Today's Must-Read: Telling It Like It Is

Interesting profile/analysis on Beto O'Rourke -- makes me want to vote for him:

Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman from Texas who is now a Democratic presidential candidate, has been titillating the schoolmarms of the American press corps by saying naughty words. He let an F-bomb fly while dressing down the media for pretending that it was debatable whether Donald Trump was responsible for inspiring the mass shooting in El Paso, O’Rourke’s hometown. He let loose another one in response to another mass shooting in the Midland-Odessa area, which is relatively nearby by Texas standards.

Somehow, the press response to this was simultaneously one of feigned delicacy at his language and hardened cynicism, the assumption being that O’Rourke was using this extremely common word that almost everyone uses in private out of some political calculation. The possibility that mass slaughter in his own backyard had rattled O’Rourke out of political calculation and into talking like a normal person — no doubt the way all these pundits speak in casual conversation — was dismissed out of hand.

But let’s just assume for a moment that it’s real and what we’re seeing now is a man who, shaken by having to deal with unimaginable horrors inflicted on his once-peaceful community, has run out of fucks to give. When it comes to pandering to the pearl-clutching instincts of the Beltway media, Beto’s fuck-giving account is cleaned out.

I confess I've gotten pretty fed up with the Democrats' response to Trump's continuing atrocities against America (this latest bag of bullshit from Nancy Pelosi is just one more example of the Democrats' complete misreading of the mood of their constituents -- mean, is she seriously talking about changing the law to allow sitting presidents to be indicted when everyone knows that Moscow Mitch will spike any such attempt?)

This is a good example of how completely off in space too many Democrats in positions of prominence are:

During the most recent debate in his home state of Texas, O’Rourke didn’t flinch when asked if he was serious about this, saying, “We’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47. We’re not going to allow it to be used against a fellow American anymore.”

As Max Boot at the Washington Post noted, some Democrats, such as Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, flinched, scolding O’Rourke for giving Republicans an excuse to flip out about “gun-grabbers” on the left.

But what these Democrats fail to understand is that, buoyed by the radicalism and cash infusions of the NRA, Republicans are already calling Democrats a bunch of gun-grabbers. Since they’re going to make that accusation one way or another, why not do what O’Rourke’s doing, and just stake out a position that might actually open a discussion about real-world approaches to preventing gun violence?

It's not even a matter of giving Republicans an excuse -- they're already calling Democrats "gun grabbers". These Democrats should be shooting back, starting with the fact that a huge majority of Americans favor just that sort of approach -- which, by the way, worked very well in Australia and is now underway in New Zealand. And in both cases, it took one mass shooting to trigger their response. We have one at least once a month, and the Republicans blame everything except the NRA. And what are the Democrats afraid of -- offending Trump's base?

At any rate, read the whole article.

Today's Must-Read(s)

Hullabaloo is the place to be this morning -- there's a whole series of posts that demand attention. Start with this one by Tom Sullivan on our history of racism, which Trump has made allowable:

Donald Trump did not say he personally condemned those sentiments and racist ideology, only that "the nation" should. He blamed the Internet and video games for the body count rather than the racism, bigotry, and white supremacy he cited moments earlier (and that the alleged El Paso shooter cited for his actions). Trump blamed mental illness for the slaughter and would not address the ready availability of weapons in the U.S. and its gun culture. As if to punctuate his own disconnect from victims, Trump managed in the end to misidentify the affected Ohio city as Toledo.

Then scroll down to this one by Digby; the bulk of it is a column by Ben Shapiro from 2010; the title should give you a hint of the thrust: "Obama's Race War":

That's just an excuse. The Obama administration is racist. They are using that racism to let black criminals off the hook, justify illegal immigration, hamstring law enforcement across the country, and push redistribution as a solution to supposed continuing discrimination against "people of color." The predictable result of this policy will resemble the results of the 1876 election: federal abdication on racial violence, state abdication on racial violence and local abdication on racial violence. The next race war will come not from racist whites, but from racist blacks and Hispanics who feel empowered to act on their racism by an administration that excuses all minority misbehavior.

