Tuesday, May 31, 2022

SNAFU*

I accept the causal analysis here, but I’m inclined to think it’s also that the DPS attitude toward the media (“Fuck all y’all”) is contagious.

Of course, the way the media is still screaming that they weren’t spoon-fed absolutely accurate information out of what was clearly a clusterfuck (how much cooperation between agencies was there, ever? I mean considering Uvalde police, (or was it Uvalde ISD police? Stories still differ .) told everybody to stop trying to save the children.), is more than enough to kill any cooperation, especially as it seems to be putting someone’s head in the predetermined narrative noose. A narrative and noose  some in the media (well, on Twitter, anyway, which is the raw Id of American media) are all ready to hang some agency with.

Would you “cooperate” yourself into a story where you end up with all the blame?

*Ask yet grandpa! I can’t be explaining’ everything to ya!

“Justice” Is A Word With No Proper Definition…

...except "When I like the outcome.”

I had a friend who had worked as a legal secretary for many years to a criminal defense lawyer. She said whenever he lost a trial he came back to the office with the same reply: “Justice was served!”
I’ve said before it was not a case worth bringing. I’m glad the jury agreed with me. Here is a fine evidentiary basis as explanation: How important was that? Yes, that’s just how weak the case was. Trump can’t even appoint decent legal counsel.

On the way out the door, there’s another good summary of the case here:
If you are so inclined as to read more.

Laurence Tribe Has Never Represented A Client In His Life

QED.

Perception Is More Important Than Reality

Which matters more?

A) messaging about delivery of arms?

B) Actual delivery of arms?

As I recall, Trump was much better at the former than the latter. Although he accomplished nothing, he still insists his accomplishments were the greatest ever.

I don’t think the Ukrainians give a shit about the message, as long as they get the weapons.

Full Scorched Earth…

...so that all the rest is desolation.

I mean, insulting Republicans is probably a better tactic for getting legislation through Congress, right? That would probably shift the balance of power in the Senate by winning more Republican votes.

More realistically, insults would please a few more yabbos on Twitter. 

Still wouldn’t accomplish anything, though. Maybe we should look for accomplishments rather than titillation for “our side.” I’m pretty sure the majority in polls who think the country is on the wrong track don’t think it’s because Biden doesn’t insult Republicans enough.

And furthermore:
The alternative is to govern as if only the blue states matter. There really aren’t too many other options left.

I really hope the “other side” becomes more rational. Becoming more irrational is not helping anyone.
See? That’s not gonna work! Where are the insults? This isn’t 1991!

Wait for it!…
Biden should hack that Zoom conference and toss some Trumpian insults around!

Obviously We Need To Harden These Events

...with one door in and one door out.
"Several of those shootings occurred at parties, and one at a Memorial Day event," the newspaper reported. "At least seven people have been killed and 49 injured in the mass shootings over the holiday weekend, according to GVA and local news sources. Since the Uvalde shooting last Tuesday, at least 10 people have been killed and 61 injured in mass shootings."
Our right to bare arms demands that we live in impregnable fortresses!

All Lives Matter; Except Gunshot Victims

When asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on whether the country has “a gun problem or a security problem,” Roland Gutierrez, a Texas Democratic state senator who has been outspoken in favor of gun reform, was definitive. 
“This is absolutely a gun problem, and it's all of those things,” he said. Abbott thinks it's a mental health problem. Sure it is. Well, then go fund it properly. We're dead last in mental health funding in the United States. You know, we've got a crisis of infinite proportions in these United States.”
He added: “At the end of the day, if we don't have accessibility to militarized weapons, this doesn't happen, just like it doesn't happen in the rest of the world.” 
But when asked the same question on CNN’s “State of the Union,” U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Houston Republican, said, “No. I think, culturally, we're a country that has long had a Second Amendment that believes in the right to self-defense.” “I don't think it's a problem that I own guns. And I know that, if I destroyed all my guns, it would have zero effect on crime.”

