Trump Demands Gun Control, Executions For 'Hate Crimes,' Asks DOJ & Social Media to Detect Pre-Crime
Trump Calls for Gun Control, Immigration Deal in Wake of Attacks
Globe Gunning For Trump
He's now in the crosshairs:
US President Donald Trump speaks about the mass shootings from the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House in Washington, DC, August 5, 2019. - US President Donald Trump described mass shootings in Texas and Ohio as a "crime against all of humanity" as he addressed the nation on Monday after the attacks that left in 29 people dead. "These barbaric slaughters are... an attack upon a nation, and a crime against all of humanity," he said. (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(AFP/Getty Images)
"President Trump, despite past rhetoric, condemns ‘bigotry’" by Michael Crowley and Maggie Haberman New York Times, August 5, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump forcefully denounced white supremacy following twin mass shootings over the weekend, citing the threat of “racist hate” with no acknowledgment that his own anti-immigrant rhetoric has become part of a national debate.
“In one voice our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy,” Trump said at the White House. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated,” but he stopped well short of endorsing the kind of broad gun control measures that activists and Democrats have sought for years, instead falling back on old Republican remedies, such as stronger action to address mental illness, violence in the media, and violent video games.
He warned of “the perils of the Internet and social media,” but offered no recognition of his own use of those platforms to promote his brand of divisive politics.
It seemed unlikely that Trump’s 10-minute remarks, coming after one of the most violent weekends in recent American history, would reposition him as a unifier when many Americans hold him responsible for inflaming racial division. He took no responsibility for the atmosphere of division, nor did he recognize his own reluctance to warn of the rise of white nationalism until now.
This is a major hammer job and is, to me, evidence of a pre-planned agenda being rolled out much the way you would any program. The special section and amount of print given is also an indication. They twist and turn whatever issue on which they decide to focus with pre-conceived solutions, and once again no mention of the JQ.
Speaking at a lectern beneath a portrait of George Washington in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, Trump read from a prepared script on a teleprompter as he denounced the bilious anti-Hispanic online manifesto of a shooter in El Paso, who killed 22 people Saturday as part of an “evil contagion” spreading online.
I think he was in on the censorship all along, that's why he has been so brash and audacious. It set up the parameters to move forward on this stuff. Either that or he fell into the trap.
“These barbaric slaughters are an assault upon our communities, an attack upon our nation and a crime against all of humanity,” Trump said of the massacre in El Paso and another in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday — at one point incorrectly referring to Toledo as the site of those killings. The Dayton shooter is not known to have had a political motive.
Well, the New York Times just flat-out lied, probably because the alleged gunman is a lefty radical (if he's not dead), and that doesn't fit the narrative here.
Now we turn to the inside of the paper:
Between the two massacres, 31 people have now died.
Trump took no questions and did not repeat his call on Twitter earlier in the morning for Republicans and Democrats to work together to strengthen background checks for prospective gun buyers. That outraged Democratic leaders in Congress, who quickly accused Trump of retreating from more substantive action on gun control under political pressure.
“It took less than three hours for the president to back off his call for stronger background check legislation,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, said in a statement. House Democrats passed such a measure in February, but the Republican-controlled Senate has not acted on it.
There he goes again, cowering in the trench.
Trump’s first comments, made in a pair of morning Twitter posts, set some gun control advocates up for disappointment. “We cannot let those killed in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, die in vain,” he wrote. “Likewise for those so seriously wounded. We can never forget them, and those many who came before them. Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying . . . . . . this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!”
Hmmmmm.
In his somber remarks, Trump repeated his past endorsement of so-called red flag laws that would allow for the confiscation of guns from people found to be mentally ill and said mental health laws should be changed to allow for the involuntary confinement of people at risk of committing violence. He gave no indication of how he would pursue such goals.
Here's the ironic rub: the pre$$ sees all Trump voters as mentally ill.
I'm so glad I sat out the last one after voting Bernie in the primary.
It was not immediately clear what other gun control proposals Trump was referring to on Twitter. The House passed back-to-back bills on firearms soon after Democrats took control, voting in February to require background checks for all gun purchasers, including those at gun shows and on the Internet, and to extend waiting periods for would-be gun purchasers flagged by the existing instant-check system. The Republican-controlled Senate has not acted on either measure.
Yeah, and all of a sudden McConnell slips and falls and breaks his arm (reminds me of Kerry breaking his leg in a bike fall while he was negotiating the Iran deal. Not only that, he has to go along with the official version because of a) already being blackmailed so...., b) he can't say a couple of goons came to my room late at night. Then his problems are even worse, he's out of the club, and likely to be called a conspiracy kook).
Time to move on it, Mitch!
Instead of focusing on measures to limit the sale of firearms, Trump ticked through a list of proposals that Republicans have long endorsed as alternatives. They include unspecified action to address “gruesome and grisly video games” and “a culture that celebrates violence.”
That's dismissed because it touches to close to certain intere$ts, and the culture is awash in the worship of militarism, the celebration of law enforcement authority, and glorification of wars for the empire.
See:
"On Sunday, as I watched my daughter walk away to her flight at Logan Airport, I was struck by several thoughts that made me sad, frightened, and angry. She is a beautiful Latina who first came through the gates at Logan 39 years ago, as a toddler, arriving from her native El Salvador. I adopted her at the height of the war in that troubled nation. She left behind the violence that oppressed her country, joined our family, and became an American citizen. Following college, she served her country in the US Navy for four years, proud to express her gratitude for the opportunity to do so in a place that afforded her peace and security, but now I am struck by a terrible irony in her situation, and by my awareness of it as her mother. In the current race war raging here, fueled by the hateful rhetoric of the president, my daughter, as a Hispanic woman, is a clear target for those angry white men who see her and others like her as part of an “invasion.” Years ago, I was so grateful to be able to bring her to safety, and to bless my family with all that she has meant to us. Now I worry that she is no longer safe in the country she has served. This is us now, and I fear for her, and I fear for our country......"
"Your Monday front-page headline “This is what we’ve become” saddened me, at first, because I thought it reflected the truth, but then, after reading several accounts of what happened in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, I realized that Nestor Ramos and the Globe are so focused on the evil that they are unable to see the courage and self-sacrifice that were demonstrated in countless ways in both cities: first responders rushing in to stop the carnage with little regard for their own safety, parents throwing themselves on top of their children to protect them, people lining up almost immediately to donate blood for the victims, citizens across the country sending money and condolences. In every incident of mass murder, we have seen the same thing. It certainly was evident here in Boston in 2013. We have not become the evil crackpots who have inflicted horror on schools, churches, shopping centers, and festivals. Despite how often those awful people have surfaced, they are still only a tiny fraction of our population. The vast majority of us are, what we have always been, a nation of brave, caring, and public-spirited people. What we are witnessing is something that has always been occurring: spiritual warfare of good vs. evil. The good is winning and, with our continued vigilance, it always will....."
