More to ignore, Book 60........
- Thread starter Ten Thousan Marbles
- Start date
Here's Sen. Ron Johnson trying to escape questions about gun laws by running toward a locked door
Walter Einenkel
The Republican Party has moved on to hiding from most news outlets that aren’t called Fox News or OAN. The recent shooting deaths of 19 children in Uvalde, Texas, have once again reminded the world of the spectral bloodstain that Second Amendment fetishists and firearm profiteers carry over their entire person. The “solutions” being offered up by those on the right are a mixture of suggestions to turn our schools into prisons and to enact various degrees of authoritarian measures. About 99% of the proposed “solutions” have already been tried, and because they do not fix the problem of everybody having guns, they have also been proven not to work.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is the kind of mediocre-minded millionaire we have come to expect from the GOP. Recently, as in over the past 48 hours, Johnson has been rather silent about what he as a sitting U.S. senator could do to fix the disease of gun violence in our country. This is surprising, given that a little more than a week before those 19 children were murdered, in part, by the lax gun laws in Texas under Johnson’s fellow Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the senator had all kinds of things to say about how to fix gun violence in Wisconsin.
At that time, WUWM reported on Johnson’s statements to the news outlets he invited to talk with him about the subject of gun violence right after he went to visit a gun show in Waukesha County. "You have criminals and you have shooters. OK? I don't know why the left always wants to blame the gun and absolve the criminal. I want to put the criminal in jail, and keep him in jail. I think that would probably be the better thing, in terms of a solution here. And whatever gun control laws we have, enforce them. We don't do that. We don't. We don't enforce the laws in place."
Well, all that bluster seems to have disappeared for the time being as Sen. Johnson, like the cowardly shit heel that he is, is running for cover, waiting for the gun lobby, right-wing media, and general exhaustion to keep him out of this important public health crisis.
......
On Thursday, CNN’s chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju tried to catch Johnson in the halls of the very building where the senator is ostensibly supposed to be answering questions from the news media about the “work” he is doing for the citizens of the United States. Raju wanted to ask Johnson: “Why not expand background checks?”
The moment Johnson saw Raju and his camera man, it seems he made a quick beeline for one of his office’s doors. It also seems that Mr. Johnson’s office has two doors, one of which is locked. Enjoy.
Walter Einenkel
The Republican Party has moved on to hiding from most news outlets that aren’t called Fox News or OAN. The recent shooting deaths of 19 children in Uvalde, Texas, have once again reminded the world of the spectral bloodstain that Second Amendment fetishists and firearm profiteers carry over their entire person. The “solutions” being offered up by those on the right are a mixture of suggestions to turn our schools into prisons and to enact various degrees of authoritarian measures. About 99% of the proposed “solutions” have already been tried, and because they do not fix the problem of everybody having guns, they have also been proven not to work.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is the kind of mediocre-minded millionaire we have come to expect from the GOP. Recently, as in over the past 48 hours, Johnson has been rather silent about what he as a sitting U.S. senator could do to fix the disease of gun violence in our country. This is surprising, given that a little more than a week before those 19 children were murdered, in part, by the lax gun laws in Texas under Johnson’s fellow Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the senator had all kinds of things to say about how to fix gun violence in Wisconsin.
At that time, WUWM reported on Johnson’s statements to the news outlets he invited to talk with him about the subject of gun violence right after he went to visit a gun show in Waukesha County. "You have criminals and you have shooters. OK? I don't know why the left always wants to blame the gun and absolve the criminal. I want to put the criminal in jail, and keep him in jail. I think that would probably be the better thing, in terms of a solution here. And whatever gun control laws we have, enforce them. We don't do that. We don't. We don't enforce the laws in place."
Well, all that bluster seems to have disappeared for the time being as Sen. Johnson, like the cowardly shit heel that he is, is running for cover, waiting for the gun lobby, right-wing media, and general exhaustion to keep him out of this important public health crisis.
......
On Thursday, CNN’s chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju tried to catch Johnson in the halls of the very building where the senator is ostensibly supposed to be answering questions from the news media about the “work” he is doing for the citizens of the United States. Raju wanted to ask Johnson: “Why not expand background checks?”
The moment Johnson saw Raju and his camera man, it seems he made a quick beeline for one of his office’s doors. It also seems that Mr. Johnson’s office has two doors, one of which is locked. Enjoy.
Reduces the power of the WEF secret Satan redux f@ggot motherfukkers out here walking around with police badges. Reference: the detainment of Jack POS
A lot of Texas officials don't want to answer questions about the Uvalde massacre
Kerry Eleveld
It must be like a fever or something, but the more we learn about the Uvalde, Texas, massacre in which 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered, the fewer questions elected officials and others want to answer.
The main problem here is that the entire tragedy blows apart the decades-old National Rifle Association myth that all that's needed to stop a bad guy with a gun is "a good guy with a gun." As my Daily Kos colleague Mark Sumner laid out, both the timeline and details about how law enforcement engaged with the shooter and eventually neutralized him have been called into question.
In a new timeline relayed Thursday by Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, the shooter entered the school at 11:40 a.m., police arrived at 11:44 a.m., and a Border Patrol tactical team finally neutralized the shooter around 12:40 p.m.
That's according to a Wall Street Journal article that also included eyewitness accounts from frustrated parents like Angeli Rose Gomez, who said, "The police were doing nothing." Gomez said she heard about the shooting, drove 40 miles to Robb Elementary School, urged the police to enter the building along with other parents, was handcuffed by federal marshals, was set free, slipped away, jumped the school fence, ran inside the school, and finally led her two children to safety.