How about if I destroyed all my video games? And we’re a country which has long had a 2nd Amendment, but only recently had a religious adherence to it as an absolute right absolutely trumping all others.

I don’t want to destroy Dan Crenshaw’s guns. I just don’t want idiot 18 year olds to be able to freely buy assault rifles and enough ammunition to start a war.

And if “mental health” is such a clear and present danger, why don’t we put our money where our mouths are?

Peter Navarro Is A Very Poor Lawyer

 For one thing, he doesn’t understand that we have only one President at a time, and executive privilege attaches to the office, not the person. Just as Biden can reverse any EO Trump made, so can he undo any executive privilege claim, especially where there are questions of criminal action to be investigated.

Has Navarro not been watching the news lately?

and (7) declare that President Joe Biden does not have the legal authority to waive the executive privilege or testimonial immunity invoked by his predecessor in this civil case.

This is fairly well settled law. 

Then there’s this howler:

enjoin the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia from enforcing Grand Jury Subpoena #GJ2022052590979 USAO #2022R00631 dated May 26, 2022 which is derivative of the fruit of the poison tree ultra vires, illegal, and unenforceable Committee subpoena dated February 9, 2022;

The grand jury subpoena is not a Committee subpoena. EOD. From that mistake springs Navarro’s error in suing the Committee, the Speaker, and several representatives (I really don’t know why he joined them and I can’t be bothered to read the Complaint that carefully.). Aside from U.S.Attorney, none of the persons or entities sued has any official connection to the grand jury which issued the subpoena.

But the best part is the attempt to sound like a lawyer with a “fruit of the poisonous tree “ claim. That’s a defense to a violation of the 4th Amendment. It’s not a defense to a grand jury subpoena.

And again, the subpoena in question is not from a congressional committee.

So this whole thing is just a joke.

While I am not a lawyer, I’m not without legal expertise. One of my areas of expertise in economics for which I have a Ph.D. in is regulatory economics; and this sub-field requires a keen understanding of regulatory law. I am therefore not without experience in reading case law and parsing legal arguments, and I have also published numerous articles in law journals.

He is, in fact, so far out of his depth it’s not funny. His entire argument is that the grand jury subpoena is just the Committee subpoena being pursued by alternate means. Separate investigations are entitled to use separate authority against the same witness. Navarro thinks this is some kind of illegal collusion.

It’s the most long-winded example of Bad Legal Takes I’ve ever seen.

“Believe What They Are Saying”

Would he do it naked? For a campaign ad? Because otherwise I don’t see the utility of the boast. I’ve gone through barbed wire: you just pull the strands apart on the fence and bend down carefully. It’s not meant for “going through,” unless he means lay down on the wire for Trump to step on him and over the wire. Which is still stupid because Trump wouldn’t be near any battle, or livestock, conditions. So what this guy said is just stupid.

But maybe that’s what he’s saying.  Surely that’s what we should believe.
I know that’s all MTG is saying: that she’s stupid. I believe what she’s saying.

“Defund The TSA!”

Surely that’s what Dan Crenshaw means. Right?

As Agatha Christie Fans Know…

And one thing," he concluded. "You show me where a gun has killed someone. There's never been a gun that killed someone by the FBI. It's by a [sic] individual."

Poison doesn’t kill anyone. Nor do knives, bombs, swords, rope, garrotes, blunt instruments, or any other form of execution or homicide.

Right? 

Monday, May 30, 2022

Later That Same Memorial Day


Memorial Day 2022


Memorial Day didn't start as a day to honor veterans who "died for our freedom." Ironic, because the last war fought "for our freedom" before WWII, was the Civil War. We had a lot of wars in the 19th century, most of which we ignore: the Spanish American War, the Mexican War, the war in the Philippines, the war in Panama, all the imperialist efforts Mark Twain decried and Henry Thoreau protested. Memorial Day was not a day to remember we'd won our freedom at the expense of others; it was a day simply to remember dead family members, those who had died in the Civil War. It started with ladies in the South, after the Civil War.  They had done it before the war ended, and after the war they honored the Union dead as well as the Confederate dead.  They honored the living by honoring the dead.

