;)
December 4, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Brian Stelter of CNN: "CNN said Saturday that anchor Chris Cuomo has been 'terminated' by the network, 'effective immediately.' The announcement came after an outside law firm was retained to review information about exactly how Cuomo aided his brother, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, when the then-governor was accused of sexual harassment.... 'While in the process of [a] review, additional information has come to light,' CNN's statement [said]. 'Despite the termination, we will investigate as appropriate.' While the contours of Chris Cuomo's involvement with the governor's office were reported several months ago, the specifics were detailed in a massive document dump on Monday. The documents -- released by New York Attorney General Letitia James after an investigation into the governor -- showed that Chris Cuomo, while working as one of CNN's top anchors, was also effectively working as an unpaid aide to the governor."
Luke Broadwater & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "Members of the select congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol are pressing to overhaul the complex and little-known law that ... Donald J. Trump and his allies tried to use to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that the ambiguity of the statute puts democracy itself at risk. The push to rewrite the Electoral Count Act of 1887 -- enacted more than a century ago in the wake of another bitterly disputed presidential election -- has taken on new urgency in recent weeks as more details have emerged about the extent of Mr. Trump's plot to exploit its provisions to cling to power. Mr. Trump and his allies, using a warped interpretation of the law, sought to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to throw out legitimate results when Congress met in a joint session on Jan. 6 to conduct its official count of electoral votes. It was Mr. Pence's refusal to do so that led a mob of Mr. Trump's supporters to chant 'Hang Mike Pence,' as they stormed the Capitol, delaying the proceedings as lawmakers fled for their lives.”
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here.
Florida. Generalissimo DeSantis. Steve Cortono of CNN: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants to reestablish a World War II-era civilian military force that he, not the Pentagon, would control. DeSantis pitched the idea Thursday as a way to further support the Florida National Guard during emergencies, like hurricanes. The Florida National Guard has also played a vital role during the pandemic in administering Covid-19 tests and distributing vaccines. But in a nod to the growing tension between Republican states and the Biden administration over the National Guard, DeSantis also said this unit, called the Florida State Guard, would be 'not encumbered by the federal government.' He said this force would give him "the flexibility and the ability needed to respond to events in our state in the most effective way possible." DeSantis is proposing bringing it back with a volunteer force of 200 civilians, and he is seeking $3.5 million from the state legislature in startup costs to train and equip them." ~~~
~~~ Paul Blest of Vice: "Nearly two dozen states have active state guards, including California, New York, and Texas. But some state guards have previously been a hotbed of far-right extremism. In 1987, Utah Gov. Norman Bangerter 'dismantled and reorganized' the Utah State Guard from more than 400 people to fewer than three dozen, after a review found the force included 'convicted felons, mental cases, and neo-Nazis.' One member was found to have traveled to Idaho to train members of the Aryan Nation in combat." Ken W. provides a link to a Daily Beast story on Ron's little project. (Firewalled.) And Akhilleus (and others) commented on the little general's plans in yesterday's thread.
Michigan. Kathleen Foody & Corey Williams of the AP: "A judge imposed a combined $1 million bond Saturday for the parents of the Michigan teen charged with killing four students at Oxford High School, hours after police said they were caught hiding in a Detroit commercial building. James and Jennifer Crumbley entered not guilty pleas to each of the four involuntary manslaughter counts against them during a hearing held on Zoom. Jennifer Crumbley sobbed and struggled to respond to the judge's questions at times and James Crumbley shook his head when a prosecutor said their son had full access to the gun used in the killings. Judge Julie Nicholson assigned bond of $500,000 apiece to each of the parents and required GPS monitoring if they pay to be released, agreeing with prosecutors that they posed a flight risk."