Trump also warned that the Internet and social media provide “a dangerous avenue to radicalize disturbed minds and perform demented acts,” but the president has himself amplified right-wing voices online with histories of racism and bigotry. Shortly before the shooting began in El Paso on Saturday, Trump retweeted Katie Hopkins, a right-wing British political commentator who has said Islam “disgusts” her and urged her fellow citizens to “arm ourselves” to “fight back” against foreign infiltration.
There are your right-wing zealots feeding into the Zionist narrative.
I have to admit, the plan of control is genius. You control both ends of the extreme in order to funnel everything into the middle. Sometimes they get 75% of what they want, sometimes they get 25%, but in either case they will be back for more later. That's how you pursue negotiations and endlessly continue advancing the agenda and greater plan.
Trump also emphasized steps to better identify and respond to signs of mental illness that could lead to violence, repeating a familiar conservative formulation that deemphasizes the significance of widely available firearms.
I'm wondering how we apply that to presidents who lied us into wars.
“Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun,” Trump said. Calling mass shooters “mentally ill monsters,” he also said he was directing the Department of Justice to propose legislation calling for the death penalty for “those who commit hate crimes and mass murders.”
That's why I'm in favor of the prohibition of alcohol, but look where this guy is going. Just as much a slave to the Zionist censorship agenda as the other side.
Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, praised what he called a shift in tone for the president. On a conference call with reporters, Toomey said he had spoken Monday morning to Trump and the president also expressed “a very constructive willingness to engage on” the issue of expanded background checks, long championed by the senator.
Trump delivered the remarks at the White House after a weekend at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., where he was thinly staffed as the weekend’s news unfolded. Perusing the news in isolation, Trump tweeted several expressions of sympathy, along with more combative shots at the media and his liberal critics.
He goes there every weekend, so nothing new there, just a pot shot at him before painting the president as mentally ill, gloomy, and in isolation. Gotta love that reassuring pre$$ narrative and the self-contained bubble they have.
By Sunday night, when his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner joined him for his return to Washington, Trump’s aides recognized that he needed to do more. Some advisers suggested that background checks would be an easy, bipartisan measure to endorse, but Trump was uncertain. When early drafts of his remarks began circulating, they did not mention background checks or immigration, according to two people briefed on them.
You can't hesitate pulling the trigger, man! You gotta blast away or you're dead!
So aides were startled to discover that the president, sitting in the White House residence, had posted a tweet linking the two issues.
In a small meeting with Trump in the residence before the speech, several aides argued the linkage was a mistake, and the president dropped both the immigration idea and the call for background checks.
Well, he has developed a reputation for bluster followed by instant backpedaling, and as long as he starts backpedaling out of some wars without starting new ones, he has a chance.
Gun control groups reacted sharply to Trump’s address.
“Let’s be clear: This is not about mental health, it’s not about video games, it’s not about movies. Those are all NRA talking points. This is about easy access to guns,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group.
We see who is ultimately behind this agenda, and have they called for a cessation of arms shipments to Israel.
Trump has previously denounced racism with scripted remarks that sounded out of tune with his typical rhetoric. After the killing of a counterprotester at a white power rally in Charlottesville, Va., two years ago, he called white supremacists “repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” but those remarks followed earlier off-the-cuff comments by the president, who had been criticized for not more forcefully denouncing the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville organized by neo-Nazis. Instead he condemned “hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.” Trump later declared that the event had “some very fine people on both sides.”
He meant the new minority, and the report is another dog whistle with clowns to the left of me and jokers to the right as the Globe prays for a hero to save us as it sacrifices it's self-righteous slop on the altar of hate.
Aides said he was referring to nonviolent protesters defending Southern heritage and he was angry the news media had not paid more attention to left-wing antifa activists who engaged in violence.
Because that would conflict with the narrative.
In March, after an avowed white supremacist killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand, Trump said he did not “really” see a rising threat from white nationalism. “It’s a small group of people,” he added.
The threat, honestly, is Jewish nationalism in the form of extreme Zionism. That's one reason white nationalism, whatever that is, is cited. Any cohesive group of people pose a threat to that small group. Better they all be divided and bickering over crumbs as their blood is shed and fortunes are made.
The president has also previously declared himself a supporter of stronger gun control, only to retreat from the issue. After a gunman killed 17 at a high school in Parkland, Fla., last year, Trump startled Republican lawmakers that February when on live television, he appeared to embrace comprehensive gun control legislation that would expand background checks, keep guns from mentally ill people, and restrict gun sales for some young adults, but he made little effort to follow through.
In Texas, law enforcement officials arrested Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old white man from Allen, Texas, which is about a 10-hour drive from the Walmart in El Paso where he opened fire Saturday. In the manifesto, Crusius said he supported mass shootings in two New Zealand mosques.
The gunman in Dayton, Connor Betts, 24, fired on a popular nightlife spot with a high-capacity magazine that can hold 100 rounds of ammunition. Nine people were killed, including Betts’s sister.
Like the Pulse Club event, and even the Ohio governor is now set to talk policy in wake of mass shootings, while in truly jump the shark fashion, the ma$$ media is now claiming the Ohio gunman targeted his own sister and the Ohio shooter kept ‘hit list’ and ‘rape list’ in high school, and I'm sorry, there is not one photo that confirms that anything happened in either place.
Some of the Democrats campaigning for their party’s presidential nomination condemned Trump for not calling the El Paso attack a white supremacist act of domestic terrorism and blamed the White House for fueling white nationalist sentiment.
‘‘He’s been racist from day one — before day one when he was questioning whether Barack Obama was born in the United States,’’ said former representative Beto O'Rourke, a 2020 presidential contender who represented El Paso. ‘‘He’s trafficked in this stuff from the very beginning, and we are reaping right now what he has sown and what his supporters in Congress have sown. We have to put a stop to it.’’
Related:
"A group of Democratic senators has demanded in a letter sent to Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, that the Internet giant convert its more than 120,000 temporary and contract workers to full-time employees. The letter, written by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, also urged Google to stop its “anti-worker practices” and treat everyone at the company equally. Among the 10 senators who signed were three running for president: Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. As of March, Google had more temporary workers than full-time employees — 121,000 temps and contractors and 102,000 full-timers, according to company data viewed by The New York Times. The senators pushed for a number of changes to how the company treats temps and contractors, including moving them to full-time status after six months as well as equalizing their wages and benefits with permanent staff. While many of the temps and contractors sit in the same offices as Google employees and often do similar work, they usually make less money, have worse benefit plans, and do not enjoy the same rights."