Now we set aside the dead, except as abstractions who "won" our "freedom."  They "died for our freedom."  Is that what the crosses mean?

Bollocks. Our freedom wasn't threatened in Vietnam, or Korea, in the Persian Gulf, either time we fought there in the last 20 years. It wasn't threatened by the sinking of the Maine or in the Philippines, either. It was threatened in the Civil War, and Memorial Day came from that conflict. Memorial Day is simply a day to honor the dead. Perhaps we would better to limit it to the dead we know, and if we don't know any war dead, to be respectful of those who do. Perhaps we would do better to remember the uncut hair of graves, and to visit a graveyard and remember these dead were once as young and fair as you, or me.   I am old and cranky now, but I am sure we used to be more mature about these things.

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .the produced babe of the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones,
row zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the same, I receive them the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them;
It may be you are from old people and from women, and
from offspring taken soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mother's laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps.

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.

All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.--Walt Whitman

"The beautiful uncut hair of graves." We used to put our graves beside our churches, so we knew where our dead were. Now in our sanitary ways, and our sanity, we keep them as far from the beaten path as possible; along with our hospitals, our nursing homes, our "funeral homes." We don't want to be reminded of death, unless it is on TV, and involves the death of "bad people." Or just the unknown faceless ones; not our friends; not our neighbors; not, ironically, our families.

The Gettysburg Address should be linked to Memorial Day, too. It was written, after all, to commemorate a graveyard, and the dead who died in battle and lay there now.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal"

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground -- The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Lincoln praised those who died in a valiant struggle to preserve the union, to keep the nation from ending.

 "I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women,/And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring taken soon out of their laps./ What do you think has become of the young and old men?/What do you think has become of the women and children?" I think: "A wise man who speaks his mind calmly is more to be heeded than a commander shouting orders among fools." I think: "Wisdom is better than weapons of war, and one mistake can undo many things done well." (Ecclesiastes 9:17-18, NEB)

I think this is a day to praise famous women and men, and for believers to remember their Creator, and to honor the dead not for what they fought for, but because they, too, were God's children.

Let us now sing the praises of famous men,
all the heroes of our nation's history,
through whom the Lord established his renown,
and revealed his majesty in each succeeding age. Some held sway over kingdoms
and made themselves a name by their exploits.
Others were sage counsellors,
who spoke out with prophetic power.
Some led the people by their counsels
and by their knowledge of the nation's law;
out of their fund of wisdom they gave instruction.
Some were composers of music or writers of poetry.
Others were endowed with wealth and strength,
living peacefully in their homes.
All these won fame in their own generation
and were the pride of their times.
Some there are who have left a name behind them
to be commemorated in story.
There are others who are unremembered;
they are dead, and it is as though they had never existed,
as though they had never been born
or left children to succeed them.
Not so our forefathers; they were men of loyalty,
whose good deeds have never been forgotten.
Their prosperity is handed on to their descendants,
and their inheritance to future generations.
Thanks to them their children are within the covenants-
the whole race of their descendants.
Their line will endure for all time,
and their fame will never be blotted out.
Their bodies are buried in peace,
but their name lives for ever.
Nations will recount their wisdom,
and God's people will sing their praises.

--Ecclesiasticus 44:1-15, NEB


My uncle fought in World War II; with the French Resistance, if memory serves.  Or maybe not. Maybe that was a grand embellishment by the family, or my own early imagination.  He never said anything about the war, or about war, to me; except once.

I went to visit him after I'd married and his kids, my age, my cousins I all but grew up with, had all married, too.  So it was just my wife and I and my aunt and uncle.  He picked us up at the airport.  I was reading Studs Terkel's then new book "The 'Good' War."  The quotes around good weren't too apparent in the cover design, and he asked me what I was reading this time (in those days I was always reading).  When I showed it to him, and told him it was about World War II, he said, "I didn't think there was such a thing as a 'good' war."  And he smiled; the kind of smile that always made me think he knew much more about much more than I did, or ever would.  A smile of experience, but of deep, painful knowledge he would never unlock and share again.