To say the least, a lot of people have a lot to answer for. And guess what: Up and down line, they don't take kindly to being questioned.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for instance, got very testy when asked Thursday why these mass shootings are a uniquely American problem. Cruz tried to walk away from the reporter, who stuck with him until Cruz finally said, "Stop being a propagandist," and left the premises altogether.
Texas Department of Public Safety official Victor Escalon was perhaps more polite but equally as elusive when a CNN reporter questioned the misinformation officials had previously released about the tragedy.
“We’ve been given a lot of bad information, so why don’t you clear all of this up now and explain to us how your officers were in there for an hour, but yet no one was able to get inside that room?” asked CNN's Shimon Prokupecz.
Escalon assured Prokupecz that he heard his question and would "circle back," then promptly ended the press conference.
A gaggle of reporters were also shut out of a press conference Wednesday being given by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott after they dared to follow Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke out of the building when he interrupted Abbott's press conference.
And then there's the Financial Times and former BBC reporter who tried to talk to the gun store, Oasis Outback, that reportedly sold the guns and ammunition to the Uvalde shooter.
"Was stopped in parking lot by management," Dave Lee tweeted. "It’s open but I’m not allowed in. Asked why… 'You have a notepad… and an accent.'"
Lee likely had a British accent, resulting in that charming, "You ain't from 'round here," response.
The New York Times confirmed that Oasis Outback is cooperating with authorities.
A lot of important questions remain to be answered, particularly about how law enforcement responded. The more we learn, the more sickening the story gets, and the less anyone wants to answer for why 19 fourth graders and two teachers were left to fend for themselves at Robb Elementary School for nearly an hour.
Kerry Eleveld
It must be like a fever or something, but the more we learn about the Uvalde, Texas, massacre in which 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered, the fewer questions elected officials and others want to answer.
The main problem here is that the entire tragedy blows apart the decades-old National Rifle Association myth that all that's needed to stop a bad guy with a gun is "a good guy with a gun." As my Daily Kos colleague Mark Sumner laid out, both the timeline and details about how law enforcement engaged with the shooter and eventually neutralized him have been called into question.
In a new timeline relayed Thursday by Victor Escalon, a regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, the shooter entered the school at 11:40 a.m., police arrived at 11:44 a.m., and a Border Patrol tactical team finally neutralized the shooter around 12:40 p.m.
That's according to a Wall Street Journal article that also included eyewitness accounts from frustrated parents like Angeli Rose Gomez, who said, "The police were doing nothing." Gomez said she heard about the shooting, drove 40 miles to Robb Elementary School, urged the police to enter the building along with other parents, was handcuffed by federal marshals, was set free, slipped away, jumped the school fence, ran inside the school, and finally led her two children to safety.
To say the least, a lot of people have a lot to answer for. And guess what: Up and down line, they don't take kindly to being questioned.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for instance, got very testy when asked Thursday why these mass shootings are a uniquely American problem. Cruz tried to walk away from the reporter, who stuck with him until Cruz finally said, "Stop being a propagandist," and left the premises altogether.
Texas Department of Public Safety official Victor Escalon was perhaps more polite but equally as elusive when a CNN reporter questioned the misinformation officials had previously released about the tragedy.
“We’ve been given a lot of bad information, so why don’t you clear all of this up now and explain to us how your officers were in there for an hour, but yet no one was able to get inside that room?” asked CNN's Shimon Prokupecz.
Escalon assured Prokupecz that he heard his question and would "circle back," then promptly ended the press conference.
A gaggle of reporters were also shut out of a press conference Wednesday being given by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott after they dared to follow Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Rep. Beto O'Rourke out of the building when he interrupted Abbott's press conference.
And then there's the Financial Times and former BBC reporter who tried to talk to the gun store, Oasis Outback, that reportedly sold the guns and ammunition to the Uvalde shooter.
"Was stopped in parking lot by management," Dave Lee tweeted. "It’s open but I’m not allowed in. Asked why… 'You have a notepad… and an accent.'"
Lee likely had a British accent, resulting in that charming, "You ain't from 'round here," response.
The New York Times confirmed that Oasis Outback is cooperating with authorities.
A lot of important questions remain to be answered, particularly about how law enforcement responded. The more we learn, the more sickening the story gets, and the less anyone wants to answer for why 19 fourth graders and two teachers were left to fend for themselves at Robb Elementary School for nearly an hour.
Police slow to engage with gunman because ‘they could’ve been shot,’ official says
Police were reluctant to immediately engage with the gunman who spent an hour inside the elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., where he killed 19 children and two adults because “they could’ve been shot,” a lieutenant with the Texas Department of Public Safety said in a CNN interview.
Law enforcement officers have faced mounting criticism from some parents who say police could have intervened sooner against 18-year-old Salvador Ramos in an effort from officers that was initially deemed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) as a “quick response.” Police who arrived at the school retreated as shots rang out, state authorities said Thursday, and it took an hour before a tactical unit led by federal Border Patrol agents went into a classroom and killed the gunman.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Chris Olivarez defended the response in an interview Thursday with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who asked the lieutenant to walk him through “what exactly law enforcement was doing for 60 minutes or so while the shooter remained in that classroom killing those kids and teachers?”
Olivarez said that, while the goal for law enforcement during active-shooter situations such as the one this week in Uvalde is to stop the killing and preserve life, officers did not initially know where Ramos was located when they were shot at.