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Victor Reklaitis of Market Watch: "President Joe Biden on Friday played up the drop in the country's unemployment rate but didn't mention a disappointing headline number, as he gave a brief speech on a monthly jobs report. Biden said it was 'incredible news' that the U.S. unemployment rate had fallen to 4.2% in November. 'At this point in the year, we;re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever,' he said, adding that the jobless rate 'has now fallen by more than two percentage points since I took office.' The president's speech at the White House came after the November release for nonfarm payrolls showed the country gained 210,000 new jobs last month, well below forecasts for 573,000. But on the plus side, the unemployment rate fell to a new COVID-19 pandemic low of 4.2% and the labor force grew substantially." ~~~
~~~ Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden said Friday that his hoarse voice and cough were the result of germy kisses from his toddler grandson, not the coronavirus, a development that pushed administration officials to release a doctor's note certifying that Mr. Biden had a cold." ~~~
~~~ Josh Israel of the American Independent: "The economy added 210,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate dropped significantly, according to the federal jobs report released on Friday. But House Republicans who cheered comparable numbers as a 'booming economy' under the last administration claim these were a 'disaster' for President Joe Biden.... Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy called it 'another massive miss,' tweeting that 'Joe Biden's economic policies can be described the same as his presidency -- a total disappointment.' 'Joe Biden's economy is a DISASTER. And Democrats are doubling down on their failed tax and spend policies,' House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik wrote."
Katie Benner, et al., of the New York Times: "The iPhones of 11 U.S. Embassy employees working in Uganda were hacked using spyware developed by Israel's NSO Group, the surveillance firm that the United States blacklisted a month ago because it said the technology had been used by foreign governments to repress dissent, several people familiar with the breach said on Friday. The hack is the first known case of the spyware, known as Pegasus, being used against American officials. Pegasus is a sophisticated surveillance system that can be remotely implanted in smartphones to extract sound and video recordings, encrypted communications, photos, contacts, location data and text messages. There is no suggestion that NSO itself hacked into the phones, but rather that one of its clients, mostly foreign governments, had directed it against embassy employees." A CNN story is here.
** Kyle Cheney of Politico: "John Eastman, the attorney who helped ... Donald Trump pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election, has asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to a letter he delivered to the Jan. 6 committee explaining his decision not to testify.... Eastman's decision is an extraordinary assertion by someone who worked closely with Trump to attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. He met with Trump and pushed state legislative leaders to reject Biden's victory in a handful of swing states and appoint alternate electors to the Electoral College, effectively denying [Joe] Biden's victory. The former Chapman University law professor also pressured Pence, who is constitutionally required to preside over the Electoral College certification on Jan. 6, to unilaterally refuse to count some of Biden's electors and send the election to the full House for a vote -- or delay long enough to give states a chance to submit new electors." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jacqueline Alemany & Mariana Sotomayor of the Washington Post: "House Republicans have decried the public feuding this week among a small group of GOP lawmakers as detrimental to the party's ability to win back the House in the 2022 midterm elections because it distracts from their attacks on Democrats' agenda. But little has been said publicly by party leaders or rank-and-file members about whether they find the source of this feuding problematic: Islamophobic attacks by some Republicans against a Democratic congresswoman who is Muslim. The party's focus on the political ramifications of the infighting rather than the substance of the disagreement has led civil rights groups and Democrats to charge that Republicans are embracing, or at least enabling, bigotry." MB: Kind of, "Now, now, kids, let's all get together and remember we're a white Christian nation." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** In Plain Sight. Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times on "the plot to restore Donald Trump to power over and against the will of the voters. The first attempt, prefigured in Trump's refusal in 2016 to say whether he would accept the results of the presidential election, culminated in an attack on the Capitol this year, broadcast on camera to the entire world. Since then, the former president and his allies have made no secret of their intent to run the same play a second time. Steve Bannon ... has urged his [podcast] listeners to seize control of local election administration.... 'Suddenly,' according to a recent ProPublica investigation, 'people who had never before showed interest in party politics started calling the local G.O.P. headquarters or crowding into county conventions, eager to enlist as precinct officers....'... In tandem with [this] is an effort to gerrymander battleground states into nearly permanent Republican legislative majorities.... And in the swing states that Trump lost, his strongest allies have pushed the radical idea that state legislatures have plenary authority over presidential elections even after voters have cast their ballots.... Every incentive driving the Republican Party, from Fox News to the former president, points away from sober engagement with the realities of American politics and toward the outrageous, the antisocial and the authoritarian."
