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.
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.
I want Lindsey taken down. I remember just before the elections, he was in panic mode because he didn't have enough $$ to campaign. He we begging people on Fox to donate. Suddenly. That stopped and he won. I immediately thought that he had been bought for a purpose.
Just a reminder: Trying to demean a man by using words that suggest he is womanish is bigotry in the wrong direction. Funny the ways misogyny slips through without people giving it a second thought. I'm surprised to see it here.
Of all the things you could get huffy about regarding GOP operatives and you chose to feel defensive of "Miz Lindsey" despite an astounding number of allegations and rumors that he enjoys feeling womanish. It feels like your defense is misguided, when there are many other instances of misogyny that should be defended and aren't.
Women have a right to defend themselves at every instance, especially now in a country and at a time when women's autonomy and protections are being stripped away. Remember, in many states as of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, women will be prohibited from accessing abortion in cases of incest and rape. So, yes, I plan on getting huffy. I am grateful that Annie did.
You’re choosing to equivocate abortion and reproductive rights with misgendering a man. It’s not the same thing, and it’s inappropriate to conflate them. Get huffy about women’s rights, but defending Lindsey Graham in this particular instance is misguided.
I assume you meant "defended AGAINST." But "of all the things" to ATTACK him and other "GOP operatives" for, why a snide reference to (why's everyone afraid to say it?) his being gay, or "effeminate"? Even "sniveling," however well it fits him, is too much a code word not to be a relatively mild form of hate speech. Just stop; that's NOT what's WRONG with him (although of course being "closeted" is warping . . .).
Did Lindsey Graham ever call himself "womanish"? No? Then it's not OK. And when did "allegations and rumors," even in their tens of thousands, ever become a justification for anything?
Totally agree, however that many other instances of misogyny are going unchallenged, starting with the widespread conflation of "sex" and "gender."
Grahams actions are appeals to Koch, Mercer, Murdoch, and the former guy, who guards those purse strings to re-election. ( ultra donors holding campaign funds for all GOP…”Tow the line for Donny or u ain’t getting funding” even if it means breaking election meddling laws.)
There's been much speculation that Trump has compromising information about Graham. Ever since they golfed together in 2019, Graham has effusively praised him. Maybe one day we'll know.
Did Putin give tfg a copy of Graham's pee pee tape too"? Who knows what the hell is going on at Oleg Derigpaska's GOP fundraiser yacht parties in Monoco!
TFG joins the long list of American Demagogues prostituting as leadership. His 4th, 5th, and 6th Bankruptcy are moral ones....the Republican Party, and then democracy itself, then the planet. I was thinking that if Justice Roberts really loved this country and was as wise as he claims, he would/should resign now, and let President Biden appoint a Progressive in his place. Democracy and Planet Earth depend on that one decision. Otherwise, Robert's legacy is just filth, disgrace, and Fascism.
It is time to change the powers of presidential pardons. No one who aids and abets the overthrow of the USA can be pardoned. If it were up to me I would do away with pardons completely. It seems like a white-privileged man's get out of jail or be excused of your crime card. Dump it along with all the felonious traitors to our country. Undo all the criminal acts each of them have done to cheat our country and strangle it.
It will require amending Section 2 of Article 2 of the Constitution but it's a good idea. The pardon has been badly abused for at least the last 50 years.
I want to do it all at the same time. Is that sane? If you have time, could you find out if there are any movements to remove the EC and how we go about that, Joan? If so, I can be contacted at DecencyandDemocracy@gmail.com. (Penelope, VT)
I am very curious as to how we propose to make amendments , because we really need to update everything for this current part of the 21st Century. Do you know the process or do you think there are people already doing this? Does it have to be done by an attorney. Are you one?
I know only what is in the Constitution and am not an attorney, just a student with some background in US History. The last piece of work on any amendment that I'm aware of is/was the Convention of States movement which has been bumping around since about 2010, is sponsored by ALEC and is calling for amendments to "limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, impose fiscal restraints, and place term limits on federal officials." Pursuant to Article 5 of the Constitution, 34 state legislatures must pass resolutions calling for a convention and, so far, 19 have done so including 4 this year after a 3 year hiatus. The earliest of these was passed in 2014 and, as with the Equal Rights Amendment, it is unclear how long the approval remains active. More specific amendments can originate either with the Congress or the states and, while I'm sure there would need to be some legal input, nothing in the original document says anything about that. As cliche as it sounds, I'm going to start by writing my Congressperson, Senators and local paper and see what happens.
Well, this particular task is something I am very interested in and would love to connect with other people about working on getting new amendments. I heard a few days ago that it takes 4 years to get an amendment passed. Yikes, if that is true.
I am in Vermont and will write to my people here are well. If you want to stay connected to compare what we find ou,t or if there are larger orgs already on this, my email is DecencyandDemocracy@gmail.com, and my name is Penelope.
Charge them with any crimes they can be charged with, federal or state. That is appropriate, not anticipating what a future president will do.
Strong doubt that any Republican will be president for decades. Or that any Republican authoritarian candidate chosen can avoid prosecution of a crime involving fraud or seditious conspiracy.
Christine- Please don't forget that SCOTUS will be ruling on whether using the concept of Independent State Legislators being able to overrule election results is going to allow Republican majority legislatures to do what #45, Eastman, Jeff Clark, &Giuiani tried to do and some of the RW majority SCOTUS have voiced the idea as being acceptable. If it does allow them to do this, there will no longer be free and fair elections. Please read: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/independent-state-legislature-theory-explained
I was talking with someone who is a lawyer yesterday. They agreed we are under minority rule courtesy of the Supreme Court. I asked them about this upcoming case. We both agreed this is the terrifying one.
More than ever, I’m seeing Biden expanding SCOTUS as the most powerful—and time-limited—opportunity he has to fight back fairly against the slow-roll in-public Republican conspiracy to rewrite the Constitution and impose a permanent minority rule theocracy on America. The Republicans are pulling every unethical, illegal, precedent-trashing stunt possible. In the face of this massive assault on Democracy, Democrats have GOT to quit clutching their pearls and start using *every* legally available tool to fight back, stretching the definition of “legal” as far as Mitch McConnell did when he stole TWO seats on SCOTUS for the Trumpublicans. The Jan6 Committee is already doing a spectacular job within their mandate, of laying out the damning evidence. There is no language in the Constitution limiting the Court to nine justices. There is no fillibuster anymore of Supreme court nominees. The Court has historically been larger at times in the 1800’s, undercutting any Alito-esque argument based on history.
I am now convinced Biden MUST expand the Court while he still can. Questions: Who are the highly qualified nominees that 50 Senate Democrats including Manchin and Sinema would back? After, of course, Biden and Shumer do some in-private Lyndon Johnson arm twisting to persuade them that expanding the Court is wise, legal, urgent, and * serves them personally*? Question 2: Is there time before the midterms? Q3: IF(not when—Dems are working hard to GOTV) the Repubs were to sweep the midterms, could the Dems fillibuster or otherwise head off any Repub effort to impeach and throw out those newly added Justices? Or would the process be productive anyway by starting such a Congressional food fight that Repubs would be diverted from a) impeaching Biden or b) enacting new federal laws to bake in their white, straight, gun-totin’ male theocratic minority-rule agenda, giving Dems time to regroup and beat Repubs in 2024?
All are “terrifying”. But I can see how a lawyer would think that is the doozy of terrifying. But the majority opinion which does not represent “we the people, all of us this time”, the judges themselves, are not terrifying to me. They are STILL only one branch of the government. Increasing the court, a move the executive and legislative branch can take, verifies that to me. Our government,our democracy is in place. Yes, under threat, but still in place.
That Court cannot take away my freedoms. Freedom is a state of mind, don’t you know?
Christine. That one branch has literally put the lives of women in danger. It increased the risk of those being arrested to abuse and misrepresentation, it increased the risk of gun violence death. Not just another branch. And not just one lawyer is worried.
"The Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case That Could Gut Voting Rights"
"On its way out the door at the end of its fateful 2021–22 term, the U.S. Supreme Court raised alarms by agreeing to hear, when it returns in the fall, Moore v. Harper. The North Carolina redistricting case could wind up all but abolishing the right of state courts to interpret state laws and constitutions in election cases."
It is going to take several more Democrats in the U.S. Senate to expand the SCOTUS or get justices who aren't rubber stamps of the Federalist Society. McConnell cetainly will not help Biden.
It’s important to understand that after only winning 1% of the 1980 Presidential election, Libertarian Charles Koch instituted this long game plan. His plot to steal democracy via procedure. Starting at the county level, then build and retain power in red state legislature, courts, etc. Red state, after red state. This is America after all, where you can buy whatever you want, even democracy if you can afford it.
Koch is really quit amazing. He lost and has spent his life (and money) creating the Liberatarian wing of the Republican party and now has won, The Party is Liberatarian and core philosophy state against federal. My memory isn't all that good, but he invested and created three initiatives I became aware of in the 1990s: ALEC, organizing the Federalist Society as source for all judicial candidates and GOP theology, and created a think tank for training prospective candidate for federal and state legislative offices and for filling executive positions as well. ALEC wrote templates for state legislatures and ran annual training of the up and coming, a reason why so many red states have very repressive laws. While I think him strategic, I wondered why the Democrats didn't draw from his playbook.
All his ill-gotten wealth plus all the other scumbag republican elite wealth will never be enough to snuff out American Democracy if the remainder majority votes intelligently
I’ve read. And I shrug. I read with a nod what many state courts are doing already in response to SCOTUS rulings. It’s only one branch of the government.
It used to be only one branch until it was packed with ultra Conservatives. This branch has been compromised and invalidated. It has become a political tool of the Christian far right and is systematically issuing judgements designed to roll back the clock to the 1950's.
"The Supreme Court has just essentially ended the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to directly regulate greenhouse gases."
"The Supreme Court ruled that a person cannot sue if police don't read them Miranda warnings. The ruling doesn't overturn Miranda, but limits the enforcement of prosecutorial violations".
Blatant subverters of all that Christ stood for... an infestation of failed fascist politicians, wolves in sheep's clothing who found tax-free Success complete with well-penned, well-sheared, obedient sheep.
The substantial power of stiff economic sanctions meted out in successful class action civil law suits against those individuals choosing to become such "Independent State Legislators" should easily dampen the enthusiasm of those scumbags believing they have discovered a way to be immune from their anti-American voter corruption. They will be on the hook for millions and possibly billions of dollars.
Let the games begin, Eh!?
e.g.: In America anyone can sue anybody for anything all day long!
It would be fitting that Atlanta/Fulton County is where the first conviction happens. In the South, a swing state, where for way to long voter suppression and Gerrymandering has kept it that way.
Last I checked Graham is not a Senator representing Georgia. On what possible basis would he be calling election officials in a state he does not live in?
I continue to believe that TFG uses more than intimidation to create "loyalty". I think he uses the old J Edgar Hoover approach. I think TFG has "files" on people.
How else to explain the betrayal of Graham? He and Biden were professional and personal friends. They had dinner together regularly. And then after saying "how can you not like Joe Biden?" Graham slides to the dark side. What does TFG have on the Senator from SC? You can find hints on Google.
I totally agree! And in addition to the intimidation factor, there's always money money money flowing in very specific directions. I think that our children will look back when all this is history and they will be astonished that 'he' got away with so much for so long.... but I do believe that we'll have a front row seat when they pull the 'curtain' aside, and there he stands, completely exposed.
Isn't Graham being blackmailed into his really stupid choices because he lives in fear of his sexual lifestyle being revealed which would be the end of his cushy government dole, Eh!?
I totally agree. I've been saying that for years... I just can't believe that there's never been any evidence, no pictures, no anonymous comments with any weight? Nobody is that good at hiding such a big deal for that long... I've said this for a while, almost since he((Graham cracker) flipped to TFG's side... and I don't mean to suggest that I wish for this ending, but I think he's so riddled with shame and guilt (I'm guessing that he's got some very big closets) that when the walls start to crumble he may very well take a coward's way out. I almost feel sorry for him. Totally spineless...
Yes! But I also was thinking earlier of all the WOMEN of this country, of any race, who are doing the good, hard job of helping implement the true rule of law…. EXEMPLARY!
And let's not forget Letitia James, the NY attorney general, also Black. Her investigators will be question Trump and his kids Eric and Ivanka on 7-15 in the big civil suit tax case.
Many are calling for the expansion of SCOTUS. Can we not impeach Kavanaugh for lying to the selection committee? Can we not remove Thomas for not removing himself from cases he has conflicts with?
Yes, in theory. Using the exact same process used to impeach the President. So one guess as to how that might turn out. Better bet to get some balance back into the SC would be to simply add a few more justices.
Heather talked about that in a video just this last week. Made me rethink how I refer to the idea of enlarging the court. Well worth a listen- sorry I can't tell you exactly which date. I often end up missing the live videos and watching later, so lose track of which is which.
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.
I would prefer the enlightened Scandinavian/ North Atlantic countries' governments, myself, George. If your logo is the Oregon Ducks, then we are in good agreement for our football teams.