My brother-in-law fought in Vietnam.  When everybody else was going to college so as not to get drafted, he volunteered.  He was Green Beret, and a Captain.  He never told me anything about Vietnam, either, except that when he first arrived there it was the most beautiful country he'd ever seen.  And within 10 minutes, he knew the U.S. had no business being there.  But he did his job; he followed orders.  He was a good soldier, and he's one of the finest men I know.  He's as kind, generous, and open-minded as anyone can be.

I have a recording of the "Airborne Symphony," by Marc Blitzstein.  Maybe it's the first performance, because the narrator is Orson Welles.  I always think of it this time of year, because the most poignant part of the libretto is the section about bombs, and the cities destroyed by planes.  It's "The Ballad of the Cities."  The narrator reads a partial list of cities destroyed by bombs, but the music moves into the "Morning Poem" with the chorus singing plaintively and repeatedly:  "Call the names.  Call the names.  Call the names."

It always seems to me the only appropriate observance of Memorial Day.  Call the names.


PEACE

O Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy upon us.
Thou that sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us.
Arise, O Christ, and help us,
And deliver us for thy Name's sake.

AMEN.

O Christ, when thou didst open thine eyes on this fair earth, the angels greeted thee as the Prince of Peace and besought us to be of good will one toward another; but thy triumph is delayed and we are weary of war.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, the very earth groans with pain as the feet of armed men march across her mangled form.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, may the Church, whom thou didst love into life, not fail thee in her witness for the things for which thou didst live and die.

TEACH US TO DO THY HOLY WILL, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ, come to us in our sore need and save us; 0 God, plead thine own cause and give us help, for vain is the help of man.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

O Christ of God, by thy birth in the stable, save us and help us;
By thy toil at the carpenter's bench, save us and help us;
By thy sinless life, save us and help us;
By thy cross and passion, save us and help us.

SAVE US AND HELP US, O LORD AND MASTER.

Then all shall join in the Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

--The E&R Hymnal

Sunday, May 29, 2022

Inconceivable!

The event should have had one door in and one door out, and that door heavily guarded. How else do you celebrate freedom? Do you miss him yet? We just have to pile up enough bodies. I guess. That’s what’s inconceivable to me.

The Bullshit Drones On

"Well, no. Here's why: because we are essentially trying to do with the red flag law is enforce the law before the law has been broken. That's a really difficult thing to do. It's difficult to assess whether somebody is a threat. If they're such a threat that they're threatening somebody with a weapon already, they have already broken the law so why do you need the next law? That's the question critics rightfully ask about this."
Red flag laws are not “violated.” It’s a regulatory measure. If a person merits a “red flag,” they are merely blocked from buying a gun. They aren’t arrested, shamed, or ostracized. As everyone agrees (or pays lip service to), we want to keep guns away from “crazy” people. Red flag laws let us do that before they shoot people and “prove” they are “crazy”.

And no, these are not hard questions.

Dan Crenshaw, unsurprisingly, is full of shit.

I’m Guessing…

...it’s because Uvalde PD screwed the pooch so badly. All the prating about policy and sacrifice and what we expect from people far, far away from the danger , has perhaps finally exposed the worthlessness of words v. people. You can say what you want about how people are supposed to be protected; but reality has the last word.

And just how many children will we sacrifice to the god of the gun? Especially as it becomes clearer that’s all we’re doing.

Saturday, May 28, 2022

Split-Second Veracity

48 hours ago I might have been somewhat in sympathy with the Senator’s remarks.

Since then we know, from DPS,  that Uvalde PD stood in the school hallways doing nothing and not letting anyone else act. We know that children called 911 from the school for 40 minutes pleading for help. We know that Border Patrol finally said “Fuck it!” and attacked the killer.