“At that point, if they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed, and that gunman would have had an opportunity to kill other people inside that school,” Olivarez said.
Olivarez’s remarks were criticized by those on both the political left and right, and by parents, some of whom were tackled or handcuffed as they tried to enter the school on Tuesday to try to save their children.
A DPS spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday. The DPS is expected to have a news briefing on Friday.
Standard law enforcement guidance since the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado says officers should pursue shooters inside buildings without waiting for specialized backup. Since Columbine, many police departments have trained officers to go after an attacker as soon as possible, to minimize the number of teachers and children shot.
Before Columbine, older guidance often emphasized waiting for specially trained officers, such as a SWAT team. The speed and willingness of officers to pursue shooters into buildings has been called into question following other attacks in recent years, including the massacre at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in 2018.
While the Uvalde Police Department’s policy on responding to an active shooter is not publicly available, Olivarez said in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday that “the protocol is to address the threat.”
“You go at the threat, you go at where the gunfire is at because you’re trying to stop the threat,” he said.
The lieutenant’s comments to CNN add to an incomplete — and evolving — explanation of what happened at Robb Elementary. Officials have offered varied timelines and explanations of the massacre and law enforcement’s response, and have also made sometimes inconsistent or contradictory announcements about key details involving the shooter.
How the official accounts about the Uvalde shooting have changed
Cellphone videos from outside Robb Elementary on Tuesday and witness accounts detail how parents were yelling at police, pleading with them to enter the school to protect their children. Javier Cazares, whose 9-year-old daughter, Jacklyn, was shot and killed, said parents “wanted to storm the building” when officers told them to move away from it.
Some of the videos posted to social media, which have been viewed millions of times, showed tearful parents pleading with officers in tactical gear — some carrying rifles or Tasers — to go inside the school and tackle the gunman, or allow them to do so themselves.
“You’re scared of getting shot?” one mother said, according to one video. “I’ll go in without a vest — I will!”
What we know about the victims of the school shooting in Texas
On Thursday, Olivarez told Blitzer that three officers initially entered one of the entrances where Ramos went into the building, and that another four officers eventually got in.
“As they were taking gunfire, they were calling in for reinforcements, backup tactical team, snipers, any additional personnel to assist not only with the situation but also the situation in evacuating students and teachers,” he said.
One of the officers was shot, Olivarez said, but that did not stop law enforcement from killing Ramos and responding to “other injured children inside that classroom [who] they were able to save as well and get them to cover.”
But Blitzer pressed Olivarez on the long-standing guidance surrounding law enforcement’s response to active-shooter situations.
“Don’t current best practices, don’t they call for officers to disable a shooter as quickly as possible, regardless of how many officers are actually on-site?” Blitzer asked.
Olivarez said that was “correct,” explaining some of the uncertainty faced by law enforcement in Uvalde.
“The active-shooter situation, you want to stop the killing, you want to preserve life, but also one thing that — of course, the American people need to understand — that officers are making entry into this building. They do not know where the gunman is,” Olivarez said. “They are hearing gunshots. They are receiving gunshots.”
That’s when Olivarez told Blitzer that officers were slow to engage because “they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed.”
“They were able to contain that gunman inside that classroom so that he was not able to go to any other portions of the school to commit any other killings,” he said.
The remarks prompted widespread criticism on social media. Joe Walsh, the former GOP congressman from Illinois who has since become a vocal critic of former president Donald Trump and his allies in the Republican Party, tweeted he had “no … words” after hearing Olivarez’s comments.
“He actually said it,” Walsh wrote. “He actually said the cops were reluctant to engage the shooter because, ‘They could’ve been shot. They could’ve been killed.’”
Janice Dean, a senior meteorologist for Fox News, was among those echoing the disgust over law enforcement’s response.
“It’s like a fireman not going into a building because they might get burned,” Dean wrote.
Police acknowledge ‘wrong decision’ in confronting Uvalde shooter too slowly
The Texas Department of Public Safety acknowledged Friday that it was “the wrong decision” for police to decide the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex. had transitioned from an active-shooter situation to a barricaded hostage situation while children were still inside the classroom and at risk.Director Steven C. McCraw said the incident commander made a misjudgment as students lay dying, or calling 911, from inside Rooms 111 and 112. “Of course, with the benefit of hindsight … It was the wrong decision. Period,” McCraw said......
Police commander made 'wrong decision' not to breach classroom doors during elementary school shooting, official says | CNN
While a gunman slaughtered children inside locked adjoining classrooms in a Texas elementary school, a group of 19 law enforcement officers stood in a hallway outside and took no action as they waited for more equipment, a state law enforcement official said Friday.
Texas law enforcement’s story on what happened in Uvalde disintegrates as facts emerge
Joan McCarter
The immediate reports during and in the hours following a mass shooting are always messy, always confused and contradictory. It makes reporting these stories that much harder, trying to suss out what’s rumor, what’s an eyewitness account, whether that account is reliable, and who to trust. In Uvalde, the site of an elementary school massacre that’s taken the lives of 19 children and it’s becoming increasingly clear that “who to trust” in telling the story is not Texas law enforcement or Texas political officials.
The New York Times is reporting that agents from Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the team that eventually killed the shooter) had arrived at the site sometime between 12:00 and 12:10 PM, about 20 minutes after local police. Two official briefed on the events told the NYT that local police “would not allow them to go after the gunman who had opened fire on students inside the school.”