Now back to work.
Former president Obama posted a statement in which he called for the nation to ‘‘soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist statements.’’ Obama did not mention the president by name.
He's laying low because he knows they have him on infiltrating and spying on the campaign.
According to FBI statistics, there have been eight mass shootings since 2017 in which the shooters espoused white supremacist views.
--more--"
One thing lost in all this is the fact that the police kill more American citizens in the course of a year than all the alleged mass shootings combined, an issue that has completely dropped off the agenda-pushing pre$$'s radar.
I better watch my language:
"Despite condemnation of hate, Trump has ramped up his use of ‘invasion’ rhetoric in recent months" by Zoe Greenberg and Christina Prignano Globe staff, August 5, 2019
President Trump has significantly ramped up his use of the word “invasion” to describe the flow of immigrants to the southern border in recent months, frequently using a divisive call that was apparently echoed by the mass shooter in El Paso, Texas, shortly before this weekend’s killing spree.
The shooter is believed to be behind an online posting that described a “Hispanic invasion of Texas” as the reason behind his attack, which left 22 dead and many more wounded. His choice of language parroted Trump’s recent speeches and tweets.
“With another President, millions would be pouring in. I am stopping an invasion as the Wall gets built,” Trump wrote on Twitter in March.
In June, Trump told the conservative television host Laura Ingraham that people and drugs coming from Mexico were “really an invasion without the guns.”
Since October 2018, Trump has used variations of “invasion” at least 33 times in speeches, tweets, and interviews, according to a Boston Globe analysis of two databases that track the president’s public statements.
Globe hard at work, 'eh?
Like Trump’s taunt that four congresswomen should “go back” to their countries of origin, scholars say the president’s “invasion” rhetoric is not a new invention, but instead a repeat of language used in some of the ugliest moments in American history. The phrase and the racist ideology behind it have been popular with nativists and politicians alike over the years; it’s a code with a simple key.
Now who is the conspiracy nut! They're seeing coded language!
“Invasion implies two things: first, that they don’t belong,” said Mae Ngai, a historian at Columbia University and the author of “Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America.” “Second, invasion signals that it’s a crisis of national security, as if there were an army.”
It kind of is an army, just without weaponry. It's a mass of people. How many in battalion or division?
Ngai traces the fear of a “foreign invasion” of immigrants to the late 19th century, when white panic about Chinese Americans was pervasive. Such panic was not confined to the fringes of society; it reached the highest court in the land. In 1889, the Supreme Court offered white citizens and politicians a legal justification for exclusionary laws by saying that immigration was a matter of national security, requiring military-level vigilance.
Sort of like Israel's citizenship law.
“To preserve its independence, and give security against foreign aggression and encroachment, is the highest duty of every nation,” the court wrote. “It matters not in what form such aggression and encroachment come, whether from the foreign nation acting in its national character, or from vast hordes of its people crowding in upon us.”
In other words, ordinary people entering the United States could be similar to enemy soldiers.
“That ruling was passed to justify the racist exclusion of Chinese, but actually is the basis of all our immigration law,” Ngai said.
Now we have a trade war with 'em, and Xi is one of the worst leaders ever (according to the Washington ComPost)!
In the first two years of his presidency, Trump’s use of “invasion” to describe immigration was relatively rare, but he began saying it more and more frequently as the 2018 midterm elections neared. He has called immigration an invasion as recently as June, according to the two databases, trumptwitterarchive.com, which tracks Trump’s tweets, and Factba.se, which catalogues nearly every statement, speech, interview, and tweet from the president.
“The Wall is under construction and moving along quickly, despite all of the Radical Liberal Democrat lawsuits. What are they thinking as our Country is invaded by so many people (illegals) and things (Drugs) that we do not want,” Trump tweeted on June 2.
In remarks from the White House on Monday, Trump condemned “racist hate” and said the ideologies of “racism, bigotry, and white supremacy” must be defeated, but critics say he has contradicted those sentiments often with public statements that cast immigrants as dangerous invaders.
“The idea of invasion, of somebody coming in and taking what is ours, it presupposes this idea of a centralized American identity that’s under siege,” said Jennifer Wingard, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Houston. “Typically that centralized identity is kind of Anglo, European; it’s white.”
Or Jewish.
Wingard said that while she believes it’s the first time a sitting president has used such rhetoric on a national stage, similar language and policies have appeared in legislation at the state and local levels across the country.
She conveniently forgets the Japanese experience during World War II.
In 1994, California’s Proposition 187, for example, sought to block undocumented immigrants from accessing social services, public education, and health care. “Proposition 187 will be the first giant stride in ultimately ending the ILLEGAL ALIEN invasion,” supporters wrote in a public argument in favor of the proposition, which voters approved. A federal judge stopped it from taking effect, however.
More recently, Arizona’s 2010 “Show me your papers” law made it a crime for undocumented immigrants to work and required state law enforcement officials to determine the legal status of people they stopped or arrested. The law’s sponsor, Republican state Senator Russell Pearce, argued it would protect people from “the invasion of illegal aliens we face today.” The Supreme Court struck down most of its provisions.
They are on the front lines.
The long-abiding popularity of the invasion rhetoric stems perhaps from the layered fears that it stirs up among white people.
Not me. It's a purely economic rational. Can't afford it, and the undocumented drive down wages -- which is why the corporate pre$$ is all for it and hollers racist at anyone who disagrees.
There are three primary types of invasion fear, according to René Flores, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago; Trump has deployed all three.
The first is the fear of an economic invasion, stoked by the idea that there are limited resources and undocumented immigrants will unfairly use them up.
There are not limited resources, or is a tax hike the next suggestion?
The second is the fear of a criminal invasion, along the lines of Trump’s false claim before the 2016 presidential election that Mexicans crossing the border were largely drug dealers and criminals.
Yeah, the gangs you never read about (except in brief, maybe) are a complete myth even though they are largely responsible for the recent opioid epidemic.
The third, and perhaps the most psychically powerful, is the fear of a cultural invasion, that what constitutes the “real” America will suddenly disappear.
Now she sounds like Williamson, so time to bury this quick.
“He’s nationalizing this campaign,” Flores said. “Even in places that have very few Latinos, very few immigrants, this narrative now is widespread.”
It's the pre$$ that is spreading the narrative and pushing the agenda!
--more--"
From Chicago you said?
"While much of the nation’s attention was focused on the gun massacres in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, last weekend, Chicago was convulsed by its own burst of violence — the worst weekend the city has seen in 2019. It was an extreme example of the routine but devastating gun violence, often related to gang conflicts, that cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and St. Louis experience on a regular basis....."