Thank you for posting this poem Rowshan. The words of Langston Hughes are exactly the passionate outrage and inspiration I need to read and reread these days. Thank you ❤️
Rowshan, Hughes wrote this poem in 1935, published in 1936. My mom was 18 that year, just starting college. During this period, she discovered Hughes, and had at least two of his earlier books. She memorized this poem in its entirety and occasionally would recite it. Your post with the complete poem brings back the sight of my mother and the sound of her voice as she recited, with emotion, those words.
I might add that my mother was born into a family near the Idaho/Utah border, who quietly kept the secret of their African roots through her mother, whose family originated in Virginia (her father's side were fully Gaelic immigrants). My parents and all their siblings escaped to the West Coast before I was born. I did not realize until I was adult how unusual her knowledge of African American history, politics, music, culture, and even some folkways was. She simply, most of the time, kept quiet, but always shared insights that revealed the depth of her interest. I was told "the story" of the origins of her family in early adolescence, a gift I was told to be proud of and to honor. (My father's side is mixed blood yankee with a side trip to the southern Appalachians, and SW indigenous).
Thank you for the poem, and for sparking this memory of my mother. By her generation, most of my family could and did pass (it was safer). But the story was not hidden, and I am happy that I can show my children photos of their mixed grand and great-grandparents.
I am humbled, Rowshan. I thought I knew this poem by Langston Huges. But I’ve only been aware of a truncated version of it. When I read it in its entirety, I believe it is the MOST perfect call to my soul today, in this tumultuous moment. If we manage to quell our suicidal drive to kill democracy, we will need to bend our collective knees in thanks to the likes of Langston Huges, James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hammer, etc, etc, etc, for their faith and purpose to hold up the expectation that this American Idea should not die. That it truly is precious and worth facing down the Zombies, and Gangsters.
I have taught Hughes for years and, with this poem especially, I see him as the rightful successor to Walt Whitman. Thank you for posting this masterpiece.
That "America" will never be. Impossible. Colonies and then a country founded on stolen land, enslavement, oppression, greed, and the myth of white supremacy. That foundation permeates every institution, as it has since the beginning. That foundation affects our laws and practices to this day. What explains how a white man could kill seven people and injure 2-3 dozen, evade capture, and be gently arrested with no knees in his back, no officers piled on his body, no shots fired, no barked commands (the officer speaking to him so politely, and clearly, included "do me a favor" in his instructions), no pummeling, no beating with batons, fists, or flashlights, no kicking, no chokeholds? While a Black man who had killed no one, ran from police and was shot at ~90 times, hit at least 60 times. What was left of his bullet-riddled bloody body was delivered with his hands cuffed.
America doesn't have to be made America again. It never changed.
Amen The gun violence and deaths from legal assault weapons is astounding. The coup to overthrow the election because he lost the vote is shocking. The elected Senators and Representatives who enabled this coup need to be accountable. As we celebrate our independence my heart was heavy. I can hardly bear to take in how close our Democracy was destroyed and how fragile it is.
McConnell stacking the Supreme Court and refusal to Obama to nominate a Judge but allow Trump to much closer to the election. Are their no ethics left ? Our leaders are role models. It is no wonder we are sinking into an amoral society.
When you read about the violent coup led by the former guy, does it not make you pause that he has NOT been arrested in a middle of the night raid? How many of us could get away with so much evidence and not be held in the klinker for such a high crime against our country and attempted murder of our elected officials and overthrow of our government and interference of our most inalienable right TO VOTE and have it counted?
Pull them in, publicly try them and get rid of the EC and those on our SCOTUS who support the illegal overthrow of our government--in all states and jurisdictions. This is truly a homegrown terrorist plot by a rogue party who have planned this for decades.
Pop-pop-pop! Bang-bang! Bang-boom-bang! deadly assaults and bursts of celebratory explosives, fireworks!
‘… the screaming stopped and the people fled, little Aiden McCarthy remained among the bodies, confused and crying.’
‘… — his parents, Kevin and Irina McCarthy, ages 37 and 35, had been killed in the attack.’
“Nothing feels safe anymore,”
“We are cut off from one another and from the past.”
“We’re in a moral panic: ‘Will anyone pick up the phone if I call for help?’
“…People don’t see a way out.” (WAPO) See link below.
‘Landscape architects carefully laid out Highland Park, Ill., over a century ago as a leafy retreat, drawing generations of Chicago residents seeking safety and quiet. Jewish families, unwelcome in other suburbs up and down the North Shore, made this suburb their home, opening synagogues, kosher butcher shops and a golf club. It was always affluent, and still is, but leaders have made efforts to promote the building of affordable housing. When consumers started driving westward for giant shopping centers by the expressway, Highland Park focused on revitalizing its downtown.’
‘And it worked. The town is small at about 30,000 people, but in many ways felt even smaller. Neighbors became friends in downtown shops and congregations. Chicago, just 25 miles away, struggled with a spiking murder rate and the nation endured mass shooting after mass shooting. Yet in Highland Park, there was not a single murder from 2000 to 2020, according to crime statistics from the F.B.I., and the rate of all violent crime was less than a quarter of the rate statewide.'
‘…on Monday, the city that had carefully planned for over a century to be a haven in an often chaotic world, became a scene of breathtaking violence like so many other places around the country.’ (NYTimes) See link below.
The whole situation was (continues to be!) heart breaking, but that couple who died protecting their two-year-old toddler with their own bodies is more than what any compassionate human being should be willing to consider acceptable! All these murders of innocents (all the bloodshed!) should be on the conscience of the Republicans willing to protect “the rights” of assault weapon owners! May they lay restlessly awake every night for the rest of their lives…
Until everyone is safe, no one is safe. Until we mourn all lives lost to violence, regardless of how frequently or infrequently, our violence will continue. Until we acknowledge and rectify our indifference to some lives, and our immediate sympathy and aching for others, our violence will continue. Until everyone is safe, no one is safe.
We are cut off from one another and from the past. That’s it in a nutshell. From the past, most definitely. From one another in our country but also from the rest of the world. Does the rest of the world really exist? We act as though only we exist.
An argument that I get is that vehicles kill more people than firearms do. I counter that argument with vehicles are not designed for that purpose; firearms are. All modern firearms are designed to kill. Some will argue from a hunter's standpoint that rifles and shotguns are necessary to the taking of game, be it fowl or mammal. This is true, although my bowhunting friends will correctly note that it is not mandatory, only easier to use a firearm.
Handguns are designed to be easily carried and to kill. One does not hunt game with a handgun (although it can be done). Semi-automatic rifles with small caliber are not designed for game, but they are much easier to shoot accurately (and much less painfully) than large bore rifles. Large capacity magazines are not designed for game. They are designed to allow the shooter to fire many rounds of ammunition in rapid fire. This is not the pretext of hunting. It is the pretext of effective combat against a human enemy, as noted by the types of wounds in evidence at both Uvalde and Highland Park.
If someone points out that handguns kill more people than semi-automatic rifles do, it is likely because there are more handguns owned by more people than semi-automatic rifles. A 2012 breakdown showed that there were 72 million handguns and 76 million rifles (not broken down by type of rifle; we know from more recent studies there are 20 million semi-automatic rifles that are currently owned by US citizens) so I think it is safe to say that the number of handguns exceeds the number of semi-automatic rifles.
Plus, vehicles are made to get a person from Point A to Point B. Like Rose said, they are not used to intentionally kill. Only the driver’s intent is held responsible.
"They could have used a deer hunting rifle". Yes, they could but they never do. They use some version of the AR15 because as you pointed out, they are easier to shoot and more accurate, have much larger magazines, and kill people more effectively.
Why not agree with those “apologists/supporters” and admit that both things can be true at once. So an assault weapons ban will deal with this aspect of our gun violence problem. What is wrong with that? Gun violence is a Hydra-Headed problem.
Pardon mr d017, nothing personal, but I vomit the words "sad" and "sadly" uttered every day by American mouths.
Drumpf used those words daily, hourly -- and at the time I could only point out that there is nothing "sad" about crime or criminals, vile, evil, any number of adjectives but not "sad"...
"Sad" sounds so wet, so passively accepting of the unacceptable.
Let us rage against the unacceptable, smite its champions, put them in the only place where their presence is acceptable. Behind bars.
I would add that it is the Right's current, popular interpretation of the Second Amendment. And they would do that [interpret a "rule" to bend their way] to any amendment or law they can get their hands on or send to their stacked, unethical Supreme Court. The wheels of justice are grinding slowly, yes, but they are indeed grinding.
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.
Gee, I wonder what it might be that was the difference between them. I wonder yes I wonder, no I don't. The piece of shit "police" - who are the best arguments about firing every cop in America and starting over from scratch - are the problem. As has been the "unreformable" LAPD through the 50+ years I have watched them be "reformed" for a few years until the newly hired "bad apples" again taint the barrel. And you can tell that story about every police department in the damn country.
I hate to say this as a veteran, but I will bet any amount of money that the murderers are Iraq/Afghan vets - they learned all the wrong lessons kicking down doors and killing people knowing they were "untouchable" and if anyone started an investigation of them they'd be whizzed away by their military superiors to safety. And they got taught by the war criminals of my generation who learned their trade "killing gooks" in all the un-publicized My Lais that happened every month in every province of the entire war.
Amen to that. You and I are of an age, probably the most privileged generation that has ever been (certainly in the UK with free university - no longer though, health, etc), and we can only stand back in horror at the destruction of what we enjoyed. And it is being destroyed by old white men like us...We must put faith in the younger generation, and we must all VOTE
Class action civil law suits holding personally accountable all those participating at any level in this phony B. S. "Independent State Legislators" hog wash!
The so called supreme court is now a debauched embarrassment to America's legal system. The liberals, if they possess a spine should walk off the "Bench" en masse in protest...but they won't.
You can dislike them all you want George it as it stands at the moment we are under minority rule. Class action suits against who? And what happens to an election outcome meanwhile?
It takes all of us, doing what we can. Ideally working together, young, middle-aged, old, everyone. The "we" who created current conditions need to pitch in as much as anyone. We need everyone.
Being older, with a good memory can be a curse sometimes. For every memory of a valiant and unselfish act, there are ten plus of evil acts to balance out. Our scales are heavily weighted to evil in my lifetime.
The drug they have all taken is white supremacy. Their minds have been infiltrated by the “power” of the white man. My Lai was tragic and Calley was the military’s scapegoat. He was a little man with a big gun. The military put him in charge. He directed his men to shoot and kill innocent Vietnamese women, men, and children. Vile and cruel, yet, Calley was the perfect brainwashed soldier. Like those in the Armed Services, these murderers have been influenced by the rhetoric and by the 2nd Amendment. They are just ignorant about its real meaning and what it meant for that time period, not beyond. TC, my husband is a Vietnam vet (68-69), fought in the Mekong Delta. .
Can't heart this. But the incivility by our civil servants is atrocious. I know a couple of young men who wanted to be cops (at 17 yrs old) so they could learn to shoot and carry glocks at their job. One actually bought a glock after his 18th birthday, from Walmart, where they used to buy legos. He and his friend took it home and were fiddling with it and it went off, shooting a hole through the wall into the next apartment where a brand new baby was sleeping. It did not hit the baby, l but when I heard the story, it hit my heart how ridiculous it is that you can buy a glock as easily as you can buy legos. You cannot drive a car without training and a test because it can be a dangerous weapon. But a gun? WTF is this power/fear thing?
We need better role models, civility, civics, critical skills, social justice and parent training courses in middle and high school. Kids can access tons of information now in our information age, what they cannot access and see enough of are intelligent adults to learn from. Just look at the guy down the road with his house- sized F-Biden and trump flags lining on either side of his front door. And he stared out his door as if to taunt and see people's reactions. I wonder if he is the guy pacing a few weeks ago on our Main St. carrying a trump flag and and Ak weapon.
It was mentioned above that political correctness died with trump. These idiots need to have citations for harassment and bullying and spreading fear. Children are watching. We are watching. The internet is a propaganda machine for these kinds of vulnerable people.
In yesterday's comments thread, I wrote about this at length and in great detail. I wrote about the function of fear under the new, dysfunctional regime, the oligarchic tyranny that is ousting democracy... while we watch.
Anyone who agrees with any aspect of what I wrote is welcome to cannibalize it... or to reprint in toto.
Those words are yours now. But, of course, if anyone misuses or misrepresents them, I may bite back...
Pensa, there’s a guy, not in my neighborhood, but near a friend’s home who has Trump crap plastered all over his lawn. He isn’t a young man but an older fellow. I’m thinking he’s quite the white supremacist whose white robe and hood are in his closet. At Christmas, last year, somebody knocked out his lights that spelled out “Trump”. I laughed because i thought that was great. But sure enough, that crazy bastard fixed his sign in days. I bought a towel that I was going to throw over his signs that reads “Merry Christmas Asshole”! Might find the courage to do it this year.
