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The Commentariat -- May 5, 2015
Internal links & defunct video removed.
If you're reading Reality Chex only for news & commentary published elsewhere, you're missing the best part: Reality Chex commentary. Yesterday's thread provides a typical example, from the profound, to the informational, to the silly -- "Akhilleus: Freeedom has 3 eee's" -- it's all great stuff (not Great Stuff, although, like the product, Reality Chex commenters do fill in the gaps, albeit not with synthetics & empty airspace). -- Constant Weader
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "In the aftermath of racially charged unrest in places like Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and New York, Mr. Obama came to the Bronx on Monday for the announcement of a new nonprofit organization that is being spun off from his White House initiative called My Brother's Keeper. Staked by more than $80 million in commitments from corporations and other donors, the new group, My Brother's Keeper Alliance, will in effect provide the nucleus for Mr. Obama's post-presidency, which will begin in January 2017":
... AP: "President Barack Obama is envisioning a future of playing dominoes with retiree David Letterman. Obama joked about their quieter futures during his eighth Late Show appearance Monday, saying Americans have grown up with the veteran comedian."
Peter Baker & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "President Obama plans on Tuesday to name Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., a former top commander in Afghanistan who now serves as commandant of the Marine Corps, to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to officials briefed on the selection." The Senate must confirm his nomination. ...
... The Washington Post story, by Missy Ryan & Dan Lamothe, is here.
Seth Borenstein of the AP: "The Obama Administration's hotly debated plan to reduce heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the nation's power plants will save about 3,500 lives a year by cutting back on other types of pollution as well, a new independent study concludes. A study from Harvard and Syracuse University calculates the decline in heart attacks and lung disease when soot and smog are reduced -- an anticipated byproduct of the president's proposed power plant rule, which aims to fight global warming by limiting carbon dioxide emissions." CW: Who cares if the EPA plan is saving thousands of people's lives? It's a jobs killer! Also, too, university studies are just liberal elite bunk trumped up to defeat the sacred Republican policy bible.
Peter Sullivan of the Hill: "A pilot program created under ObamaCare to change Medicare's payment system saved almost $400 million and will be expanded, the administration announced Monday. The pilot program, called Pioneer Accountable Care Organizations, is part of an effort to shift Medicare to paying for quality instead of quantity of care." See also Steve Benen on Chuck Todd's interview of John Boehner under Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. below. ...
... Looks like Boehner was at least partially right about one thing. American College of Emergency Physicians: "Three-quarters of emergency physicians report that emergency visits are going up, according to a new poll. This represents a significant increase from just one year ago when less than half reported increases."
** Alexandra Stevenson of the New York Times: "The top 25 hedge fund managers reaped $11.62 billion in compensation in 2014.... That collective payday came even as hedge funds, once high-octane money makers, returned on average low-single digits. In comparison, the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500-stock index posted a gain of 13.68 percent last year when reinvested dividends were included.... For investors, 2014 was the sixth consecutive year that hedge funds have fallen short of stock market performance, returning only 3 percent on average...." ...
... CW: AND, as NYT commenter R. Law writes, "It's pitiful that these people are also taxed at the low low low carried interest rate, and that GOP'ers are clamoring to make sure they never have to pay any estate taxes either."
Manny Fernandez, et al., of the New York Times make an effort to profile Elton Simpson, 30, and Nadir Hamid Soofi, 34, who were shot dead by an off-duty traffic officer who was working security for "a gathering that showcased artwork and cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad." ...
... AP: "The Islamic State group claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a weekend attack at a centre near Dallas, Texas, exhibiting cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad.... The statement did not provide details and it was unclear whether the group was opportunistically claiming the attack as its own. It is the first time that Isis, which frequently calls for attacks against the west, has claimed responsibility for one in the United States." ...
... Dean Obeidallah of the Daily Beast: "Anti-Muslim advocate Pam Geller has the absolute right to draw any cartoon she wants of the Prophet Muhammad. That was not just the response from Muslim-American leaders I spoke to after news broke Sunday night of a shooting outside a Garland, Texas, event that Geller had organized -- offering $10,000 for people to draw images of Muhammad -- but before that event as well.... American Muslims deeply value freedom of expression.... We [Muslims] are used to Geller, a person who has been denounced by both the Anti-Defamation league and the Southern Poverty Law Center for her anti-Muslim hate.... Geller is so over-the-top in her rabid hatred of Muslims that she has become a punchline in our community." ...