Yup, gang conflicts with gun violence that is on a regular basis, but you know..... would make a lot of big city Democrats look bad and would be racist to notice, so....
Puerto Ricans await court decision on potential new governor
Was my National lead, but in light of everything else, unless there were mass shootings there over the weekend, who cares?
"After shootings, Congress again weighs gun violence response" by Matthew Daly Associated Press, August 5, 2019
WASHINGTON — Newtown. Charleston. Orlando. Parkland, and now after mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, Congress again is confronted with the question of what, if anything, lawmakers should do to combat the scourge of gun violence afflicting the country.
While both parties are calling for action, the retreat to familiar political corners was swift. Democrats demanded quick approval of gun-control legislation — some of it already passed by the House — while Republicans looked elsewhere for answers, focusing on mental health and violent video games.
With Congress away from Washington for a five-week recess, and the parties intractably divided, the odds appear stacked in favor of gridlock, but Democrats and some Republicans said this time can and should be different.
Yeah, happens when they are out of town, too.
‘‘While no law will end mass shootings entirely, it’s time for Congress to act to help keep our communities safer,’’ said Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, as he vowed to again push bipartisan legislation to expand background checks to all commercial firearm sales.
Toomey and his co-sponsor, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, each spoke with President Trump about the background checks bill and a separate proposal making it easier to take guns away from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others.
How is your daughter doing these days?
Trump ‘‘showed a willingness to work with us’’ on background checks and other measures, Toomey told reporters in a conference call. ‘‘He was very constructive.’’
Toomey and Manchin have tried to pass a background check bill since 2013, in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook school shooting, and could not even muster a Senate vote last year. Manchin called mass shootings and other gun violence ‘‘tragic American problems,’’ and said it was ‘‘past time for Congress to take action.’’
Other Democrats put the burden on Trump, saying he should demand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put a House-passed bill strengthening background checks up for a vote.
Mitch has been sidelined and is working from home.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said the Senate GOP leader is blocking gun safety reforms that more than 90 percent of Americans support. He and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, should call the Senate into emergency session to take immediate action on the House-passed bill, which would require federal background checks for all firearms sales and transfers, including those sold online or at gun shows. Another bill allows an expanded 10-day review for gun purchases.
The House approved the bills in February but they have not come up for consideration in the Republican-controlled Senate.
On a conference call Monday, Pelosi told Democratic lawmakers they have a ‘‘golden opportunity to save lives’’ by pressuring Trump and McConnell to act, according to a Democratic aide who was granted anonymity to discuss the private session.
That's when I hit the brakes, because Rice said 9/11 was an opportunity and Rahm Emanuel said never waste a crisis. This is looking more and more like a pre-planned agenda-push and scripted fakes.
‘‘The House stands ready to return to pass legislation, if the Senate sends us back an amended bipartisan bill or if other legislation is ready for House action,’’ Pelosi said later in a letter to colleagues.
‘‘Senate Republicans are prepared to do our part,’’ McConnell said in a statement Monday. He spoke with GOP committee leaders including Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham and encouraged them to look for bipartisan solutions ‘‘to protect our communities without infringing on Americans’ constitutional rights,’’ McConnell said.
In a brief White House speech, Trump condemned the weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio that left 31 people dead as barbaric crimes ‘‘against all humanity’’ and called for bipartisan cooperation to respond to an epidemic of gun violence. He signaled opposition to large-scale gun control efforts, saying, ‘‘hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.’’
‘‘We vow to act with urgent resolve,’’ Trump said.
Okay. There is firing all around me so I don't know what to make of the echoes.
Trump offered a slightly different message earlier in the day, tweeting that ‘‘Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform. We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!’’ It was not clear how or why he was connecting the issues.
Trump’s omission of background checks in his White House remarks showed he was already backing away from his morning tweet, Democrats said. ‘‘It took less than three hours for the president to back off his call for stronger background check legislation,’’ Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement. ‘‘When he can’t talk about guns when he talks about gun violence, it shows the president remains prisoner to the gun lobby,’’ especially the National Rifle Association.
Related:
"Following the most recent spate of mass shootings, in Dayton, Ohio; El Paso; and Gilroy, Calif., we hear once more the same tired response. We are told that each of the shooters is just a crazy person with a gun. We say, colloquially, “You have to be crazy to do something like that.” That’s not the same thing as having a mental illness. Making this about “mental illness” just clouds the issue and does a great disservice to those who are actually suffering from major mental illnesses. Pretending that the shooters did what they did because they are mentally ill gives many of us the illusion of safety. We convince ourselves that they are not like the rest of us. This is not a mental health crisis — it is a public health crisis, due to endemic hate and bigotry and easy access to semiautomatic weapons. These shootings did not occur because the shooters were “mentally ill.” Rather, the shooters largely have been white supremacists who spout the same hateful, racist, xenophobic, and bigoted statements that we hear almost daily from President Trump. Trump calls the shooters “cowards,” and although this is true, the real cowardice is failing to confront the National Rifle Association and allowing the NRA to tell us what the national policy regarding weapons should be....."
Also see:
"When I go out, I bring a therapist and a priest. The NRA and the Republicans tell me that’s the best protection in a mass shooting....."
Congress has proven unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation, despite the frequency of mass shootings, in large part because of resistance from Republicans, particularly in the GOP-controlled Senate, but in a show of bipartisanship, Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, announced an agreement to create a federal grant program to help states that adopt ‘‘red flag’’ protection order laws to take guns away from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others. A similar bill did not come up for a vote in the Senate last year.
That will likely add to more incidents, as authorities show up to take your guns.
The grants would enlist mental health professionals to help determine which cases need to be acted on, Graham said, adding that while the program allows for quick action, it requires judicial review. Trump signaled openness to red-flag laws in his White House speech, saying, ‘‘We must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms and that if they do those firearms can be taken through rapid due process.’’
Rapid due process, huh?
Meaning take first, ask questions later.
Good luck getting them back if wrongfully taken, citizen.
In a statement, the NRA offered ‘‘deepest sympathies’’ to the families and victims and said it is ‘‘committed to the safe and lawful use of firearms’’ by gun owners. ‘‘We will not participate in the politicizing of these tragedies but, as always, we will work in good faith to pursue real solutions that protect us all from people who commit these horrific acts,’’ the NRA said.
A spokesman for Representative Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Democrat and Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said the panel is planning to hold hearings on domestic terrorism when lawmakers return next month.
Ah, a new term enters the fray, the domestic terrorist. That means police state power turned inward.
--more--"
Who can object if it saves lives, right?