Oh, Marlene! I want to go and rip down that kind of stuff, too. But the way that guy I witnessed last week pacing in his doorway made me think he was the Ak-14 or 47 guy that my boyfriend saw a few weeks ago pacing on the street in our village with his trump flag. The fear they promote is real and dangerous. So, I would advise you to be very careful. These are not very hinged people. But you could post a sign into the ground in the night that says "LOVE" or "LOVE THY NEIGHBOR DESPITE THEIR FASCIST TENDENCIES!" :-D.
LA County Human "Resources" (HR) has major major issues as well. Currently being sued by "LACERA" for breach of fiduciary duties over control of about 85 Billion of retirement assets.
Trust me, I could go on from now to eternity about everything wrong in Hell Lay, as I call this place. Every mayor comes in with people happy to see him and leaves with "don't let the door hit you on the way out, moron." Hopefully Karen Bass will prove at least not so awful. The only two LA politicians I really like are Adam Schiff and my congressman, Brad Sherman.
I have a large framed cartoon on my writing office wall, "A Map of Hollywood." 40 years ago, I ran across the artist, an old silent movie actor, who was selling prints of the original he'd done in 1928 in a park, and bought it. There are all these little dialogue bubbles out of the houses, and when you read them (written back in 1928, bear in mind), every last one of them could have been said this morning. The only thing that's changed since Julius Epstein told me about sitting in his car at Sunset and Cherokee with his brother, and they're trying to figure out the end of Casablanca, and he looks around at the people on the street and says "Round up the usual suspects!" is that the clothing and hair styles and the kinds of cars on the street are different. I always say, Chinatown was a documentary.
Reading recent articles about them, these cisterns of corruptions sound like the embodiment of political mob bosses being run by their militarized and gangs in uniform.
The killing machine around the world came home a while ago. It didn't only grow the military and protect the wrongdoing of the police, the country also withheld support for families; imprisoned Black men as it fought the War on Drugs; encouraged White Supremacy; bolstered myths of American superiority; killed the unions; rigged the economic system, so that the rich were not deprived; guns and the 2nd Amendment reign, and the USA is never, ever even a breadth away from misogyny. And then there are the LIES; remember the Cherry Tree, just ask Donald J. Trump about it.
Yes, TC, and that probably accounts for but does not excuse the fact that so many Jan. 6 participants in the attack on our democracy were US veterans. That brutal training never goes away and lies just beneath the surface, ready to reengage without much provocation.
This may be the problem with our returning American Military Heroes.
For the most part the recruits begin as rather naïve in dealing with life threatening violence.
True some should never have been allowed to posses a weapon of any configuration.
So they go to boot camp and learn how to kill and how to prevent others from killing them.
They become indoctrinated and dependent upon "Chain-Of-Command" coping with living.
They all, to some degree or another, experience that which no human should never be exposed too.
Then, their "Tour" of duty completed they are discharged to be automictically integrated back into civilian society.
Tossed out into the frenzy of survival while a lot are suffering from various trauma.
They are at a loss not living under Chain-Of-Command being told what to do every moment of the day & night. Living in fear and depression they begin to rely upon alcohol, drugs, etc.
The VA expects to remedy their problems in just a few months. Very unrealistic and totally ineffective.
The solution:
Every Military member must be released into a "Reverse-Boot-Camp"
There is no artificial time limit for rehabilitation success before reintegration. Each member is an individual diagnosis and is cared for as an individual for as long as it takes to undo the habits & behaviors drilled into them. Plus they are trained into a career of their choosing until proficient.
Then any former Military member enlisting into law enforcement will be more able to perform according to the way society demands today.
I went to a training class some years ago that talked about modern military training, and how it is designed to create an environment where the soldier can be an "effective combatant" which meant, essentially, "mission at all costs." He then provided a scenario where he was dealing with a single components of moral injury with one individual infantryman; a soldier having to choose whether to kill a 10 year old girl with a detonation vest on who was walking towards the front gate where she routinely brought flowers to the guards or allowing her to continue to the gate and allow the remote detonation that would both kill her and his comrades.
You are spot on in suggesting a "reverse boot camp" for those exiting military service, especially combat service.
In fact, George, the Armed Services, have long planned these home grown militias. In my heart, those who have been maimed or murdered should be entitled to sue their city, county, state, and the 6 SC justices who thought giving guns to young folks was a good idea! And let’s not stop there, let all women who become pregnant due to rape, do the same.
'Jesus, was anybody paying attention? The police seem to have done everything that the law allowed, but how does his father sign off on a firearm permit months after his sword-wielding son announces that he intends to “kill everyone”? All of this reinforces the notion that Crimo was an unfulfilled rage monster waiting for the right moment, which came down the street earlier this week. Of course, as he was an unfulfilled rage monster, there are photos of Crimo with various paraphernalia associated with the previous president*, but above all it was simply enabled, most recently by the United States Supreme Court, by an enfeebled political system completely incapable and unwilling to cope with this country’s insane attachment to its firearms.'
'Vice President Kamala Harris was in Chicago on Tuesday, talking some common sense that seems as remote from our current political reality as the mountains of the moon.'
'... a speech to the National Education Association in Chicago, Harris proposed some specifics as to how we can all get smarter.'
“We have more to do. We have more to do. Congress needs to have the courage to act and renew the assault weapons ban,” Harris told a group of educators at the National Education Association conference at McCormick Place in Chicago. “We need reasonable gun safety laws. And we need to have Congress stop protecting those gun manufacturers with the liability shield. Repeal it. Repeal it.”
'The liability shield is absurd public policy emerged from the same bought-and-paid-for political system that made it possible to allow an effective assault weapons ban to lapse quietly simply because the White House changed hands. Neither of these outcomes makes any damn sense at all except as gifts to the armaments industries. Of course, neither does signing off on your kid’s gun purchase after he’s already tried to kill himself and threatened to kill everyone else. This is a thoroughgoing insanity from which it will take decades to recover, assuming we even want to do so.' (Esquire)
Gun/rifle purchase without specific licensing issuance + annual renewal testing and stiff fees, (just like driver's training and licensing), for every person prior to purchase IS INSANITY, Eh!?
1) Fern, every single solitary person should have to have a clean, thorough background check, and 2) they have to wait 6 mos. to get the final approval to get a gun. 3) Must be age 25. 4) Limit the ammo 5) The sale of AK’s and any other assault weapons must be banned from the face of our world. 6) Permit gun manufacturers to be sued by every person maimed or killed. 7) The military must incorporate a kind of detoxification plan for soldiers returning from being in a war zone. 8) STOP ALL WARS
TC, 'CPP', please spell it out. 'Commission on Police Practices'?, 'Certified Protection Professional' ? I know that you weren't referring to the 'Communist Psychos Party'.
Even if they aren't GWOT Veterans, they were doubtless taught by and trained by those Veterans (almost all of the rangemasters for our local agencies are military Veterans; a high percentage are also "survival skills" instructors and trainers (think hands on control measures, non-firearms weapons).
Police are there to control Black, brown and anyone else not in line with white males. There are videos of police savagely beating peaceful protests against the overturn of Roe. I think LAPD are one of the forces so filmed.
In this case, TC, you are wrong- at least in the direct sense. This was a young man, barely out of adolescence. But you still could be right in the influence that some combat soldiers returning to a society for which they are not longer fit have on that society.
Our soldiers are no longer citizen veterans, but professional soldiers, some drawn to the military because they were raised to consider that a duty, others because they felt they had no other options, some because they saw an opportunity (the recruiters lie), and some because they were seeking a way to express the anger and resentment they already carried. They are not drafted, and try to fit a normal life within the confines of a career that is isolated inside a culture separate from the ones they grew up in. Some fail at even that, and when they come out, they may seek each other out to find the over-masculinized, hierarchical culture focused on violence they now feel comfortable in. Or they may seek out healing. I suspect that those who do that have a support system in place, and are trying to reconnect with the young person they once were.
But back to the 21 year old in this instance. This whole story reveals the Other Lie promoted by those who want to direct attention away from the gun problem. That lie is that the problem is solely one of a failure of mental health services. It is not. This young man had mental health problems, and those were addressed by concerned family members, by the police within their legal constraints, and by mental health professionals- who, to be clear, are not able to predict which troubled person is going to go on to become a shooter. Because most don't. And in this case, if there were a meaningful waiting period and if combat-style guns were illegal, this ugly incident could have been avoided. Someone is going to say something about knives and handguns. Those have issues, too, but do not have the capacity for the kind of carnage and destruction of the combat-style guns.
I know this is like preaching to the choir, here with you all. I'm not trying to harangue anyone. All these things are factors in what is happening in American society right now.
But we can go on and on about why and what, and in the meantime, there are more mass shootings, while we dither about doing the one thing we can do RIGHT NOW to give us some breathing space: BANNING assault rifles and MANDATING an across the board waiting period for ALL guns, no matter where and how sole. That will give us some breathing space to meaningfully take on those other factors. The sooner the better.
And yeah, taking on the kinds of attitudes that permit police to think it's ok to fire 60 bullets into a man they "think" "might be" armed is one of those things.
To hear the name Rittenhouse before I’ve fortified myself with morning coffee is stomach turning and downright scary. That Rittenhouse, I’m sorry but a snot nosed, sick kid came away a hero, just blows my mind. His is the “courage” one gets when openly carrying a gun . . . an assault rifle no less. It makes me want to ring my hands and cry at the prejudice and hate in so many. Sorry for the rant y’all - I better go get my coffee
Heather daily catelogues events that will become a mapping of the 21st century history of America ... and how it got to what it seems to be becoming; a reflection of what it once promised to be.
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?
If I shrug, it won’t be because I am “going along with it”. It will be with some disdain that I shrug at the absurdity of the theatrics created to distract people from our responsibilities of democracy and the common good.
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!!!
They (automatic weapons) are banned, and have been for decades. AR-15s are semi-automatic, but they can be fired nearly as quickly as an automatic weapon (and if you know anything about tool-making, turned into a fully automatic weapon - a machine gun - with little effort). Bump stocks did that, or nearly so, but they have also been banned.
The problem is the damage done by the high-velocity rounds that are used: they're only .223 caliber, but they do so much more damage to the body than an even larger (7.62 mm) round that used to be NATO standard because of that high velocity. These weapons have only one purpose: to kill humans, in as efficient and quick a manner as possible. There is absolutely no justification for the citizenry to possess them. But how do we get the estimated 20 million of them off the streets of the United States?
I had always understood that these projectiles were banned by the Geneva Conventions -- for what that isn't worth.
So why can what's banned in war be brought into American households?
All politicians and judges with a say in the regulation (or deregulation) of these things must be brought to the morgue to witness their handiwork. Even if that means running the gauntlet of victims' families, friends, neighbors.
Fascinating, indeed. Illuminating on several fronts. The blase atmosphere around development of weapons of destruction. The near-total ignorance of decision-makers who passed on their incompetence to young soldiers in a situation not of their choosing, simply trying to survive. The inability of both military leaders and elected officials to have an impact on entrenched and isolated military bureaucrats to make contact with reality. I ached as I read this, and had to set it aside for awhile when it reached the mid-60s. One of my brothers, floundering after high school, joined the military. An accident following basic training resulted in a medical discharge. By that time, he'd been contacted by former schoolmates returned from the mess that was Viet Nam already, who told him the truth about what he'd narrowly escaped. I knew, too, from the young men I met in college who just needed to talk. I cannot imagine that anybody came out of that war without some kind of damage: physical, emotional, spiritual damage.
None of the Viet Nam era veterans escaped without damage, especially those who served in the latter stages of the conflict. The same is true of many GWOT veterans; the difference being (if I may bastardize a term of theirs) In 'Nam, all served some; in the Sandbox, few served much. (The term, in case you're unfamiliar with it is "all gave some, some gave all). I use it because with the draft and a basic term of one year combat service, there are a lot of combat veterans from 'Nam. In the 20 years of an all volunteer GWOT, a tiny fraction of the population served; many served multiple tours in multiple countries.
Excellent observation, Ally. That difference in numbers would further isolate the majority of Americans from the people who serve in the military. Even the media misses this one. When I lived near several large west coast military bases, local papers would often cover some of the difficulties that enlisted personnel often faced in the largely volunteer services. The divide worked both ways: they were largely invisible to the rest of us, and behind the walls of military culture, they often felt misunderstood and unappreciated. And I can't say they were wrong. With the increased attention to impacts of military action on earlier generations, there seems to be more awareness of the increased load of today's military. But the media still seems to focus more on funding, and the military now is represented more than ever by the Pentagon.
Yes, I remember the saying "Some gave some; some gave all". I was a volunteer with Vets Against the War back in the day, and knew quite a few vets from Nam. It was part of our culture.
And later, as GW's war & sequals got underway, I got to know vets from the middle east wars. Very different. Damaged in a different way, I think. Some would come to anti-war vigils to challenge protesters in a very in-your-face way, sometimes ugly. The local VFW was appalled by this, and withdrew their folks to distance their vets from the chip-on-the-shoulder guys. Now I see the same kind of thing in some of the "militias" that include a large number of vets. It's unnerving.
