The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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The Commentariat -- July 8, 2016

CW: I didn't intend to do an afternoon update today, but Dan Patrick was too much to ignore:

Brandi Grissom of the Dallas Morning News: "Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called protesters who ran away from the hail of bullets that rained down on Downtown Dallas on Thursday night 'hypocrites' during an interview Friday on Fox News. 'All those protesters last night, they turned around and ran the other way expecting the men and women in blue to protect them. What hypocrites!' an audibly emotional Patrick said."

Thomas Tracy & Graham Rayman of the New York Daily News: "On Friday morning a rep from Donald Trump's Manhattan organization asked ... [NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton] to let the candidate speak to a 3 p.m. roll call at the NYPD Midtown North Precinct. The request came in the wake of the murders of five Dallas police officers Thursday during a protest over police shooting. But ... Bratton strongly rejected the idea. 'Our interest is staying out of the politics of the moment, and not to provide photo ops," he told reporters." -- CW

Sam Thielman of the Guardian: "For what experts are calling the first time in history, US police have used a robot in a show of lethal force. Early Friday morning, Dallas police used a bomb-disposal robot with an explosive device on its manipulator arm to kill a suspect after five police officers were murdered and seven others wounded." -- CW

Ben Collins, et al., of the Daily Beast: "Micah Johnson, 25, of Mesquite, Texas was identified by police as the sniper who shot 12 people during a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas on Thursday night. According to his Facebook profile, Johnson identified as a black nationalist. Activists at Thursday's night Black Lives Matter march, however, said that the shooter behind the deadliest day for American law enforcement since 9/11 was not part of their protest." -- CW

Jason Dearen & Curt Anderson of the Orlando Sentinel: "U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown and her chief of staff pleaded not guilty Friday to fraud and other federal offenses outlined in a grand jury indictment unsealed after an investigation into what prosecutors call a phony charity turned into a personal slush fund. Brown, a 69-year-old Democrat from Jacksonville, and Chief of Staff Elias 'Ronnie' Simmons, 50, entered pleas in Jacksonville federal court on charges of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction and filing of false tax returns." -- CW

*****

The New York Times is liveblogging developments in Dallas, Baton Rouge & Minnesota. "A suspect in the killings of five police officers in Dallas on Thursday night was killed by a robot-controlled police bomb on Friday morning after a lengthy standoff with the police in a parking garage, Chief David O. Brown of the Dallas Police said at a news conference." ...

... Greg Jaffe & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Obama, addressing the tumult, anger and confusion at home, said [in Warsaw, Poland,] Friday that he was outraged by the sniper attacks on the Dallas police that left five officers dead and seven wounded, calling the carnage 'a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement.'" -- CW ...

... The Stupid Respond. Nick Gass of Politico: "President Barack Obama's political opponents quickly piled on after news emerged that a gunman had killed five police officers in Dallas, assailing him for his focus on gun control, his overseas trip, and his treatment of the law enforcement community." -- CW ...

... Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: "Four Dallas police officers were killed and seven others were wounded by snipers on Thursday night during a demonstration protesting the police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana this week, according to Chief David O. Brown of the Dallas police. Chief Brown said the shooting was carried out by two snipers who fired down on a demonstration in the city's downtown area that until then had been peaceful. 'Some were shot in the back,' the chief said. 'We believe that these suspects were positioning themselves in a way to triangulate on these officers.' A civilian was also wounded." -- CW ...

... Claire Cardona & Hannah Wise of the Dallas Morning News: "Three Dallas police officers and one DART officer have been killed and several others were injured after shots were fired in downtown Dallas during a rally and march Thursday night. Dallas police Chief David Brown said about 8:58 p.m., at least two snipers shot 11 officers and one civilian from elevated positions during the rally in downtown.... Three other DART officers were wounded but their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening, said Morgan Lyons, a spokesman for DART. About 11:30 p.m. [CT], a person of interest in a photo circulated by the city and Dallas police turned himself in, police said.... Another alleged suspect in a shootout with Dallas SWAT officers was taken into custody, police said. A suspicious package was discovered near the location of the suspect in the shootout and is being secured by the Dallas police bomb squad." -- CW ...

     ... The story has been updated to reflect developments: "A gunman who was exchanging fire with police in the El Centro College garage was reported dead shortly before 3 a.m."

... The front page of the Dallas Morning News currently has links to several related stories, but the site, at 1 am ET, has nearly crashed. -- CW ...