And I know it’s the latest GOP talking point, but delaying all actions for nearly an hour is hardly making “split-second decisions.”

In fact, this is what happened, Senator:
"Split-second decisions,” my ass.

So fuck you, Senator. You, too , don’t want to talk about the real problem. The blood of the dead in Uvalde is on your hands.

God Help Texas

In response to the chief’s remarkably stupid remark: so is my son-in-law. And neither he nor any of his friends he plays with, have ever evidenced the slightest wish to shoot someone IRL.

Please stop being so fucking stupid. A lot of us rely on the DPS. I’m beginning to wonder why we pay you at all. 

Granted, The Uvalde Police Force Is An Embarassment

But guidelines are words on paper. Money doesn’t buy quality, or courage. Or good sense (why didn’t they just stand aside and let the big boys do it?). And most small-town police forces are filled with Barney Fifes, not Dirty Harry’s. Or even Andy Taylor’s.

That’s a problem for Uvalde. Mass shootings are a problem for the country.

Fight the real problem.

“Buy guns!”

"The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens and that is why one of the core missions of the NRA is to train, prepare and equip responsible American men and women with the knowledge and tools they need to defend themselves," Fox News reported Trump said.
Really? What about a law-abiding citizen who is a law abiding citizen until he decides to shoot four or more people at once? 

Besides, the real message is, “American needs more guns! Buy guns!”

They aren’t even trying because they’ve never had to.

And yes, that does reflect on the sheer paucity of heart and soul of their supporters.

Fuck those bastards.

Put Your Money 💵 Where Your Mouth Is

Texas ranks 59th in access to mental health care. Call a special session, Governor, and fix that.

No Wonder They Support Trump

"Every time we have a whack job that shoots up people, it puts us under stress,” he said.
It’s all about them, too.

In interviews with The Texas Tribune, a dozen NRA convention attendees were horrified by the Uvalde shooting. But they were also unified in their belief that the shooter’s access to guns was not to blame. 

 Instead, they attributed this attack and others to a broader breakdown in society wrought by the removal of God from public schools, the decline of two-parent households, a perceived leniency toward criminals, social media and an increase in mental illness.

Which still doesn’t explain why it only happens in America. 

Meanwhile, among the people really under stress:

As a teacher, not only am I responsible for curriculum, but I have to be a counselor at times a parent, a guardian, a cheerleader, supporter, a nurse, a custodian and now I need to be a police officer,” Patterson said. 

 A day after an 18-year-old gunman opened fire in a classroom in Uvalde one of Luaren Gonzalez's students asked her a gut-wrenching question. 

 “Miss Gonzalez, are we safe?” her third grader asked her.

Deal with that, you NRA motherfuckers. You have your heads so far up your asses you can’t see daylight. 

Ron Acierno, executive director of the UTHealth Houston Trauma and Resilience Center, said it is “insane” that people are asking how teachers can be better prepared for this situation when people should instead be calling for less gun violence and more gun reform. 

 “Are we really at that point where that's a valid question?” Acierno said. “It's like saying, how can we prepare children to be sexual exploitation or sex trafficking victims?”
"But, muh freedumb!"

I’ll retire to bedlam…

Friday, May 27, 2022

Jeebus, What A Gang Of Clowns

I would say “inhumanly grotesque. Even for Trump.” When they find out that isn’t true, are those reporters going to be as pissed at the aides as they have been at Texas DPS?

I’m not holding my breath.
At least they’re honest about it. DPS: “That’s our story and we’re stickin’ to it “ D'ya think? Christ on a pogo stick.

God help us all in Texas. It’s perfectly clear our state government won’t.

Performatively Stupid

“Anything that allows me to point the finger of blame somewhere else.” 

Abbott and Patrick will not attend the Houston NRA conference. Even in Texas, the heat is on.
Not the part you’re thinking about.