... Cops Need More Weapons of War! Ben Kamisar of the Hill: "Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) criticized Hillary Clinton for her recent comments on criminal justice reform in light of the Sunday night shooting at a Texas event holding a contest to draw the Prophet Mohammed. 'When people like Hillary Clinton say that police should not have weapons of war, the fact is, we are at war; we are at war with Islamist terrorism, and we have to have all weapons and all resources available,' he said Monday morning on Fox News's 'Fox and Friends.'" CW: Spoken like a true IRA gunrunner, which he was.
You know, I understand the concern that's been raised by a lot of citizens about Jade Helm. It's a question I'm getting a lot. And I think part of the reason is, we have seen for six years a federal government disrespecting the liberty of the citizens, and that produces fear. When you see a federal government that is attacking our free speech rights, our religious liberty rights, our Second Amendment rights, that produces distrust as to government. -- Neophyte Sen. & Professional Fearmonger Ted Cruz, who thinks he should be the POTUS
Paul Krugman: "... in certain circles, the big thing has been the right-wing belief that operation Jade Helm 15, a military training exercise in Texas, is a cover for Obama to seize control of the state and force its citizens to accept universal health care at gunpoint. No, really -- and this is being taken seriously both by Ted Cruz and by the governor, who has ordered the National Guard to keep a watch on the feds and their possibly nefarious activities.... You should think of the panic over the attack of the Obamacare black helicopters as being part of a continuum that runs through inflation truthers like Niall Ferguson and Amity Shlaes, who insist that the government is cooking the economic books, to QE conspiracy theorists like (sadly) John Taylor and Paul Ryan declaring that Bernanke only did it to bail out Obama, to the more general prevalence of inflation derp, the insistence that Weimar is just around the corner despite six or more years of failed predictions. There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear (although I have some ideas I'll flesh out soon.) But it's quite remarkable, and pretty scary." ...
... James Rosen of McClatchy News: "The Pentagon has a message for Texas: chill. Defense officials Monday dismissed as 'wild speculation' an Internet-fueled claim that a massive summertime exercise called Jade Helm 15 for special operations commandos is a covert operation by President Barack Obama to take over Texas. That claim was given legitimacy by Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott's order last week for the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercises.... The Texas State Guard said Monday it would follow Abbot's order." ...
... Freeedom! Ahiza Garcia of TPM: "Actor Chuck Norris, who has become a prominent conservative activist, published a column on the conspiracy theory website WND that told readers not to trust what the federal government has been saying about a military training exercise known as Jade Helm 15." ...
... Steve M.: Norris's nutty conspiracy theories -- he has a lot of them -- do not make "Norris so fringy that high-level right-wing politicians would no longer consort with him. Hardly anything is too fringy on the right." ...
... CW: To me the most revelatory part of Norris's crazy is learning that a tinfoil hat fits neatly under the brim of a Texas Ranger's Stetson Diamond Jim.
** Lincoln Caplan has a terrific essay in the American Prospect on the "Junior Justice," Elena Kagan. Caplan focuses on Kagan's written opinions, which exhibit both excellent prose & reasoning. The American public is her intended audience.
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd.
Paul Farhi of the Washington Post: "Fox News erroneously reported that Baltimore police shot a man Monday in the same neighborhood where unrest broke out last week -- a mistake quickly corrected by the news network. The midafternoon report by correspondent Mike Tobin, which also found its way onto Foxnews.com, was potentially dangerous, given the elevated tensions in Baltimore's Sandtown section.... Tobin's report caused about 30 minutes of unease in Baltimore before Fox anchor Shepard Smith went on-air to correct the story and apologize for the incorrect information. His apology followed a statement from Baltimore police that there had been no shooting."
CW: Steve Benen faults John Boehner for not getting his facts right on ObamaCare. Because Benen works for NBC, he doesn't fault Chuck Todd for letting Boehner get away with making up stuff. You can watch the interview here. The Q&A Benen discusses begins at about 5 min. in. Chuck is supposed to be a policy wonk, but it's clear he does nothing but ask prepared questions & is unable or unwilling to make Boehner -- or any Republican -- back up his claims.
