone would have been surprised if a guy who looked like that turned out to be named Erick Jones.
The fact is, in this country “white” has relatively little to do with the actual color of your skin and everything to do with whether your immediate ancestors were European.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T (although this is an O/T), but I am beginning to hear “vaccine” used as a verb — “have you been vaccined yet?” — and I am immensely troubled by this. I hope it is not a trend.
scav
@smith: And which part of Europe, variably applied over time and context.
SiubhanDuinne
@Joe Falco:
Ask Raven about Jody Hice.
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker: Exactly. Which is why I don’t understand these events being called “senseless” murders. When your goal is limitless access to firearms, that these massacres occur makes perfect sense to me.
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s really bad. Like when someone gives a gift and people say they “gifted”.
Fuck Boebert. She just knows that feelings are raw ATM and she’s shutting up. She’ll be back to being loudly terrible within two weeks.
Joe Falco
@SiubhanDuinne:
Better yet, ask me since my family used to attend the church he was the pastor at. I’m very familiar with Hice and all his past and present douchebaggery. I still remember the last sermon he gave in which he announced he was stepping down “to see what God has in store” before a week or so later announcing he was running for Congress. Just an absolute opportunist and sleazy manipulative asshole.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’d rather be vaccined than virused.
SiubhanDuinne
@Joe Falco:
Ah, didn’t know you were from these parts. Raven, I believe, had Hice as his Rep for several years, and AFAIK (and understandably) has never had a kind word for him.
SiubhanDuinne
@Baud:
?
Elizabelle
This PAC has Lauren Boebert Qbert’s number. https://www.ruralcoloradounited.org
westyny
@SiubhanDuinne: Has anyone googled whether “vaccine” can be used as a verb?
West of the Rockies
What is the suspect’s name? I can’t find it online. Any word whatsoever on supposed motivation?
Baud
@West of the Rockies:
It’s an Arabic name. I haven’t seen anything on motivation.
SiubhanDuinne
@westyny:
Yup. It’s a noun. (ETA: I’m quite sure that some contrarian somewhere could find an obscure 18th-century usage of “vaccine” as a verb. Doesn’t change my dismay.)
germy
@Baud:
Since it was a vaccination site, I wonder if he had gone down an anti-vax Q rabbit hole.
I’m just guessing at this point. He’s talking to authorities, so we’ll know more soon.
Starfish
@West of the Rockies: Ahmed Alissa.
germy
Joe Falco
@SiubhanDuinne:
He’s still my Rep, and my house will receive calls from time to time asking if I want to connect to Hice’s “town hall”. Even before COVID, Hice never had any intention of being confronted by anything less than a friendly crowd. I’ve tried once before to get Jody to answer a question of mine (I think it was about the US-Mexican border) but it never came up. Just like the radio talk show host he was before running for Congress, he’s all about controlling the message during his “town halls”.
Elizabelle
Did you guys notice that Anne Laurie put up a post on Robin Givhan’s WaPost column about Kamala Harris and her speech about the Atlanta mass murder last week?
It does not seem to show up in the usual way. At least not for me. Hitting the “navigate to previous blogpost” arrows at left takes me to David’s Obamacare post.
You may have to hunt for it, but it’s worth reading. Kamala Harris > Qbert any day of the week. Deserves more attention.
Elizabelle
Here’s the link to Anne Laurie’s blogpost. I do not know why it is not behaving as usual, at least for me.
https://balloon-juice.com/2021/03/23/excellent-read-kamala-harriss-self-evident-truth/
Elizabelle
And the editing button is gone.
It is kind of disjointed. To have a blogpost entitled “Kamala Harris’s Self-Evident Truth” followed by one entitled “Nobody is Buying Her Bullshit.”
But this is Balloon Juice. And we live in a world where John Cole’s gentle checking in blogpost yesterday (“how are we all doing?”) was followed by a reports of a mass murder, the second within six days. March 16 and March 22. A is for Atlanta. B is for Boulder. C is for …
America.
SiubhanDuinne
@Joe Falco:
I’m in GA-07, and my former representative, Rob Woodall, didn’t hold a single live, in-person town hall during his ten years in Congress as far as I can determine. His official Congressional website didn’t show an address for his district office either, making it challenging for constituents to visit. I worked hard for Carolyn Bourdeaux, the woman who replaced him on January 3rd. I anticipate that she’ll be more accessible to the people in her district.