“The officials said that members of the Uvalde Police Department kept the federal agents from going in sooner,” apparently instead focused on securing a perimeter and, inexplicably, detaining parents who were trying to save their children. What is becoming increasingly clear was that Texas law enforcement was a total cluster****, and as a result, more children needlessly died.
In a CNN interview Thursday evening, DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez told Wolf Blitzer that those local responding officers were cautious about entering the school to take out the shooter because “they could’ve been shot.” The situation demanded caution, he said, because “ if they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed, and that gunman would have had an opportunity to kill other people inside that school.”
This all further upends the timeline of events provided by police and Texas officials immediately following the shooting and through the following days has been shifting dramatically, even on-the-fly in press conferences. The Washington Post has tracked the changes we’ve seen in the official story so far, detailing the “varied timelines and explanations of the massacre and law enforcement’s response,” as well as the “sometimes inconsistent or contradictory announcements about key details, such as how the shooter entered the school or how long he was inside.”
That includes changing their story entirely on whether anyone tried to stop the killer from entering the school. Early in the day Wednesday, the story was that a school resource officer exchanged gunfire with the killer, and was shot and wounded. Later that same day, the story changed to a school officer “engaging” the shooter, but with no exchange of gunfire. As of Thursday, Victor Escalon Jr., a regional director with the Texas Department of Public Safety, significantly altered that story. “It was reported that a school district police officer confronted the suspect that was making entry,” Escalon said of the information provided by his agency the day before. “Not accurate. He walked in unobstructed.”
Sit with that a moment. “He walked in unobstructed.” So much for good guys with guns. Does a lot of good if they’re AWOL.
That was after, as the Post clarifies, we now know he was able to hang around outside the school for 12 minutes, shooting at people and at the school. That’s 12 minutes after he crashed his vehicle, not the story we heard on Wednesday from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that ”he ran into the school” right after the accident. In that 12 minutes, law enforcement received a phone call from the shooter's grandmother saying he had just shot her in the face and took off. They have a wrecked vehicle and a young man wandering around a school with an AR-15 shooting at things for 12 minutes before going through what appeared to be an unlocked school door, “unobstructed.”
What happened inside that school, specifically what happened inside that fourth grade classroom over the next HOUR is the most horrifying, tragic, infuriating part. For an hour, officials are now admitting—an hour!—the shooter was in that classroom. Parents were rushing to the school, hearing the shots, hearing their children be shot.
One official said Wednesday that in that time officers had “continued to keep him pinned down in that location” while they waited for reinforcements. Then another official admitted that he wasn’t actually pinned down so much, but had put law enforcement “at a disadvantage” when he “was able to make entry into a classroom, barricade himself inside that classroom.” We’ve learned since that it wasn’t so much a barricade as a locked door that school staff had the key to. On Thursday, an official admitted that “the gunman was inside for about an hour before law enforcement officials confronted him.” That’s an hour on top of the 12 minutes before he entered the school in which law enforcement didn’t engage him.
That hour killed children.
One child in that classroom, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, likely saved herself when she smeared herself with the blood of her friend who had just been killed, and played dead. She had bullet fragments in her back, but has survived physically, her aunt Blanca Rivera told NBC News.
Another, a boy, told reporters that the shooter came into the classroom and said, “It’s time to die.” He, his best friend, and three other children hid beneath a table that was covered with a tablecloth, concealed from the gunman. They listened to their classmates and their teachers die. “They were nice teachers,” the boy said. “They went in front of my classmates to help. To save them.”
Joan McCarter
The immediate reports during and in the hours following a mass shooting are always messy, always confused and contradictory. It makes reporting these stories that much harder, trying to suss out what’s rumor, what’s an eyewitness account, whether that account is reliable, and who to trust. In Uvalde, the site of an elementary school massacre that’s taken the lives of 19 children and it’s becoming increasingly clear that “who to trust” in telling the story is not Texas law enforcement or Texas political officials.
The New York Times is reporting that agents from Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the team that eventually killed the shooter) had arrived at the site sometime between 12:00 and 12:10 PM, about 20 minutes after local police. Two official briefed on the events told the NYT that local police “would not allow them to go after the gunman who had opened fire on students inside the school.”
“The officials said that members of the Uvalde Police Department kept the federal agents from going in sooner,” apparently instead focused on securing a perimeter and, inexplicably, detaining parents who were trying to save their children. What is becoming increasingly clear was that Texas law enforcement was a total cluster****, and as a result, more children needlessly died.
In a CNN interview Thursday evening, DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez told Wolf Blitzer that those local responding officers were cautious about entering the school to take out the shooter because “they could’ve been shot.” The situation demanded caution, he said, because “ if they proceeded any further not knowing where the suspect was at, they could’ve been shot, they could’ve been killed, and that gunman would have had an opportunity to kill other people inside that school.”
This all further upends the timeline of events provided by police and Texas officials immediately following the shooting and through the following days has been shifting dramatically, even on-the-fly in press conferences. The Washington Post has tracked the changes we’ve seen in the official story so far, detailing the “varied timelines and explanations of the massacre and law enforcement’s response,” as well as the “sometimes inconsistent or contradictory announcements about key details, such as how the shooter entered the school or how long he was inside.”
That includes changing their story entirely on whether anyone tried to stop the killer from entering the school. Early in the day Wednesday, the story was that a school resource officer exchanged gunfire with the killer, and was shot and wounded. Later that same day, the story changed to a school officer “engaging” the shooter, but with no exchange of gunfire. As of Thursday, Victor Escalon Jr., a regional director with the Texas Department of Public Safety, significantly altered that story. “It was reported that a school district police officer confronted the suspect that was making entry,” Escalon said of the information provided by his agency the day before. “Not accurate. He walked in unobstructed.”
