Traditionally, Americans have celebrated the Fourth of July with barbecues, picnics, celebrations, and parades as people come together to celebrate our democracy without regard to political party. In Highland Park, Illinois, yesterday morning, a gunman opened fire on a Fourth of July parade with a high-powered rifle, killing 7, physically wounding at least 47 others, and traumatizing countless more. There were more than a dozen other mass shootings over the holiday weekend, as well. All told, mass shootings this weekend caused at least 15 deaths and injured at least 91.
I find it tantalizing that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis could be the first to topple Trump with a slew of criminal charges. It would be justice with a cherry on top — a Black prosecutor serving the county that was critical to delivering Biden his victory. And key witnesses Republicans. The charges, like the stellar work of the J6 Committee, would further help prepare Trump supporters for wider ranging federal charges. And another cherry on top? Lindsey Graham paying a price for his sniveling, fawning support of Trump.
Too many gun apologists/supporters comment that hand guns cause many more deaths annually than assault style rifles. This is a sad truth, but is also misleading and a false equivalence. Assault weapons cause multiple deaths in seconds, with grievous wounds, what one of the physicians administering first aid to shooting victims in Highland Park called wounds of war, eviscerating wounds. The US is awash in firearms resulting in gun violence that has reached epidemic proportions. The gun violence now punctuates our lives every day, depriving us of safety. Our right to life is being sacrificed on the altar of the Second Amendment.
Thanks for your complete report of todays news. I also noticed that 60 rounds by 18 police were fired into one Black man as he was running from them. 70 rounds were fired into a large crowd by one white man, killing 7, and he was apprehended with a rifle in his car, no shots fired. Agony at every level.
These facts, presented piecemeal, lead to inevitable conclusions about the increasingly obvious attempts by a large portion of the current Republican party to seize or maintain dubiously-earned power through keeping a population armed, ignorant, and divided. Keeping half our population scrambling to regain basic bodily autonomy creates distraction. Keeping a huge percentage of our population under-insured and under constant threat of financial ruin from medical or educational debt creates distraction. Keeping a populace in a perpetual state of fear of random attack with battlefield weapons separates and distracts us, especially after a pandemic in which ignorance and inadequate health care were weaponized against us, leading to a huge death toll and a more divided society.
The nearly apartheid state of police treatment of racist mass shooting perpetrators versus their repeated, countless wanton murders of Black citizens continues uninterrupted despite slightly more press about it, and the attempts of protofascist nationalist religious fanatics to legislate from the judicial branch as well as putting state control of elections into increasingly partisan hands does not augur well for peaceful transfers of power in our representative republic - either midterm or 2024. Will we shrug and go along with it, or practice active prophylaxis?
The sclerotic criminal Trump mafiosi v. Cassidy Hutchinson, 26... or, today’s incredibly dishonest Republican hack leadership v. a healthy, young, ethical conservative Republican... leader with no ship to lead. More to come.... the revolution has commenced... and the good guys will prevail...
Ban automatic weapons, period. Even a SCOTUS as corrupt as the current one would be pretty hard pressed to make a connection between what the Founding Father's meant in the 2nd amendment and the "need" for current military weapons. There is no need. BAN THEM. We did it before. Do it again!!!
Bobby Criminal, er, I mean Crimo III, the piece of shit with the gun, is the son of Bobby Crimo Jr., major MAGA Trumper politician in the Illinois statehouse who after the Uvalde massacre retweeted a posting that one should "defend the Second Amendment as if your life depended on it, because it does."
The roadapple doesn't fall far from the horse's ass.
And Criminal the third is also a big time Trumper.
To date the most civic thing, I have done is vote. Yesterday, I applied to be an election inspector. By the end of the day, I received my assignment. I am going to be an absentee vote counter. I will be sequestered from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm. Not optimal, however it was the job I hoped to get. It does pay $12 an hour, but that will end up going to pet sitters.