McCraw followed that remark by making a rather revealing point. In defense of the officers on scene he said that there was “​​a barrage—hundreds of rounds were pumped in four minutes into those classrooms.” 

Hundreds of rounds. Four minutes. When you cut away all the bullshit, and excuse making, and failure this is the crux of the matter. 

 In the coming days there will be a desire to obsess only over the unfathomable failures of those who were charged with keeping these kids safe. The poor teacher who left a door ajar. The MIA resource officer. The cops, excuse me—the SWAT Team—that posed on Facebook in tactical gear with weapons of war looking like they were prepared to head to the Donbas, but were apparently unequipped to take on a lone teenager who was slaughtering their town’s children.

 But the main thing to take away from all of that is not that their failure can be reversed. It’s that in a nation with 130,000 schools there will always be some kind of human error when responding to an active shooter. God willing those errors won’t be as catastrophic as they were in Uvalde. But there will always be errors. 

 Parkland had an armed officer and the single point of entryn that the “door control” crowd is now so obsessed with. Sandy Hook was breached by the killer firing through a window next to a locked security door. Santa Fe High School in Texas had put in place a school shooting plan with armed officers, before 10 were killed. 

Well, we can always blame the family.
Or...church attendance? And this could become an IRL meme. Abbott may wish he’d gone to the NRA, anyway.

Choose Your Dummy

Ignore The Framing

A) Was there an ISD officer on campus? Or was there not?

B) If so, did he/she lie to DPS? Either about what she did; or whether he was there?

Maybe an investigation will sort that out. And maybe it will take more than 48 hours to do so.

And maybe that’s still not the most important issue right now.

Who’s The Bigger Moron?

It’s a tough call.

But The Real Problem Is The T

This year alone we have already averaged 10 mass shootings a week.

A week.

The sickness is real. Call it evil. Call it mental health. Call it too damned many guns. There are 120.5 guns in America for every 100 residents. Which means a small number of people have one helluva lot of guns.

The purpose of society is to provide for the general welfare of its constituents. This basic goal we in America are failing miserably. Go re-read the Declaration of Independence. We seceded from Britain for doing far less than we are now doing to ourselves, because we won’t stop the violence that is unique in all the world to this country.

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Scapegoat

“The facts are so in conflict with each other right now that the only thing I can tell you with certainty is that the communications coming out of law enforcement right now are horribly broken. We're all familiar with the physician's Hippocratic Oath, do no harm. That press conference today by that regional DPS director did harm."
The media is tired of talking to grieving parents, so now they are bitching about DPS not spoon feeding them fast enough.

The press conference debunked a story I have heard repeatedly: that there was an armed ISD police officer on campus when the shooter jumped the fence onto the campus. There was no one in campus with a gun except the shooter. It hasn’t even yet been confirmed a door was unlocked. (MSNBC made much of this imaginary officer, insisting they had never reported it, while admitting they had reported that officials had reported it. The irony that all they have to report is what officials report to them, was lost on them.)

It is not lost on me that the journalists complaining about officials not investigating this shooting faster, are all on cable.

As for rushing the shooter, he was locked in a classroom (that apparently locked behind him. Security doors can lock in, or lock out.) armed with a weapon that was shooting holes through the cinder block walls.

And everyone in that room could have been dead within 40 seconds. If they weren’t, and anything less than a full SWAT team blew the door and charged in, any assault on the door would probably trigger a massacre. So letting the parents storm the place was also a non-starter.

Which is not to say all involved covered themselves in heroic glory. But apparently the press is bored with dead children and is taking out their anxiety and stress on the failure to feed them information nobody yet has.

The comparison to Trump bitching because election returns aren’t finished before midnight on Election Day is not a coincidence.

I’m terribly sorry we don’t have every last detail of this horror identified and settled as a matter of historical fact after 48 hours. But I’m quite sure the families don’t care, and that the republic will prevail.

The cable TV whingers can pound sand.

And then there’s the Fire Marshall Would Like A Word

Meanwhile: Why is the Uvalde paper politicizing this tragedy?