Sit with that a moment. “He walked in unobstructed.” So much for good guys with guns. Does a lot of good if they’re AWOL.
That was after, as the Post clarifies, we now know he was able to hang around outside the school for 12 minutes, shooting at people and at the school. That’s 12 minutes after he crashed his vehicle, not the story we heard on Wednesday from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that ”he ran into the school” right after the accident. In that 12 minutes, law enforcement received a phone call from the shooter's grandmother saying he had just shot her in the face and took off. They have a wrecked vehicle and a young man wandering around a school with an AR-15 shooting at things for 12 minutes before going through what appeared to be an unlocked school door, “unobstructed.”
What happened inside that school, specifically what happened inside that fourth grade classroom over the next HOUR is the most horrifying, tragic, infuriating part. For an hour, officials are now admitting—an hour!—the shooter was in that classroom. Parents were rushing to the school, hearing the shots, hearing their children be shot.
One official said Wednesday that in that time officers had “continued to keep him pinned down in that location” while they waited for reinforcements. Then another official admitted that he wasn’t actually pinned down so much, but had put law enforcement “at a disadvantage” when he “was able to make entry into a classroom, barricade himself inside that classroom.” We’ve learned since that it wasn’t so much a barricade as a locked door that school staff had the key to. On Thursday, an official admitted that “the gunman was inside for about an hour before law enforcement officials confronted him.” That’s an hour on top of the 12 minutes before he entered the school in which law enforcement didn’t engage him.
That hour killed children.
One child in that classroom, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, likely saved herself when she smeared herself with the blood of her friend who had just been killed, and played dead. She had bullet fragments in her back, but has survived physically, her aunt Blanca Rivera told NBC News.
Another, a boy, told reporters that the shooter came into the classroom and said, “It’s time to die.” He, his best friend, and three other children hid beneath a table that was covered with a tablecloth, concealed from the gunman. They listened to their classmates and their teachers die. “They were nice teachers,” the boy said. “They went in front of my classmates to help. To save them.”
NRA convention speakers and performers leave in droves, but Trump doubles down
Aldous J Pennyfarthing
Turn on the lights, watch the cockroaches scatter. It’s the perfect metaphor for NRA devotees’ craven response to the tragic gun massacre in Uvalde, Texas, as the group’s annual convention commences in Houston on Friday.
Of course, we shouldn’t be naive about this. It’s unlikely any of these ghouls has had a real change of heart—unless you’re talking about Dick Cheney, who changes hearts nearly as often as Mitch McConnell molts his exoskeleton. No, as in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, we’re seeing a lot of performative (and temporary) revulsion in response to another shocking, high-profile event.
But hey, we’ll take whatever we can get at this point—including, you know, legislation that might actually prevent these kinds of tragedies in the future.
.........
On Wednesday, a day after the shooting in Uvalde, legendary singer-songwriter Don McLean announced he was pulling out of his Saturday performance at the NRA’s convention, and he soon became a sort of American Pied Piper leading the rest of the organization’s most celebrated rats off the ship.
The Washington Post:
Okay, so McLean, a few country stars, and the Uvalde killer’s chosen gun supplier have pulled out. Notably, Daniel Defense also locked down its Twitter account after a recent tweet from just before the shooting caught some deservedly negative attention.
But what about all those pro-gun Republicans? Well …
Read that carefully. Abbott isn’t backing out exactly. He’s sort of lingering by the window watching the cool kids play in the yard, while he’s forced to stay inside and practice his violin. But he’ll wave at them! He can do that much, anyway! “Hey, guys, I’m still with you. Yoo-hoo! Guys? Hey guys!”
As of this writing, it looks like the convention’s Saturday night concert is on the cusp of cancelation, with just one artist—the little-known Jacob Bryant—still on board. But while losing a night of entertainment may be a minor psychological blow to the guns-for-everyone movement, it’s what Texas’—and the rest of the country’s—politicians do and say that really matters. And they tend to say and do as little as they can get away with.
While Abbott has sort of half-assed his way out of the convention—and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has now removed his whole ass—other GOP ghouls, including the inimitable Sen. Cruz, are going ahead with their antediluvian blather. Cruz, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, and top NRA officials Wayne LaPierre and Jason Ouimet are still scheduled to speak.
Meanwhile, some speakers are coming up with “creative” reasons for missing the big show as they straddle that blurry, ever-shifting line between common decency and utter disgrace. Texas Sen. John Cornyn supposedly pulled out because he had to be in Washington for “personal reasons,” and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw told Fox News he wouldn’t be back from a trip to Ukraine in time.
But what about profile-in-courage Donald John Trump? Well, of course that guy isn’t canceling. He held superspreader rallies in the middle of a raging pandemic, FFS. Why would he have second thoughts about the fates of murdered children? Yes, what we really need now is a president brave enough to pretend he’d run into an active shooter situation unarmed. Enough of this consoler-in-chief nonsense. We need feral, ignorant, barely lucid tweets about the Second Amendment!
On his effervescently Orwellian social media platform Truth Social, Trump assured his fans that he’d attend the blood bacchanal as scheduled: “America needs real solutions and real leadership in this moment, not politicians and partisanship. That’s why I will keep my longtime commitment to speak in Texas at the NRA Convention and deliver an important address to America. In the meantime, we all continue to pray for the victims, their families, and for our entire nation—we are all in this together!”