Shapiro isn't much for predicting the future.

And, something positive -- Digby's post on Beto O'Rourke's comments on Trump's racism, and Trump's racism itself. Here's a sample:

"The only modern western democracy that I can think of that said anything close to this is the Third Reich, Nazi Germany. Talking about human beings as though they‘re animals, making them sub-human to make it ok to put their kids in cages.” — @BetoORourke pic.twitter.com/UzdZEEeAn2

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 5, 2019

And yes, this has everything to do with the rash of mass shootings this week. (One of this first things I saw this morning was that there was another one last night. Four dead, I believe.)

This Month's School Shooting

Like Digby, I have nothing to say, so I'm just going to borrow her post:

She also includes a comment from David Hogg:

Get ready for two weeks of media coverage of politicians acting like they give a shit when in reality they just want to boost their approval ratings before midterms.

— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) May 18, 2018

Just recently saw a comment that we're twenty weeks into 2018 and there have been 22 mass shootings.

Welcome to Trump's America, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NRA.

Today In Disgusting People

The NRA's own Dana Loesch (and surprise! It does not rhyme with "roach.")

The National Rifle Association tweeted out one of Dana Loesch's NRA propaganda videos Thursday night, and social media commentators are neither pleased nor impressed. The video literally and figuratively evokes violent imagery, and in a stunning act of hyperbole tries to defend President Trump.

"We are witnesses to the most ruthless attack on a president, and the people who voted for him, and the free system that allowed it to happen in American history," Loesch begins. Originally released last year, it's titled "The Ultimate Insult."

"From the highest levels of government, to their media, universities and billionaires their fate will be failure and they will perish in the political flames of their own fires. their hateful defiance of his legitimacy is an insult to each of us," Loesch says.

“But the ultimate insult is that they think we’re so stupid that we’ll let them get away with it. These saboteurs, slashing away with their leaks and sneers, their phony accusations and gagging sanctimony, drive their daggers through the heart of our future, poisoning our belief that honest custody of our institutions will ever again be possible. So they can then build their utopia from the ashes of what they burned down. No, their fate will be failure and they will perish in the political flames of their own fires," she continues.

“We are the National Rifle Association of America. And we are freedom’s safest place.”

Well, yes, it's a little over the top -- probably a sure bet for the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" Award. As for the "most ruthless attack" bit -- think back over the years from 2008-2016. Just sayin'. (And as one tweet points out, Abraham Lincoln would probably disagree with her.)

The video is at the link, if your stomach's up to it. Also, the Twitter responses, which were not supportive -- to say the least.

Connect the Dots

Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm not prone to conspiracy theories. In this case, however, we actually are dealing with well-organized extremists who have intimidated the press into validating their bullshit, taken over statehouses by rigging elections and are trying to do the same thing to Congress, and who have, over the past thirty-five years, taken over the Republican party.

One of their favorite wedge issues is the Second Amendment, which they claim gives citizens (meaning they themselves) an unrestricted right to own assault weapons (for daily use?). Anyone who's spent two seconds thinking about it will tell you there are no unrestricted rights -- not if you want a society to function at all.

Well, now they've decided that God is on their side:

Supposedly pro-life far right wing Christian leaders are using the Bible and Jesus to claim Americans not only have a right to guns – and even assault weapons – but some insist every adult has an obligation to carry an AR-15. . . .

Here are some of the religious right's most extreme, like Gordon Klingenschmitt, claiming the Bible says “all the citizens ought to be armed so they can defend themselves against left wing crazies.” And David Barton, claiming the Founding Fathers called the right to keeping bear arms, "the biblical right of self defense."

Then there's the Family Research Council's Jerry Boykin saying when Jesus returns he'll be carrying an AR-15. That's similar to Christian pastor Chuck Baldwin, who said it's a "Biblical requirement" that every American adult (and even some younger than 18) own an AR-15 or similar assault-style weapon.

You may remember that Barton is the one who claimed that the Constitution was taken word for word from the Bible. (Given to George Washington on Mount Vernon, no doubt.)