... Travis Andrews of the Washington Post, in an update: "Dallas police said there are at least four suspects after snipers shot at least 11 police officers, killing 4, in a downtown area of Dallas where protests had been taking place.... At a press conference at around 12:40 central time Friday, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said three of these suspects are in custody. The fourth has been in a stand-off with police on the second floor of the El Centro parking garage for 45 minutes. That suspect has fired at police.... Brown ... believes the four suspects worked together with rifles, 'triangulated at elevated positions at difference places in the downtown area' to attack police officers." -- CW ...

Guardian liveblog: "Confirmation that a fifth police officer shot in the attack has died.... [The 'person of interest' mentioned in the DMN story] is Mark Hughes, who turned himself in to police after his photo was circulated, and who has now been released." -- CW ...

... Manny Fernandez, et al., of the New York Times: "The shooting [in Dallas] occurred after President Obama, reacting with the same horror as many Americans to a grisly video of a bloody, dying man in Minnesota who was shot by the police, begged the nation to confront the racial disparities in law enforcement while acknowledging the dangers that officers face.... A few hours earlier, Gov. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, who seemed shaken by the video showing the man, Philando Castile, as he died, also pointed to the role of race. 'Would this have happened if the driver were white, if the passengers were white?' he asked. 'I don't think it would have.'... On Thursday night, demonstrators were out in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, Newark and Chicago." -- CW ...

... President Obama, speaking in Warsaw, Poland:

... Mitch Smith & Matt Furber of the New York Times: "Late Thursday night, the authorities said [Philando] Castile, a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor at a St. Paul[, Minnesota,] school, had been killed by multiple gunshot wounds, and the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. State investigators identified the officer who shot him as Jeronimo Yanez, a four-year veteran of the St. Anthony Police Department. Much remained unknown about the events leading up to the shooting, about Officer Yanez's background, and about whether the Justice Department would open a separate, federal investigation into the case." -- CW ...

     ... The Minneapolis Star Tribune story, by Pam Louwagie, is here. -- CW ...

Greg Sargent: Donald Trump issued a sensible, measured statement in response to the police assassinations in Dallas. CW: Forgive me, I do not believe for a moment he wrote it, & I would be surprised if he even read it.

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "The two shootings [in Louisiana & Minnesota] give a strong sense that the Second Amendment does not apply to black Americans in the same way it does to white Americans. Although liberals are loath to think of the right to bear arms as a civil right, it's spelled out in the Bill of Rights.... Black Americans may not enjoy the full protection of the Second Amendment, but technology [in the form of phones with videocams] has offered a sort of alternative -- one that may be less effective in preventing brutality in the moment, but has produced an outpouring of outrage." ...

     ... CW: Although the Supreme Court has never specifically defined photography or videography as a First Amendment right, some appeals courts have ruled that photographing or recording the words & actions of government officials -- which of course includes police -- is a First Amendment right. It's complicated. It seems that citizens, particularly minority citizens, are availing themselves of First Amendment rights even as law enforcement denies them the Second Amendment protections white people enjoy.

Paul Krugman: "To put it bluntly, the modern Republican Party is in essence a machine designed to deliver high after-tax incomes to the 1 percent.... But not many voters are interested in that goal. So the party has prospered politically by harnessing its fortunes to racial hostility, which it has not-so-discreetly encouraged for decades.... But ... we wouldn't have gotten to this point if so many people outside the G.O.P. -- in particular, journalists and self-proclaimed centrists -- hadn't refused to acknowledge what was happening.... The Republican establishment directly enabled the forces that led to Trump; but many influential people outside the G.O.P. in effect enabled the enablers." -- CW

WTLV Jacksonville, Florida: "Fifth District Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) has been indicted on charges likely related to her involvement with an unregistered charity in Virginia and appear in Jacksonville Federal Court Friday, multiple sources have confirmed to First Coast News.First Coast News has learned Brown will appear before a federal magistrate judge Friday afternoon." -- CW

John Berry, in a Washington Post op-ed: "The higher-profile the individual, the less likelihood, in most circumstances, of sanctions relating to security issues. In short, current security clearance policy factors in the importance of an individual in deciding whether to revoke a security clearance.... [Hillary] Clinton's use of a personal server for classified government email, without appropriate approvals and security, would normally be treated as a serious security violation.... Another problem is that there is no single agency that oversees the security clearance process for all individuals." -- CW

AND Reince Priebus is likely sending his resume' around to right-wing "think" tanks. CW: Why are we still calling them "think tanks" when the "thinkers" are all dimwits?