Linda Greenhouse Is Not Amused. New York Times: "There are many reasons for dismay over the Supreme Court argument in the Mississippi abortion case, but it was the nonstop gaslighting that really got to me. First there was Justice Clarence Thomas, pretending by his questions actually to be interested in how the Constitution might be interpreted to provide for the right to abortion, a right he has denounced and schemed to overturn since professing to the Senate Judiciary Committee 30 years ago that he never even thought about the matter. Then there was Chief Justice John Roberts, mischaracterizing an internal memo that Justice Harry Blackmun wrote.... And then there was Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who rattled off a list of 'the most consequential cases in this court's history' that resulted from overruling prior decisions.... [His] ... goal was ... to normalize the deeply abnormal scene playing out in the courtroom.... I will give the gaslighting prize to Justice Kavanaugh [for pretending that the Court's decision in favor of Mississippi would be an expression of 'neutrality.']... Justice [Amy] Barrett's performance during Wednesday's argument was beyond head-spinning." Thanks to PD Pepe for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: "... the conservative justices on the Supreme Court [lied], and the abortion rights those justices have now made clear they will eviscerate.... They lied. They lied to Congress and to the country, claiming they either had no opinions at all about abortion, or that their beliefs were simply irrelevant to how they would rule. They would be wise and pure, unsullied by crass policy preferences, offering impeccably objective readings of the Constitution. It. Was. A. Lie. We went through the same routine in the confirmation hearings of every one of those justices.... Unfortunately, that lie was and is still enabled by the news media.... There was never any mystery about who these justices are and what they would do. There were only liars saying otherwise, and fools who chose to believe them."
News from the Funny Papers. David Gilbert of Vice: "A leaked copy of an email exchange between Hunter Biden and Tucker Carlson suggests that the Fox News host once asked the now-president's son to write a college recommendation letter for his son. Yes, the same Carlson who spent weeks attacking and obsessing over every detail of the Hunter Biden laptop story, asked for a recommendation letter for his son Buckley, who was trying to get into Georgetown University, Biden's alma mater.... [The correspondence indicates] Biden wrote the recommendation letter.... VICE News could not verify the authenticity of the email exchange, and Carlson and Biden did not immediately respond to requests for comment.... The previously unreported relationship between Carlson and Biden was revealed by pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood on his Telegram account.... [The exchange between TuKKKer & Hunter] was previously posted on Telegram by David Clements, an election truther who is close to Wood.... Wood's scorched-earth campaign, which has led to a civil war within QAnon, was initially triggered by Carlson's interview with Kyle Rittenhouse, in which the teenager criticized the lawyer, who briefly represented him last year."
Will Oremus & Elizabeth Dwoskin of the Washington Post: "Twitter's new chief executive, Parag Agrawal, announced a major reorganization of the company Friday, putting his stamp on the organization following the sudden departure of co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey earlier this week. The shake-up, meant to streamline the company's operations and accelerate its growth, will bring together employees previously divided by job function -- such as engineering, design and product development -- on teams organized by what they're working on, such as consumer product, revenue and core tech. Two executives, head of engineering Michael Montano and chief design officer Dantley Davis, will step down as part of the reshuffling and leave the company by year's end."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: "Underscoring increasing concerns about Omicron, scientists in South Africa said on Friday that the newest coronavirus variant appeared to spread more than twice as quickly as Delta, which had been considered the most contagious version of the virus. Omicron's rapid spread results from a combination of contagiousness and an ability to dodge the body's immune defenses, the researchers said. But the contribution of each factor is not yet certain." ~~~
~~~ Amy Cheng of the Washington Post: "Scientists in South Africa say omicron is at least three times more likely to cause reinfection than previous coronavirus variants such as beta and delta, according to a preliminary study published Thursday. Statistical analysis of some 2.8 million positive coronavirus samples in South Africa, 35,670 of which were suspected to be reinfections, led researchers to conclude that the omicron mutation has a 'substantial ability to evade immunity from prior infection.'" The article is free to nonsubscribers.