It's easy to laugh at them, because they are, in my cousin's words, "buckso wayzo". Unfortunately, there are enough people who pay attention to them that we wound up with a con artist as president.

Now, get this:

Liberty University is planning to open a state-of-the-art shooting range on campus next fall as part of the conservative Evangelical Christian School’s commitment to promoting gun ownership and firearm sports.

University president Jerry Falwell Jr. said that Liberty’s new complex will feature pistol, rifle and shotgun facilities as well as an archery range built into the mountainside of the 7,000-acre campus near Lynchburg, Va. Falwell said the project will result in one of the most expansive firearms ranges on any U.S. college campus. The blueprints call for at least $1 million in construction and landscape improvements that will provide new opportunities for student clubs and athletic teams.

Liberty already allows guns on campus, and offers training for students to qualify for concealed carry permits.

Oh, and I mentioned something about followers:

Falwell said that he was nervous when he first spoke about the school’s firearms policy at a gathering for parents whose children were considering Liberty for their higher education.

“I was a little timid about telling parents about it because I thought some would be worried,” Falwell said. “But I never got such enthusiastic applause.”

Oh, and guess who offered their full support:

Falwell said that after meeting with National Rifle Association executive vice president and chief executive officer Wayne LaPierre, the university decided to move forward with its plans for the shooting range complex. Brad Butler, Liberty’s planning coordinator, said the NRA provided crucial expertise on best practices for safety as the school examined designs for the project.

These are the people who keep talking about a "civil war" to "take back" their country. Can you say "Onward, "Christian" Soldiers"?

Today's Must-Read: Repeal the Damned Thing, Already!

Very good, thorough examination by Digby of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment, then and now:

Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has written a NYT op-ed suggesting that since the high court decided back in 2008 to define the 2nd Amendment as an individual right maybe the best way to deal with guns is to repeal the 2nd Amendment. Taking that absurd argument away from the gun proliferation zealots so the nation can have some common sense regulations  would be a good first step.

She goes on from there, including this disgusting statement from Joe the Plumber, another one who was a has-been before he ever was:

"Your dead kids don’t trump my constitutional rights."

Words fail me.

Read the whole thing, of course.

March for Our Lives, Part 7: Turning Over Rocks

And it looks like the kids turned over a lot of them. This may turn into a link dump, if I get fed up enough.

First, in order of appearance in this morning's surfing, this bozo from, of course, NRA TV:

“Their leaders told them that they [assault weapons] need to be banned and so often times what happens is they follow. The reason you don’t see NRA members marching on Washington is, one, I believe we’re in the majority of where we stand on gun rights. We are right and the Constitution is in our favor. And we’re not in a position of weakness. When people march now, in modern day and maybe even across time, they are in positions of weakness.” – NRA TV host Grant Stichfield, speaking on today’s YouTube show.

He puts it in very interesting terms, from a psychological/propaganda standpoint, and of course his audience will swallow it because they consider exercising critical thinking skills to be the Original Sin. Sure -- a million people march on Washington because they're weak. NRA members don't march on Washington because they'd have to get out of their Barcaloungers, and they couldn't get a million people to do that. Except to go to the fridge for another beer. (And by the way, NRA members strongly support various gun-control measures -- but those aren't the members the NRA brass is listening to.) Commenter Acronym Jim at the link brought up a good point: Only weak people need to carry guns and wear bulletproof vests when they protest.

That was rather mild, compared to this from Jesse Hughes. In case you've never heard of Hughes, he's the front man for Eagles of Death Metal, whose one claim to fame is:

The Eagles Of Death Metal are the American band that was onstage in November 2015 as terrorists opened fired at Paris’ Bataclan Theater, killing 89 people.

After reading through portions of his diatribes against Parkland kids, my only conclusion is that this guy is really, really sick.


And what do you find when you get to the bottom of the barrel? Why, Rep. Steve King (R-Berchtesgaden):

 

By the way, if you follow the link, you'll see that nothing in that tweet is true. And he didn't get off scot-free -- one of the Pulse survivors let him have it.