I think that this (if I may use the term) militant reaction of GWOT Veterans is a reflection of what happens in an all-volunteer military. It ends up missing the diversity of a universal draft military.
If I were queen of the world, there would be a mandatory service commitment of two years beginning either after HS graduation or commencing on the 18th birthday. That service could be military, peace corps, or a CCC-type public service construction/restoration; that service should take the person to another part of the country from where they grew up.
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.
Shock me TC, chump has killed way more than the unidentified person on 5th Avenue. He’s aiming for Hitler or Stalin stats. BTW, Putin is trying to stay ahead.
Thank you. This deserves to be in every news story about this dreadful event. “Trump supporter murders people showing their patriotism on July 4”. As the trump supporters do, figuratively, every day.
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 doing this. I, too, am an election worker and want as many good ppl as possible doing this job. (The election officer assigned to my precinct in May, a nice enough man, was a conspiracy adherent!)
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.
Every gun store in order to be licensed should be made to display poster sized photos of what these guns do to a person. I suppose the problem with that idea is where will they get the photos, families of the victims don’t want photos of their loved ones demise posted all over the country, much less the internet where they would be bound to end up.
I wonder if any of the parents could have the courage, anger.....whatever you might call it..of Emmet Till's mother and put that image out for every Senator to face?
There should be a total ban on all assault weapon purchases. Unfortunately, pictures, background checks, red flags, age requirements are useless to those who want these weapons that are made for the sole purpose to blow things and people to pieces. There is no such thing as a “responsible” gun owner who want these weapons of war.
It is long overdue for law abiding citizens to take back Congress, the SCOTUS and our right to live without fear, discrimination, and harassment. We are now so far behind working on climate change, education, health care, food and housing security while we pander to the lowest common denominator in this country.
I used to look forward to taking my S. Sudanese grandkids to various events once the pandemic lifted. Their parents and I are more hesitant now and I think twice about where we go. Some states are “safer” but the reality is guns and batshit crazy travel and it is all random.
“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.
And so long as cops are organized as they are and rewarded as they are, no amount of "reforms" will ever amount to a hill of beans. The LAPD has been "reformed" six times since I was an uninvited guest of honor at their first "police riot" at Century city 55 years ago last week, and the new bad apples rot the barrel just like the old bad apples did.
We should be shocked. And we are, but weren’t those the terrible years of the Watts Riots, Rodney King? Police brutality. In a college psych class long ago we discussed personality and vocational choices on a career or personality aptitude test. Like the Meyers Briggs or a Jungisn personality test. Maybe it looked like this: a continuum: on one end is police person, on the other end, criminal tendencies. I’m just reporting, not “agreeing.” Maybe there’s more training and assessment now compared to those unenlightened days.
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.
Nixon had some measure of honor and patriotism in him , despite his many crimes domestically and his war crimes which were as yet , unknown at the time.
Jail in a windowless 8x10 on the third sub-basement of the Florence Supermax, where they have to pump air in to him, and he wastes away with no one paying him any attention whatsoever - the perfect punishment for his worthless ass.
I added comment last week to one of Heather's pieces in which she stated how the seditionists evoking 1776 were quite the opposite. I added that, opposite of the Declarers who faced imminent prospect of hanging for their convictions/actions (a couple were jailed in St. Augustine and not hanged, however, John Adams for one was clearly on the "will hang no matter what" list), these mooks fully expected to get away with a slap on the wrist or scot-free. I say not no, but HELL NO. I say hang the ring leaders (seriously, not out of some blood thirst; out of the absolute necessity of it relative to national security. But I'm not delusional--I know no one will die for this. And we'll likely come to regret it), put the next group (I'll guess 50-100) in jail for 50-to-life; give the commoners 20 years minimum, just for stepping inside the Capitol Building. When it comes to sedition, conspiracy and treason, I am merciless. Does anyone think a brainless coward like Marjorie Taylor Greene would've done a darned thing if she knew she'd hang? Uh, no...and precious few others either. This can NEVER happen again.
Speaking of originalists (high-minded-sounded sophistry for "people who cannot think complexly"), wanna know the ONLY crime spelled out in the good ol' Constitution? Treason. And it immediately defines it as the same as being at war against the country. That means a combatant. That means, if you are a ringleader, "you are absolutely eligible to die." It really is that simple for me, and I won't walk it back or apologize to anyone. These people tried to destroy our country--what is worse than that?
Well said, sir. I note that the "originalists" seem to pick and choose what they think was important. How does the 2nd half of the 2nd Amendment become more important than the first half, which states the freaking REASON for the second half?
Your closing sentence is unanswerable, Robert, save in one respect: not only did these people try to destroy the country, they are continuing to do so, day in, day out, with no small success.
This only strengthens your powerful argument; yet I am opposed to the death penalty -- to no small extent out of the conviction that these criminals have condemned themselves to far worse and cannot escape the consequences of their actions.
Absent this reasoning, someone else would have to counter your argument -- I cannot.
The only thing I could add is my memory of the somewhat hypocritical arrangement that used to be applied in Belgium, whereby a criminal was condemned to death but the sentence was automatically commuted to life imprisonment.
Thank you Mr. McTague, for your beautiful words. I have felt the same rage at these shameless seditionists and the treasonist-in-chief and agree with you 100%.
There is no worse crime than betrayal of the Constitution, the citizens and the nation one is elected to serve than by an attempted coup and a refusal to participate in the 244 year tradition of peaceful transfer of power.
I happen to agree; swearing an oath to defend the Constitution and then not only abrogating that oath but engaging in conduct to destroy those institutions established by the Constitution is worse than a betrayal; it is an Oathbreaking.
The GD ❤️ button still doesn’t work but I couldn’t agree with you more Robert. I have no problem with hanging the leaders and 20 years should be the absolute minimum for anyone that had any part in what happened on Jan. 6, I could care less if their lives are ruined after what they did to our Capitol.
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.
I want Lindsey taken down. I remember just before the elections, he was in panic mode because he didn't have enough $$ to campaign. He we begging people on Fox to donate. Suddenly. That stopped and he won. I immediately thought that he had been bought for a purpose.
Miz Lindsey comes cheap.
Just a reminder: Trying to demean a man by using words that suggest he is womanish is bigotry in the wrong direction. Funny the ways misogyny slips through without people giving it a second thought. I'm surprised to see it here.
Thank you, Annie!
Of all the things you could get huffy about regarding GOP operatives and you chose to feel defensive of "Miz Lindsey" despite an astounding number of allegations and rumors that he enjoys feeling womanish. It feels like your defense is misguided, when there are many other instances of misogyny that should be defended and aren't.
Women have a right to defend themselves at every instance, especially now in a country and at a time when women's autonomy and protections are being stripped away. Remember, in many states as of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, women will be prohibited from accessing abortion in cases of incest and rape. So, yes, I plan on getting huffy. I am grateful that Annie did.
You’re choosing to equivocate abortion and reproductive rights with misgendering a man. It’s not the same thing, and it’s inappropriate to conflate them. Get huffy about women’s rights, but defending Lindsey Graham in this particular instance is misguided.
I assume you meant "defended AGAINST." But "of all the things" to ATTACK him and other "GOP operatives" for, why a snide reference to (why's everyone afraid to say it?) his being gay, or "effeminate"? Even "sniveling," however well it fits him, is too much a code word not to be a relatively mild form of hate speech. Just stop; that's NOT what's WRONG with him (although of course being "closeted" is warping . . .).
Did Lindsey Graham ever call himself "womanish"? No? Then it's not OK. And when did "allegations and rumors," even in their tens of thousands, ever become a justification for anything?
Totally agree, however that many other instances of misogyny are going unchallenged, starting with the widespread conflation of "sex" and "gender."
Fair point.
Miz Lindsey, indeed! He strikes me as a namby-pamby Norman Bates clone.
Grahams actions are appeals to Koch, Mercer, Murdoch, and the former guy, who guards those purse strings to re-election. ( ultra donors holding campaign funds for all GOP…”Tow the line for Donny or u ain’t getting funding” even if it means breaking election meddling laws.)
He was pleading for $$. It was awful to watch him
I know, like a little worm who so badly wants to hang out with the bigger snakes...
Perfect.
Exactly, Gailee!
Maniacal MM of KY should go down with him!
Oh, how I would LOVE to see MM go down. He’s a disgrace and responsible for our democracy being in such bad shape.
There's been much speculation that Trump has compromising information about Graham. Ever since they golfed together in 2019, Graham has effusively praised him. Maybe one day we'll know.
I wish G. Maxwell would spill the beans on the whole bunch.
Maybe Gislayne has been told, she’s dead the moment she tries that?
I wouldn't be surprised . Could anything turn a cold heart like that?
I hope so. I think it is along the same lines as the information Put has on T
Did Putin give tfg a copy of Graham's pee pee tape too"? Who knows what the hell is going on at Oleg Derigpaska's GOP fundraiser yacht parties in Monoco!
Hate to write this but there is no behavior that seems to get the tires to hit the road
Trump and his cabal have behaved in such disgusting dishonest ways and they yell "fake news" and their followers eat it up
TFG joins the long list of American Demagogues prostituting as leadership. His 4th, 5th, and 6th Bankruptcy are moral ones....the Republican Party, and then democracy itself, then the planet. I was thinking that if Justice Roberts really loved this country and was as wise as he claims, he would/should resign now, and let President Biden appoint a Progressive in his place. Democracy and Planet Earth depend on that one decision. Otherwise, Robert's legacy is just filth, disgrace, and Fascism.
I want him dismissed because of his awful temper and his behavior as a minor oligarch with a major ego.
There is that too. I think it was someone here who compared him to the fish that follow the shark.
And state charges are better than federal charges because the person , if found guilty, cannot be pardoned by the next Republican president.
A presidential pardon for all charged with a federal crime is a certainty when the next Republican president is elected.
It is time to change the powers of presidential pardons. No one who aids and abets the overthrow of the USA can be pardoned. If it were up to me I would do away with pardons completely. It seems like a white-privileged man's get out of jail or be excused of your crime card. Dump it along with all the felonious traitors to our country. Undo all the criminal acts each of them have done to cheat our country and strangle it.
Thanks, Pensa. I couldn't agree more! If a crime has been committed against the democracy such as these being heard, there should be no pardon.
It will require amending Section 2 of Article 2 of the Constitution but it's a good idea. The pardon has been badly abused for at least the last 50 years.
First...Lets get the electoral college junked if there is push for ANY amendment
I suspect there will be some pushback on that but more agreement than not. Removing or modifying the power to pardon should also be a priority.
I want to do it all at the same time. Is that sane? If you have time, could you find out if there are any movements to remove the EC and how we go about that, Joan? If so, I can be contacted at DecencyandDemocracy@gmail.com. (Penelope, VT)
I am very curious as to how we propose to make amendments , because we really need to update everything for this current part of the 21st Century. Do you know the process or do you think there are people already doing this? Does it have to be done by an attorney. Are you one?
:-D !!
I know only what is in the Constitution and am not an attorney, just a student with some background in US History. The last piece of work on any amendment that I'm aware of is/was the Convention of States movement which has been bumping around since about 2010, is sponsored by ALEC and is calling for amendments to "limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, impose fiscal restraints, and place term limits on federal officials." Pursuant to Article 5 of the Constitution, 34 state legislatures must pass resolutions calling for a convention and, so far, 19 have done so including 4 this year after a 3 year hiatus. The earliest of these was passed in 2014 and, as with the Equal Rights Amendment, it is unclear how long the approval remains active. More specific amendments can originate either with the Congress or the states and, while I'm sure there would need to be some legal input, nothing in the original document says anything about that. As cliche as it sounds, I'm going to start by writing my Congressperson, Senators and local paper and see what happens.
Well, this particular task is something I am very interested in and would love to connect with other people about working on getting new amendments. I heard a few days ago that it takes 4 years to get an amendment passed. Yikes, if that is true.
I am in Vermont and will write to my people here are well. If you want to stay connected to compare what we find ou,t or if there are larger orgs already on this, my email is DecencyandDemocracy@gmail.com, and my name is Penelope.
Charge them with any crimes they can be charged with, federal or state. That is appropriate, not anticipating what a future president will do.
Strong doubt that any Republican will be president for decades. Or that any Republican authoritarian candidate chosen can avoid prosecution of a crime involving fraud or seditious conspiracy.
Just sayin’ H.H. Salud. 🗽
Christine- Please don't forget that SCOTUS will be ruling on whether using the concept of Independent State Legislators being able to overrule election results is going to allow Republican majority legislatures to do what #45, Eastman, Jeff Clark, &Giuiani tried to do and some of the RW majority SCOTUS have voiced the idea as being acceptable. If it does allow them to do this, there will no longer be free and fair elections. Please read: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/independent-state-legislature-theory-explained
I was talking with someone who is a lawyer yesterday. They agreed we are under minority rule courtesy of the Supreme Court. I asked them about this upcoming case. We both agreed this is the terrifying one.
President Biden must expand the Court.
