Trump Hits Parkland Fla Community for Killer's Massacre

Above is a flag of the white supremacist Republic of Florida,
linked to the alleged Parkland, Florida killer, Nikolas Cruz.
reported by ADL today.

Trump singled out neighbors and classmates of the alleged perpetrator of the Parkland, Florida massacre in a bizarre Twitter communication today.

"President Donald Trump on Thursday responded to the massacre at a South Florida high school by suggesting students and the surrounding community could have done more to prevent the attack," reports the Huffington Post.

So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2018

Meanwhile, Nikolas Cruz has been linked to white supremacist organizations by the ADL, (Newsweek, Slate).

Trump is now in the awkward political position of reacting to the Florida massacre after first communicating in a manner repelling much of the country, and then having to be careful not to insult his base, white supremacists and the NRA.

From the ADL:

A spokesperson for the white supremacist group Republic of Florida (ROF) told the Anti-Defamation League on Thursday, February 15, that Nikolas Cruz, the man charged with the previous day’s deadly shooting spree at a Parkland, Florida, high school, was associated with his group.

On Wednesday, February 14, Cruz, 19, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, allegedly entered the school with an AR-15 and opened fire, killing at least 17 people and injuring 14 more. Cruz left the scene but was later captured by police and has been charged with premeditated murder.

After  self-described ROF members claimed on the discussion forum 4chan that Cruz had also been a member, the Anti-Defamation League called the ROF hotline and spoke with an ROF member who identified himself as Jordan Jereb.

NRA: Scary Black Man and Jew Gonna Take Your Guns

Concerned? You should be.

Racist NRA Appeal Meets Heavy Criticism

The National Rifle Association is targeting Sen Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) for daring to vote to consider the most minimal of expanded background checks for guns with a new ad that is a naked racist, anti-Semitic appeal to rightwingers across the nation.

Manchin remains defiant of the NRA, daring the NRA to bring it on.

This morning Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, both obviously appalled at the new NRA ad, showed the spot which features a darkened depiction of President Obama next to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with the voiceover of the ad's narrator warning, "Manchin is working with President Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Concerned? You should be. Tell Sen. Manchin to honor his commitment to the Second Amendment and reject the Obama-Bloomberg gun control agenda."

Scarborough and Brzezinski then showed the darkened Obama-Bloomberg-Manchin ad image for a full 12 seconds (reader says more like some 45 seconds) as a static screen shot this morning after their segment, before cutting away to a commercial.

Manchin is not up for reelection until 2018, having been elected to a full term in 2012 with over 60 percent of the vote. The ad is a warning to GOP senators saying in effect: Look what we're doing to Manchin, you're next if you go against the NRA.

The NRA's appeal to the most vile political forces in America is made right as the families of victims in the Newtown school massacre returned to the Capitol yesterday, and some nine GOP senators are said to be unable to offer "an explanation on the merits of why they couldn't vote for the background check," Vice President Joe Biden told Democratic donors Tuesday. (Michael A. Memoli. LA Times)

The Scarborough and Brzezinski segment is below:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hadas Gold reports this morning:

In a statement to POLITICO, Manchin defends the bill and said he is still ”the same proud gun owner and NRA member that I have always been.”

“The Washington NRA could spend one hundred million dollars on ads against me; it still won’t make what they say true. If they were honest with their members they would see that my bill not only protects 2nd Amendment rights, it enhances and strengthens them. Unfortunately, the NRA leadership in Washington has lost its way and is more concerned about political power than gun rights and gun safety,” Manchin continued. “I believe that criminal and mental background checks are a commonsense approach to protect our neighbors and children without infringing on our 2nd Amendment rights. I think most NRA members agree with me.”

Manchin has become a champion for gun control legislation, co-sponsoring a failed gun control bill that aimed to expand background checks for gun purchases.

Effort isn't over, says President Obama; GOP maneuver on anti-gun violence bill condemned

President Obama tells the American people that we can still bring about meaningful changes that reduce gun violence. Speak out, says White House, as shocked Newtown families express disbelief at Republican filibuster.

GOP Blocks Background-Check Bill from Vote; Bill Has Majority Support

Update: Obama’s Fury over Failure of the Background Check Bill in Seven Lines

Anti-massacre bill scuttled in its entirety, as President Obama rails against a shameful day

"A woman in the Senate gallery shouted "shame on you" at the members below, but she, like the Newtown families, Gabrielle Giffords, and 90% of the country were ignored, " writes Steve Bennen.

The weakened and modest background check bill was defeated with the minority of 46 senators defeating a majority of 54 senators on a vote in the U.S. Senate on the Manchin-Toomey compromise amendment.

A typical day in the world's greatest deliberative body in the world's greatest democracy. "The good news? Our political system is still way better than North Korea’s," writes Jonathan Chait.

The American people and American families enjoy the status of  irrelevance when it comes to the machinations of the Republican Party.

"I’m going to speak plainly and honest about what’s happened here. Because the American people are trying to figure out how can something have 90% support and yet not happen, " said President Obama in an angry address.

"They (the GOP) need to be ashamed of themselves," Ms. Patricia Maisch (survivor of the mass shooting in Tucson) said as she was being escorted from the Capitol. "They have no souls. They have no compassion."

In Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin voted for letting the popular initiative come to a vote; Sen. Ron Johnson voted to block it.

Madison's Police Chief Couper (ret) on Newtown

A.J. Muste [1885-1967]

Strongly recommend reading David Couper's thoughts.