Pat Buchanan doesn't think the Parkland kids are very smart -- not nearly as smart as the protesters against the Vietnam War he hated in the 1960s. (Sorry if that busted your irony meter -- I should have warned you.)

And Alex Jones, of course, thinks they're going to kill you. Click through for the quotes -- I just can't deal with him this morning. But be warned -- it's a word salad composed entirely of alternate facts.

And of course, there's the Nazi comparison. Didn't anyone ever tell this woman about Godwin's Law?

That's all I can handle right now.

March for Our Lives, Part 6: Moron du Jour

There's a good reason the voters of Pennsylvania booted Rick Santorum (google it!) out of the Senate after one term -- aside from them finding out what a crook he is: he's too stupid to walk and breathe at the same time. Via Joe.My.God.:

Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) suggested that students should take CPR classes and take steps to prepare for active shooter situations instead of holding protests calling for new gun laws. “How about kids instead of looking to someone else to solve their problem, do something about,” Santorum said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Maybe taking CPR classes or try to deal with situations that, where there is a violent shooter that you can actually respond to that.” Santorum said students took action to “ask someone to pass a law.”

“They didn’t take action to say how do I, as an individual, deal with this problem. ‘How am I going to do something about stopping bullying within my own community. What am I going to do to actually help respond to a shooter,'” he said.

There, in a nutshell, is the right wing's response to school shootings: normalize them, and blame the victims. Seriously -- take CPR classes? As for "ask someone to pass a law" -- that's the way it works, dumbo -- you put pressure on your elected representatives to pass the laws you need.

March for Our Lives, Part 5: The Empire Strikes Back

Actually, it's the gun-manufacturers lobby:

NRA TV has been flooding its social media channels with videos criticizing the protesters under the hashtag #MarchForOurLives, the name student survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, chose for the event. Students leading the march want legislators to raise the federal age to buy a gun to 21, close background-check loopholes for gun show and online gun sales, and ban assault weapons.

"If you’re too immature to carry a firearm, you’re too immature to make policy about firearms,” said NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch in a video posted to Twitter on Thursday evening.

But apparently not too immature to be murdered by one of those "law-abiding members" NRA keeps touting -- you know, the ones who walk around with military-grade penis substitutes.

Fun fact, speaking of Dana Loesch: Did you know that in East Asian languages -- Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese -- "L" and "R" are the same sound? And that the loach is a bottom-feeding fish often stocked by tropical fish enthusiasts in their tanks to keep the gravel clean?

March for Our Lives, Part 4 (Update)

Tom Sullivan, at Hullabaloo, has a must-read on the marches. I'm going to include his quotes from David Hogg here, but read the whole post:

David Hogg has had enough. The student activist told the crowd at yesterday's rally the student movement means to make gun violence a voting issue. Only eighteen percent of first-time voters, he said, vote in mid-term elections. Not this time:

"Who here is going to vote in the 2018 election?" he asked. "We are going to make this a voting issue. We are going to take this to every election, to every state and every city. We are going to make sure the best people get in our elections to run, not as politicians, but as Americans."

"Because this is not cutting it," Hogg said, pointing behind him to the U.S. Capitol building.

He described adult failure weeks earlier in terms less broadcast-friendly:

“When your old-ass parent is like, ‘I don’t know how to send an iMessage,' and you’re just like, ‘Give me the fucking phone' and you're like, 'okay, let me handle it.' And you get it done in one second. Sadly, that’s what we have to do with our government; our parents don’t know how to use a fucking democracy, so we have to.”

That kid's going to be president -- unless someone shoots him first.

Update: Digby has a must-read as well,, with a caution:

The other side is not going to give up. They are very angry as you can see from some of the quotes above. Nobody should be sanguine that just because these large numbers of people are coming out to protest that there is no opposition. There's plenty. This is fight.

March for Our Lives, Part 3

From Susie Madrak at Crooks and Liars, this post is largely a series of tweets from various cities (not all in this country) showing the rallies and marches.