Thank you for such a good, authoritative synopsis. Something new for this Fourth of July were the multitude of statements saying that women did not feel free this year. Also new were statements from Black writers decrying the fact that the black ancestors of today’s citizens did not feel like celebrating freedom. It makes one weep.
Until, when, and if we get rid of the guns, this is how we live. The recent gun "law" bill that was signed by Biden is a total non-starter and a totally useless tool in controlling gun violence. We have 400 million guns (including 20 million assault weapons) flowing freely about the country. Inner city residents (disproportionately people of color) have been dealing with horrifying gun violence for decades and no one has given a damn. And, obviously we still don't as the far-right extremists (politically and ideologically) have a strangle hold on the country and the only "action" we take is hand wringing and prayers as people are massacred and DNA samples are needed by family members to identify the bodies!
No foreign country did this to us; we did it all by ourselves. We are our own worst enemy. There is only one solution and that is to take the guns away. The follow up is to never, ever vote for a republican. The democratic party has enough different views and degrees of progressiveness to qualify as a "two party system". We cannot survive if we continue with the despicable brand of evil and corrupt garbage that is today's so-called republican party.
“A medical examiner found 60 bullet wounds (not a typo) in Walker’s body, which a medical examiner said was handcuffed when it arrived at the coroner’s office. Walker was unarmed. He was Black.” Thank you Heather, for this most important “detail.” Immediately upon seeing the video of the arrest of the mass murderer, without a shot fired and with a gun in his car, a high powered rifle, I thought of the murder of one black driver, Jayland Walker, unarmed. Weapons in the hands of murderers and in the hands of law enforcement. The murder of George Floyd and the countless black people killed by police, and the ensuing protests have not changed policing enough. The multiple issues of gun violence, inadequate gun laws, availability of high powered weapons and magazines, racism, white supremacy and antisemitism are daily destroying our democracy. And the safety of every citizen to live without fear.
The tRUMP recording shod be enough to prove a criminal charge. Asking a Secretary of state to "find" votes with no evidence (haven't we been here before? ) is admitting guilt and it's on tape. Nixon was smart enough to bail before they snapped the cuffs on. Guess who isn't.
I find it tantalizing that Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis could be the first to topple Trump with a slew of criminal charges. It would be justice with a cherry on top — a Black prosecutor serving the county that was critical to delivering Biden his victory. And key witnesses Republicans. The charges, like the stellar work of the J6 Committee, would further help prepare Trump supporters for wider ranging federal charges. And another cherry on top? Lindsey Graham paying a price for his sniveling, fawning support of Trump.
Too many gun apologists/supporters comment that hand guns cause many more deaths annually than assault style rifles. This is a sad truth, but is also misleading and a false equivalence. Assault weapons cause multiple deaths in seconds, with grievous wounds, what one of the physicians administering first aid to shooting victims in Highland Park called wounds of war, eviscerating wounds. The US is awash in firearms resulting in gun violence that has reached epidemic proportions. The gun violence now punctuates our lives every day, depriving us of safety. Our right to life is being sacrificed on the altar of the Second Amendment.
Thanks for your complete report of todays news. I also noticed that 60 rounds by 18 police were fired into one Black man as he was running from them. 70 rounds were fired into a large crowd by one white man, killing 7, and he was apprehended with a rifle in his car, no shots fired. Agony at every level.
These facts, presented piecemeal, lead to inevitable conclusions about the increasingly obvious attempts by a large portion of the current Republican party to seize or maintain dubiously-earned power through keeping a population armed, ignorant, and divided. Keeping half our population scrambling to regain basic bodily autonomy creates distraction. Keeping a huge percentage of our population under-insured and under constant threat of financial ruin from medical or educational debt creates distraction. Keeping a populace in a perpetual state of fear of random attack with battlefield weapons separates and distracts us, especially after a pandemic in which ignorance and inadequate health care were weaponized against us, leading to a huge death toll and a more divided society.