More than ever, I’m seeing Biden expanding SCOTUS as the most powerful—and time-limited—opportunity he has to fight back fairly against the slow-roll in-public Republican conspiracy to rewrite the Constitution and impose a permanent minority rule theocracy on America. The Republicans are pulling every unethical, illegal, precedent-trashing stunt possible. In the face of this massive assault on Democracy, Democrats have GOT to quit clutching their pearls and start using *every* legally available tool to fight back, stretching the definition of “legal” as far as Mitch McConnell did when he stole TWO seats on SCOTUS for the Trumpublicans. The Jan6 Committee is already doing a spectacular job within their mandate, of laying out the damning evidence. There is no language in the Constitution limiting the Court to nine justices. There is no fillibuster anymore of Supreme court nominees. The Court has historically been larger at times in the 1800’s, undercutting any Alito-esque argument based on history.
I am now convinced Biden MUST expand the Court while he still can. Questions: Who are the highly qualified nominees that 50 Senate Democrats including Manchin and Sinema would back? After, of course, Biden and Shumer do some in-private Lyndon Johnson arm twisting to persuade them that expanding the Court is wise, legal, urgent, and * serves them personally*? Question 2: Is there time before the midterms? Q3: IF(not when—Dems are working hard to GOTV) the Repubs were to sweep the midterms, could the Dems fillibuster or otherwise head off any Repub effort to impeach and throw out those newly added Justices? Or would the process be productive anyway by starting such a Congressional food fight that Repubs would be diverted from a) impeaching Biden or b) enacting new federal laws to bake in their white, straight, gun-totin’ male theocratic minority-rule agenda, giving Dems time to regroup and beat Repubs in 2024?
I posted this yesterday. It’s radical but how I’d love to see it accomplished. https://gregolear.substack.com/p/53-pick-up?r=6ptqj&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
All are “terrifying”. But I can see how a lawyer would think that is the doozy of terrifying. But the majority opinion which does not represent “we the people, all of us this time”, the judges themselves, are not terrifying to me. They are STILL only one branch of the government. Increasing the court, a move the executive and legislative branch can take, verifies that to me. Our government,our democracy is in place. Yes, under threat, but still in place.
That Court cannot take away my freedoms. Freedom is a state of mind, don’t you know?
Salud, Barbara M snd Barbara Reed. 🗽
Christine. That one branch has literally put the lives of women in danger. It increased the risk of those being arrested to abuse and misrepresentation, it increased the risk of gun violence death. Not just another branch. And not just one lawyer is worried.
"The Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case That Could Gut Voting Rights"
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-case-that-could-gut-voting-rights/ar-AAZ3l5t#:~:text=Supreme%20Court%20Agrees%20to%20Hear%20Case%20That%20Could%20Gut%20Voting%20Rights
"On its way out the door at the end of its fateful 2021–22 term, the U.S. Supreme Court raised alarms by agreeing to hear, when it returns in the fall, Moore v. Harper. The North Carolina redistricting case could wind up all but abolishing the right of state courts to interpret state laws and constitutions in election cases."
Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose.
It is going to take several more Democrats in the U.S. Senate to expand the SCOTUS or get justices who aren't rubber stamps of the Federalist Society. McConnell cetainly will not help Biden.
Is there a "deal" between Biden and McConnell about a federal pro-life judge currently being watched?
It’s important to understand that after only winning 1% of the 1980 Presidential election, Libertarian Charles Koch instituted this long game plan. His plot to steal democracy via procedure. Starting at the county level, then build and retain power in red state legislature, courts, etc. Red state, after red state. This is America after all, where you can buy whatever you want, even democracy if you can afford it.
Koch is really quit amazing. He lost and has spent his life (and money) creating the Liberatarian wing of the Republican party and now has won, The Party is Liberatarian and core philosophy state against federal. My memory isn't all that good, but he invested and created three initiatives I became aware of in the 1990s: ALEC, organizing the Federalist Society as source for all judicial candidates and GOP theology, and created a think tank for training prospective candidate for federal and state legislative offices and for filling executive positions as well. ALEC wrote templates for state legislatures and ran annual training of the up and coming, a reason why so many red states have very repressive laws. While I think him strategic, I wondered why the Democrats didn't draw from his playbook.
Yup.
Read Dark Money.
Read Democracy in Chains
‘An Autocracy, if Charles Koch can afford it’
All his ill-gotten wealth plus all the other scumbag republican elite wealth will never be enough to snuff out American Democracy if the remainder majority votes intelligently
Amen.
I’ve read. And I shrug. I read with a nod what many state courts are doing already in response to SCOTUS rulings. It’s only one branch of the government.
It used to be only one branch until it was packed with ultra Conservatives. This branch has been compromised and invalidated. It has become a political tool of the Christian far right and is systematically issuing judgements designed to roll back the clock to the 1950's.
"The Supreme Court has just essentially ended the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to directly regulate greenhouse gases."
"The Supreme Court ruled that a person cannot sue if police don't read them Miranda warnings. The ruling doesn't overturn Miranda, but limits the enforcement of prosecutorial violations".
Overturn Roe v Wade.
The New York law on concealed carry.
And on and on.
Pseudo-Christian -- the Satanic far Right.
Blatant subverters of all that Christ stood for... an infestation of failed fascist politicians, wolves in sheep's clothing who found tax-free Success complete with well-penned, well-sheared, obedient sheep.
Determined, focused optimism is one of your great strengths Christine. Thank you.
Thank you, Diane. Must be. We are in the fight of our lives in Florida.
Salud, fellow compatriot! 🗽
Well now:
The substantial power of stiff economic sanctions meted out in successful class action civil law suits against those individuals choosing to become such "Independent State Legislators" should easily dampen the enthusiasm of those scumbags believing they have discovered a way to be immune from their anti-American voter corruption. They will be on the hook for millions and possibly billions of dollars.
Let the games begin, Eh!?
e.g.: In America anyone can sue anybody for anything all day long!
I hope Ms Willis then Sue’s Georgia’s voter suppression laws next.
One can only Hope & VOTE!!!
Here’s hoping and praying. 🙏🏻
💕💕💕💕
It would be fitting that Atlanta/Fulton County is where the first conviction happens. In the South, a swing state, where for way to long voter suppression and Gerrymandering has kept it that way.
Thanks for bringing a smile to my face today.
Last I checked Graham is not a Senator representing Georgia. On what possible basis would he be calling election officials in a state he does not live in?
I continue to believe that TFG uses more than intimidation to create "loyalty". I think he uses the old J Edgar Hoover approach. I think TFG has "files" on people.
How else to explain the betrayal of Graham? He and Biden were professional and personal friends. They had dinner together regularly. And then after saying "how can you not like Joe Biden?" Graham slides to the dark side. What does TFG have on the Senator from SC? You can find hints on Google.
I totally agree! And in addition to the intimidation factor, there's always money money money flowing in very specific directions. I think that our children will look back when all this is history and they will be astonished that 'he' got away with so much for so long.... but I do believe that we'll have a front row seat when they pull the 'curtain' aside, and there he stands, completely exposed.
Agree!
I’m not sure I would use the word “he”.
They.
Isn't Graham being blackmailed into his really stupid choices because he lives in fear of his sexual lifestyle being revealed which would be the end of his cushy government dole, Eh!?
I totally agree. I've been saying that for years... I just can't believe that there's never been any evidence, no pictures, no anonymous comments with any weight? Nobody is that good at hiding such a big deal for that long... I've said this for a while, almost since he((Graham cracker) flipped to TFG's side... and I don't mean to suggest that I wish for this ending, but I think he's so riddled with shame and guilt (I'm guessing that he's got some very big closets) that when the walls start to crumble he may very well take a coward's way out. I almost feel sorry for him. Totally spineless...
Ted Cruz, too.
Really!!!🙀
Bingo!
I would say McCarthy did the same! Hummmmm!
It does not escape notice that Ms. Willis is Black. Like Sandy Lewis says, Black women are the key.
Yes! But I also was thinking earlier of all the WOMEN of this country, of any race, who are doing the good, hard job of helping implement the true rule of law…. EXEMPLARY!
And let's not forget Letitia James, the NY attorney general, also Black. Her investigators will be question Trump and his kids Eric and Ivanka on 7-15 in the big civil suit tax case.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/08/trump-and-2-adult-children-set-to-testify-in-new-york-attorney-general-investigation-starting-july-15.html
Letitia James is my hero!!
Everything you said, and your phrase, 'sniveling, fawning support of Trump' is worth $1,000,000!
Thanks
Many are calling for the expansion of SCOTUS. Can we not impeach Kavanaugh for lying to the selection committee? Can we not remove Thomas for not removing himself from cases he has conflicts with?
Yes, in theory. Using the exact same process used to impeach the President. So one guess as to how that might turn out. Better bet to get some balance back into the SC would be to simply add a few more justices.
Heather talked about that in a video just this last week. Made me rethink how I refer to the idea of enlarging the court. Well worth a listen- sorry I can't tell you exactly which date. I often end up missing the live videos and watching later, so lose track of which is which.
She also said there are other things that can be done if expanding the court will lead to instability.
I agree What is going on? It is like there are laws but no teeth
Didn't these justice wannabes lie under oath so they could get the golden ring? Maybe I am misunderstanding something...
One more thing Michael. It's a Black FEMALE prosecutor who may be the first to topple Trump. You know how much respect TFG has for women...
That's a one-two punch for the knockout!
Yes, I especially liked Lindsey being subpoenaed. He is another one I can't stand to hear. Oh yes, a sniveler.
Please someone, a sniveling emoji.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you Michael.
He fears women more intelligent than he is. Which is every women in America except maybe those confused lost souls who continue to support him.
Exactly so.
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.
All the news put together so brilliantly by you, Heather, brings to mind this exceptional poem by Langston Hughes.
“Let America Be America Agaiin”
Langston Hughes - 1902-1967
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 1994 the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used with permission.
Cuts to the core of it, Rowshan like a scythe cutting ripe, golden wheat.
Langston Hughes. A beacon on a lighthouse for me.
Salud, Sister! 🗽
For me, too, Christine. Salud, my sister!
So powerful, and so relevant to our America of today. Thanks, Rowshan! Let’s hope for the good that “America will be!”
Yes, do let’s hope, Rose!
America is already really good and the best place on earth according to over half the proud Citizens abiding in its majestic beauty.
Oh, she's beautiful but flawed.
Hope Lindsay
Perfection only exists in one "Place" and it is Not on earth nor the universe, Eh!?
America remains the best of all other choices!
I would prefer the enlightened Scandinavian/ North Atlantic countries' governments, myself, George. If your logo is the Oregon Ducks, then we are in good agreement for our football teams.
Thank you for posting this poem Rowshan. The words of Langston Hughes are exactly the passionate outrage and inspiration I need to read and reread these days. Thank you ❤️
My pleasure! I find it extremely cathartic, too.
Rowshan, Hughes wrote this poem in 1935, published in 1936. My mom was 18 that year, just starting college. During this period, she discovered Hughes, and had at least two of his earlier books. She memorized this poem in its entirety and occasionally would recite it. Your post with the complete poem brings back the sight of my mother and the sound of her voice as she recited, with emotion, those words.
I might add that my mother was born into a family near the Idaho/Utah border, who quietly kept the secret of their African roots through her mother, whose family originated in Virginia (her father's side were fully Gaelic immigrants). My parents and all their siblings escaped to the West Coast before I was born. I did not realize until I was adult how unusual her knowledge of African American history, politics, music, culture, and even some folkways was. She simply, most of the time, kept quiet, but always shared insights that revealed the depth of her interest. I was told "the story" of the origins of her family in early adolescence, a gift I was told to be proud of and to honor. (My father's side is mixed blood yankee with a side trip to the southern Appalachians, and SW indigenous).
Thank you for the poem, and for sparking this memory of my mother. By her generation, most of my family could and did pass (it was safer). But the story was not hidden, and I am happy that I can show my children photos of their mixed grand and great-grandparents.
What a wonderful family history, Annie! I’m delighted that this poem sparked such a poignant memory❣️
I am humbled, Rowshan. I thought I knew this poem by Langston Huges. But I’ve only been aware of a truncated version of it. When I read it in its entirety, I believe it is the MOST perfect call to my soul today, in this tumultuous moment. If we manage to quell our suicidal drive to kill democracy, we will need to bend our collective knees in thanks to the likes of Langston Huges, James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hammer, etc, etc, etc, for their faith and purpose to hold up the expectation that this American Idea should not die. That it truly is precious and worth facing down the Zombies, and Gangsters.
Absolutely, Elizabeth!
I have taught Hughes for years and, with this poem especially, I see him as the rightful successor to Walt Whitman. Thank you for posting this masterpiece.
WOW! That is one powerful piece. Thank you for sharing it.
Of course, Ellen!