Is complaining endlessly about the 2020 election and low-flow toilets really that “important”? Well, in the absence of real entertainers, Trump’s comedy stylings will have to do, it seems.
Though he will probably be too busy checking his face paint as he arrives at the venue, some Americans are already outside the convention, telling attendees what they actually need.
Yes, the cockroaches are scattering, but you know they’ll be back as soon as those klieg lights dim. So it’s up to us to keep them on. Let’s do just that, folks, by ensuring we keep the House in November.
Aldous J Pennyfarthing
Turn on the lights, watch the cockroaches scatter. It’s the perfect metaphor for NRA devotees’ craven response to the tragic gun massacre in Uvalde, Texas, as the group’s annual convention commences in Houston on Friday.
Of course, we shouldn’t be naive about this. It’s unlikely any of these ghouls has had a real change of heart—unless you’re talking about Dick Cheney, who changes hearts nearly as often as Mitch McConnell molts his exoskeleton. No, as in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, we’re seeing a lot of performative (and temporary) revulsion in response to another shocking, high-profile event.
But hey, we’ll take whatever we can get at this point—including, you know, legislation that might actually prevent these kinds of tragedies in the future.
.........
On Wednesday, a day after the shooting in Uvalde, legendary singer-songwriter Don McLean announced he was pulling out of his Saturday performance at the NRA’s convention, and he soon became a sort of American Pied Piper leading the rest of the organization’s most celebrated rats off the ship.
The Washington Post:
Okay, so McLean, a few country stars, and the Uvalde killer’s chosen gun supplier have pulled out. Notably, Daniel Defense also locked down its Twitter account after a recent tweet from just before the shooting caught some deservedly negative attention.
But what about all those pro-gun Republicans? Well …
Read that carefully. Abbott isn’t backing out exactly. He’s sort of lingering by the window watching the cool kids play in the yard, while he’s forced to stay inside and practice his violin. But he’ll wave at them! He can do that much, anyway! “Hey, guys, I’m still with you. Yoo-hoo! Guys? Hey guys!”
As of this writing, it looks like the convention’s Saturday night concert is on the cusp of cancelation, with just one artist—the little-known Jacob Bryant—still on board. But while losing a night of entertainment may be a minor psychological blow to the guns-for-everyone movement, it’s what Texas’—and the rest of the country’s—politicians do and say that really matters. And they tend to say and do as little as they can get away with.
While Abbott has sort of half-assed his way out of the convention—and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has now removed his whole ass—other GOP ghouls, including the inimitable Sen. Cruz, are going ahead with their antediluvian blather. Cruz, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, and top NRA officials Wayne LaPierre and Jason Ouimet are still scheduled to speak.
Meanwhile, some speakers are coming up with “creative” reasons for missing the big show as they straddle that blurry, ever-shifting line between common decency and utter disgrace. Texas Sen. John Cornyn supposedly pulled out because he had to be in Washington for “personal reasons,” and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw told Fox News he wouldn’t be back from a trip to Ukraine in time.
But what about profile-in-courage Donald John Trump? Well, of course that guy isn’t canceling. He held superspreader rallies in the middle of a raging pandemic, FFS. Why would he have second thoughts about the fates of murdered children? Yes, what we really need now is a president brave enough to pretend he’d run into an active shooter situation unarmed. Enough of this consoler-in-chief nonsense. We need feral, ignorant, barely lucid tweets about the Second Amendment!
On his effervescently Orwellian social media platform Truth Social, Trump assured his fans that he’d attend the blood bacchanal as scheduled: “America needs real solutions and real leadership in this moment, not politicians and partisanship. That’s why I will keep my longtime commitment to speak in Texas at the NRA Convention and deliver an important address to America. In the meantime, we all continue to pray for the victims, their families, and for our entire nation—we are all in this together!”
Is complaining endlessly about the 2020 election and low-flow toilets really that “important”? Well, in the absence of real entertainers, Trump’s comedy stylings will have to do, it seems.
Though he will probably be too busy checking his face paint as he arrives at the venue, some Americans are already outside the convention, telling attendees what they actually need.
Yes, the cockroaches are scattering, but you know they’ll be back as soon as those klieg lights dim. So it’s up to us to keep them on. Let’s do just that, folks, by ensuring we keep the House in November.
Friday, May 27, 2022 · 5:13:40 PM EDT · Aldous J Pennyfarthing
If you were wondering whether the public’s enthusiasm for gruesome gun massacres and grotesque Trump speeches is starting to wane, well, here’s your answer, apparently.
If you were wondering whether the public’s enthusiasm for gruesome gun massacres and grotesque Trump speeches is starting to wane, well, here’s your answer, apparently.
Survivors of mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, share their stories
Rebekah Sager
People visit memorials at Uvalde Town Square for victims of Tuesday's mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
It’s been just three days since an 18-year-old gunman walked into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, with an AR-15 rifle, opened fire, and murdered 19 children and two teachers. Now, some of the survivors of that horrifying attack are telling their stories.
Amber Gonzales told the Los Angeles Times that her 8-year-old daughter Aubree hid under her desk during the shooting.
“She’s terrified to go anywhere without me and her dad,” Gonzales told theTimes. “She can’t sleep by herself. She’s scared to take a shower by herself. She’s scared to even watch a movie in the living room by herself. I put her to bed last night and she told me she felt like somebody was looking at her — she’s just really shaken up by it.”