Amy Cheng of the Washington Post: "The omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans, according to a new preliminary study, prompting one of its authors to suggest omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants of the novel coronavirus.... As a virus evolves to become more transmissible, it generally 'loses' traits that are likely to cause severe symptoms, [Venky] Soundararajan[, who co-wrote the study,] said. But he noted that much more data and analysis of omicron was needed before a definitive determination could be made.... The study is in preprint and has not been peer-reviewed." The article goes into some detail about the findings.
Beyond the Beltway
Michigan. Paulina Firoza, et al., of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors said Friday they would file charges against the parents of the student accused of fatally shooting classmates at a Michigan high school. James and Jennifer Crumbley, the parents of 15-year-old Ethan, will be charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said. Authorities say the teenager killed four students and wounded seven people at his high school Tuesday, using a semi-automatic handgun purchased by his father in the deadliest school shooting in more than three years." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Corey Williams & Ed White of the AP: "A prosecutor says the parents of a teen accused of killing four students at a Michigan high school were summoned a few hours earlier after a teacher found a drawing of a gun, a person bleeding and the words 'help me.' Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald made the disclosure Friday as she filed involuntary manslaughter charges against Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley. McDonald says the gun used in the shootings at Oxford High School was purchased by James Crumbley a week ago and given to the boy." The story has been updated. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Sarakshi Rai of the Hill: "The mother of the Michigan school shooting suspect, Ethan Crumbley, texted her son 'don't do it' when news of the active shooter situation went public, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said at a press conference on Friday. Jennifer Crumbley, who met with school officials after teachers reported concerns regarding her 15-year-old son's behavior just hours earlier, texted her son immediately on hearing the news, McDonald said. The prosecutor said Jennifer Crumbley texted her son at 1:22 p.m. and at 1:37 p.m his father, James Crumbley, called 911 to report that his gun was missing. He told the operator that his son may have been the active shooter.... McDonald provided further details about the incident, saying that Ethan Crumbley was found searching for ammunition on his cellphone during class by a teacher. The teacher then reported him to the school for the first time. Referencing that incident, the prosecutor said that after school officials contacted Jennifer Crumbley, she exchanged text messages with her son on that day saying, 'lol, I'm not mad at you, you have to learn not to get caught.' McDonald said that in a second reported incident a teacher found a drawing on the morning of the shooting, showing a gun pointing at words that read 'the thoughts won't stop, help me' and someone being shot twice." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Uh-oh. CNN reports that a manhunt, involving the FBI & U.S. Marshals, is underway in a search for James & Jennifer Crumley, who apparently are fugitives on the run to avoid arraignment on involuntary manslauter charges. There's a BOLA for a black 2021 Kia SUV, Michigan plate DQG-5203. (I think I got that right, but maybe not.) And there goes your typical Trump-supporting Mom. ~~~
~~~ The Fugitives. Jack Healy of the New York Times: "Law enforcement officials said that the parents had gone missing on Friday afternoon and that the county's fugitive-apprehension team, F.B.I. agents and United States Marshals were looking for the couple.... Lawyers for the parents said the Crumbleys had not fled, but had left town for their own safety and were returning to be arraigned.... The gun was an early Christmas gift from his parents: a semiautomatic 9-millimeter Sig Sauer handgun. 'My new beauty,' Ethan Crumbley, 15, called it. The day after Thanksgiving, he and his father had gone together to a Michigan gun shop to buy it. He and his mother spent a day testing out the gun, which was stored unlocked in the parents' bedroom. On Monday, when a teacher reported seeing their son searching online for ammunition, his mother did not seem alarmed. 'LOL I'm not mad at you,' Jennifer Crumbley texted her son. 'You have to learn not to get caught.' A day later, the authorities say the teenager fatally shot four classmates in the halls of Oxford High School in suburban Detroit, using the handgun his parents had bought for him."