A sampling:

From New Albany, Indiana -- Mike Pence territory:

March for Our Lives Rally in New Albany pic.twitter.com/elTpHKMUyg

— Aprile Rickert (@Aperoll27) March 24, 2018

From Chicago:

Teen activists from Chicago’s South Side are joining March for Our Lives to bring attention to the gun violence they face every day. pic.twitter.com/pZzjAK6vCL

— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) March 23, 2018

From Edinburgh -- yes, that's in Scotland:

Reporting from the March For Our Lives rally in Edinburgh, where survivors of the Dunblane massacre are urging the US Congress to change gun control laws and end gun violence after last month's school shooting in Parkland Florida #MarchForOurLives #Edinburgh pic.twitter.com/NzmQ1OaeQ2

— Laura Alderman (@itsbigginge) March 24, 2018

I don't know where this is from, but it's obviously not just teenagers who are getting involved:

My 5 year old made this for the march today pic.twitter.com/cpu7YtjmfR

— Lisa Johnson (@lisalovesthree) March 24, 2018

It goes on, from St. Paul to Ft. Worth to Portland to Amsterdam -- according to this story, marches took place in 800 cities in all 50 states and 30 countries:

Saturday’s #MarchForOurLives is scheduled to take place in all 50 states and 30 countries around the globe. pic.twitter.com/0TjUhsUGbF

— TODAY Graphics (@TODAYGraphics) March 23, 2018

You think some of NRA's wholly-owned subsidiaries in Congress are going to get a clue? Don't hold your breath. Vote them out in November.

Today's Must-Read: March for Our Lives, Part 2

This is strong stuff: an eleven-year-old girl from Virginia named Naomi Wadler:

"Hi. My name is Naomi, and I'm 11 years old," she began.

"Me and my friend Carter led a walkout of our elementary school on the 14th. We walked out. We walked out for 18 minutes, adding a minute to honor Courtland Arrington, an African-American girl who was the victim of gun violence in her school in Alabama after the Parkland shooting. I am here today to represent Courtland Arrington.

"I am here today to represent Hadiyah Pendleton. I am here today to represent Tijana Thompson who at 16 was shot dead in her home here in Washington, D.C. I am here today to acknowledge and represent the African-American girls whose stories don't make the front page of every national newspaper. These stories don't lead on the evening news. I represent the African-American women who were victims of gun violence, who were simply statistics instead of vibrant, beautiful girls full of potential."

It's an amazing speech. Read the whole thing.

March for Our Lives

This happened yesterday, in all fifty states and several foreign countries. Here are a few highlights:

First, Cameron Kasky:

Cameron Kasky began his address by telling the hundreds of thousands gathered “welcome to the revolution.” Stating that he’s been asked if he believes that “any change is going to come” following the tragic Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, he told the crowd to “look around” because “we are the change.”

“We must educate ourselves and start conversations that keep our country moving forward, and we will,” Kasky exclaimed to cheers. “We hereby promise to fix the broken system we’ve been forced into and create a better world for the generations to come. Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

Next, Emma Gonzalez:

Parkland shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez has become a powerful activist, and when she took the stage to speak at today’s March for Our Lives in D.C., the crowd was moved by her stunning speech, which lasted 6 minutes and 23 seconds, the length of the Parkland shooting.

“Six minutes and about twenty seconds. In a little over six minutes, 17 of our friends were taken from us, 15 were injured, and everyone, absolutely everyone, was forever altered,” she began. She them stopped speaking and stared into the crowd, tears streaming down her face.

She ended the silence with, “Since the time that I came out here, it has been six minutes and twenty seconds. The shooter has ceased shooting and will soon abandon his rifle, blend in with the students as they escape and walk free for an hour before arrest. Fight for your life before it’s somebody else’s job.”

In a day of extraordinary moments, this is still remarkable: Emma Gonzalez stands for nearly six minutes in silence, angry, heartbroken, determined, after reading out the names of her murdered classmates. #MarchForOurLives pic.twitter.com/53yUEsm0sv

— Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) March 24, 2018

Here's a report from Newsweek via Towleroad focusing on Pennridge High School in Pennsylvania, with some good background:

When the survivors of the Parkland, Florida, massacre began channeling their grief into a call for change, 18-year-old Sean Jenkins, a student at a Pennsylvania high school, knew this school shooting would be different.

