Heed This Warning

A recent answer on Quora struck a similar tone to what I have been saying in terms of the Gun Cult giving a little now to save a lot of pain later.

I think the pro gun camp is making a mistake. They are letting the anti gun camp look like the reasonable side and they are letting the anti gun camp control the message. The pro gun camp is looking more and more like a bunch of gun crazy conspiracy theory nuts.

I think the pro gun camp needs to take a step back and stop being so defensive. They need to calm down and start sounding reasonable and controlling the message. Most gun owners want there to be common sense regulations for guns. The second amendment and the Heller decision allows for those regulations so the pro gun camp should be the ones proposing the reforms that will help decrease these big mass shootings.

If they don't, I suspect that the pro gun camp is going to create exactly what they fear the most by being defensive and obstinate. They are going to let the anti gun camp win.

Indeed.

Mic Drop (AKA what it's like having an adult for president)

The Not So Lonely Lone Wolf

The State of Gun Violence in the United States

The video below is a fairly unbiased look at gun violence in the US. They do a great job of explaining the proportions of mass shootings to suicides etc while illustrating just how grave the problem is and how it's gotten worse.

Orlando: Homophobia, and not Islamic Terror?

Republicans like Trump are framing the Orlando massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub as an act of radical Islamic terrorist. The fact is, these murders had nothing to do with Islam: it was an act of hatred aimed at a social minority, motivated by conservative and religious intolerance of people who are different.

This attack is like the church shooting in Charleston last year, the abortion clinic shooting in Colorado Springs last November, the bombing of the Otherside Lounge (a gay bar in Atlanta in 1997), plus numerous other attacks on gay bars over the last 50 years.

The Orlando shooter was a nut who hated gays, just like the Charleston shooter was a nut who hated African Americans, and the Colorado Springs shooter was a nut who hated people involved with abortion.

It looks like Mateen was a lone wolf who had nothing to do with ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. Yes, he called 911 to proclaim his allegiance to them. But why?

Mateen's choice of targets tells the real story. He was an American, born and bred, and he knew that if this was written off by the media as an attack on gays by a homophobic nutjob, it would be immediately forgotten and he would lapse into obscurity like the dozens of conservative Christian nutjobs who have committed the same crime.

But when he pledges allegiance to ISIS he suddenly becomes an infamous Muslim terrorist and can sow terror and fear into the hearts of every American, not just the small percentage of Americans in the LGBT community.

By attacking a gay nightclub, Mateen made it clear he was motivated more by the recent flurry of bathroom bills in Florida, rather than a radical Islamic agenda.

Orlando Falllout

Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS, official says 

"In the beginning he was a normal being that cared about family, loved to joke, loved to have fun, but then a few months after we were married I saw his instability. I saw that he was bipolar and he would get mad out of nowhere. That's when I started worrying about my safety," she said.

When you support our nation's current gun laws, you allow someone like this to acquire a firearm. Thus, you are just as responsible as he is. Thankfully, there are members of Congress who agree.

“This phenomenon of near constant mass shootings happens only in America – nowhere else,” Murphy said Sunday. “Congress has become complicit in these murders by its total, unconscionable deafening silence. This doesn’t have to happen, but this epidemic will continue without end if Congress continues to sit on its hands and do nothing – again.”

It's bizarre, really, because we're talking about a threat to our national security and yet they do nothing. As a side note, it's interesting how the ISIL angle is being played up but not the mental illness nor homophobia. At this point, it seems like the ISIL connection was after the fact and merely thrown in as an excuse by Mateen in the hopes of denying his individual problems.

As mass shootings plague US, survivors mourn lack of change

"The deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history has people around the world wondering why mass violence keeps happening in America." 

Uh...because a third of our country (gun owners) has a totalitarian stranglehold on the rest of us, peddling ideological nonsense based purely on their need for empowerment?

Not Working

The 28th Amendment

I was planning on putting up a post this week on how a 28th amendment should be added to the US Constitution that rewords the 2nd Amendment. Today seems a good day to do so given what has happened in Orlando. Thanks in advance to John Paul Stevens, former SCOTUS judge, for the inspiration.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, while serving in a militia, shall not be infringed.