That "America" will never be. Impossible. Colonies and then a country founded on stolen land, enslavement, oppression, greed, and the myth of white supremacy. That foundation permeates every institution, as it has since the beginning. That foundation affects our laws and practices to this day. What explains how a white man could kill seven people and injure 2-3 dozen, evade capture, and be gently arrested with no knees in his back, no officers piled on his body, no shots fired, no barked commands (the officer speaking to him so politely, and clearly, included "do me a favor" in his instructions), no pummeling, no beating with batons, fists, or flashlights, no kicking, no chokeholds? While a Black man who had killed no one, ran from police and was shot at ~90 times, hit at least 60 times. What was left of his bullet-riddled bloody body was delivered with his hands cuffed.
America doesn't have to be made America again. It never changed.
Along with the quotes from Frederick Douglass from yesterday, these words are ever true.
And ever blessed, Ally.
Thank you Rowshan.
A friend sent this to me on the 4th. Powerful writing.
Thank you Rowshan. Perfection.
You’re most welcome, Gail.
“Our right to life is being sacrificed on the altar of the Second Amendment.” So well summarized, Carmen!
Amen The gun violence and deaths from legal assault weapons is astounding. The coup to overthrow the election because he lost the vote is shocking. The elected Senators and Representatives who enabled this coup need to be accountable. As we celebrate our independence my heart was heavy. I can hardly bear to take in how close our Democracy was destroyed and how fragile it is.
McConnell stacking the Supreme Court and refusal to Obama to nominate a Judge but allow Trump to much closer to the election. Are their no ethics left ? Our leaders are role models. It is no wonder we are sinking into an amoral society.
When you read about the violent coup led by the former guy, does it not make you pause that he has NOT been arrested in a middle of the night raid? How many of us could get away with so much evidence and not be held in the klinker for such a high crime against our country and attempted murder of our elected officials and overthrow of our government and interference of our most inalienable right TO VOTE and have it counted?
Pull them in, publicly try them and get rid of the EC and those on our SCOTUS who support the illegal overthrow of our government--in all states and jurisdictions. This is truly a homegrown terrorist plot by a rogue party who have planned this for decades.
Pop-pop-pop! Bang-bang! Bang-boom-bang! deadly assaults and bursts of celebratory explosives, fireworks!
‘… the screaming stopped and the people fled, little Aiden McCarthy remained among the bodies, confused and crying.’
‘… — his parents, Kevin and Irina McCarthy, ages 37 and 35, had been killed in the attack.’
“Nothing feels safe anymore,”
“We are cut off from one another and from the past.”
“We’re in a moral panic: ‘Will anyone pick up the phone if I call for help?’
“…People don’t see a way out.” (WAPO) See link below.
‘Landscape architects carefully laid out Highland Park, Ill., over a century ago as a leafy retreat, drawing generations of Chicago residents seeking safety and quiet. Jewish families, unwelcome in other suburbs up and down the North Shore, made this suburb their home, opening synagogues, kosher butcher shops and a golf club. It was always affluent, and still is, but leaders have made efforts to promote the building of affordable housing. When consumers started driving westward for giant shopping centers by the expressway, Highland Park focused on revitalizing its downtown.’
‘And it worked. The town is small at about 30,000 people, but in many ways felt even smaller. Neighbors became friends in downtown shops and congregations. Chicago, just 25 miles away, struggled with a spiking murder rate and the nation endured mass shooting after mass shooting. Yet in Highland Park, there was not a single murder from 2000 to 2020, according to crime statistics from the F.B.I., and the rate of all violent crime was less than a quarter of the rate statewide.'
‘…on Monday, the city that had carefully planned for over a century to be a haven in an often chaotic world, became a scene of breathtaking violence like so many other places around the country.’ (NYTimes) See link below.
***
https://wapo.st/3ImgLAb
https://wapo.st/3AuqXVj
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/05/us/highland-park-chicago-shooting.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DKDm4fiPkORIiB9EfJbKxvIsM6xTfeT99AO7YgQ7lpzuhYI01rRE-ovp6A0twjEhkClLiSDCkwzo6fGvcx6yPrZW20b-wmnuTgtRvXdWK7WaLA1SUqLBJu8pA1aV6o3HEDxviURuNxj8Jsnqt0XuAMTjwKYyWMuPPtGk8-bI3ANkeAn1FwD-JJWjjTnsqe7aYCd2hRCVHARHB86AUs-Y8WeYNXbOukcUlWKIepiq4RC2doMI6jG5Q2IoDXnLhhurbHwgee58-jShCH_-w5xIy0JGlYDg&smid=url-shar
The whole situation was (continues to be!) heart breaking, but that couple who died protecting their two-year-old toddler with their own bodies is more than what any compassionate human being should be willing to consider acceptable! All these murders of innocents (all the bloodshed!) should be on the conscience of the Republicans willing to protect “the rights” of assault weapon owners! May they lay restlessly awake every night for the rest of their lives…
ALAS, they have NO CONSCIENCE!
Amen!
Until everyone is safe, no one is safe. Until we mourn all lives lost to violence, regardless of how frequently or infrequently, our violence will continue. Until we acknowledge and rectify our indifference to some lives, and our immediate sympathy and aching for others, our violence will continue. Until everyone is safe, no one is safe.
Reading this, I cried while waiting in our local DMV. What a world... :’-(
I am sick my stomach. That little boy is scarred forever. We all are.
We are cut off from one another and from the past. That’s it in a nutshell. From the past, most definitely. From one another in our country but also from the rest of the world. Does the rest of the world really exist? We act as though only we exist.
We cut ourselves off from one another and from our past.
We are being sacrificed on the altar of gun manufacturer profits, more so than the 2nd amendment.
An argument that I get is that vehicles kill more people than firearms do. I counter that argument with vehicles are not designed for that purpose; firearms are. All modern firearms are designed to kill. Some will argue from a hunter's standpoint that rifles and shotguns are necessary to the taking of game, be it fowl or mammal. This is true, although my bowhunting friends will correctly note that it is not mandatory, only easier to use a firearm.
Handguns are designed to be easily carried and to kill. One does not hunt game with a handgun (although it can be done). Semi-automatic rifles with small caliber are not designed for game, but they are much easier to shoot accurately (and much less painfully) than large bore rifles. Large capacity magazines are not designed for game. They are designed to allow the shooter to fire many rounds of ammunition in rapid fire. This is not the pretext of hunting. It is the pretext of effective combat against a human enemy, as noted by the types of wounds in evidence at both Uvalde and Highland Park.
If someone points out that handguns kill more people than semi-automatic rifles do, it is likely because there are more handguns owned by more people than semi-automatic rifles. A 2012 breakdown showed that there were 72 million handguns and 76 million rifles (not broken down by type of rifle; we know from more recent studies there are 20 million semi-automatic rifles that are currently owned by US citizens) so I think it is safe to say that the number of handguns exceeds the number of semi-automatic rifles.
Plus most vehicle deaths are accidental, not intentional.
Good point!
Plus, vehicles are made to get a person from Point A to Point B. Like Rose said, they are not used to intentionally kill. Only the driver’s intent is held responsible.
"They could have used a deer hunting rifle". Yes, they could but they never do. They use some version of the AR15 because as you pointed out, they are easier to shoot and more accurate, have much larger magazines, and kill people more effectively.
Since 2012 The numbers of owners of ALL types of guns has exploded
You are writing about the good olde days
I used the 2012 stats for general ownership, and 2022 stats for AR-15 ownership...
You're right; I believe that gun ownership doubled during the Obama presidency.
Why not agree with those “apologists/supporters” and admit that both things can be true at once. So an assault weapons ban will deal with this aspect of our gun violence problem. What is wrong with that? Gun violence is a Hydra-Headed problem.
Sadly I've heard that argument a lot
Pardon mr d017, nothing personal, but I vomit the words "sad" and "sadly" uttered every day by American mouths.
Drumpf used those words daily, hourly -- and at the time I could only point out that there is nothing "sad" about crime or criminals, vile, evil, any number of adjectives but not "sad"...
"Sad" sounds so wet, so passively accepting of the unacceptable.
Let us rage against the unacceptable, smite its champions, put them in the only place where their presence is acceptable. Behind bars.
Hooray for you Peter, The voice of an American ready, willing, and able to fight for American Democracy's freedom to vote!
Thank you!
I don't have that honor, George, I'm a Brit.
But the whole world lies downstream of American democratic freedom to vote.
Bravo!
Well said, Peter!
..."on the altar of the (Originalist interpretation) of the Second Amendment."
I would add that it is the Right's current, popular interpretation of the Second Amendment. And they would do that [interpret a "rule" to bend their way] to any amendment or law they can get their hands on or send to their stacked, unethical Supreme Court. The wheels of justice are grinding slowly, yes, but they are indeed grinding.
One hopes!
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.
Gee, I wonder what it might be that was the difference between them. I wonder yes I wonder, no I don't. The piece of shit "police" - who are the best arguments about firing every cop in America and starting over from scratch - are the problem. As has been the "unreformable" LAPD through the 50+ years I have watched them be "reformed" for a few years until the newly hired "bad apples" again taint the barrel. And you can tell that story about every police department in the damn country.
I hate to say this as a veteran, but I will bet any amount of money that the murderers are Iraq/Afghan vets - they learned all the wrong lessons kicking down doors and killing people knowing they were "untouchable" and if anyone started an investigation of them they'd be whizzed away by their military superiors to safety. And they got taught by the war criminals of my generation who learned their trade "killing gooks" in all the un-publicized My Lais that happened every month in every province of the entire war.
Amen to that. You and I are of an age, probably the most privileged generation that has ever been (certainly in the UK with free university - no longer though, health, etc), and we can only stand back in horror at the destruction of what we enjoyed. And it is being destroyed by old white men like us...We must put faith in the younger generation, and we must all VOTE
And hope our votes count. As Stalin reportedly said, it matters not who votes, it matters who counts the votes. Republican orthodoxy
It will no longer count if SCOTUS puts election outcomes in the hands of State Legislations.
Not so!
Solution:
Class action civil law suits holding personally accountable all those participating at any level in this phony B. S. "Independent State Legislators" hog wash!
The so called supreme court is now a debauched embarrassment to America's legal system. The liberals, if they possess a spine should walk off the "Bench" en masse in protest...but they won't.
You can dislike them all you want George it as it stands at the moment we are under minority rule. Class action suits against who? And what happens to an election outcome meanwhile?
Good idea, the walk-off. Do you know any organization voicing that?
Exactly. The vote has been rigged.
It takes all of us, doing what we can. Ideally working together, young, middle-aged, old, everyone. The "we" who created current conditions need to pitch in as much as anyone. We need everyone.
Being older, with a good memory can be a curse sometimes. For every memory of a valiant and unselfish act, there are ten plus of evil acts to balance out. Our scales are heavily weighted to evil in my lifetime.
So true - unfortunately.
The drug they have all taken is white supremacy. Their minds have been infiltrated by the “power” of the white man. My Lai was tragic and Calley was the military’s scapegoat. He was a little man with a big gun. The military put him in charge. He directed his men to shoot and kill innocent Vietnamese women, men, and children. Vile and cruel, yet, Calley was the perfect brainwashed soldier. Like those in the Armed Services, these murderers have been influenced by the rhetoric and by the 2nd Amendment. They are just ignorant about its real meaning and what it meant for that time period, not beyond. TC, my husband is a Vietnam vet (68-69), fought in the Mekong Delta. .
Ditto, elements of the LA County Sheriff's Department.
Riverside county’s sheriff was an oath keeper.
Can't heart this. But the incivility by our civil servants is atrocious. I know a couple of young men who wanted to be cops (at 17 yrs old) so they could learn to shoot and carry glocks at their job. One actually bought a glock after his 18th birthday, from Walmart, where they used to buy legos. He and his friend took it home and were fiddling with it and it went off, shooting a hole through the wall into the next apartment where a brand new baby was sleeping. It did not hit the baby, l but when I heard the story, it hit my heart how ridiculous it is that you can buy a glock as easily as you can buy legos. You cannot drive a car without training and a test because it can be a dangerous weapon. But a gun? WTF is this power/fear thing?
We need better role models, civility, civics, critical skills, social justice and parent training courses in middle and high school. Kids can access tons of information now in our information age, what they cannot access and see enough of are intelligent adults to learn from. Just look at the guy down the road with his house- sized F-Biden and trump flags lining on either side of his front door. And he stared out his door as if to taunt and see people's reactions. I wonder if he is the guy pacing a few weeks ago on our Main St. carrying a trump flag and and Ak weapon.
It was mentioned above that political correctness died with trump. These idiots need to have citations for harassment and bullying and spreading fear. Children are watching. We are watching. The internet is a propaganda machine for these kinds of vulnerable people.
In yesterday's comments thread, I wrote about this at length and in great detail. I wrote about the function of fear under the new, dysfunctional regime, the oligarchic tyranny that is ousting democracy... while we watch.
Anyone who agrees with any aspect of what I wrote is welcome to cannibalize it... or to reprint in toto.
Those words are yours now. But, of course, if anyone misuses or misrepresents them, I may bite back...
Oh, Peter, I will search for what you wrote, cannot wait to cannibalize it! Or you could repost it here?? :-)
Thank you.