Presidential Race

Eric Lichtblau & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey Jr., defended himself Thursday against an onslaught of Republican criticism for ending the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails, but he also provided new details that could prove damaging to her just weeks before she is to be named the Democrats' presidential nominee. At a contentious hearing of the House oversight committee, Mr. Comey acknowledged under questioning that a number of key assertions that Mrs. Clinton made for months in defending her email system were contradicted by the F.B.I.'s investigation. Mr. Comey said that Mrs. Clinton had failed to return 'thousands' of work-related emails to the State Department, despite her public insistence to the contrary, and that her lawyers may have destroyed classified material that the F.B.I. was unable to recover. He also described her handling of classified material as secretary of state as 'negligent' -- a legal term he avoided using when he announced on Tuesday that 'no reasonable prosecutor' would bring a case against her." -- CW ...

... Julian Hattem of the Hill: "Hillary Clinton did not swear an oath to tell the truth before meeting with the FBI for three and a half hours last weekend, and the interview was not recorded, FBI Director James Comey told House lawmakers on Thursday. The lack of a sworn oath does not remove the possibility of criminal penalties against Clinton if she lied to the FBI, though he said he had 'no basis to conclude' that she was untruthful." -- CW ...

... Carol Morello of the Washington Post: "The State Department said late Thursday that it will reopen an internal review into any mishandling of classified information in emails between former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and her top aides now that the Justice Department has decided she will not be prosecuted. One possible outcome of such internal reviews is that employees, even if they no longer work there, could face a range of disciplinary actions, from having notes placed in their employment files to losing their security clearances." -- CW ...

... GOP House Again Snatches Defeat from Victory. Steve Benen: "On Tuesday, the story looked like Comey vs. Clinton -- the FBI director didn't think the Democratic candidate broke any laws, but ... he delivered a public rebuke. Now the story is Comey vs. Republicans -- GOP lawmakers had some baseless allegations and reckless conspiracy theories, some of which targeted Comey directly, and they asked the FBI director to give testimony knocking down each of their bad arguments.... Republicans were supposed to make Clinton the scoundrel of this narrative, but [Thurs]day, they decided instead to go after the director of the FBI...." -- CW

... Eric Fehrnstrom, Mitt Romney's 2012 communications director (Mr. Etch-a-Sketch), in a Boston Globe op-ed I'm not linking, calls Hillary Clinton "the new O.J. Simpson." Ed Kilgore: "So [Fehrnstrom] doesn't bother to explain why an alleged misuse of email technology compares to a double murder, or why federal investigators deciding that the evidence did not even justify criminal charges is anything like an apparent act of jury nullification...." -- CW

Liz Kreutz & Josh Haskell of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton was planning on delivering remarks about the police-involved deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile while campaigning alongside Vice President Joe Biden in his hometown of Scranton, Penn., Friday, but that event has been postponed following the police shootings in Dallas." -- CW

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "Bernie Sanders is preparing to endorse Hillary Clinton for president as early as Tuesday at an event in New Hampshire, according to several Democrats familiar with the plans." -- CW

Alan Rappeport, et al., of the New York Times: "A peacemaking summit meeting between Republican lawmakers and their renegade presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, descended on Thursday into an extraordinary series of acrid exchanges.... [Trump told Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Az.)] he had been going easy on Mr. Flake so far, but that he would ensure that Mr. Flake lost his re-election bid this year if the senator did not change his tune. Dumbstruck, Mr. Flake informed Mr. Trump that he was not up for re-election this year.... Mr. Trump called [Sen. Mark Kirk (who did not attend the meeting)] 'dishonest' and a 'loser....' Despite the tense exchanges, Mr. Trump ... met and managed to reach an accommodation with [Ted] Cruz ... [and] invited Mr. Cruz to speak at the party's national convention.... The broader meeting with Republican senators followed a more upbeat session with more than 200 Republican House members at the Capitol Hill Club." -- CW ...

... Josh Rogin of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump asked House Republicans Thursday to only 'say great things' about him in an effort to project a unified front in the presidential election." Also, Trump said, in response to a Congressman's question, "I am a constitutionalist. I am going to abide by the Constitution whether it's number 1, number 2, number 12, number 9." CW: This would be impressive, especially if the Constitution contained 12 articles. Alas, it has only seven. Apparently Trump the Constitutionalist plans to write a few more, which is an excellent idea: he can overwrite the Bill of Rights with a stream of the Articles of Trump.