Another boy, who did not want to be identified, told KENS-5 in San Antonio, Texas, that the shooter peeked his head through the door and announced to the fourth-graders: “It’s time to die.”
"When I heard the shooting through the door, I told my friend to hide under something so he won't find us… I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us,” the unnamed boy recalled.
“When the cops came, the cop said: 'Yell if you need help!' And one of the persons in my class said 'help.' The guy overheard and he came in and shot her," the boy said. "The cop barged into that classroom. The guy shot at the cop. And the cops started shooting.”
The boy said he and his friends came out from under the table when the shooting ended. He said the teachers [Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia] were “nice,” and “they went in front of my classmates to help. To save them.”
According to Raw Story, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo told CNN she survived the shooting by smearing herself with her classmate’s blood and pretending to be dead.
CNN’s Nora Neus says Miah and her classmates were watching a Disney movie Tuesday to celebrate the end of the school year when their teacher got an email warning them about a gunman in the halls of the school.
Neus explains that as the teacher went to the door, she found herself face to face with the teen shooter. He proceeded to shoot the window out of the door and enter the room.
"Miah says it just happened all so fast, he backed the teacher into the classroom and he made eye contact with the teacher again, looked her right in the eye, and said, 'Goodnight,' and then shot her and killed her," Neus said. “He started open firing in the classroom. He hit the other teacher and a lot of Miah's friends. At that point, Miah was hit by fragments of the bullets. You could even see them yesterday on her back, on her shoulders, the back of her head," Neus added.
The gunman then went into an adjoining classroom and began shooting there.
"At that point, Miah could hear screams, she heard a lot more gunfire, and then she said she heard music," Neus said. "She thinks it was the gunman that put it on. He started blasting sad music, and I asked her, like, what was that? What kind of music? What do you mean by that? And she said -- she just said it sounded like 'I want people to die music.'"
Miah told Neus that she was “pretty sure” the friend next to her was already dead when “she put her hands in her friend's blood and then smeared it, she said, all over her body.”
Miah said she stayed covered in her friend's blood, lying on the floor, until the police came into the room.
Second-grader Jayden Perez told CNN he was “still sad” about his friends who died. “It was very terrifying because I never thought that was going to happen.”
Perez says he and his friends were rescued by police and escaped through a window.
When CNN correspondent Adrienne Broaddus asked Perez if he wanted to go back to school, he said:
“I don't wanna, no. ‘Cause I don't want anything to do with another shooting and me in the school."
Rebekah Sager
People visit memorials at Uvalde Town Square for victims of Tuesday's mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
It’s been just three days since an 18-year-old gunman walked into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, with an AR-15 rifle, opened fire, and murdered 19 children and two teachers. Now, some of the survivors of that horrifying attack are telling their stories.
Amber Gonzales told the Los Angeles Times that her 8-year-old daughter Aubree hid under her desk during the shooting.
“She’s terrified to go anywhere without me and her dad,” Gonzales told theTimes. “She can’t sleep by herself. She’s scared to take a shower by herself. She’s scared to even watch a movie in the living room by herself. I put her to bed last night and she told me she felt like somebody was looking at her — she’s just really shaken up by it.”
Another boy, who did not want to be identified, told KENS-5 in San Antonio, Texas, that the shooter peeked his head through the door and announced to the fourth-graders: “It’s time to die.”
"When I heard the shooting through the door, I told my friend to hide under something so he won't find us… I was hiding hard. And I was telling my friend to not talk because he is going to hear us,” the unnamed boy recalled.
“When the cops came, the cop said: 'Yell if you need help!' And one of the persons in my class said 'help.' The guy overheard and he came in and shot her," the boy said. "The cop barged into that classroom. The guy shot at the cop. And the cops started shooting.”
The boy said he and his friends came out from under the table when the shooting ended. He said the teachers [Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia] were “nice,” and “they went in front of my classmates to help. To save them.”
According to Raw Story, 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo told CNN she survived the shooting by smearing herself with her classmate’s blood and pretending to be dead.
CNN’s Nora Neus says Miah and her classmates were watching a Disney movie Tuesday to celebrate the end of the school year when their teacher got an email warning them about a gunman in the halls of the school.
Neus explains that as the teacher went to the door, she found herself face to face with the teen shooter. He proceeded to shoot the window out of the door and enter the room.
"Miah says it just happened all so fast, he backed the teacher into the classroom and he made eye contact with the teacher again, looked her right in the eye, and said, 'Goodnight,' and then shot her and killed her," Neus said. “He started open firing in the classroom. He hit the other teacher and a lot of Miah's friends. At that point, Miah was hit by fragments of the bullets. You could even see them yesterday on her back, on her shoulders, the back of her head," Neus added.
The gunman then went into an adjoining classroom and began shooting there.
"At that point, Miah could hear screams, she heard a lot more gunfire, and then she said she heard music," Neus said. "She thinks it was the gunman that put it on. He started blasting sad music, and I asked her, like, what was that? What kind of music? What do you mean by that? And she said -- she just said it sounded like 'I want people to die music.'"
Miah told Neus that she was “pretty sure” the friend next to her was already dead when “she put her hands in her friend's blood and then smeared it, she said, all over her body.”
Miah said she stayed covered in her friend's blood, lying on the floor, until the police came into the room.
Second-grader Jayden Perez told CNN he was “still sad” about his friends who died. “It was very terrifying because I never thought that was going to happen.”