~~~ Marie: However, the arraignment was scheduled for 4 pm CT Friday, and according to on-air reports on CNN & MSNBC, the parents did not appear. Here's my question: when the school employee interviewed the parents, didn't s/he think to ask, "Does Ethan have access to a gun?" In view of the fact, the school knew he was hunting for ammo, you might think there was a suspicion the answer was "yes." ~~~
~~~ Steve Almasy, et al., of CNN (1:09 am ET): "Hours after a prosecutor announced involuntary manslaughter charges against the parents of Ethan Crumbley, the 15-year-old accused of killing four fellow students at a Michigan high school, authorities said Friday that the parents are missing. A vehicle matching the description of the black Kia Seltos connected to James and Jennifer Crumbley was found late Friday in Detroit, which is about 40 miles from Oxford, the scene of the deadly shooting on Tuesday, officials said. A police perimeter was set up but law enforcement have not yet located the Crumbleys, who are considered fugitives, Detroit police spokesperson Rudy Harper told CNN. The US Marshals Service is helping local authorities search for the couple and has offered a reward of up to $10,000 for information that could lead to their arrest." ~~~
~~~ Dennis Romero & Phil Helsel of NBC News (2:17 am ET): "The parents of the teenager suspected in Tuesday's school shooting in Michigan were taken into custody after a manhunt, Detroit police said early Saturday morning.... The Crumbleys walked into a bank Friday and withdrew $4,000 for reasons that weren't immediately known, a source with direct knowledge told NBC News." A Washington Post story, updated at 2:32 am ET, is here: "Jennifer and James Crumbley were arrested after their car was spotted in a residential neighborhood in Detroit, Detroit Police Department spokesperson Rudy Harper told The Washington Post." ~~~
~~~ Marie: At a little after 3 am ET, James White, Detroit's police chief, held a press conference & told reporters that the couple appeared to be hiding in a room of the commercial building where they were apprehended. Police learned about the couple's location from a citizen's tip. White said police received video of Jennifer Crumbley walking into the building. Detroit police have turned the couple over to the Oakland sheriff's office. Chief White said someone assisted the couple in entering the building and the person (or persons) who helped them may be charged with a crime. The couple was not armed & surrendered without incident. I'll post a report of the presser when one becomes available. Update: An AP story, posted just before 4 am ET, is here. A New York Times story, posted at 4:12 am ET, is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Here's a question: if you were on the lam, would you park your vehicle out in front of your hideout? These people are going to be found not guilty of the charges against them by reason of stupidity.
Texas. So this story is very popular with Washington Post readers. And why wouldn't it be? It's a whodunnit involving a big heist, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash & checks hidden in a wall, an honest plumber and smarmy televangelist Joel Osteen. The only bad news: the culprits haven't been caught. Yet. The New York Times' version is here.
Way Beyond
** Ukraine/Russia. Shane Harris & Paul Sonne of the Washington Post: "As tensions mount between Washington and Moscow over a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. intelligence has found the Kremlin is planning a multi-front offensive as soon as early next year involving up to 175,000 troops, according to U.S. officials and an intelligence document obtained by The Washington Post. The Kremlin has been moving troops toward the border with Ukraine while demanding Washington guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO and that the alliance will refrain from certain military activities in and around Ukrainian territory. The crisis has provoked fears of a renewed war on European soil and comes ahead of a planned virtual meeting next week between President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin." The AP's report is here.