West of the Rockies
@Starfish:
Ah, I see. Wingnut assumptions begin in 3… 2…1…
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’ve seen worse: the BBC — the BBfuckingC! — now often use “vaccine” where they should use “vaccination”.
I feel faint. Quick, fetch the smelling salts.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Nor for me. Weird.
Starfish
@West of the Rockies: Given the age and the gender, “Was this the first schizophrenic break of a young man with far too much access to guns?”
This is not to paint schizophrenics as violent, but the age is when a lot of people who end up with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have their first break with reality.
AliceBlue
@Joe Falco: I didn’t know the guy used to be a minister. Having him as GA Secretary of State would be a disaster, to put it very mildly.
catclub
@Dupe1970:
 
So, the shooter was white?
Joe Falco
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hice might have been your rep then if he had won in that free-for-all Republican primary Woodall won years ago. It was for that seat that Hice quit the church pulpit to run for. I’m glad Bourdeaux won. Hopefully, Democrats can replicate that success in my district after Hice tries his hand (and loses!) at running for state office.
raven
@AliceBlue: He still is as is that fucking asshole Collins.
raven
MisterForkbeard
OT, but I just got a mail from the Washington Post: “Breaking! The 10 Boulder victims now identified!”
This is everything that’s wrong with the media, I swear. The identities don’t matter . They want to prattle on about victims and get clicks/views, but they couldn’t give a shit about why this happened or what we can do to stop it. They just want us to gawk at the carnage.
Miss Bianca
@Scout211: I was about to make this same point. Because yeah, she’s my “representative”, and while I shouldn’t care about a little thing like getting her name right, my standard take is *try* to do so, unless I’m obviously making fun of her.
Starfish
@catclub: It’s Boulder! 90% of the population is white! I wish people would quit with this flippant nonsense.
They are also comparing the treatment that McClain received at the Aurora Police to the behavior of the Boulder Police. These are two different places, and the two police departments behave differently. For example, Colorado had three people on death row, and I think two of the three were out of Aurora.
Though police in Boulder have failed to find who killed Jon Benet and will clear out homeless encampments repeatedly because rich assholes feel sad that they have to see homeless people, it is different.
Maris Harold is a new police chief that was just recently hired, and this was supposed to be the cushy job until retirement.
Dougherty said he will not prosecute kids under 12, and he has been pretty opposed to the death penalty.
Will this shooting change these things? Will they be too busy to crack down on the homeless now?
OGLiberal
@germy: Because everybody needs one of those – god given right and all that.
Joe Falco
@AliceBlue:
Oh, he was a real piece of work. He would pull stunts at his church such as daring the IRS to do something after using the pulpit for political messaging. That was during the Obama administration of course.
Hice as SoS would continue the work Kemp started as SoS to repress voting rights. He knows the current SoS is considered personal non grata by the conservative establishment after not following TFG’s orders to commit fraud and declare him the winner. Hice can’t challenge Kemp directly either so he’ll wait his turn until Kemp leaves the governor’s mansion then run for that position.
Chief Oshkosh
@cmorenc: Agreed that it’s not her main problem, but you’ve listed at least five (5) unlawful transgressions that I, in my many years, have never committed.
Why should anyone give her a break about these illegal activities? She’s a fucked-in-the-head thug hanging out with other thugs, making life miserable for the whole country. Fuck ‘er.
And if the fuck-ups in Rifle, CO want to elect her to a position that impinges on the rest of us, well, fuck them, too.
VeniceRiley
How is that fat balding dude only 21?
karen marie
@PenandKey: Except in a crowded elevator stuck between floors.
germy
West of the Rockies
@MisterForkbeard:
Well, identifying victims does humanize them to a degree: gives them a name, a face, a family, a story (similar to the “Say Her Name” dynamic)
I get your point: we shouldn’t need to have to humanize victims.
Elizabelle
@raven: And yet the shooter was, allegedly, able to buy a gun that very same day.
Paranoid. Antisocial. Seeing things. 21 is about the age schizophrenia sometimes manifests. Often young adults.