Presidential Race
David Lerman of Bloomberg: "'We are not aware of any evidence that actions taken by Secretary Clinton were influenced by donations to the Clinton Foundation or speech or honoraria of former President Clinton,' [State Department] spokesman, Jeff Rathke, told reporters on Monday in Washington. 'Over the course of Secretary Clinton's tenure, the State Department received requests to review dozens of entities each year, primarily for proposed speeches' by former President Bill Clinton, and 'we are aware of no evidence that there was undue influence.'" ...
... Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Undocumented immigrants must have a chance for full citizenship under overhaul of the immigration system, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will demand Tuesday." ...
... Erica Werner of the AP: "Hillary Rodham Clinton is willing to testify once on Capitol Hill later this month about the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, and her email practices during her tenure as secretary of state, her attorney told lawmakers in a letter Monday. Lawyer David Kendall said the Democratic presidential candidate would appear for only one session the week of May 18 or later, not twice as requested by Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C...." Worth remembering, the former acting CIA chief David Morrell argues that "Republicans, in their eagerness to politicize the killing of the American ambassador to Libya, repeatedly distorted the agency's analysis of events" (also linked yesterday).
Bill Press in the Hill: "Win or lose, [Bernie Sanders] will have a profound, positive impact on the Democratic race for president in 2016." ...
... Bill Curry in Salon: "Of Bernie Sanders’ first 20 races, many were just as hard as this one. Some were truly impossible; in his first four he finished in single digits. Yet each campaign helped build a movement that would eventually transform Vermont into the enlightened place it is today. You can't get more serious than that. Wouldn't it be great to put America on a path like the one Vermont took?" Thanks to Janice for the link. See also her commentary in today's thread.
The Freeedom to Be Stuck in a Low-Paying Job. Alice Ollstein of Think Progress: "In a recent interview with Radio Iowa, [Scott] Walker said he would champion a federal version of the controversial 'right-to-work' law he signed earlier this year. 'As much as I think the federal government should get out of most of what it's in right now, I think establishing fundamental freedoms for the American people is a legitimate thing and that would be something that would provide that opportunity in the other half of America to people who don't have those opportunities today,' he said.... Several studies have also found that 'right-to-work' laws result in lower wages and a lower likelihood of health care and pensions for all workers, both union and non-union." ...
... Warning: Not to be read after a meal. Patrick Healy & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "For Republicans who are disappointed that [Paul] Ryan has decided not to run for president in 2016, [Scott] Walker is offering himself as the next big thing (if not the next best thing) to come out of southern Wisconsin: a kindred spirit who talks politics and trades prayers with Mr. Ryan in phone calls and frequent text messages."
Dana Milbank: "Ben Carson, who formally announced his run for the presidency Monday, is a brilliant surgeon, gifted storyteller and charismatic speaker. But modesty is not among his talents. The retired Johns Hopkins professor's launch video, nearly five minutes long, positions the aspiring Republican presidential nominee right alongside Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.... Carson's version of the truth and his irrepressible ego are going to make 2016 a whole lot more entertaining."
Beyond the Beltway
Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "The City of Cleveland has asked the family of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy shot and killed while he played with a toy gun in a Westside park in November, to halt their civil lawsuit until the official investigation has concluded.... In a court filing dated Monday, Rice's family said they cannot agree to hold off on their lawsuit until the investigation is complete in part because they are worried that crucial evidence could be lost.... Rice's mother, the motion goes on to state, has moved into a homeless shelter."
News Lede
AP: "John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has made an unannounced and unprecedented trip to Somalia in a show of solidarity with a government trying to defeat al-Qaida-allied militants and end decades of war."
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Reader Comments (16)
"The power of ideas is greater than the power of money. Given the odds, Sanders doesn’t have to win the race to prove the point. He just has to win the debate. . . . Of all the candidates who might have run this year, Sanders may be the one best able to get everyone to say what they mean and mean what they say. If all he does is help us get past the gauzy evasions of 2008, he’ll have done his country a great service. By the power of reason Sanders can force not just Clinton but all of us to get real and get specific."