Perez says he and his friends were rescued by police and escaped through a window.
When CNN correspondent Adrienne Broaddus asked Perez if he wanted to go back to school, he said:
“I don't wanna, no. ‘Cause I don't want anything to do with another shooting and me in the school."
Last May 24 on Tucker Carlson, Uvalde mayor said city's children were endangered by immigrants
Meteor Blades
texasscorecard.com
Meteor Blades
Tucker Carlson Calls Abbott 'Total Fraud’ During Interview With Uvalde Mayor - Texas Scorecard
He could just say, ‘This is our state. It’s the state of Texas, and we’re not putting up with this crap, and we’re gonna seal our border because it's our state.’ But he’s refusing to do that.”
texasscorecard.com
Lauren Boebert Vies for 'Dumbest Member of Congress' Title: 'We Didn’t Ban Planes' After 9/11?
News Corpse
The contest for "Dumbest Member of Congress" is always a competitive affair that pits such legends of lunacy as Louis Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, and the eminently idiotic Marjorie Taylor Greene, against one another. The caliber of the crackpottery is so impressive that it's near impossible to choose a winner.
However, on Thursday one contender made a valiant effort to lead the pack. Lauren Boebert appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News program to field some softballs from guest host Tammy Bruce. The subject was the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that Fox News has been callously politicizing, while accusing concerned Democrats of being political. Bruce and Boebert discussed the potential of legislative initiatives to prevent future tragedies. Bruce asked Boebert "what the next step can be taken for some real change here." Whereupon Boebert unleashed some stellar stupidity that assures she will remain a top contender for dimwit distinction:
Boebert joins the rest of the Republican gun fetishists in blaming everyone and everything for the tragedy , except for guns. She parroted the right-wing narrative that advocates turning schools into prisons and teachers into armed guards. She follows that up with some typically infantile insults aimed at Rep. Alexandria Cortez-Ocasio and Beto O'Rourke, who she whines won't meet with her. Why would anyone want to meet with Boebert, whose childish behavior betrays her intellectual vacancy?
Boebert's repugnant personality notwithstanding, what truly sets her apart from the pinhead pack is her contention that "we didn’t ban planes" after 9/11. Really?
First of all, this is an utterly ludicrous analogy. There is no similarity whatsoever between the singular terrorist attack by Al Qaeda two decades years ago, and the horrifyingly frequent mass shootings that occur, uniquely, in the United States. Secondly, just as no one proposed banning all planes after 9/11, no one is proposing banning all guns now.
Although, even if we patronize Boebert's bizarre analogy, she is making a great case for regulating guns. The truth is that air travel was broadly regulated after 9/11. Passengers have to provide government issued identification. They have to remove their shoes and belts and any metal objects from their pockets. They can't carry aboard any common objects like scissors, or containers of liquids more than eight ounces. They and their baggage are screened with x-rays.
In other words, the 9/11 incident resulted in the implementation of numerous strict regulations to increase public safety. So by Boeert's alleged logic, guns should be similarly regulated, and for the same reason. But don't expect her to grasp that. Her cognitive capabilities are too limited to understand what she's saying. Which is precisely why she ranks so high on the imbecile scale in the first place.
News Corpse
The contest for "Dumbest Member of Congress" is always a competitive affair that pits such legends of lunacy as Louis Gohmert, Matt Gaetz, and the eminently idiotic Marjorie Taylor Greene, against one another. The caliber of the crackpottery is so impressive that it's near impossible to choose a winner.
However, on Thursday one contender made a valiant effort to lead the pack. Lauren Boebert appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News program to field some softballs from guest host Tammy Bruce. The subject was the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that Fox News has been callously politicizing, while accusing concerned Democrats of being political. Bruce and Boebert discussed the potential of legislative initiatives to prevent future tragedies. Bruce asked Boebert "what the next step can be taken for some real change here." Whereupon Boebert unleashed some stellar stupidity that assures she will remain a top contender for dimwit distinction:
Boebert joins the rest of the Republican gun fetishists in blaming everyone and everything for the tragedy , except for guns. She parroted the right-wing narrative that advocates turning schools into prisons and teachers into armed guards. She follows that up with some typically infantile insults aimed at Rep. Alexandria Cortez-Ocasio and Beto O'Rourke, who she whines won't meet with her. Why would anyone want to meet with Boebert, whose childish behavior betrays her intellectual vacancy?
Boebert's repugnant personality notwithstanding, what truly sets her apart from the pinhead pack is her contention that "we didn’t ban planes" after 9/11. Really?
First of all, this is an utterly ludicrous analogy. There is no similarity whatsoever between the singular terrorist attack by Al Qaeda two decades years ago, and the horrifyingly frequent mass shootings that occur, uniquely, in the United States. Secondly, just as no one proposed banning all planes after 9/11, no one is proposing banning all guns now.
Although, even if we patronize Boebert's bizarre analogy, she is making a great case for regulating guns. The truth is that air travel was broadly regulated after 9/11. Passengers have to provide government issued identification. They have to remove their shoes and belts and any metal objects from their pockets. They can't carry aboard any common objects like scissors, or containers of liquids more than eight ounces. They and their baggage are screened with x-rays.
In other words, the 9/11 incident resulted in the implementation of numerous strict regulations to increase public safety. So by Boeert's alleged logic, guns should be similarly regulated, and for the same reason. But don't expect her to grasp that. Her cognitive capabilities are too limited to understand what she's saying. Which is precisely why she ranks so high on the imbecile scale in the first place.
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