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "... as the [presidential] race has turned toward the general election and a majority of polls have shown Mr. Trump trailing Mrs. Clinton, speculation has again crept into political conversations ... that Mr. Trump will seek an exit strategy before the election to avoid a humiliating loss. Now he is refusing to rule out an even more dramatic departure, one that would let him avoid the grueling job of governing [-- after winning the election, refusing to serve as president --], return to his business and enjoy his now-permanent status as a news media celebrity." CW: Notice, in reading the story, that Trump thinks it would be pretty funny if he sent the nation reeling into a state of chaos. ...

... Jim Fallows of the Atlantic: Wednesday "evening, in Ohio, [Trump] gave what was even for him the most off-message, most (literally) deranged-seeming performance of his candidacy, and what would have been in any previous campaign a sign of very serious trouble.... This man is not well." Thanks to Haley S. for the link. -- CW

Hadas Gold of Politico: "Donald Trump has slashed his regular cable television appearances and is largely restricting himself to 'friendlier terrain' on Fox News, according to Howard Kurtz, the channel's media analyst.... According to Kurtz's report, Trump staff are not notifying him of every interview request. It's part of an effort to tamp down on the 'risk of the candidate making mistakes or fanning minor controversies.'" CW: Sticking to Fox "News"? Maybe Rogers Ailes or Steve Doocy can interview Trump about women's issues.

Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "Lawsuits accusing Donald Trump of sexually assaulting a child in the 1990s appear to have been orchestrated by an eccentric anti-Trump campaigner with a record of making outlandish claims about celebrities. Norm Lubow, a former producer on the Jerry Springer TV show, has previously been involved with disputed allegations that OJ Simpson bought illegal drugs on the day Simpson's wife was murdered, and that Kurt Cobain's widow had the Nirvana frontman killed." -- CW

Way Beyond the Beltway

Heather Stewart & Rowena Mason of the Guardian: "Andrea Leadsom, the junior energy minister who shot to prominence as a leading voice in the Vote Leave campaign, has secured second place in the Conservative party leadership race behind Home Secretary Theresa May on Thursday, ensuring Britain's next prime minister will be a woman.... The two-woman shortlist will now be presented to the party's grassroots members around the country, with the winner due to be announced on 9 September, though there are calls for it to be speeded up due to the fallout from the vote to leave the EU." -- CW

News Ledes

Washington Post: "U.S. health officials confirmed Friday that a Utah resident's death late last month was the first Zika-related death in the continental United States. The Salt Lake County health department said the elderly person had an underlying health condition." -- CW

Bloomberg: "America's job market stirred to life in June as payroll growth accelerated by the most since October after a two-month lull, assuaging fears of broader cutbacks by companies. Payrolls climbed by 287,000 last month, exceeding the highest estimate in a Bloomberg survey, after a revised 11,000 gain in May, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for a 180,000 increase. The jobless rate rose to 4.9 percent as more people entered the labor force. Wages advanced less than projected." -- CW

Comments Off

Reader Comments (14)

Yesterday I watched several hours of the political theatre produced by the oversight committee; last night I watched the Dallas streets erupt in sniper attacks on police. Grim episodes––frightening and way over the top. Both aforementioned are reactions to a perception of wrongdoing––of a system that is corrupt and is unequal in its doling out recriminations. The former plays out as angry desperation while the latter is playing with real live ammunition.

Does anyone these days get a good night's sleep?

And here is a piece about the Democrat's platform draft. The Democrats ignore the 500 pound lobbyist in the room.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_democrats_ignore_the_500-pound_lobbyist_in_the_room_20160707

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

'deranged, not well' Really, you finally noticed? And now we have stories about leaving the race or not taking the job even if he wins.

Hello America, a seriously mentally ill idiot is not running for POTUS.
He is just desperately trying to support his worthless ego. A loud mouth trying to hide a tiny brain.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

The human mind: do the Dallas killers have any idea of how much they have helped any racist police officer?

The NRA: nothing said

Trump: There was a shooting in Dallas? or lets just deport all of the slaves.

ALL LIVES MATTER!

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMarvin Schwalb

@MarvinS. One has to wonder about the entire Trump family smarts. As in, "...my sister would make a wonderful VP." We really do need to establish credentials in this country for running for high office. Heck, probably harder to be elected dogcatcher in some places.