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Reader Comments (13)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/03/biden-media-coverage-worse-trump-favorable/
Does seem an outrage, but then we always knew the "news" was never exactly in the truth business, that there has always been a sort of funhouse mirror aspect to the final journalistic product.
I may wish it were not so, but I know slant and bias are always present, even in my own thoroughly objective screeds. I am, however, mostly aware of them and pick and choose them to achieve what I hope is the desired effect.
What troubles me most this morning is this: Is the reporting we see in the major outlets (NYTimes and WAPO, to name two, excluding Faux because we know the answer) deliberately biased (I have sensed a rightish bias in Politico), or is the poor journalism as printed simply the result of laziness or journalism's obvious vulnerability to political faddishness?
Put it this way: Is there really a conspiracy at work in the news business?
Maybe the last word in that question provides the answer.
I fully agree with Marie’s assessment that the Crumbs, who bought their disturbed, clearly violence prone kid, a semiautomatic hand gun, then let him bring it to school , even after being warned of a possible impending disaster, will walk. But not because they’re stupid (a condition that seems to be endemic for them), but because they are gun loving, Trump loving white people.
The Crumbs will be the new cause celebre for the nuts. They’ll be seen as “decent” gun owning, real ‘mericans being tortured by Biden’s Deep State for loving the holy second amendment.
Confederates hate schools anyway, so the victims of the Crumbs and their murderous spawn will get little sympathy. Poor little Crumb Jr. and his ignoramus parents will be painted as the real victims.
The fact that they withdrew thousands from their bank and went into hiding will be represented as “proof” that they knew that gun loving ‘mericans can’t get a fair trial in Biden Land.
Either that, or the fact that they parked their getaway vehicle outside their hidey hole will be seen as “proof” that they were never actually on the run from justice. They were…um…they were…doing a thing, probably something brave and completely legal, but someone ratted them out.
Good to know the Crumbley's have been snuffed out and will face criminal charges. According to the many reports on this I find the question of whether the school officials handled Ethan correctly at the outset of this tragedy mind-boggling. Kid leaves notes on his desk that reveal his disturbed mindset–– a teacher happened to see Ethan's horrific drawing, which included a gun, a person who had been shot, blood spattering and a plea for help and before that another teacher found him searching for ammunition on his phone. And yes, during the conference with parents and Ethan, Marie is right on when she says his back pack should have been searched then and there. To send this child back into the classroom is beyond my comprehension; even if you aren't familiar with disturbed children common sense would tell you that this kid needs to be put in a safe place. Recall that the parents refused to take Ethan out of school and refused to enter him into counseling.
Having worked with disturbed kids before I went into teaching my nose for trouble paid off. We managed to avert several potential catastrophes and in one case the student was removed from school and had home study for a whole year and at the same time was in family therapy. I think of the Sandy Hook shooter and how that kid had practically shouted his disturbance on a continual basis and in that case the parents ( couple were divorced) the mother, a gun lover, had a stash of them in the home just waiting for her sick son to pull the triggers–-again and again and again.
I am sick to death about this––what the hell is it going to take to wake up this congress and do something about gun laws. Yesterday on MSNBC a reporter who had grown up in Michigan said every fall the school system let kids off for a week to go deer hunting (sounds like Wisconsin); he was not into that so during that week he was one of the few who attended school.
PD,
The school officials could have immediately ordered Ethan out of the school, but didn’t. Likely, the Crumbs convinced them there was nothing wrong with their little murderer. Nonetheless, the parents still carry the bulk of the blame here, but now, the media and the nuts will place full responsibility on school officials. Those parents are just “good people” who loves them the second amendment. Nothing to see here, move along.
On school shootings:
Yes, things have changed. Forty years ago, during the fall hunting season it was not uncommon for some students in my small high school to hit the river delta marshes before school, bag a few birds, and then drive to school, leaving dead birds and shotguns in their (usually) truck. Don't even remember if they locked their vehicles. We didn't give those guns on campus a thought.
Now allowing guns at or near a school would not only be against the law but against common sense.