Yeah, those are the types we want carrying arms. High powered weapons.
This twofer (the shooter has an Arabic name! And is mentally disturbed!) may not be the blessing the gunhumpers believe it to be.
OGLiberal
@VeniceRiley: I don’t know how old these pictures are but given that he’s only 21 they couldn’t have been that long ago. The one on the right definitely looks like it was taken in a high school hallway or gym. https://i0.wp.com/www.pmnewsnigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Ahmad-Al-Issa-on-Facebook-e1616512132521.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1
citizen dave
@Elizabelle: Our Balloon is being whipsawed by heavy winds indeed.
Ain’t that America?
Little pink houses for you and me.
Benw
The new crop of RWNJ assholes in Congress are too dumb to think and pray at the same time anyway
Elizabelle
@germy: And Ted Cruz knows his “ridiculous theatre.” Green Eggs and Ham. Two Ivy League degrees, and does not understand the point of that book. For young children.
I don’t care what poor Snowflake’s “adult” human male has to say. He is just saying it to bother us and inflame the dinosaur base he’s playing to.
germy
VeniceRiley
@OGLiberal: I mean I watched his perpwalk from the scene and he’s got a huge bald spot and looks old enough to not have a mid-30’s guess be outrageous.
germy
@Elizabelle:
According to conservatives:
Masks are theater. Gun control is theater.
Miss Bianca
@Chief Oshkosh: Some of us who live in CD-3 are working quite hard to get rid of Boebert, actually. (As is the state Democratic Party – flipping CD-3 is apparently at the top of their priority list.) We consider ourselves quite fucked enough without additional fucks being showered on us, thankyewverymuch…
Starfish
@MisterForkbeard: They do matter.
We just got this notice from the Superintendent.
“We know for certain that Stong was a 2019 graduate of Fairview High School and Olds was a 2013 graduate of Centaurus High School.”
Old School
So does that mean that we aren’t going to hear how his day was going yesterday?
Starfish
@Miss Bianca: Why are there so many people running for that seat? I feel like some are in the race for social media clout as opposed to any relevance to the district.
OGLiberal
Looks like he may have been bullied. He did get arrested for sucker punching a classmate a few years ago. I guess a juvenile record won’t prevent you from getting an assault weapon. (assuming they were his) None of that is an excuse for what he did but there might not be the scary Muslim angle the wingers would love. He was a Trump critic although the FB posts of his I saw that criticized Trump were pretty tame, relatively speaking.
https://www.denverpost.com/2021/03/23/boulder-shooting-suspect-ahmad-al-aliwi-alissa/
Elizabelle
@germy: Social distancing is theatre.
They’re ignoramuses, and liars, and they are dangerous. Their lies kill people. It is not “news” and a horrible type of “entertainment.”
OGLiberal
@VeniceRiley: Says he was into MMA. Maybe he let himself go over the last few years?
Amir Khalid
@VeniceRiley:
Fat and balding 21-year-olds do indeed exist. One of my nephews was bald as an egg at 19. I have known quite a number of fat guys in their early 20s.
JDM
@cmorenc: “Nevertheless, her “criminal record” is actually far less than your post makes it seem: 1) essentially, annoying “Karen” like conduct on two occasions (disorderly conduct at a music festival, and dispute with a neighbor over her failure to contain her pit bulls) and 2) a couple of failures to appear for scheduled court dates regarding those two offenses. She’s also been a scofflaw over tax liens for $20k accumulated unpaid unemployment insurance from 2016-2020 for her “Shooter’s Grill” restaurant.”
yep, totally non-serious charges. Bullshit. I mean sorry to be uncivil, but bullshit. If a brown person had those charges against them, they’d be almost certain to be arrested, and highly likely to be injured or killed during the attempt (likely one of those no-knock middle of the night arrests, too).
Elizabelle
@germy: Responding to this part of a CNN item by media watcher Oliver Darcy. Reliable Sources column.
Chief Oshkosh
@Miss Bianca: Ha! Touché. I appreciate you calling me out on that. Glad to hear that there are people working to rid us of the quarrelsome pistol priestess. Thank you.
Elizabelle
Also in that CNN Brian Stelter/Oliver Darcy Reliable Sources column.