Pensa, there’s a guy, not in my neighborhood, but near a friend’s home who has Trump crap plastered all over his lawn. He isn’t a young man but an older fellow. I’m thinking he’s quite the white supremacist whose white robe and hood are in his closet. At Christmas, last year, somebody knocked out his lights that spelled out “Trump”. I laughed because i thought that was great. But sure enough, that crazy bastard fixed his sign in days. I bought a towel that I was going to throw over his signs that reads “Merry Christmas Asshole”! Might find the courage to do it this year.
Oh, Marlene! I want to go and rip down that kind of stuff, too. But the way that guy I witnessed last week pacing in his doorway made me think he was the Ak-14 or 47 guy that my boyfriend saw a few weeks ago pacing on the street in our village with his trump flag. The fear they promote is real and dangerous. So, I would advise you to be very careful. These are not very hinged people. But you could post a sign into the ground in the night that says "LOVE" or "LOVE THY NEIGHBOR DESPITE THEIR FASCIST TENDENCIES!" :-D.
Yes, yes, yes!
The elected County Sheriff, accountable to no one above that office, has to be abolished.
🤬🤬🤬🤬
LASD makes the LAPD look like "the Choirboys." Those deputy gangs they have are indistinguishable from the gangs they're supposed to be dealing with.
The difference may be that they have second hand military equipment like helmets and body armor.
LA County Human "Resources" (HR) has major major issues as well. Currently being sued by "LACERA" for breach of fiduciary duties over control of about 85 Billion of retirement assets.
Trust me, I could go on from now to eternity about everything wrong in Hell Lay, as I call this place. Every mayor comes in with people happy to see him and leaves with "don't let the door hit you on the way out, moron." Hopefully Karen Bass will prove at least not so awful. The only two LA politicians I really like are Adam Schiff and my congressman, Brad Sherman.
I have a large framed cartoon on my writing office wall, "A Map of Hollywood." 40 years ago, I ran across the artist, an old silent movie actor, who was selling prints of the original he'd done in 1928 in a park, and bought it. There are all these little dialogue bubbles out of the houses, and when you read them (written back in 1928, bear in mind), every last one of them could have been said this morning. The only thing that's changed since Julius Epstein told me about sitting in his car at Sunset and Cherokee with his brother, and they're trying to figure out the end of Casablanca, and he looks around at the people on the street and says "Round up the usual suspects!" is that the clothing and hair styles and the kinds of cars on the street are different. I always say, Chinatown was a documentary.
Reading recent articles about them, these cisterns of corruptions sound like the embodiment of political mob bosses being run by their militarized and gangs in uniform.
LA, Baltimore, where else?
San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, St Louis, Akron, Cincinatti, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, the list is too damn long.
The killing machine around the world came home a while ago. It didn't only grow the military and protect the wrongdoing of the police, the country also withheld support for families; imprisoned Black men as it fought the War on Drugs; encouraged White Supremacy; bolstered myths of American superiority; killed the unions; rigged the economic system, so that the rich were not deprived; guns and the 2nd Amendment reign, and the USA is never, ever even a breadth away from misogyny. And then there are the LIES; remember the Cherry Tree, just ask Donald J. Trump about it.
Yes yes and YES!
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Yes, TC, and that probably accounts for but does not excuse the fact that so many Jan. 6 participants in the attack on our democracy were US veterans. That brutal training never goes away and lies just beneath the surface, ready to reengage without much provocation.
👍🏼
Joan, part of the training is to regard the “enemy” as less than human.
This may be the problem with our returning American Military Heroes.
For the most part the recruits begin as rather naïve in dealing with life threatening violence.
True some should never have been allowed to posses a weapon of any configuration.
So they go to boot camp and learn how to kill and how to prevent others from killing them.
They become indoctrinated and dependent upon "Chain-Of-Command" coping with living.
They all, to some degree or another, experience that which no human should never be exposed too.
Then, their "Tour" of duty completed they are discharged to be automictically integrated back into civilian society.
Tossed out into the frenzy of survival while a lot are suffering from various trauma.
They are at a loss not living under Chain-Of-Command being told what to do every moment of the day & night. Living in fear and depression they begin to rely upon alcohol, drugs, etc.
The VA expects to remedy their problems in just a few months. Very unrealistic and totally ineffective.
The solution:
Every Military member must be released into a "Reverse-Boot-Camp"
There is no artificial time limit for rehabilitation success before reintegration. Each member is an individual diagnosis and is cared for as an individual for as long as it takes to undo the habits & behaviors drilled into them. Plus they are trained into a career of their choosing until proficient.
Then any former Military member enlisting into law enforcement will be more able to perform according to the way society demands today.
Eh!?
t
I went to a training class some years ago that talked about modern military training, and how it is designed to create an environment where the soldier can be an "effective combatant" which meant, essentially, "mission at all costs." He then provided a scenario where he was dealing with a single components of moral injury with one individual infantryman; a soldier having to choose whether to kill a 10 year old girl with a detonation vest on who was walking towards the front gate where she routinely brought flowers to the guards or allowing her to continue to the gate and allow the remote detonation that would both kill her and his comrades.
You are spot on in suggesting a "reverse boot camp" for those exiting military service, especially combat service.
Deprogramming. Think about the source of that term, and the truth of it in this context.
With all its awful implications.
What???
I love the idea of “Reverse Boot Camp”.
In fact, George, the Armed Services, have long planned these home grown militias. In my heart, those who have been maimed or murdered should be entitled to sue their city, county, state, and the 6 SC justices who thought giving guns to young folks was a good idea! And let’s not stop there, let all women who become pregnant due to rape, do the same.
Great idea!
Thanks.
"Reverse-Boot-Camp" YES!!!
'Jesus, was anybody paying attention? The police seem to have done everything that the law allowed, but how does his father sign off on a firearm permit months after his sword-wielding son announces that he intends to “kill everyone”? All of this reinforces the notion that Crimo was an unfulfilled rage monster waiting for the right moment, which came down the street earlier this week. Of course, as he was an unfulfilled rage monster, there are photos of Crimo with various paraphernalia associated with the previous president*, but above all it was simply enabled, most recently by the United States Supreme Court, by an enfeebled political system completely incapable and unwilling to cope with this country’s insane attachment to its firearms.'
'Vice President Kamala Harris was in Chicago on Tuesday, talking some common sense that seems as remote from our current political reality as the mountains of the moon.'
'... a speech to the National Education Association in Chicago, Harris proposed some specifics as to how we can all get smarter.'
“We have more to do. We have more to do. Congress needs to have the courage to act and renew the assault weapons ban,” Harris told a group of educators at the National Education Association conference at McCormick Place in Chicago. “We need reasonable gun safety laws. And we need to have Congress stop protecting those gun manufacturers with the liability shield. Repeal it. Repeal it.”
'The liability shield is absurd public policy emerged from the same bought-and-paid-for political system that made it possible to allow an effective assault weapons ban to lapse quietly simply because the White House changed hands. Neither of these outcomes makes any damn sense at all except as gifts to the armaments industries. Of course, neither does signing off on your kid’s gun purchase after he’s already tried to kill himself and threatened to kill everyone else. This is a thoroughgoing insanity from which it will take decades to recover, assuming we even want to do so.' (Esquire)
Thank you FERN. MSNBC Reporting at 11 am Today that the Murderer checked out another Target in Wisconsin with 60 rounds but, backed off.
It is so very simple!!!
Gun/rifle purchase without specific licensing issuance + annual renewal testing and stiff fees, (just like driver's training and licensing), for every person prior to purchase IS INSANITY, Eh!?
1) Fern, every single solitary person should have to have a clean, thorough background check, and 2) they have to wait 6 mos. to get the final approval to get a gun. 3) Must be age 25. 4) Limit the ammo 5) The sale of AK’s and any other assault weapons must be banned from the face of our world. 6) Permit gun manufacturers to be sued by every person maimed or killed. 7) The military must incorporate a kind of detoxification plan for soldiers returning from being in a war zone. 8) STOP ALL WARS
What about repealing the 2nd Amendment?
That too!! Hell yeah!
Once again, CPP "gets it" perfectly.
TC, 'CPP', please spell it out. 'Commission on Police Practices'?, 'Certified Protection Professional' ? I know that you weren't referring to the 'Communist Psychos Party'.
How I hate this truth yet LIKE the truth-telling.
"The truth will set you free."
That is what makes lies, the Father of Lies... and his Apprentice... so important.
Even if they aren't GWOT Veterans, they were doubtless taught by and trained by those Veterans (almost all of the rangemasters for our local agencies are military Veterans; a high percentage are also "survival skills" instructors and trainers (think hands on control measures, non-firearms weapons).
Police are there to control Black, brown and anyone else not in line with white males. There are videos of police savagely beating peaceful protests against the overturn of Roe. I think LAPD are one of the forces so filmed.
In this case, TC, you are wrong- at least in the direct sense. This was a young man, barely out of adolescence. But you still could be right in the influence that some combat soldiers returning to a society for which they are not longer fit have on that society.
Our soldiers are no longer citizen veterans, but professional soldiers, some drawn to the military because they were raised to consider that a duty, others because they felt they had no other options, some because they saw an opportunity (the recruiters lie), and some because they were seeking a way to express the anger and resentment they already carried. They are not drafted, and try to fit a normal life within the confines of a career that is isolated inside a culture separate from the ones they grew up in. Some fail at even that, and when they come out, they may seek each other out to find the over-masculinized, hierarchical culture focused on violence they now feel comfortable in. Or they may seek out healing. I suspect that those who do that have a support system in place, and are trying to reconnect with the young person they once were.
But back to the 21 year old in this instance. This whole story reveals the Other Lie promoted by those who want to direct attention away from the gun problem. That lie is that the problem is solely one of a failure of mental health services. It is not. This young man had mental health problems, and those were addressed by concerned family members, by the police within their legal constraints, and by mental health professionals- who, to be clear, are not able to predict which troubled person is going to go on to become a shooter. Because most don't. And in this case, if there were a meaningful waiting period and if combat-style guns were illegal, this ugly incident could have been avoided. Someone is going to say something about knives and handguns. Those have issues, too, but do not have the capacity for the kind of carnage and destruction of the combat-style guns.
I know this is like preaching to the choir, here with you all. I'm not trying to harangue anyone. All these things are factors in what is happening in American society right now.
But we can go on and on about why and what, and in the meantime, there are more mass shootings, while we dither about doing the one thing we can do RIGHT NOW to give us some breathing space: BANNING assault rifles and MANDATING an across the board waiting period for ALL guns, no matter where and how sole. That will give us some breathing space to meaningfully take on those other factors. The sooner the better.
And yeah, taking on the kinds of attitudes that permit police to think it's ok to fire 60 bullets into a man they "think" "might be" armed is one of those things.
oh yes.
:’-(
And that man had threatened repeatedly to kill people and was described as “armed and extremely dangerous”. Same as for Kyle Rittenhouse.
To hear the name Rittenhouse before I’ve fortified myself with morning coffee is stomach turning and downright scary. That Rittenhouse, I’m sorry but a snot nosed, sick kid came away a hero, just blows my mind. His is the “courage” one gets when openly carrying a gun . . . an assault rifle no less. It makes me want to ring my hands and cry at the prejudice and hate in so many. Sorry for the rant y’all - I better go get my coffee
So powerfully stated.
Heather daily catelogues events that will become a mapping of the 21st century history of America ... and how it got to what it seems to be becoming; a reflection of what it once promised to be.
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?
"Christofascists" is the term Heather used yesterday in her politics chat. First time I heard it, sadly not the last:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Christofascism
https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2009/6/6/736685/-
If I shrug, it won’t be because I am “going along with it”. It will be with some disdain that I shrug at the absurdity of the theatrics created to distract people from our responsibilities of democracy and the common good.
Salud, Laura. 🗽
❤️❤️❤️
Thanks for this, keep repeating it, blast it from loudspeakers, keep spreading the truth! Never let up.
They have managed to take the 'civil' out of civilization.
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...
Optimism? Lord, a dying position, but one I sign on to.
Not optimistic or pessimistic.
Let us have faith now, and unshakeable determination!
Me too.
I raise my coffee cup to you Sandy. I so hope your optimism is well founded.
I do so hope you are right. Thank you.
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!!!
They (automatic weapons) are banned, and have been for decades. AR-15s are semi-automatic, but they can be fired nearly as quickly as an automatic weapon (and if you know anything about tool-making, turned into a fully automatic weapon - a machine gun - with little effort). Bump stocks did that, or nearly so, but they have also been banned.
The problem is the damage done by the high-velocity rounds that are used: they're only .223 caliber, but they do so much more damage to the body than an even larger (7.62 mm) round that used to be NATO standard because of that high velocity. These weapons have only one purpose: to kill humans, in as efficient and quick a manner as possible. There is absolutely no justification for the citizenry to possess them. But how do we get the estimated 20 million of them off the streets of the United States?
Bumpstocks didn't get banned, they only got "promised" to be banned and you know how much a Republican "promise" is worth.
Precisely!