Bill Curry's current column explains the significance of Bernie Sanders' candidacy: http://www.salon.com/2015/05/03/bernie_sanders_really_matters_he_doesnt_have_to_win_to_build_a_progressive_movement/
I have to admit, I'm pretty excited about Bernie Sanders, and would like to do whatever I can to get his message out there - and it's a message that seems so radical right now, but wasn't 70 or so years ago. Sanders has already been written off by the mainstream media, but wouldn't it be something if his campaign ignites a real progressive movement once again, leaving the pundits and billionaires scratching their heads, wondering what happened? I'm longing for ideas and justice to trump money.
Incidentally, I voted four times for Bill Curry: two primaries and two gubernatorial elections. Unfortunately, both times Connecticut voters chose John Rowland, who has served one prison term, and will now serve another, and whose illegal firing of unionized state workers 11 years ago, will now cost our state $125 million in a recent settlement. . . . Ideas didn't win back then, but at least we can have access to Curry's clear thinking via his weekly Salon columns, and occasional appearances on our local NPR station.
Many of you probably are watching "Wolf Hall" on Sunday nights on PBS (an extraordinary production) or have read Hilary Mantel's superb book. Fintan O'Toole has written an essay in the current NYRB on this including the play, Wolf Hall, now in N.Y. Below is something from this essay that stood out for me apropos of many of our discussions of late:
"What makes Mantel’s Cromwell appealing to readers, audiences, and TV viewers is that he is rather like most of them. He is a middle-class man trying to get by in an oligarchic world. Thirty years ago, Mantel’s Cromwell would have been of limited interest. His virtues—hard work, self-discipline, domestic respectability, a talent for office politics, the steady accumulation of money, a valuing of stability above all else—would have been dismissed as mere bourgeois orthodoxies. If they were not so boring they would have been contemptible. They were, in a damning word, safe.
But they’re not safe anymore. They don’t assure security. As the world becomes more oligarchic, middle-class virtues become more precarious. This is the drama of Mantel’s Cromwell—he is the perfect bourgeois in a world where being perfectly bourgeois doesn’t buy you freedom from the knowledge that everything you have can be whipped away from you at any moment. The terror that grips us is rooted not in Cromwell’s weakness but in his extraordinary strength. He is a perfect paragon of meritocracy for our age. He is a survivor of an abusive childhood, a teenage tearaway made good, a self-made man solely reliant on his own talents and entrepreneurial energies. He could be the hero of a sentimental American story of the follow-your-dreams genre. Except for the twist—meritocracy goes only so far. Even Cromwell cannot control his own destiny, cannot escape the power of entrenched privilege. And if he, with his almost superhuman abilities, can’t do so, what chance do the rest of us have?"
Here's a link to the piece by Fintan O'Toole, which PD Pepe cites. The essay is currently firewalled but I believe the NYRB releases these essays after a few weeks.
Marie
thanks Marie....
From yesterday: I am still trying to get my mind around safari's posting on Wisconsin's food stamp restrictions. Despicable! Not only are these recipients treated like shameless moochers, but now are being told, like children, EXACTLY what they can eat. And safari is so right about pasta and potatoes filling the old gut, but may I add, that both DO have nutritional value. And no dried beans? WTF???? you can make a hearty soup for many with dried beans. What genius came up with this listing? Someone wrote in a Wisconsin paper. "Scott Walker is trying to kill me!" Sure does look like it.
PD: I'm one of the few not watching PBS' "Wolf Hall" and the book is still on the shelf, where it has been for a couple of years, unread--the library, I fear, will outstrip the lifespan-- so maybe I shouldn't comment, but...
Interesting point about Fintan O'Toole's essay on Cromwell and his middle class virtues comprising a hero for our time because the middle class he and his cohorts midwifed, is under siege...Seems like there might be something to it, and I look forward to reading the essay when my NYReview arrives or when I locater it in the stack.
But another "but", which also says something to me about our time. The Cromwell in my memory was a humorless, doctrinaire believer, rigid and uncompromising. I don't know how accurate that picture is, but that's the image I have of him. To me, pre-Wolf Hall anyway, Cromwell is more directly antecedent, their relative puniness aside, to Paul Ryan or Scott Walker, convinced as they are of their own moral superiority, than to the hard-working and far more humble community that surrounded me as I grew up.