The Pennridge High School senior and his classmates are among a new generation of student activists making their voices heard in the fight for gun control. On Saturday, thousands of teenagers from across the U.S.—Pennridge kids included—will descend on Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives, led by the survivors of the Parkland shooting and calling for an end to gun violence.

Seeing students in Florida move the gun control needle was inspiring, Jenkins told Newsweek. “Even though we’re just students and most of us can’t even vote yet, the Parkland kids showed us and thousands around the country that we can make a real difference if we fight for it.”

I'll update as necessary. Feel free to add your own updates in the comments.

This Is Getting Real Old Real Fast

Another day, another school shooting:

NBC News reports:

A student pulled a gun out and shot two other students at a high school in southeast Maryland Tuesday morning before the shooter was wounded, the St. Mary’s County sheriff said.

The gunman entered Great Mills High School in Great Mills, Maryland, at the beginning of the school day and shot a female student in a hallway, Sheriff Tim Cameron said live on News4. A male student also was hit by a bullet.

Information was not available immediately on the relationship between the students, Cameron said. The shooter exchanged fire with a school resource officer, trained, armed deputy sheriff, Cameron said. The shooter was wounded; the officer was not. All three students are in critical condition.

By all means, let's make guns easily available to everyone, including teenagers. Kids going through all the stress of puberty, learning to forge relationships, learning to be adults, and being in school should have ready access to guns. Sure they should.

As of the latest update, the shooter has died.

Add in a good helping of disgusting people. From NRA spokesbot, Dana Loesch:

It [the Parkland massacre] cost peoples lives and it also contributed to a state of poison in our national discourse where you have politicians and celebrities and everyone else impugning the characters of millions of law abiding members just because they choose to voluntarily enter into a fellowship and call themselves the NRA. That’s the problem here, it created even more victims of a different sort.

She's starting to sound like a conservative "Christian" -- whatever you're doing to other people, accuse them of doing it to you.

Last I heard, a strong majority of NRA members support rational gun control laws. But then, the "members" the NRA actually listens to -- the manufacturers -- don't. There you have it.

The Evolution of a Terrorist Organization

Specifically, the National Rifle Association. It's long -- almost 17 minutes -- but it's fascinating, sort of like watching a building collapse.

This was posted by commenter KnownDonorDad in the comments to this post.

USA Today reports:

The National Rifle Association filed a federal lawsuit this afternoon against the state to block a law that had just been signed by Gov. Rick Scott that prohibits gun sales to anyone between the ages of 18 and 21.

“We filed a lawsuit against the state for violating the constitutional rights of 18 to 21 year olds,” said Marion Hammer, lobbyist for the NRA in Florida. NRA lawyers in Tallahassee and Washington D.C. were working on the complaint this afternoon, and filed the complaint moments before the court’s deadline.

It'll be interesting to see how that works out. You know the NRA will go all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.

Today in Stupid Comparisons

From none other than Pastor-Governor Mike Huckabee, apologist for all that's deplorable:

"People call it an 'assault weapon,'" Huckabee, frustrated, concluded. "Maria, if I take a pencil and stick it in your neck, that's an assault weapon."

Excuse me -- how many mass pencil stabbings have there been in this country?

#NeverAgain

This statistic comes at the end of this post by Spocko* at Hullabaloo, which is focused mainly on corporations that are severing ties with the NRA and strategies for applying economic pressure on politicians and legislatures, but this sort of caps the argument:

Since the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High, at least 69 kids under 18 have been shot. 26 of them were killed. Those numbers are from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive.

To refresh your memory, the shooting happened on Valentine's Day. Eleven days ago. That's more than six kids shot every day; more than two killed. Kids.

There's a chart with statistics on gun violence just this year at the Gun Violence Archive link. If you want to see how badly out of control this situation is, click through and take a look.