The Bowling Green Massacre

Loyalty to Trump is all that matters. Fail to show absolute fealty, and you’re out.

Kellyanne Conway doesn’t have much credibility, either. She promoted Trump’s lies for four years, still promotes the lies of his accomplishments (he doesn’t have any), and now wants us to believe she alone was brave enough to tell Trump to his face that he lost.

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Who cares?

These two deserve each other. The rest of us don’t.

Now I Remember Why I Don’t Watch Cable News

 Well, first because I don’t have cable anymore.

But I’m stuck in a hotel room watching CNN report endlessly in the Uvalde massacre. They are spending a lot of time this morning on the fact they can’t get a definitive timeline or whether (and why not?) police fired on the shooter before he became a shooter but was just a guy carrying a gun illegally in a school campus.

Also, how did he barricade himself in the classroom? By locking the door (as AP reports)? Did he pile up furniture like a Three Stooges sketch? Did he bring an Acme Portable Barricade? And why didn’t (probably I’ll-equipped) police get a key and storm that room? 

Which, considering other police were busy evacuating people, might have led to dead police officers and the shooter running free in the building.

So why didn’t they just blow the door and go in with guns blazing?

Inquiring minds want to know! And they want to know why they don’t know NOW!!!!!

Because obviously that’s the real issue now that the shooting’s over and we’ve seen the videos of grieving parents ad nauseum.  

I really hate cable news.

(Maybe the worst part is “experts saying that, since Columbine, we expect officers to put themselves between the shooter and the students (their words, not mine). All cops wear body armor all the time? Blue lives matter, except where the 2bd Amendment is concerned? One more dead body matters? I really hate cable news.)

The only comfort is, nobody will be asking these stupid questions (“WHY DON’T WE KNOW YET?”) by the weekend.

Speaking of cable news:

And just because I can’t eat just one:

The Coldest, Deadest Hand ☠️

Because the principle hasn't changed. The second amendment hasn't changed. The constitutional right hasn't changed,” Cramere matter-of-factly replies. “The vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens. We still are the freest country in the world. So none of that has changed in that decade.”
We are free to be shot to death in our schools and grocery stores and shopping malls and churches and synagogues or wherever four or more of us are gathered together. This is apparently a necessary adjunct of the Second Amendment. A single sentence written in 1789. I know we think, thanks to TeeVee and movies, that every town in America has a heavily militarized police force with a SWAT team ready on a moment’s notice.

Uvalde, Texas is a small town, and not a rich one. The city police had to rely on the Border Patrol because Uvalde doesn’t have the equipment or the people trained in handling these situations. 

And the whole idea that good guys with guns won’t be stopped by a locked door is another trope of action movies. Real life is not an action movie.

And, of course, the idea that doors will save us. Locked doors only work when they are locked before the shooter arrives. Which means some are suggesting we turn schools into prisons. High security prisons.

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

We’re Getting Closer

They’re getting scared. People want it to be like a movie, with heroes who win by facing certain death. Real life is not like that. IRL, rushing into danger and certain death is just stupid. You end up dead, the shooter keeps shooting. Patrick and Cruz know it won’t happen. They don’t care; it’s just something to say.

And yes, they know their supporters are that dumb. Meanwhile, we’re getting closer, very , very slowly.
Very, very slowly.

Texas, Our Texas. All hail the mighty state.

What I needed after reading the news this evening. Battle lines being drawn.

School = Prison

The shooter was confronted by three armed police officers. He got in anyway.

“A Single Sentence Written In 1789”

Ouroboros

Won’t the good guys have guns? We can’t turn back now, having come this far. Just consider what that means. And ask yourself: What kind of rifles did he have? And how much ammunition was he carrying? Not enough good guys with guns? Dan Patrick revived the idea of schools having only one entrance. That wouldn’t really do anything, either. But if we tried that no one would hold him accountable, so why not make it position? In our end is our beginning. 

Is This A Great Country, Or What?