And in the background always is the din of battle and death, the grim horsemen of religious self-righteousness violently expressed. This from Wikipedia on the casualties of the English Civil Wars:
"These estimates indicate that England suffered a 3.7% loss of population, Scotland a loss of 6%, while Ireland suffered a loss of 41% of its population. Putting these numbers into the context of other catastrophes helps to understand the devastation to Ireland in particular. The Great Hunger of 1845–1852 resulted in a loss of 16% of the population, while during the Second World War the population of the Soviet Union fell by 16%."
More than a million died from battle, starvation and disease, and I can't help but think that virtuous as he might have been, or as some choose to assess him now, Cromwell had a hand in that, too, and that is also something we shouldn't forget.
@P.D. Pepe: to be fair to Wisconsin (and I say this grudgingly) the food stamp restrictions are currently a proposal by Republicans in the legislature, not law.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/05/01/3653919/wisconsin-food-stamps-shellfish/
I agree it is disgusting that anyone would propose these insulting and mean-spirited directives to folks who are already hurting. But that exemplifies today's Republicans. According to the article, similar restrictions have been proposed by Republican legislators around the country. It also points out that if the restrictions were passed, they would require a federal waiver for implementation.
The Reality Chex commentary is something I really appreciate when I go months without access to internet or news. Thanks all!
@PD Pepe: Early last month, I linked to this Washington Post op-ed essay by Jeanine Grant Lister, a person whose disability had forced her into the food stamp program. She does an excellent job of describing how humiliating it is to be poor & use food stamps. "In America today, being poor is tantamount to a criminal offense, one that costs you a number of rights and untold dignities, including, apparently, the ability to determine what foods you can put on the dinner table."
I am certain that the "public purpose" of these restrictive state laws is to make poverty even more difficult & embarrassing. Their intent is punitive.
Poor people already have to make difficult choices in how best to feed their families on exceedingly tight budgets. Now, they not only have to know long lists of "prohibited foods," if they goof, they may be subjected to the further humiliation of a clerk telling them (perhaps loudly), "You'll have to pay for these beans with real money, Ma'am."
Marie
RE Wolf Hall:
Most of what Americans think they know about Thomas Cromwell and the court of Henry comes from two films: Anne of the Thousand Days, and A Man for All Seasons. Hillary Mantel has written a brilliant antidote to this Hollywood History. As one reviewer noted: "The Tudors were our Taliban". To realize this, look no further than the historical actions of the murderous religious fanatic Saint Thomas Moore.
I'm not watching Wolf Hall on PBS because I'll be seeing the play in New York next week. It was a tough call whether to watch the television production first. I've ordered the DVD.
I also recommend Mantel's novel of the French Revolution: A Place of Greater Safety. Give us a new look at Robespierre. If you've heard only one side of any story, you don't know half of it. Even when you've heard both sides, don't be sure you know all of it.
It's interesting that when the topic of GMO labeling or a soda tax or public option healthcare comes up, we hear "nanny state" cries from the right. Yet it's okay to micromanage the diets of SNAP recipients so that, as one Wisconsin Democrat noted in the Think Progress article, 3 out of 4 cheddars could not be purchased using food stamps. Why? Because freedom. Or freeedom.
As an alternative to all that government interference, we could simply raise the minimum wage to a living wage of at least $15/hour, thereby reducing the number of peasants, and allowing them to enjoy brie on their brioche.
@D.C. Clark: you may want to read the O'Toole essay on the TV show and the play––the latter has its limitations. A friend went to the play and her assessment was the same as O'Toole's.
@Ken: History, depending on who is chronicling it, takes on myriad narratives., as you well know. Mantel humanizes Cromwell, but doesn't negate the razor sharp swords that he needed to carry in order to survive. I think you will find, if you do read the book, a treasure trove of literary splendor. Here's a taste:
"The texts are heavy to hold in the arms, and awkward as if they breathed; their pages are made of slunk vellum from stillborn calves, reveined by the illuminator in tints of lapis and leaf-green."
Had a further thought or two about Cromwell, Walker and Ryan when I misread today's New York Times header "Politics and Religion B(l)ind Walker and Ryan," and added that misreading--or was it such a miss?--to the Republican attack on the poor.