And the idiot-in-chief wants to arm teachers.

Armed Educators (and trusted people who work within a school) love our students and will protect them. Very smart people. Must be firearms adept & have annual training. Should get yearly bonus. Shootings will not happen again - a big & very inexpensive deterrent. Up to States.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 24, 2018

On that score, read this post by Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo on what people who've actually had combat training think of that idea:

Learning to shoot is one thing. Learning to fight is something else, especially when the target isn't paper and is shooting at you.

"Anyone who tells you that arming teachers is a solution is clueless," Friedman writes.

Yeah. That fits.

Something to Ponder

This, from commenter Jean-Marc in Canada in the comments thread at this post at Joe.My.God.:

To those in the US who insist this is about mental illness and not access to guns, something to consider from your neighbor to the north. FYI, this also happens to be true of the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc. #Parkland #MentalIllnessMisconceptions #GunReform pic.twitter.com/LuwZNObUnI

— Jon In Canada🌈 (@sirlthr69) February 21, 2018

Just sayin'. . . .

Today's Must-Read: Tipping Point?

Maybe, just maybe, in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, we've reached a point where enough people are ready to say "Enough!" that we might be able to do something about it.

Let's start with this post from Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo:

A gunman entered her high school on Valentine's Day and killed seventeen of her classmates. Wiping back tears, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Emma Gonzales held back nothing else in challenging President Trump, national politicians, and the National Rifle Association in a powerful speech to an anti-gun rally in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on Saturday.

If there is one thing teenagers' eyes see better than adults', it is hypocrisy. Their tolerance for it is lower too.

Gonzales told the crowd:

In February of 2017, one year ago, President Trump repealed an Obama-era regulation that would have made it easier to block the sale of firearms to people with certain mental illnesses.

From the interactions that I had with the shooter before the shooting and from the information that I currently know about him, I don't really know if he was mentally ill. I wrote this before I heard what Delaney said. Delaney said he was diagnosed. I don't need a psychologist and I don't need to be a psychologist to know that repealing that regulation was a really dumb idea.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa was the sole sponsor on this bill that stops the FBI from performing background checks on people adjudicated to be mentally ill and now he's stating for the record, 'Well, it's a shame the FBI isn't doing background checks on these mentally ill people.' Well, duh. You took that opportunity away last year.

Grassley said after the Florida shootings, "We have not done a very good job of making sure that people that have mental reasons for not being able to handle a gun getting their name into the FBI files and we need to concentrate on that."

The blatant hypocrisy is staggering. And it's worth noting that Grassley took in $9,900 from the NRA in the 2016 election cycle alone. I can't find a total for Grassley, but he doesn't seem to be in the first rank like Richard Burr ($6,986,620), Roy Blunt ($4,551,146), Thom Tillis ($4,418,012), Cory Gardner ($3,879,064), or Marco Rubio ($3,303,355), none of whom think it's the right time to talk about gun control.

She's not the only one calling the politicians to account. Cameron Kasky, another student who survived, at CNN:

We can't ignore the issues of gun control that this tragedy raises. And so, I'm asking -- no, demanding -- we take action now.

Why? Because at the end of the day, the students at my school felt one shared experience -- our politicians abandoned us by failing to keep guns out of schools.

But this time, my classmates and I are going to hold them to account. This time we are going to pressure them to take action. This time we are going to force them to spend more energy protecting human lives than unborn fetuses.

And they're organizing:

Student survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting announced a “March for Our Lives” this morning calling for lawmakers to take substantive action on guns.

Emma Gonzalez, the student who gave an impassioned speech yesterday, told CNN’s Dana Bash, “We’re going to be facing this with trepidation and determination, and we have an incredible support system around us. We are going to be the difference.”

Cameron Kasky said right into the camera, “We are losing our lives while the adults are playing around.”

He said on March 24th, students “in every single major city” will be marching to send a message about how lives are literally on the line.

“This isn’t about the GOP, this isn’t about the Democrats,” he said. “This is about us creating a badge of shame for any politicians who are accepting money from the NRA and using us as collateral.”