Dallas. NRA. Guns. Racism. NRA. GOP. Guns. Dallas, again. Hate. No gun. Dead. Broken tail light. Dead. Beginning to look worse than the 60's! Resentment. Results: Alive and (well) horrible.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

P.S. WKRP (or an offshoot) must still be airing in Cincinatti, err- Cinccinati, err,,,Cinanatti, OH (Look at bottom corner of Right Side TV video: Cincinnati "

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

Horror.

Horror in Dallas. I was hoping that the snipers turned out not to be black. I haven't heard an announcement one way or the other, but the individual cornered and killed in a garage declared that he was in it to kill white people. That doesn't sound good, in many ways. This terrible event provides ammunition to those who are all for heavy handed and violent treatment of black Americans. "See? They deserve it!" A sad, sad day for America. Can't wait for the right-wing media, which had little to say about the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, beyond simple reportage, to break out into full on screaming today. A bad day, indeed.

But you know who's having a great day? The NRA, natch.

I read accounts from a number of witnesses at the scene in Dallas who said that the weapons used sounded like assault rifles. Good job NRA! Great job, GOP congress! Assault weapons for everyone. Wayne LaPierre is infamous for saying that the only thing stopping a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The problem is that sometimes good guys can appear to be bad guys to those on the other end of those guns. And this is what you get when the boiling point has been reached. So assault rifles for everyone!

Yesterday Paul Ryan (Very Serious Policy Wonk) threw in the towel on even the teeniest sliver of gun control, denying terrorists access to assault weapons. The GOP Freedom Caucus (Imbecile Caucus is more like it) peed in his gas tank and his widdow Speaker car won't go no more. And poor Paulie, there was nothing he could do. Wah-wah. Some leader. So the GOP is STILL all for individuals on terror watch lists purchasing assault weapons, as many as they can afford.

Everyday someone is shot and killed is a good day for the NRA. Violent death brings on fear and loathing. Fear and loathing mean more gun sales. More gun sales mean more violent death. More violent death means...more money.

And now more Americans are dead. More families are destroyed. More children weep for lost parents. More outrage. More hatred. More killing. And more to come.

More money for the NRA and the gun industry.

More horror.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

If anyone is asking "Why?" in response to two more black men murdered, essentially, for being black, Jeb Lund of Rolling Stone has an answer:

Because we want it that way.

Well, maybe not all of us, but enough to make it count. This is why nothing came of the Michael Brown killing. This is why a cowardly douchebag like George Zimmerman walked.

"Seven days into July, and police in America have already shot 561 people. Three people per day, one person every eight hours, with 2015 data showing young black men nine times more likely to be killed than any other group, and blacks as a whole twice as likely to be killed while unarmed than whites.

It’s tempting to believe that this is an aberration, that we're nearing some societal breaking point, that an as-yet undetected event unleashed sanctioned violence we would never have countenanced before. But this is the old normal revealed by the ubiquity of cell phone cameras, the enormity of its horror brought home by The Guardian and The Washington Post bothering to track police killings, after decades of nearly everyone and every agency saying We Don't Want To Know. We ask how this happened, but the hardest answer is that we wanted it to, from the national level down to every neighborhood."

Save us all from scary black people. Do whatever it takes. Read it yourself.

Yes, Dallas is an unconscionable tragedy. But had this been a situation of white people being targeted for decades and killed with impunity, Dallas would have happened a whole lot sooner. But now that it has, the focus will switch entirely from the deaths recounted in this article to better and more forceful (violent) ways to keep the black community in line. Keep them in their place.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

As I mentioned above, I'm not sure who the snipers were, but the wingnuts are sure.

Here's a responsible former GOP congressman, now a hate radio screamer, Joe Walsh, from Illinois:

"This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you."

And we all know what color (and religion) constitutes Real America. Much more of this to come.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

An investigation of the investigation?

Confederates have learned that it doesn't matter if they don't have the clout at the ballot box or the moral footing to get what they want. They don't like abortion but can't get the law changed? Fine. We'll just deny women the opportunity for choice in any way we can.

This mindset is a universal feature of right-wing thinking. It covers a multitude of situations. So, the FBI won't indict Hillary Clinton? Obama won't toss her into solitary for 189 years? Fine. We'll hold investigations of the investigations of the investigations and investigate the investigators who performed the investigations we're investigating and we'll do it until we get what we want, or we all turn blue and pass out.

Elections matter. Congresspeople who hold their breath and stamp their feet because they don't get what they want are not the sort you want doing the nation's business because, well, first, they don't do the nation's business. And second, they don't seem to even know what it is.