Unless you regularly train for active shooter situations, other forms of combat, and get regular mental health and background checks, no guns for you. This would drastically reduce gun violence in our nation and would clearly have prevented this event.

I’m past the whole “shocked, outraged and saddened” tripe. Events like the Orlando shooting happen on a regular basis in the United States and it’s entirely the fault of the gun lobby and its supporters. Worse, international terrorist organizations are now exploiting this.

As a citizen of the United States, we are at continued security risks as long as we have a completely warped view of firearms. The shooter in this case was on an FBI watch list but because gun rights activists have used their power to maintain lax gun laws, this guy was able to procure guns.

The Gun Cult is, once again, criminally responsible for this. We need to stop them before they allow more  people to be killed.

What Happens When You Aren't An Asshole

Guns Save Lives!!

I Rest My Case

Idiots

Mocking The Disabled

When I watch the video below of Donald Trump mocking a disabled reporter, it reminds me a lot of the bullying that goes on in the comments sections of blogs. Childish...insensitive...someone who was obviously bullied themselves... and much more.

The people that run these blogs and the commenters that follow them finally have a candidate that represents their values.


 

I'm going to truly enjoy watching them get their ass kicked in November.

Trump's Waterloo?

What amazes me the most about this is that high ranking GOP members are shocked, SHOCKED, that Trump is being a racist. What the fuck did they expect? And what does this say about the GOP base?

Exactly what I have been saying all along...:)

Republican Strategy: Pump and Dump Trump?

It has been a mystery to conservative pundits across the country how supposedly honorable Republicans are supporting Trump. See any column written by Jennifer Rubin or George F. Will at the Washington Post to see what I mean.

But with the release of court documents in the Trump University case the way forward is clear.

It is now obvious that Trump is an immoral, unethical, lying, cowardly, bullying crook with mob connections and a two-year-old's inclination for temper tantrums. He has forty years of dirty laundry with extra-marital affairs, tax evasion, bankruptcies, shady deals and so on.

All the Republican establishment need do is nominate a vice president that's smarter than a bucket of warm spit. If Trump is elected, they impeach the bastard.

They'll have their choice of hundreds of Trump scandals to choose from.They need only dig up four or five oldies but goodies, as they did with the Clintons. Trump has literally dozens of Whitewaters. Set up a few congressional investigations, which will find probable cause for impeachment. Appoint a special prosecutor, who will most assuredly find numerous high crimes and misdemeanors because, well, Trump. After a brief impeachment trial in the House, Trump will be convicted in the Senate.

Their chosen VP will become president, and Bob's your uncle.

Trump has insulted pretty much everyone in the Republican Party, and sure, it'll be embarrassing for the House and Senate to impeach a president who's nominally a Republican.

But shutting Trump's fat mouth with an an impeachment trial will be so worth it...

Five Undisputed Facts About Clinton's Emails

From The Hill...

First, the former secretary of State did nothing illegal by having a private email system. The department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) pointed to “policies” that were violated but cited no laws that were violated and said these policies were inconsistently applied and need to be further clarified in the future. 

Second, Clinton was not trying to hide her use of her own private email address. In fact, 90 percent of all the emails she sent went to State Department employees with a state.gov email address, which she thought, mistakenly, would be automatically preserved on the department’s email server. How could she be seeking to hide her use of a private email address if she sent her private email to so many people at State? 

Third, no email received or sent by Clinton was labeled at any level of classification. Multiple references in the media and in the right-wing blogosphere to Clinton emails containing “classified” information all refer to post-facto opinions — what could be accurately called classification by hindsight. State Department experts disagreed with many of those opinions. 

Fourth, according to the OIG, there is no evidence that Clinton’s private server was ever successfully hacked. In other words, all the dire and dark warnings from partisan Republicans about the secretary of State risking the nation’s security by using a private server are, in fact, all speculation — based on no facts whatsoever. 

Fifth, as pointed out by the inspector general, there was ample precedent for the use of private emails for official and private business, from Colin Powell to senior aides for Condoleezza Rice.

If you head hurts, that's the ol' cognitive dissonance happening.