"A Texan planned a mass shooting. His grandmother stopped it" by Deanna Paul Washington Post, August 5, 2019
William Patrick Williams was arrested days before the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, massacres that left at least 31 people dead. The case highlights some of the challenges law enforcement face in investigating and prosecuting cases of suspected domestic terrorism.
Under federal law, The Washington Post has reported, suspected domestic terrorists who are not charged with a specific act of violence ‘‘are typically charged with other crimes, such as drug or gun violations, and many of those cases are brought in state, not federal, court, meaning the general public often never hears that a domestic terrorism suspect has been arrested.’’
Prepare for a series of mind-manipulating, public perception management psy-ops, folks.
Daryl Johnson, a former analyst for the Department of Homeland Security, told the Post that lawmakers have avoided aggressively addressing this type of violence, fearing political backlash.
‘‘We’re in this heightened state of activity where we have mass shootings and bomb plots,’’ Johnson said, ‘‘and yet there’s no political willpower, and everybody seems to be burying their head in the sand rather than try to tackle the issue.’’
‘‘We avoided another huge crisis. We responding to an event that someone else has put into play. We’re looking at it with a critical eye, because we know the burden we have to prove. That’s not the ideal situation,’’ said US Attorney Erin Nealy Cox in a phone interview Monday, referring to a shooting at the Dallas federal courthouse in June. ‘‘Schools and other individuals don’t want to be wrong or embarrassed by a series allegations. I’d rather have someone see something and say something and [then] be forced to say, ‘OK, you were wrong, but you were well intentioned.’ ”
OMG!
Like Iraq, right?
--more--"
The New York Times then tells you all you need to know about mass shootings and the “red flags” to identify those with mental illnesses who could commit such crimes, with the Associated Press providing the fact check that there’s still no link between video games and violence.
So the hypocrite in chief is going to take on domestic terror, but no one takes him seriously. He's become a cartoon that is no joke:
"Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” who are “bringing crime” and “bringing drugs” to America. Trump blamed “many sides” and “both sides” for the violence and death perpetrated by white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va. People from Haiti “all have AIDS,” he has said, and immigrants from Nigeria would never “go back to their huts” once they saw America. He referred to Haiti and African countries with an expletive, and suggested that several black and brown congresswomen should “go back” to their countries, whose governments are a “complete and total catastrophe.” More than 20 innocent people are slaughtered and many more injured in El Paso, which Trump has labeled the southern border’s epicenter for immigrant violence and danger. The alleged shooter has been linked to a manifesto, published minutes before the attack, filled with white nationalist and racist hatred toward immigrants and Hispanics. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots. Shame on Trump and the systems of oppression that spawned him. Shame on elected officials who pander to Trump and kowtow to the National Rifle Association while innocents die. Shame on Americans who do not decry Trump’s hateful speech and actions, and shame on us all if this man is not voted out of office in 2020....."
And the winner of the New Hampshire and it's four electoral votes is.....
"El Paso absorbs more grief as death toll climbs to 22" by Astrid Galvan and Morgan Lee Associated Press, August 5, 2019
EL PASO — The Texas border city jolted by a weekend massacre at a Walmart absorbed still more grief Monday as the death toll climbed to 22 in El Paso, where the shooting rampage claimed more lives than the number of murders here just two years ago.
Anger also simmered, including toward President Trump, who on Monday addressed the nation for the first time since the attack in Texas and another in Ohio. In all, 31 people died and dozens more were wounded.
The possibility that Trump would visit El Paso unnerved some residents, who said his divisive words are partly to blame for the tragedies.
In scripted remarks, Trump urged unity while blaming mental illness and video games. He made no mention of limiting gun sales.
No??
He said red flag and quick gun seizure with expedited due process, blah, blah.
Must be a pre$$ misfire.
Democratic Representative Veronica Escobar of El Paso made clear Trump was not welcome in her hometown as it mourned. Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who was an El Paso congressman for six years, also said Trump should stay away.
‘‘This president, who helped create the hatred that made Saturday’s tragedy possible, should not come to El Paso. We do not need more division. We need to heal. He has no place here,’’ O’Rourke tweeted.
He's been warned.
Other residents in the largely Latino city of 700,000 said Monday that Trump’s rhetoric is difficult for them to stomach.
‘‘It’s offensive, just because most of us here are Hispanic’’ said Isel Velasco, 25. ‘‘It’s not like he’s going to help or do anything about it.’’
The Federal Aviation Administration advised pilots of a presidential visit Wednesday to El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, but the White House had not made any formal announcement.
The authorities are scrutinizing a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly before police say Patrick Crusius, 21, opened fire on Saturday. Language in the document mirrors some of the words used by Trump, who on Monday denounced white supremacy, which he had been reluctant to criticize.
The El Paso shooting is one of the deadliest in US history. The death toll rose Monday as doctors announced that two more of the wounded had died.
They then drag in Mexicans and Mexico for some reason.
El Paso has long prided itself on being one of the safest US cities. Years of drug violence in neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, left tens of thousands of people dead, yet El Paso had one of the nation’s lowest crime rates. Police reported 23 murders last year and 20 in 2017.
It's the perfect place to do an event like this, and I'll bet they have strict gun control laws.
The authorities searched for any links between the suspect and the document posted online, including the writer’s expression of concern that an influx of Hispanics will replace aging white voters, potentially turning Texas blue in elections and swinging the White House to Democrats.
Vanessa Tavarez, 36, from rural West Texas, traveled to El Paso Saturday to renew her Mexican husband’s residency and work documents. They arrived with their 5-year-old son to find police helicopters circling overhead.
Shopping at the Walmart where the shooting occurred had been on the family’s to-do list. ‘‘I don’t think anybody would be in favor of him [Trump] being here, first of all,’’ Tavarez said. ‘‘Because a lot of people probably think it’s because of him that everything happened. . . . I just think people will be angry.’’
Juan Figueroa, 24, an Army soldier who has lived in El Paso since early this year, said Trump has a right to go wherever he wants, but he worries his presence might incite violence.
He's been warned bigly!
Figueroa said he blames only the shooter, though.
‘‘The big reason I think he was attacking Hispanics was he was uneducated, he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what Hispanics don’t do or what we do out here,’’ Figueroa said.....
--more--"
I hate to say it, but they look like paid crisis actors who already have a vested interest.
Related:
"The money was supposed to be for those who needed to rebuild their lives. In the wake of massive hurricanes and wildfires that pummeled the United States in recent years, the federal government made relief funds available for those who found themselves uprooted amid the rubble of charred or washed-out homes, but in Maryland a group of residents managed to scam the federal government out of $8 million in relief funds designated for those who needed it most, according to prosecutors. Members of the group, prosecutors allege, were part of a scheme that stole the identity of disaster victims and applied for victim benefits. John Irogho, 38, of Upper Marlboro, Maryland, has been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to federal prosecutors. Odinaka Ekeocha, 33, of Laurel, Maryland, has been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. Their arrests come a few weeks after another Maryland man, Tare Stanley Okirika, 30, of Laurel, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy, admitting that he fraudulently obtained government benefits to pay his rent and for other expenses, according to court documents."