The nearly apartheid state of police treatment of racist mass shooting perpetrators versus their repeated, countless wanton murders of Black citizens continues uninterrupted despite slightly more press about it, and the attempts of protofascist nationalist religious fanatics to legislate from the judicial branch as well as putting state control of elections into increasingly partisan hands does not augur well for peaceful transfers of power in our representative republic - either midterm or 2024. Will we shrug and go along with it, or practice active prophylaxis?
The sclerotic criminal Trump mafiosi v. Cassidy Hutchinson, 26... or, today’s incredibly dishonest Republican hack leadership v. a healthy, young, ethical conservative Republican... leader with no ship to lead. More to come.... the revolution has commenced... and the good guys will prevail...
No more 4th of July parades; the Supreme Court traded public celebrations for unlimited guns.
Ban automatic weapons, period. Even a SCOTUS as corrupt as the current one would be pretty hard pressed to make a connection between what the Founding Father's meant in the 2nd amendment and the "need" for current military weapons. There is no need. BAN THEM. We did it before. Do it again!!!
Bobby Criminal, er, I mean Crimo III, the piece of shit with the gun, is the son of Bobby Crimo Jr., major MAGA Trumper politician in the Illinois statehouse who after the Uvalde massacre retweeted a posting that one should "defend the Second Amendment as if your life depended on it, because it does."
The roadapple doesn't fall far from the horse's ass.
And Criminal the third is also a big time Trumper.
To date the most civic thing, I have done is vote. Yesterday, I applied to be an election inspector. By the end of the day, I received my assignment. I am going to be an absentee vote counter. I will be sequestered from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm. Not optimal, however it was the job I hoped to get. It does pay $12 an hour, but that will end up going to pet sitters.
Thank you for such a good, authoritative synopsis. Something new for this Fourth of July were the multitude of statements saying that women did not feel free this year. Also new were statements from Black writers decrying the fact that the black ancestors of today’s citizens did not feel like celebrating freedom. It makes one weep.
May all those seditionists come to reckoning
Until, when, and if we get rid of the guns, this is how we live. The recent gun "law" bill that was signed by Biden is a total non-starter and a totally useless tool in controlling gun violence. We have 400 million guns (including 20 million assault weapons) flowing freely about the country. Inner city residents (disproportionately people of color) have been dealing with horrifying gun violence for decades and no one has given a damn. And, obviously we still don't as the far-right extremists (politically and ideologically) have a strangle hold on the country and the only "action" we take is hand wringing and prayers as people are massacred and DNA samples are needed by family members to identify the bodies!
No foreign country did this to us; we did it all by ourselves. We are our own worst enemy. There is only one solution and that is to take the guns away. The follow up is to never, ever vote for a republican. The democratic party has enough different views and degrees of progressiveness to qualify as a "two party system". We cannot survive if we continue with the despicable brand of evil and corrupt garbage that is today's so-called republican party.
“A medical examiner found 60 bullet wounds (not a typo) in Walker’s body, which a medical examiner said was handcuffed when it arrived at the coroner’s office. Walker was unarmed. He was Black.” Thank you Heather, for this most important “detail.” Immediately upon seeing the video of the arrest of the mass murderer, without a shot fired and with a gun in his car, a high powered rifle, I thought of the murder of one black driver, Jayland Walker, unarmed. Weapons in the hands of murderers and in the hands of law enforcement. The murder of George Floyd and the countless black people killed by police, and the ensuing protests have not changed policing enough. The multiple issues of gun violence, inadequate gun laws, availability of high powered weapons and magazines, racism, white supremacy and antisemitism are daily destroying our democracy. And the safety of every citizen to live without fear.
The committee’s message to the former preaident is… see you next Tuesday!
The tRUMP recording shod be enough to prove a criminal charge. Asking a Secretary of state to "find" votes with no evidence (haven't we been here before? ) is admitting guilt and it's on tape. Nixon was smart enough to bail before they snapped the cuffs on. Guess who isn't.
Jail for the fat man. I'd prefer a noose, but jail will do just fine. Does Vegas have a line counting down the days till the indictment is issued?