Can't put my finger on the many reasons for the difference between then and now, and at the moment don't intend a long essay, but have to believe there is a relationship between the everyday gun violence we have become used to hearing and reading about, particularly in homes and schools and the migration of the GOP to the POPP (the Party of Pissed Off People--I added a P overnight) over roughly that same period.
Maybe more on this later, if no one grabs me by the collar and tells me I'm barking (pissing?) up the wrong tree.
On the Supreme Court: do you think the low quality appointees representing low quality Republicans see themselves as low quality? I imagine that hits a bit close to home for comfort. Up and down the slate most all Republicans seem to be shameless. The also seem brilliantly unable to self-review, too. Ivy League educational resources ...tax them like we should tax churches.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/opinion/democrats-rural-america-midterms.html. This is pretty well stated about Democrats conundrum.
The press should know by now that the jobs numbers have been terribly inaccurate this year. If they were responsible they would be taking that into account in their reporting. Instead of reporting doom every month and then quietly updating the true numbers a few months later.
https://digbysblog.net/2021/12/03/the-initial-jobs-reports-are-bs/
People love their courtroom dramas and reality shows. Maybe we could have a prime time trial for all the perjury or criminality of the Supreme Court justices. Then have the audience play the role of jury and vote on their guilt or innocence. Let the people see who is exactly deciding their fate.
More context on the DeSantis Storm Troopers, all 200 of them:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-disgusting-reality-behind-ron-desantis-new-arm
To answer Ken Winkes’ question about what has changed in regard to guns “then and now”:
THEN: As Ken observed, guns were associated with hunting and target shooting.
NOW: The proliferation of semiautomatic weapons created for war and the killing of humans has changed the environment, and we understand how profoundly environment affects human behavior, and how the deterioration of human behavior, in turn, has become a growing part of our environment. The proliferation into the civilian market of weaponry designed by manufacturers to look appealing/sexy, to spray death as fast as a trigger finger can twitch, mass marketed and promoted by the NRA, popularized by the entertainment industry…that’s what has changed.
It IS the gun.
It IS the SEMIAUTOMATIC gun.
@Asa Watcher
Thanks for the response.
Well said.
It is the guns (and a SCOTUS that can't read a simple Constitutional Amendment), and while I don't know clearly where I might go with all this, I'd wager the meeting of widely available military weaponry with demographic changes, which would include the sheer increase in our numbers, the breakdown of established cultural norms (we do have new, to my mind more unhealthy ones) and the inability of our politics to admit, let alone try to fix real, and in the case of gun violence, explosive problems has gotten us to this dark present.
It's hard to sort it all out, but one other factor we like to ignore is the constant barrage of violent entertainment we treat ourselves to and our national indulgence in almost constant war for the last 100 years, both cultural inputs that I have read some psychologists say make no difference in our behavior, but my sense is that conclusion is utter bush-wah.
And of course none of these factors (and others I haven't mentioned or thought of) don't operate in isolation. They work together to change the cultural environment, which as you say, is now in a far different place that when I was a kid.
All my adult life I've heard it's common for oldsters like me to say things are going to hell, but when it comes to random and widespread gun violence, it seems that's exactly where we are heading.
@Asa Watcher: Good analysis on all counts. I was struck by -- among other points you make -- your noting that guns are now "designed by manufacturers to look appealing/sexy." I'd add after "designed": "and advertised." In his murder trial Kyle Rittenhouse testified he chose his rifle because he thought it "looked cool." And Ethan Crumbley showed off his gun on social media as "my new beauty."
It is just foreign to me that anyone would see a big, ugly and deadly weapon as looking cool or being a thing of beauty. But then I don't read the NRA News.
Rep. Thomas Massie posted a photo of himself and his entire family, all holding huge guns. Twitter, I think. The entire winger population is evil. Not crazy. They are aware of the effect. All Democrats need bodyguards. Seriously. We are not safe anywhere.