I don't like to make ethnic judgements based on names, but.... ????
I wonder how they made it through Trump's TSA:
"Investigators were unable to corroborate specific allegations that a Transportation Security Administration supervisor instructed air marshals to racially discriminate against passengers at Florida’s busiest airport, but investigators for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General uncovered other concerns about racial profiling of passengers, according to a report sent to lawmakers....."
Also see:
"Venezuelan migrant Wuendy Villamizar fled Venezuela by foot while seven months pregnant to ensure she gave birth in Colombia. Her infant son was born healthy at a border hospital earlier this year but has gone without one of the most basic human rights: Citizenship. That changed Monday when President Iván Duque announced that his government will grant citizenship to more than 24,000 babies like Santiago Josue who were born to Venezuelan parents in Colombia and are at risk of statelessness. The 26-year-old mother of three is still overwhelmed trying to provide for her family while living in Colombia without any legal status herself, but knowing that her youngest will be entitled to the same rights as any other citizen came as a relief. Duque hailed the resolution as a sign of solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who continue to flee a political and economic crisis. More than 1.4 million Venezuelans are now residing in the neighboring Andean nation, more than any other country. Under the new framework, children born to Venezuelan parents in Colombia as of Aug. 19, 2015, will have the right to citizenship. The measure is slated to be in effect for two years."
Venezuela has also told their citizens to not travel to the US in light of hate crimes, and those would be the slap at Maduro and the freezing of government assets, so turn the bus around and head back to the border:
Lawyers for Newton judge, ex-court officer seek evidence to decide on separating cases
You will have to judge for yourself on that one.
"Cesar Sayoc, who mailed explosive devices to Trump’s critics, sentenced to 20 years in prison" by Philip Bump and Devlin Barrett, August 5
NEW YORK — Cesar Sayoc, a fanatical supporter of President Trump who last year mailed explosive devices to prominent Democrats and media figures, was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison after a judge concluded that Sayoc hated his victims but had not meant to kill them.
Prosecutors had sought a life sentence for the 57-year-old former pizza deliveryman and strip club worker whose “campaign of terror,” they said, coincided with the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections.
The mask is off the political ploy, but Trump will nevertheless get caught in the undertow.
Who remembers Bob Mueller now?
“I am beyond so very sorry for what I did,” Sayoc told U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff. “Now that I am a sober man, I know that I was a sick man. I should have listened to my mother, the love of my life.”
Oh, they made him out to be a momma's boy, and the timing of the shootings with this known court date..... hmmmmmmm!
Prosecutors and defense lawyers spent much of Monday’s hearing wrangling over how dangerous the packages truly were to those who handled them.
Oh, no, please don't say inert material.
“What counts is what he did, and what he intended at the time that he did it,” Rakoff said, calling Sayoc’s actions “by any measure horrendous.”
That's who is hearing the case?
The judge concluded that Sayoc, “though no firearms expert, was fully capable” of building a functioning bomb if he had wanted to do so. “He hated his victims,” the judge added, “but did not wish them dead, at least not by his own hand.”
Sayoc’s defense lawyer Ian Marcus Amelkin pushed for a 10-year sentence, saying he was using large quantities of steroids when he became obsessive in his support for Trump, consuming conspiracy theories from Fox News and elsewhere that fed his rising paranoia. “It is impossible to separate the political climate and his mental illness when it comes to the slow boil,” Marcus said. “He truly believed wild conspiracy theories he read on the Internet, many of which vilified Democrats and spread rumors that Trump supporters were in danger because of them. He heard it from the president of the United States, a man with whom he felt he had a deep personal connection.”
Sort of like the guy who was peddling WMD in Iraq!
The fact that the pre$$ is now throwing around conspiracy theory when they they and the official stories they promote have been so discredited shows how desperate they are. They are running scared and tossing that old trope out. It's a give-you-rope situation, but better to go down screaming.
Marcus said that Trump’s rhetoric in office contributed to Sayoc’s beliefs, noting that the prosecution — working for Trump’s Department of Justice — failed to make mention of the president in its prosecuting documents.
Prosecutors downplayed Trump’s rhetoric as a cause. “He’s offered a whole slew of excuses blaming politicians, politics and the news media” for his actions, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Kim. She said Sayoc’s goal was to “deter and chill political activity.”
Rakoff broadly agreed with Kim’s assessment, saying that he “wasn’t particularly impressed” by the defense team’s claims about the influence of Trump or others, calling that a “sideshow.” Rakoff said Sayoc’s mental state provided a stark example of “how dysfunctional life, even in our great society, can sometimes be.”
Sayoc’s sentencing comes just two days after the massacre of nearly two dozen people inside a Walmart in El Paso, a horrific act of violence allegedly undertaken out of anger toward immigrants. Several Democrats seeking to challenge Trump in the 2020 election have connected the president’s rhetoric to Saturday’s bloodshed.
I noticed to odd timing, and now the media is conflating the two as well, dragging the shootings into nearly every article.
The Sayoc case began weeks before the 2018 congressional elections. The suspicious packages prompted a nationwide manhunt, a trail of evidence pointing investigators to the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., area and, eventually, to Sayoc, who lived out of a white van plastered with pro-Trump images. He worked as a DJ or bouncer at strip clubs, and was once charged with threatening the local power company.
That's real subtle.
After his arrest, Sayoc pleaded guilty in March to 65 counts. Officials said he targeted current and former government officials across the country. In addition to Clinton and Obama, he sent devices to former vice president Joe Biden, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), former CIA director John Brennan, former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., actor Robert De Niro, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), former attorney general Eric Holder, billionaires George Soros and Thomas Steyer, and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). In all, he mailed 16 inoperative pipe bombs targeting, among others, former president Barack Obama, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and the New York offices of CNN, acting out his paranoid delusions and intense adoration for Trump.
What he did was send them to many of the central figures involved in the infiltration and spying on the Trump campaign, and it garnered them much sympathy right before the midterms while blunting and burying any pre$$ reports or investigations.
At Sayoc’s guilty plea, he insisted that the devices were “intended to look like pipe bombs,” but that he did not mean for them to detonate.