The second one is my favorite because it shows how silly the Hillary mouth foamers are. Email goes two ways, right? So..um...that means that there are always copies out there FROM THE PEOPLE WHO SHE SENT EMAILS TO!!!

Freaking Out Over Dead Lesbian Syndrome

A couple of months ago the CW show The 100 killed off Lexa, a lesbian character, right after she had consummated her relationship with Clarke, the main character.

Fans went nuts. Many stopped watching the show, and its ratings crashed. The showrunner has apologized profusely, but critics have not been mollified (note: Clarke had a previous lesbian liaison and everyone lived!).

The 100 is a post-apocalyptic science fiction series. A nuclear war killed most of earth's population. A few thousand people survive on space stations in orbit. But after many decades, the space stations are running out of resources: in particular, oxygen. Because of this, pretty much any infraction is punished by death, as a form of population control. But it's not working any more; the only way the human race can survive is to return to earth, which is still a radioactive hell-hole as far as they know. So the Sky People, as they are called, send 100 kids sentenced to death down to earth to see if they can survive.

NPR has a story about this today: 

About 10 percent of the deaths that I counted were gay, bisexual or otherwise queer women, which, when you think about it proportionally, is kind of nuts because not many television shows, unless it's "Orange Is The New Black" or something, have more than one or two maybe gay, bisexual or otherwise women. And the fact that most of them - a lot of them end up dead is troubling.

Now, there may be a real Bury Your Gays or Dead Lesbian Syndrome in TV and the movies, a holdover from the 50s when various ethics codes in the media required that no sin go unpunished, at a time when homosexuality was considered aberrant.

But in this case The 100 is 100% not guilty of Dead Lesbian Syndrome. The lesbian character didn't die because she was a lesbian, but because the main character loved her. In this show, every loving relationship eventually ends in death.

Bellamy's girlfriend dies. Jasper's girlfriend dies. Clarke's dad dies. Octavia's boyfriend dies. Monty's mom dies. Everyone in Mount Weather dies. Clarke's previous two boyfriends die; Clarke herself was forced to administer the death penalty to the second one to avoid all-out war with the "grounders," as the natives are called.

The 100 is literally the grittiest show on TV. Most shows starring people in their teens and 20s have them running around with perfect clothes, hair and teeth and makeup, regardless of how barbaric their situation. Not The 100. When someone gets beat up, they're bloody and bruised and the damage lasts multiple episodes. They live in a post-apocalyptic world that has devolved to a medieval level for most inhabitants.

Life on The 100 is dirty, short and brutal, regardless of sexual orientation. So don't stop watching the show because Lexa got killed. Anyone Clarke loves is gonna die: hers is the kiss of death.

A far better reason to stop watching the show is that is essentially the anti-Star Trek: everyone acts like an idiot, all outsiders are distrusted, hated and killed, everyone holds a grudge and nearly every character has lost their moral center, at a time when humanity needs it most. The show has a dismal, hopeless view of mankind and its ability to survive its own self-destructiveness. Each season the plot lurches from one looming catastrophe to another bigger and even more calamitous disaster, with any rays of hope snuffed out within one or two episodes.

The one good thing the series does is emphasize our predicament: for the human race to survive, we need each other. Otherwise we won't have a civilization; we just have an ever-growing pile of corpses.

Children Need Protection!

How is it Not Racism?

I'm sure in Donald Trump's mind, calling out U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the judge in the Trump University fraud case, for being Mexican isn't racist. Never mind the fact that Judge Curiel is an American citizen who was born in Indiana. He's a beaner!!! Fuck him...

 

Someone Woke Up Hillary

The video below is an excellent illustration of how you take down Donald Trump. I'm happy to see that Hillary Clinton finally woke up. She looks presidential and he looks like some angry, old white guy yelling in a hat. Speaking of such guys...

I noted how her critique of Donald could also be applied to right wing bloggers and commenters. After all, they are essentially the same animal. Example...

"Donald Trump's ideas aren't just different -- they are dangerously incoherent. They're not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies."

Sums up nearly every conservative, especially the Gun Cult, that I've ever had a discussion with over the years...:)