These shootings are just happening too often NOT to deal with. Make Ted Cruz and drama critics like him cry. Get rid of the filibuster and show those a-holes that we mean business.
WaterGirl
I just moved the publication time on Anne Laurie’s Excellent Read post – her post and the mistermix post have the same publication time, so I moved “Excellent Read” to 10:40 instead of 10:38. So if you refresh the BFD post, the fly-out should take you to MM post, and that one should take you to Anne Laurie’s post.
Cameron
@West of the Rockies: They’re already all over my FB page.
Elizabelle
It’s on.
BREAKING NEWS
President Biden urged lawmakers to ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. This “should not be a partisan issue,” he said.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021 1:27 PM EST
The attack Monday in Colorado, in which a gunman killed 10 people, including a police officer, came less than a week after another gunman murdered eight people in Atlanta. The back-to-back killings amounted to a return of mass casualty shootings that had seemed, for a time, to be suppressed by pandemic lockdowns.
Miss Bianca
@Starfish: I know of only three declared Dem candidates for CD-3. Gregg Smith (who apparently lives in my county, or at least owns property here) dropped out a few days ago, citing enough decent Democratic candidates in the race already. Probably a wise decision, but I’d still like him to get in touch with our local Democratic Party.
I think it’s probably because CD-3, unlike, say, Doug Lamborn’s or Ken Buck’s districts, is seen as potentially “gettable”, because Boebert’s margin of victory was only +6.
Oh, well, that plus Gun Bunny has been even louder, more obnoxious, and more of a do-nothing for her district than even those two gentlemen.
Miss Bianca
@Chief Oshkosh: You’re quite welcome. : )
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thank you! Saw that, and knew that you’d corrected the situation. Happy Tuesday.
germy
Felanius Kootea
I see Biden is already talking about an assault weapons ban. Maybe it’ll happen this time. So much needless sorrow and pain. Whoever talked about regulating/restricting bullet sales yesterday if the Second Amendment doesn’t allow guns themselves to be appropriately restricted may be on to something.
OT: Prince Harry finally got himself a job. Silicon Valley startup Chief Impact Officer.
Starfish
@Miss Bianca: I am so glad Smith dropped out! He did not seem like a great candidate.
karen marie
@Elizabelle: It’s been my sense for a while that something is fucked up with Google/Chrome. In addition to weird commenting issues here and my gmail account buffering, then telling me I’m offline, last night a bunch of apps that weren’t even in use were sending me repetitive crash notices. Google blamed it on “Android System WebView” even though I – and other Android tablet users – have it disabled. I had to remove Chrome. I’m now using it in factory setting. The fucking internet – how does it work?
Cameron
@Old School: But I’m sure we’ll hear plenty about caravans of jihadis coming across the Rio Grande.
PST
@Suzanne:
I have not used gift as a verb yet, but just to play devil’s advocate, it does provide a degree of nuance that give lacks because the latter can be used in so many contexts. “Gift” carries a clear implication of wrapping paper and ribbon. I could never gift someone a piece of my mind, or gift my neighbor 20 bucks for his old lawnmower, or tell a former lover that I frankly don’t gift a damn. Of course context clarifies things, so I’m not claiming that verbal gift is badly needed, but it seems like the kind of thing that happens to English all the time.
Starfish
@karen marie: That WebView thing broke a lot of apps.
Any Android app that is rendering a web page is likely using the WebView. When that breaks, a lot of things break.
Amir Khalid
@Felanius Kootea:
And what, pray tell, is a Chief Impact Officer?
evodevo
@JDM:
And if a POC was killed during an incident, you can bet the media would be playing those arrests up as if it was a valid excuse for immediate execution by cop…
Miss Bianca
@Starfish: Smith would be a great candidate for *state* house rep for our district, and if ever he actually gets in touch with me (I’ve put out signals to, for example, the Colorado Sun reporter who covered his brief campaign), I hope to persuade him of that. Ron Hanks, current House-60 rep, is just another Boebert: fatter, male, and with less hair, but no less of a kook and a gun nut – and who may just be implicated in the Capitol insurrection. He was certainly there.
germy
@Amir Khalid:
In other words, a famous name to gave a product or company a greater profile…
JanieM
@Amir Khalid: It’s a cousin to a title my local hospital system has: “Director of Transformation.”
gvg
@raven: They took him alive, but the clips I saw he appeared to be bleeding alot. I also wondered at his lack of winter clothes. Either he was kind of nuts and left home without them (possible I guess) or the police searched him thoroughly for weapons or bombs. At any rate, I’d always rather they took the accused alive. Protecting our minorities should mean raising standards for them not lowering police violence rules for whites.