I had always understood that these projectiles were banned by the Geneva Conventions -- for what that isn't worth.
So why can what's banned in war be brought into American households?
All politicians and judges with a say in the regulation (or deregulation) of these things must be brought to the morgue to witness their handiwork. Even if that means running the gauntlet of victims' families, friends, neighbors.
In my fantasies, there is some liberal billionaire who makes an offer they can't refuse and buys them all back. Melts them down. Gone gone gone.
If you have the time, this is a fascinating read regarding the development of the AR-15:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/
Fascinating, indeed. Illuminating on several fronts. The blase atmosphere around development of weapons of destruction. The near-total ignorance of decision-makers who passed on their incompetence to young soldiers in a situation not of their choosing, simply trying to survive. The inability of both military leaders and elected officials to have an impact on entrenched and isolated military bureaucrats to make contact with reality. I ached as I read this, and had to set it aside for awhile when it reached the mid-60s. One of my brothers, floundering after high school, joined the military. An accident following basic training resulted in a medical discharge. By that time, he'd been contacted by former schoolmates returned from the mess that was Viet Nam already, who told him the truth about what he'd narrowly escaped. I knew, too, from the young men I met in college who just needed to talk. I cannot imagine that anybody came out of that war without some kind of damage: physical, emotional, spiritual damage.
None of the Viet Nam era veterans escaped without damage, especially those who served in the latter stages of the conflict. The same is true of many GWOT veterans; the difference being (if I may bastardize a term of theirs) In 'Nam, all served some; in the Sandbox, few served much. (The term, in case you're unfamiliar with it is "all gave some, some gave all). I use it because with the draft and a basic term of one year combat service, there are a lot of combat veterans from 'Nam. In the 20 years of an all volunteer GWOT, a tiny fraction of the population served; many served multiple tours in multiple countries.
Excellent observation, Ally. That difference in numbers would further isolate the majority of Americans from the people who serve in the military. Even the media misses this one. When I lived near several large west coast military bases, local papers would often cover some of the difficulties that enlisted personnel often faced in the largely volunteer services. The divide worked both ways: they were largely invisible to the rest of us, and behind the walls of military culture, they often felt misunderstood and unappreciated. And I can't say they were wrong. With the increased attention to impacts of military action on earlier generations, there seems to be more awareness of the increased load of today's military. But the media still seems to focus more on funding, and the military now is represented more than ever by the Pentagon.
Yes, I remember the saying "Some gave some; some gave all". I was a volunteer with Vets Against the War back in the day, and knew quite a few vets from Nam. It was part of our culture.
And later, as GW's war & sequals got underway, I got to know vets from the middle east wars. Very different. Damaged in a different way, I think. Some would come to anti-war vigils to challenge protesters in a very in-your-face way, sometimes ugly. The local VFW was appalled by this, and withdrew their folks to distance their vets from the chip-on-the-shoulder guys. Now I see the same kind of thing in some of the "militias" that include a large number of vets. It's unnerving.
I think that this (if I may use the term) militant reaction of GWOT Veterans is a reflection of what happens in an all-volunteer military. It ends up missing the diversity of a universal draft military.
If I were queen of the world, there would be a mandatory service commitment of two years beginning either after HS graduation or commencing on the 18th birthday. That service could be military, peace corps, or a CCC-type public service construction/restoration; that service should take the person to another part of the country from where they grew up.
The current SCOTUS are trained dogs for the Federalist Society's money.
Not including the three justices that still think for themselves outside the Heritage Foundation's money.
They are not "corrupt". That would imply they think for themselves, then make a corrupt choice.
The far right justices are simply paid automatons for the Federalist Society.
By any definition they are the enemy of any claim we have to democracy
That was before cheating became the standard for republicans
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.
Shock me TC, chump has killed way more than the unidentified person on 5th Avenue. He’s aiming for Hitler or Stalin stats. BTW, Putin is trying to stay ahead.
And let’s talk about Covid, shall we? Over a million dead. Many were Repubs. They won’t be around to vote.
OK, I am shamelessly going to steal "road apple that doesn't fall far from the horse's ass."
I did not know all this. Great post. Thanks.
I live in a Chgo suburb. I have not seen this. Thank you TC I'm forwarding this info on to others.
Assuming this can be verified, it should be listed as a motivating factor, like racial animus or other hate crimes. Can you cite your source?
Cite your source? Which one? Robert Crimo qualified as candidate and ran for mayor of Highland Park in 2019 and lost to Democrat supporting gun control measures. Here’s one article of many that are emerging. https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/us-news/2022/07/05/62c4a1cd268e3ecb028b4572.html
Thank you. This deserves to be in every news story about this dreadful event. “Trump supporter murders people showing their patriotism on July 4”. As the trump supporters do, figuratively, every day.
Just google (or Duck Duck Go) Bobby Crimo II and you'll have pages
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 doing this. I, too, am an election worker and want as many good ppl as possible doing this job. (The election officer assigned to my precinct in May, a nice enough man, was a conspiracy adherent!)
Lordy, just what we need, cult nuts can be nice as pie and as dangerous as TNT. What more proof do we need?
Yay! I've been a poll worker a few times and use the stipend to pay for stamps and postcards to write GOTV for various campaigns.
💜💙❤
Thank You Sharon!!
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.
Was it the speech by Frederick Douglas?
Yes.
May all those seditionists come to reckoning
Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple - who will do it today ...?
Been wondering that since Ronnie…
A big whoop ass reckoning.
Salud, Kim. 🗽
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.
100%, just one photo of a little mangled body should hang around the neck of every republican, every last one.
To the best of my knowledge, the AR15 gun nuts have never actually seen the mangled remains of a child killed in this manner. Perhaps they should. Dr Guerro, the only pediatrician in Uvalde said one of the kids had been nearly decapitated. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/uvaldes-only-pediatrician-shares-horror-treating-school-shooting-victi-rcna31045
Perhaps a full color photo should come with every purchase.
Or be displayed behind every counter.
Every gun store in order to be licensed should be made to display poster sized photos of what these guns do to a person. I suppose the problem with that idea is where will they get the photos, families of the victims don’t want photos of their loved ones demise posted all over the country, much less the internet where they would be bound to end up.
I wonder: would it be a deterrent to those seeking to buy an assault rifle? Or a confirmation?
I wonder if any of the parents could have the courage, anger.....whatever you might call it..of Emmet Till's mother and put that image out for every Senator to face?
Take the time to read this Atlantic article. It is worth the time.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/
Yechk! Not the best reading before breakfast. But thank you for the link. Wow.
There should be a total ban on all assault weapon purchases. Unfortunately, pictures, background checks, red flags, age requirements are useless to those who want these weapons that are made for the sole purpose to blow things and people to pieces. There is no such thing as a “responsible” gun owner who want these weapons of war.
It is long overdue for law abiding citizens to take back Congress, the SCOTUS and our right to live without fear, discrimination, and harassment. We are now so far behind working on climate change, education, health care, food and housing security while we pander to the lowest common denominator in this country.
I used to look forward to taking my S. Sudanese grandkids to various events once the pandemic lifted. Their parents and I are more hesitant now and I think twice about where we go. Some states are “safer” but the reality is guns and batshit crazy travel and it is all random.
"Barbara D. Reed -- I have tried 3 times to edit this comment and tried to delete it as well-unsuccessfuly."
Perhaps you were looking for this: https://www.mediaite.com/news/doctor-describes-pulverized-decapitated-bodies-from-robb-elementary-school-in-horrifying-house-hearing-on-gun-reform/
“𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘐’𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘢𝘺. ... 𝘈𝘴 𝘐 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘸𝘢𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦, 𝘐 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳. 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦. 𝘛𝘸𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘣𝘶𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘩 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘤𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥-𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘭𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮, 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘦,”
And gun people howled at McMuffin for signing it. They have no idea what is in the bill, they just snarl that their rights are being taken away.
And, everyone else says "see we did something" but nothing was done.
Exactly.
A crumb, a useless crumb
My thoughts exactly
“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.
And so long as cops are organized as they are and rewarded as they are, no amount of "reforms" will ever amount to a hill of beans. The LAPD has been "reformed" six times since I was an uninvited guest of honor at their first "police riot" at Century city 55 years ago last week, and the new bad apples rot the barrel just like the old bad apples did.
Tell us more TC. What happened?
Here's what my Google search turned up:
https://againstthecurrent.org/atc028/la-police-riot/
Holy sh*t. I don’t remember this. Just awful. Thank you for the resource!
It's almost as if the police were on some weird drugs.
The power and fear cocktail.
Ahhh. I have avoided this cocktail as too risky.
We should be shocked. And we are, but weren’t those the terrible years of the Watts Riots, Rodney King? Police brutality. In a college psych class long ago we discussed personality and vocational choices on a career or personality aptitude test. Like the Meyers Briggs or a Jungisn personality test. Maybe it looked like this: a continuum: on one end is police person, on the other end, criminal tendencies. I’m just reporting, not “agreeing.” Maybe there’s more training and assessment now compared to those unenlightened days.
https://www.google.com/search?q=career+aptitude+test+continuums&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-us&client=safari
Interestingly, cops and crooks have very similar MMPI scores.
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.
Nixon had some measure of honor and patriotism in him , despite his many crimes domestically and his war crimes which were as yet , unknown at the time.
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?
Jail in a windowless 8x10 on the third sub-basement of the Florence Supermax, where they have to pump air in to him, and he wastes away with no one paying him any attention whatsoever - the perfect punishment for his worthless ass.
8 x 10 is pretty generous for the likes of him
As the tail of invented originalist constitution, may there be originalist jails for some?
I added comment last week to one of Heather's pieces in which she stated how the seditionists evoking 1776 were quite the opposite. I added that, opposite of the Declarers who faced imminent prospect of hanging for their convictions/actions (a couple were jailed in St. Augustine and not hanged, however, John Adams for one was clearly on the "will hang no matter what" list), these mooks fully expected to get away with a slap on the wrist or scot-free. I say not no, but HELL NO. I say hang the ring leaders (seriously, not out of some blood thirst; out of the absolute necessity of it relative to national security. But I'm not delusional--I know no one will die for this. And we'll likely come to regret it), put the next group (I'll guess 50-100) in jail for 50-to-life; give the commoners 20 years minimum, just for stepping inside the Capitol Building. When it comes to sedition, conspiracy and treason, I am merciless. Does anyone think a brainless coward like Marjorie Taylor Greene would've done a darned thing if she knew she'd hang? Uh, no...and precious few others either. This can NEVER happen again.
Speaking of originalists (high-minded-sounded sophistry for "people who cannot think complexly"), wanna know the ONLY crime spelled out in the good ol' Constitution? Treason. And it immediately defines it as the same as being at war against the country. That means a combatant. That means, if you are a ringleader, "you are absolutely eligible to die." It really is that simple for me, and I won't walk it back or apologize to anyone. These people tried to destroy our country--what is worse than that?
Well said, sir. I note that the "originalists" seem to pick and choose what they think was important. How does the 2nd half of the 2nd Amendment become more important than the first half, which states the freaking REASON for the second half?
Your closing sentence is unanswerable, Robert, save in one respect: not only did these people try to destroy the country, they are continuing to do so, day in, day out, with no small success.
This only strengthens your powerful argument; yet I am opposed to the death penalty -- to no small extent out of the conviction that these criminals have condemned themselves to far worse and cannot escape the consequences of their actions.
Absent this reasoning, someone else would have to counter your argument -- I cannot.
The only thing I could add is my memory of the somewhat hypocritical arrangement that used to be applied in Belgium, whereby a criminal was condemned to death but the sentence was automatically commuted to life imprisonment.
Thank you Mr. McTague, for your beautiful words. I have felt the same rage at these shameless seditionists and the treasonist-in-chief and agree with you 100%.
There is no worse crime than betrayal of the Constitution, the citizens and the nation one is elected to serve than by an attempted coup and a refusal to participate in the 244 year tradition of peaceful transfer of power.
I happen to agree; swearing an oath to defend the Constitution and then not only abrogating that oath but engaging in conduct to destroy those institutions established by the Constitution is worse than a betrayal; it is an Oathbreaking.
The GD ❤️ button still doesn’t work but I couldn’t agree with you more Robert. I have no problem with hanging the leaders and 20 years should be the absolute minimum for anyone that had any part in what happened on Jan. 6, I could care less if their lives are ruined after what they did to our Capitol.
Yes. This. Imagine if DOJ charged Treason.
Nothing is worse than that, we saw it with our own eyes, way more than once. We do have tape, you know
Yep.
Salud, Robert. 🗽
Mr. McTague, I agree with every word you have written!
I still think Trump and Putin should be cellmates! They’d be the perfect match.
Helsinki told us
Vegas was 1 to 100 that trump would not be president. Or maybe the other way around.
Well, I don't mean odds on IF he'll be indicted; only how soon... CANNOT WAIT.
Jail with an appropriate duration - not like his heroic little attack of COVID
Jail, subsequent trip to the hospital, painful congenital disease,, loss of verbal ability, then sight and hearing, slow death.