There's video at the link which doesn't seem to be at CNN's YouTube channel and which I can't embed.

Maybe we need to start targeting those senators and representatives who are flouting the wishes of a large majority of Americans.

Sullivan's parting thought is worth repeating here:

In most reports on her speech, this early section gets left out:

I read something very powerful to me today. It was from the point of view of a teacher. And I quote: When adults tell me I have the right to own a gun, all I can hear is my right to own a gun outweighs your student's right to live. All I hear is mine, mine, mine, mine.

Contrast that with the comments of the conservative Australian rancher Jon Oliver spoke with in 2013. He did not want to part with his weapons when the government banned them after the Port Arthur massacre, "But ... I felt as if I had a bit of a duty to the rest of our society."

What he said.

And a thought, to all those congresscritters and senators who never think it's time to talk about gun control, and/or that it should be easier to buy guns:

Why is the Capitol a gun-free zone?

Today in Disgusting People

Take your pick:

Donald Trump:



With thanks to commenter fuzzybits at Joe.My.God.

That post quotes from this article about our second candidate, Greg Gutfeld:

“Society is changing. You have to teach them how to respond,” he said, before referring to kids as “soft targets.”

“You have to be rational about it, which means hardening soft targets through drills and training,” he said. “Learning combat. Learning hand-to-hand combat. This works, by the way, for terror, if there’s a terror attack, and it works for school shootings.”

Gutfeld asked “How do you improve upon this rationally? Well, you train them. That simple.”

What an absolutely insane idea. Can you see a first-grader aiming a karate punch and some guy with an assault rifle? In this context, I think "You have to be rational about it" makes a good laugh line.

Next up is Kentucky Governor Matt Blevin:

In the wake of a shooting that left at least 17 dead on Wednesday in a high school outside Boca Raton, Florida, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin (R) focused on violent video games as part of a "culture of death that is being celebrated" and leading to these kinds of incidents.

"There are video games that, yes, are listed for mature audiences, but kids play them and everybody knows it, and there's nothing to prevent the child from playing them," Bevin said in an interview on WHAS' Leland Conway show Thursday morning. "They celebrate the slaughtering of people. There are games that literally replicate and give people the ability to score points for doing the very same thing that these students are doing inside of schools, where you get extra points for finishing someone off who's lying there begging for their life."

"These are quote-unquote video games, and they're forced down our throats under the guise of protected speech," Conway continued, seemingly referring to a 2011 Supreme Court decision that prevents content-based restrictions on games. "It's garbage. It's the same as pornography. They have desensitized people to the value of human life, to the dignity of women, to the dignity of human decency. We're reaping what we've sown here."

That's just the tip of the iceberg. But he's not alone -- he's just the one who popped up in my surfing this morning. As it happens, the link between video games and violence is somewhat tenuous:

International comparisons of per capita spending on violent games and gun-related murders show a negative correlation between the two. And meta-analyses of video game violence studies have found no real link between imaginary on-screen violence and actual aggressive behavior.

Again, via Joe.My.God.

And last (for the time being) but certainly not least, the ever reprehensible Bryan Fischer:

I know a man who was living in a neighborhood when a salesman came door to door selling home security systems. He told the salesman he already had one. “What’s your security system?” he asked. The man replied, “God and a loaded gun.”

It wasn’t a matter of either/or but both/and. I suggest we have mass school shootings because we don’t have enough God on our campuses and we don’t have enough guns.

When tragic school shootings happen, like the one in Florida, everyone sends their “thoughts and prayers” to the families of the victims. But why don’t we pray before these shootings happen instead of waiting until somebody’s dead? Everyone understands that prayer in school is appropriate in the wake of a tragedy like this. But if it’s appropriate after, there’s no reason it’s not appropriate before.

As might be expected, he turns it into an argument in favor of prayer in schools -- and more guns.

And, yes, via Joe.My.God.

The appalling thing is, this is all from three of the first four posts I saw at the first site I visited this morning. I'm sure there are more, but enough is enough. For right now, at least.