Felanius Kootea
@Amir Khalid: Beats me.
Kay
Oh, yay. They’re back to this one.
Nothing is regulated like DRIVING is regulated. Safe automobiles are literally the creation of regulations on private industry, which the industry fought every step of the way. ROADS are regulated. They’re designed to make up for bad drivers. Insurance is regulated and then mandated. Then, finally, drivers themselves are heavily regulated.
Automobiles and driving are the biggest success the nanny state ever birthed- wildly successful regulatory scheme.
If you wanted to make a pro-regulation argument you would choose “cars and driving” – they have literally gotten safer with each regulation.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Great way to think of it. Driving, a-holes. Learn from it.
Now which GOP brainiac will be bringing up swimming pools?
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Regulate guns like cars! Sold. I’ll take that deal.
It would be wildly successful, too. Gun deaths would drop like a rock and they’d still sell plenty of them- these are the exact same people who buy 60,000 dollar trucks. Safe trucks. Regulated trucks.
Betty Cracker
@JanieM: That’s bad but at least it’s something that can be connected with work, however tenuously, i.e., overseeing “digital transformation” that automates core tasks and optimizes efficiency blah blah blah.
“Chief Impact Officer,” heaven preserve us. Caitlin Flanigan, who is rarely right about things, may be right about poor Harry: He’s one of the rescue chickens on a $15M California estate.
waspuppet
I’m not sure that’s so surprising. As a restaurant owner, Boebert actually held down a job before coming to Congress. Greene kind of didn’t.
Geminid
@Kay: I’d like to see strict liability for anyone who sells a gun outside the legal requirements for gun sales, for any damage done by that gun. That way, somebody who wants to buck the system could lose their truck and their house.
And I’d like to see a permit-to-purchase law in Virginia and other states. The outcomes in Missouri, which abolished permit-to-buy, and Connecticut, which adopted it, shows that this system has a real effect on gun violence. And the system can be enhanced by stricter requirements for a gun licence, such as passing a course on gun safety, like one has to in my state to get a concealed carry permit, or including more factors as disqualifying.
I don’t think there will be a solution to gun violence anytime soon. But gun safety laws like the six passed in Virginia last year are a start. These laws included almost universal background checks, a “red flag” law, a requirement to report a stolen gun, and a law making it a crime to have an unsecured gun in a home with minors. I expect them to survive any legal challenge under Heller, which affirmed an individual right to ownn firearms, but also stated that goverments can impose reasonable regulation upon them.
J R in WV
@cmorenc:
Ms Boebert also set up an unlicensed BBS booth at the Rodeo where her restaurant is located — 80 people reported serious food poisoning after eating her BBQ.
And you know plenty of others didn’t report their night on the toilet. Running a restaurant and unable to serve BBQ at a rodeo that won’t send people to the hospital~!!~ Glad not to be planning to eat there !
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
I had a very similar thought but mine started out “What the hell is…” rather than “pray tell.” Spent my working life in IT and still have never heard of such a thing!
Kay
@Geminid:
Let’s change tactics. The response to this level of drama….
should be “simmer down! I want to talk about insurance”
That’s why I like the car comparison. We can talk about “jersey barriers” and roll bars.
Make Guns Boring :)
We tried to out-drama these drama queens and it isn’t working. Let’s bore them to death.
Kay
@Geminid:
And we can have both things! Because “car people” love cars like gun people love guns. Cars can be dramatic and have an emotional attachment. They can love guns- the “lore” whatever the fuck they love about them, I don’t care.
I once had a client who told me, in response to a false accusation, “I’m not a gun guy! I’m a car guy! You know that!”
So true. They can keep their identity.
Hirudo
@Jinchi:
That in one case there are injuries and in the other there are deaths? Or am I missing something.