Federal officials called the wave of potential explosive devices a “domestic terror attack” and accused Sayoc of endangering numerous lives. The first package was found Oct. 22, and the investigation and anxiety grew as more devices were identified in the days that followed. CNN’s New York offices were evacuated when a package addressed to Brennan was found in the mail room, a situation that played out on live television. Other packages were soon found in Florida, Delaware and California.
It's a total mind f*** in retrospect.
Within days, authorities closed in on Sayoc outside an auto supply store in Plantation, Fla., after finding what Christopher A. Wray, the FBI director, said was a fingerprint on one of the envelopes containing a device. Wray also said there were potential DNA matches connecting Sayoc to some of the devices.
While none of the devices detonated, Wray said they were “not hoax devices.” Authorities have described them as “improvised explosive devices,” and they said that each of the 16 devices was placed in a padded envelope and filled with explosive material and glass shards meant to function as shrapnel. Outside of each was a photograph of the intended victim with a red “X” marking, officials said.
So Sayoc mailed them with a photograph on the outside of the envelope with a red X on it?
That was a big DO NOT OPEN sign!
--more--"
So the is what the pathetic patsy of pathetic plot looks like.
"Gun reform alone won’t address white supremacist extremism" by Cynthia Miller-Idriss, August 4, 2019
Across the United States, Americans went to bed Saturday night grieving a mass shooting perpetrated by a white supremacist that killed 20 people in El Paso, Texas, and woke up to the news of another mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, which left 10 dead. Although no ideological motive for the Dayton shooting is currently known, we do know it was not random; the shooter showed up in tactical armor, carrying extra magazines, prepared to inflict mass trauma.
Actually, he was allegedly a lefty so minimize that. Doesn't fit the narrative.
Whether the Dayton shooting has clear ideological motivations or not, one thing is clear: It will help boost global white supremacy anyway.
Repeated mass shootings and far-right terrorist attacks are textbook cases of what white supremacists call “acceleration” — an imperative to sow chaos and societal disruption in order to bring about a race war, apocalyptic end times, and an eventual societal resurrection and rebirth. Within hours of the shootings, extremists were celebrating on social media with phrases like “it’s happening!” and “the fire rises!”
That last one is something Bane said in Batman.
They are referring to the principle of acceleration. While most people know white supremacist extremism is based on dehumanizing and exclusionary ideologies — including racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and anti-immigrant beliefs — fewer understand two other key aspects: the idea of existential threat from demographic change, and the doctrine of acceleration. Both ideas are key to understanding why so many attacks are happening.
That what Israel screams and screeches about all the time.
The manifestos of the mass shooters in Oslo and Christchurch were rife with dystopian fantasies about demographic replacement and white genocide. Both texts referenced conspiracy theories related to the idea of a “Great Replacement” — which argues there is an intentional, global plan orchestrated by national and global elites to replace white, Christian, or European populations with nonwhite, immigrant or non-Christian ones. This conspiracy inspired the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter, as well as — according to initial reports — the El Paso shooter.
Pulling out all the plugs right now.
The Great Replacement is not a new concept. Decades ago, the American neo-Nazi David Lane introduced the idea of “white genocide,” arguing that white populations were dying out demographically. Lane coined the motto “14 Words” — “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children,” which became a global mantra for white supremacists and is essentially a call to defend whites against a coming genocide. Together with the “Great Replacement,” arguments about white genocide have helped inspire a sense of shared mission among the global far right, who see themselves as facing a shared demographic threat.
What’s different now is that we are closer to the demographic changes that underpin replacement and genocide conspiracy theories. It is well-documented that whites will be the ethnic minority in the United States in a couple of decades, but we also have national political leaders regularly framing that demographic reality as a threat and a problem, which reinforces and legitimizes white supremacists’ fears and sense of urgency.
Conspiracies like the Great Replacement and mottos like “14 Words” are used to inspire anger, resentment, and hate, coupled with fear of imminent and existential danger and a sense of betrayal and backlash against elites deemed responsible, but existential threats and dystopian fantasies are also used to call for cohesion, shared purpose, and meaning, offering youth who may be vulnerable to such rhetoric a sense of belonging, brotherhood, and the opportunity to engage in what is seen as heroic action to save one’s people. This combination is proving to be a deadly formula for recruitment and radicalization to far-right extremism.
Including Israel's Zionist zealots and settlers, right?
So far not one mention.
What were once frequently written off as fringe conspiracy theories and doomsday cult fantasies about demographic replacement are now increasingly understood as underpinning global connections across the far right and inspiring individuals to engage in terrorist acts and violent action. This happens in part through a specific principle that motivates extreme violence — acceleration.
That's how the world ends.
At the most extreme fringe, far-right extremists not only believe that a violent apocalypse is coming, but also argue they have an obligation to accelerate this societal collapse by speeding up polarization and engaging in violent acts in order to bring about the ultimate phase of rebirth and civilizational restoration more quickly. Terrorist attacks from other ideological sectors — like the recent Islamist-extremist attacks in Sri Lanka — feed the same narrative, sometimes leading to what is called “reciprocal radicalization” as far-right and Islamist extremists retaliate for each other’s acts.
And jwho benefits?
Acceleration means that even if no far-right motive is clear in the Dayton case, the shooting serves global white supremacist goals anyway. Each mass attack feeds the narrative.
What can we do to interrupt this process?
In the short term, the media, scholars, and the general public must be more intentional about how we share information produced by the far right, in order to avoid being complicit in the spread of white supremacist ideas. Sharing links to full manifestos, publishing photos that show terrorists making white supremacist hand gestures, or glorifying the shooters in other ways can give too much oxygen to extremist propaganda, help extremists communicate with each other, and contribute to the far right’s valorization of violence.
What the heck do you think nearly the entire first section of the Globe was, ending with this?
Much of the public discourse will focus on the need for serious and transformative gun control legislation. This is, of course, essential, but gun control alone cannot address the fact that the dynamics fueling far-right extremism will continue to worsen, as we have more climate-driven and economic-driven migration to the global north and as immigrant birthrates continue to exceed those of native-born populations.
The only long-term solution to interrupt the growth of far-right extremism is sustained education — in schools, at home, in religious communities, sports teams, and anywhere youth gather — that reframes demographic change as a strength instead of a threat. We also need to elect political leaders who take every opportunity to reinforce this.
What she is talking about is indoctrination and inculcation, pure and simple.
It may sound glib to say that our diversity is our strength, but the real question is: What will it take for white Americans to believe it?
Cynthia Miller-Idriss is professor of education and sociology at American University. Her most recent book is “The Extreme Gone Mainstream.”