Marie's take on the punitive character of food stamp restriction is spot on the mark. Nothing gives the defective, self-righteous prigs of the world more gratification than finding someone to feel superior to, even to punish, and conflating economic class with virtue has long been and easy path for the feckless to faux superiority.
Since it's the have-nots fault and none of mine own I can feel good about myself and simultaneously feel no responsibility for anyone else's circumstance. Additionally, I don't have to think about large social or economic issues, an endeavor I have always found painful.
And if we see the English Civil Wars as economic as well as religious and political wars, as they were, we might find uncomfortable parallels between that past and our present. Sectarian divisions often reflect economic and cultural divisions. Variously branded, religion serves as both the bastion of the privileged and the refuge of the downtrodden.
In his time Cromwell, the Civil Wars' carnage aside, undoubtedly served as a champion of "the people." Today, the likes of Walker and Ryan, men of genuine faith or not, only pretend to. By identifying "the poor" (does anyone not know the color codes implied by that grouping?) as the enemy, they direct their admirers' attention away from the real enemy, the royalty they serve.
I'm watching Wolf Hall and I'm mostly struck by Cromwell's ability to keep his mouth shut. Smart thing to do when being screamed at by a king or his desperate wife. However if such traits were commonly found in our politicians, how many of us would watch the Republican primary debates? Additionally, we have the superb good luck of having several Thomas Mores that feel they ought to be president. Sadly the consequences may be disastrous, but I intend to do my best to enjoy the stupidity of the present.
@Re: Krugman: Why can't columnists get the facts about Texas governor Abbott and the National Guard straight? He called up the Texas State Guard to keep an eye on the Army, not the Texas National Guard. The Texas State Guard answers only to the governor where the National Guard answers to both the governor AND the President. If the President doesn't approve of the governor's use of the National Guardp, all he has to do is federalize it, making it a part of the Army, subject to the President, not the governor.
How Extreme Christian Confederate Ideology Hurts Kids.
(At least one of the many ways; there are a SHIT-load. This is one.)
So, what's worse? Teaching high school kids, whose raging hormones scream SEXXXXXX about the pluses, minuses, and an understanding of sexual urges based on FACTS (remember those?)? OR simply letting kids fend for themselves, and telling them NO NO NO because talking about S--X is simply not done in Right Wing World, even by wingers who indulge their every sexual fantasy as long as they never make the 6 O'Clock news?
Answer: (Oh, c'mon, you know what it is...)
NEVER TALK ABOUT S---X. Even if the health and well being and psychological welfare of adolescents--kids barely out of childhood--are at stake.
And here's how winger approaches to anything to do with S---X play out in the real (as opposed to the Confederate Fantasy) world, down in, where the fuck else, Texas, which has wrested the Crazy Crown from Florida for the foreseeable future. Not an easy feat given the number of insane and impenetrably dense morons (including the governor and almost all of the Republicans) exploding septic tanks all across that state.
Anyway, there is now an outbreak of an STD (shhh.....we can't even say those letters together; Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, and MIKE Douche-a-bee will KILL US!!), in a Texas high school, which has kids and parents wondering whether medieval prayer vigils, incantations, and animal sacrifice will cure these kids of chlamydia, since none of them seem to know what the hell it is. And why the fuck would they?
Sex Education has been banned by the wingers. That's why.
So let's not talk about such sordid things as S---X! Let's let kids figure it out for themselves, because, hey, we're all so wise at that age. Then, if there are a few, shall we say, unintended consequences, let's make sure all those 14, 15 and 16 year olds have no way out--you get pregnant at 14, you book your wedding in the nearest Southern Baptist Church, GODAMMIT!. That'll teach 'em, because FREEEDOM! (three e's right?).
I'm sure the locals and Fox and Breitbart and the rest of the scum sucking Confederate criminals will find a way to blame this on liberals and blah, blah, fucking blah, because in Right Wing World, responsibility is only for other people.
Not for them.
It's almost like sending troops into battle and not telling them that anything can go wrong. "Just trust in Jesus and you'll be fine."
@Barbarossa: You're right, of course. Thanks for the correction.
Marie