So....INVESTIGATE! Hey, Trey Gowdy is free, isn't he? Give him a call. He kept a completely bullshit charge afloat for two years.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Haley Simon Thank you for the helpful reference to Matthew Miller's op-ed piece. I recognize Miller's concerns. However, he wrongly assumes that the political opposition to Mrs. Clinton meets the high professional standard he advocates. We are instead in the midst of what PD Pepe described above as political theatre, played out amidst the awful shooting tragedies in the United States, most recently in Dallas.

I wonder what we would all be reading, and watching, had Mr. Comey kept silent, as Mr. Miller advocates and simply forwarded to the Attorney General the FBI's conclusion that there was no criminal conduct. This behavior may indeed have been highly professional, but I think the FBI Director concluded, correctly and courageously, that it was better for the country if he explained this particular FBI investigation himself. I am surely glad he did not take what I think would have been the easier course and leave to the Attorney General alone the heavy burden of explaining the decision of the Department of Justice to close the matter. In particular, I think Comey's clear distinction between willful misconduct and "mere" carelessness or indifference is both simple and important and, in the long run, helpful to Mrs. Clinton. Similarly, I think his testimony before Congress, especially the portion in response to the intelligent and effective questions of Elijah Cummings, was helpful not just to Mrs. Clinton but to any objective voters trying to make sense of this tangled web, most especially the ill-timed "visit" of Mr. Clinton with the Attorney General.

My own thoughts on Mr. Comey's criticisms of Mrs. Clinton and her colleagues are heavily influenced by a number of years of handling classified material during student summer work in the defense industry and during active duty in the Navy. Like millions of other "grunts", including hard working FBI field agents, I did my best to comply with regulations which were at time confusing, and where the posted penalties for non-compliance were, mildly put, scary.

At the opposite and top end of the power scale, this whole affair reinforces my admiration for President Obama who was able to lead, and lead effectively, a powerful, wilful person like Mrs. Clinton. As Marie has suggested, the United States will surely be better off if Mrs. Clinton has the courage to follow President Obama's example and not simply surround herself with professionals who agree with her. Similarly, I admire President Obama's administration for acting effectively when the Army did not do what it should have done, that is recall David Petraeus to active duty and issue an appropriate punishment for his willful and egregious misconduct. In failing to do so, the Army set a terrible precedent and left to the Department of Justice the heavy tasks of evaluating the behavior of a four star general, and deciding and obtaining that punishment. Hard working and underpaid career prosecutors likely faced a phalanx of high-paid civilian lawyers in connection with those tasks. Despite the mild punishment David Petraeus ultimately received, it is enlightening to reread the summary of the criminal conduct to which he plead guilty, http://www.ncwd.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/general/Petraeus.pdf (p. 17), portions of which summary were quoted by Congressman Cummings and confirmed and amplified by Director Comey.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterIslander

In the NYT, Michael Eric Dyson comments on recent murderous events:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/what-white-america-fails-to-see.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region

Dyson's comments are like a shadow of Malcolm X.
The unrest does remind me of the '60's.
Or are we in James Baldwin's "the fire next time?"

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterVictoria

More and more Confederates are picking up on the Race War and blaming Obama directly for the shootings in Dallas. One even goes so far as to suggest that he knew all about it. Well, that goes without saying, right? I mean, he's behind every act of violence in this country isn't he?

Also, brain-fried pundits on the far right website frontpage have already decided that the snipers are terrorists in the employ of Black Lives Matter. Meanwhile, some asshole on Breitbart (I'm not even gonna link that shit) is spouting off on how we should all calm down and not blame anyone. We should all be nice to one another. Which is another way of saying, pay no attention to decades, generations of violence toward black communities, we're all gonna hit the reset button and be good boys and girls from here on. Because RACE WAR if we don't...

Cries of race war have been used in this country for hundreds of years (going back to the revolutionary times) to whip up racial hatred against black communities. It's hoary and decrepit but it's got legs and works miracles on the haters. It should be at tsunami level by this afternoon.

Can't wait for the Orange Headed Clown to spout off on this.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterAkhilleus

@Ak: "Can't wait for the Orange Headed Clown to spout off on this." He must be so pissed, he's NOT today's headline.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterMAG

@Akhilleus (et al.): As usual, Charlie Pierce weighs in with his usual eloquence on the carnage of the past couple days:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a46545/dallas-police-shooting-consequences/
I just turned 70 (in May) so I remember the '60s -- all too vividly -- and it's déjà vu all over again. As I recall, that did not end well, and nor shall this, I fear.

July 8, 2016 | Unregistered CommenterRose in Michigan
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