--more--"
The answer is obviously to shut down the sites that are a cesspool of hate, but the problem is more complicated as "federal law enforcement agencies have gotten very good at infiltrating and monitoring Internet forums popular with Islamic extremist groups. Since 9/11, they’ve disrupted hundreds of plots this way. Now it’s time to apply the same skill and diligence to home-grown individuals and groups that have demonstrated a willingness to use violence. Between the white-supremacist right and the black-clad bully boys of Antifa, American cops have a target-rich environment. After the hell of last weekend, alt-right sites should be at the top of the target list....."
He just totally confirmed everything I have been arguing in my analysis, and the funny thing is gunmakers’ stocks rose following mass shootings even though bump stocks are now banned and Vegas is a crazy story, some real, some fake, Gladio goons seen on site (much like in El Paso), and another pathetic patsy set-up with some strange connections. Of course, that has all been buried and the conventional myth narrative prevails as they gear up for football $ea$on:
"A $1.9 billion stadium being built for the NFL’s Oakland Raiders when the team moves to Las Vegas next year is being named for Allegiant Travel Co., team and company officials said Monday....."
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
You know, after all the gunfire above I really didn't care about the B-section at all:
Saoirse Kennedy Hill’s legacy is empathy
They are huddling in grief with lawsuit to follow:
"States clash with cities over potential opioids settlement payouts" by Jan Hoffman New York Times, August 5, 2019
Over the past 18 months, progress toward a settlement in the massive federal opioid litigation has stalled, even as the costs of the crisis continue to mount.
Now, an inventive plan to jump-start negotiations, recently put forth by lawyers for the nearly 2,000 cities and counties that have brought cases, is facing attacks from an unlikely source. Pushback that could torpedo it is coming less from the corporate defendants than from the localities’ uneasy allies: the states.
It is a struggle over power, politics, and money, and in an arena filled with outsized egos, the fight is also very much about who will get to claim credit for resolving a public health crisis that has killed more than 200,000 people since 1999 and sunk many more into debilitating addiction.
My goodness, they are arguing about who will get credit for a problem far from solved, ongoing in fact and getting worse, but it's all caught up in power, politics, and money!!
When are those last three going to be recognized as addictions, and when can the interventions start (Puerto Rico comes to mind)?
A hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Tuesday in Cleveland before the federal judge who is overseeing the cases, Dan A. Polster.
The plan was devised to address a major sticking point: The defendants, including manufacturers that developed and made the drugs, Fortune 20 companies that distributed them, and national pharmacy chains that sold them, want an end to the constant stream of lawsuits.
Gotta run to the pharmacy right quick, but I'll be back.
So lawyers for the plaintiffs suggested allowing all 34,000 towns, cities, and counties in the country to vote on settlement offers. After an offer is approved, they will be bound by the outcome and can bring no further suits. All voting communities affected by the crisis would get a portion of the payout, but a letter signed by a bipartisan coalition of 39 state attorneys general raises arguments that could topple the ambitious proposal and further slow talks.
In this case, the state AG's are probably right. The towns and cities are more susceptible to a chump change agreement, even more so than the one a state or federal government would provide. The problem is, the further up the chain you move the case the more likely the pharmaceutical wins out and remains a going concern.
Rather than myriad cities and counties, they contend, it is the states, through law enforcement and regulatory authority, that can efficiently wrest a high-impact national agreement. They maintain that this plan goes behind the backs of the states pursuing cases brought by their own attorneys general, who are elected or appointed. By contrast, local governments are using private lawyers, who work on contingency fees.
Maybe that is good. They have every interest in prosecuting the case and getting the best settlement, whereas the state will step in to blunt it in favor of the corporation.
The states also fear that the plan would corral money for the cities and counties that they should control, and because this “negotiation class” is untested, they argue, it is likely to be appealed, delaying remedies for everyone.
I think they need help with that particular addiction. Wow!
“In my view, it’s the plaintiffs’ lawyers using local governments to hijack the sovereignty of the states and create ‘city states,’” said Dave Yost, the Ohio attorney general, who filed a letter critical of the plan.
Yikes!
Maybe we should all secede!
The plaintiffs also intend their proposal to be a course correction to the Big Tobacco settlement, and a possible template for future resolutions in such public welfare areas as firearms, climate change, and environmental pollution.
The 1998 Master Tobacco Settlement, which resulted in payouts of some $250 billion, was struck between five cigarette manufacturers and 46 states seeking reimbursement for their Medicaid programs for treating tobacco-related illnesses, but much of the money went to discretionary funds of state legislatures.
Still bitter about those outcomes, communities whose coffers had been depleted by the opioid crisis decided to sign with private lawyers, circumventing the states.
Oh, now I see. Legislooters stole the cigarette money. That's why towns and cities hired private lawyers.
If Polster does certify the proposal, it is unclear whether the states or even the defendants can appeal.
--more--"
Time to testily:
Former police commissioner testifies in Boston Calling case
Page B2 photo only:
"COMMUNITY POLICING -- Boston Police got high-fives from children attending the Shaloh House summer camp in Brighton on their first stop of the 36th National Night Out. From left are Deputy Superintendent James Chin, Deputy Superintendent Felipe I. Colon, and Superintendent Nora Baston. The National Night Out offers free activities for kids, food, and entertainment as Mayor Walsh and BPD Command Staff make the rounds to Boston's neighborhoods to meet residents (Pat Greenhouse/Globe Staff)"
Related: Brighton Rabbi Asks Congregation To Bring Guns To Synagogue
It's the voice of a guardian angel, so take a pew.
A Portland-Westbrook rail line could top $100 million
It's up for sale if you want it.
R. Kelly accused of soliciting 17-year-old girl in Minnesota
Rob Delaney talks Kelly’s Roast Beef, Logan Airport, and Twitter
Hannibal Buress announces surprise comedy set
Time to set sail:
"Sailing like entrepreneurs: High-seas adventure, education await family of Workbar founder" by Scott Kirsner Globe Correspondent, August 5, 2019
Bill Jacobson wasn’t sure he wanted me to write about his yearlong voyage around most of the planet, which starts this week, but he may need an experienced mariner or two to join his crew for part of the journey.
So I told him this column might serve as an extended help wanted ad. What if I found him a crew member who’d not only help him cross the Pacific safely, but become a lifelong friend?
“Let me ask my wife,” Jacobson said, wisely. (She gave the go-ahead.)
Jacobson is a serial entrepreneur. A decade ago, he founded Workbar, a network of eight shared office spaces around the Boston area. Before that, he had started a company that enabled online shoppers to pick up their orders at a local retailer, and another that helped publishing companies deliver personalized e-mail newsletters. Both were later acquired.....
As opposed to serial killer (he denied it but received life in prison for it)?!
--more--"
Have fun navigating through the plastic garbage patch while avoided the radioactive dumping of Fukushima and the possible war in the Pacific, and I hope they return in one piece.