Intro:

"I have restrained myself from commenting on the Newtown tragedy until I have had some time to listen and think. And what has come into my mind in my life experiences as both police officer, sociologist and pastor is a number of thoughts and images(.)"

I think Couper's contributions to spreading love over his career, what I read as radical pacifism, into the world will live on, perhaps unparalleled from law enforcement. The relevancy to Newtown is obvious.

But peace seems alien to our political culture.

I do not see, virtually anywhere outside of the narrow sphere of progressive writers, the accusation that GOP politicians are engaging in a massive deception sustained by hate. Plenty of examples in Wisconsin. Lies and hate lead to tragedy.

Commitment to truth seems alien to our political culture.

Next April, we have a state Supreme Court race coming up, a race for the top appellate court that above all ought to decide what the law is, without regard to the station of any litigant.

Fidelity to the rule of law, and a candid job description of what a supreme court justice ought to be have been virtually absent from Wisconsin's supreme court races, with two recent exceptions.

We have an opening for peace, truth and the rule of law becoming part of our politics, perhaps given a push by the sickness.

America's Teachers—Makers, Not Takers

Americans come together to oppose
Gov. Scott Walker and the Koch brothers
 - March 12, Madison, Wisconsin [Photo: Leon]

Make that heroes, teachers are heroes.

Paul Ryan, Scott Walker (and Mitt Romney as well) and the rightwing stand mute as their political glory, flying under the banners of liberty, the NRA, ALEC/Koch brothers/Bradley and the Tea Party, now aim to silently rig our democracy, or be doomed as a political force.

Maybe they're quiet because they know they went a little too far in demonizing those who called for peace and the common good as unAmerican the last 20 years.

Now, check out the BradBlog to see the shooting gallery America has become.

As the LGBTQ Americans fight for rights, the blacks and browns fight for their right to vote, women fight for their rights to choose, and a major political party—the Republican Party and its sick ally, the Tea Party—pile on the hate to their diminishing white majority, to the point of demonizing even teachers, there are consequences.

Of course, James Dobson blames marriage equality, civil rights and a woman's rights to choose as the causes of the massacre of children.

Horrifying acts are the "consequences," in Dobson's world as Americans unwisely stand up for each others' rights.

The GOP continues demonizing the other, while glorifying guns and the Volk common man, the real Americans; so the religious right points to disfavored human beings, less-than human in the eyes of its chosen metaphysical power looking over the 'real America'.

Check this guy out at the 07:09 mark in this linked video from western Pennsylvania extolling the American volk during the 2008 presidential campaign:

"It's the common man. It's the common man. He's (Obama) never lived the life. He's grown up in cities in his own entire life. This is country. This is God's country. He's never seen it. He can't relate with us. We're the back-bone of this country; we hard-working, blue-collar workers that keep this country running. He talks like he know us; he doesn't know us."

Most of these idiots are not organized. The SPLC does keep taps of the ones who are organized. Check out the Google ad above you might see; might read asking the reader if she wishes to secede from the Union, at Liberty.com. [See also G. Pascal Zachary's The Will to Secede in In These Times]

The point here is that by demonizing teachers, demonizing anyone for political purposes, hateful disease-filled minds will act.

We ought to endlessly remind ourselves of the words of Ralph McGill: "It is an old, old story. It is one repeated over and over again in history. When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe." (Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 13, 1958)

The next time the GOP provides itself as a ready vehicle to relay hate; to inflict its "toxic brand of political fundamentalism -- heartless and historically unprecedented," as Paul Fanlund points out, -- it ought to consider that dividing Americans and stoking hate among people will sow a harvest.

Solidarity, community and free association have always been the better route. Even Ronald Reagan acclaimed the importance of, "... restoring one of the most elemental human rights—the right to belong to a free trade union."

Solidarity, human rights, community and unions—the opposite of paranoid, delusional mad dog minds who must be stopped.

Obama: We will have to change

President Obama at vigil, Sunday night

“Newtown, you are not alone”

Grew up on WW II movies.

Recall parents telling us how—imperfectly but with common effort—people joined the war effort against the fascists.

Dramatization, rhetoric and culture matter.

A couple of old quotes follow; and some of President Obama's words tonight. Think they matter.

Sometimes you need the help of other people ... more than anything else ... but you have to let them get close enough to help.
- I don't want any help.
I found when I was deeply troubled ... that I needed people very badly. People want to be needed. I found that out, too.
(Lewis Gilbert, Sink the Bismarck, 1960)

Anything can happen in a war. Slap in the middle of absolute insanity people pull out the most extraordinary resources: ingenuity, courage, self-sacrifice. Pity we can't meet the problems of peace in the same way, isn't it?
(J. Lee Thompson, Guns of Navarone, 1961)

On caring for our children

“It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right,” Obama said, asking: “Can we truly say, as a nation, that we are meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we are doing enough to keep our children — all of them — safe from harm?”

Mr. Obama asked whether the nation is doing enough to give all children a chance at a good life with “happiness and with purpose.” “If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is no,” he said. “We are not doing enough, and we will have to change.” (Landler, Baker. NYT)

On Guns, Hate and Fear—The Common Effort

National rally for peace; D.C., October 2003

Update: I recommend Richard Falk's column on the massacre, as typical an analysis springing from reason and empathy. Writes Falk: "No amount of tears, however genuine, can make our children and citizens safer in the future, and even gestures of gun control seem likely, if treated as solutions rather than palliatives, are likely to be no more than a spit in a national ocean of sanctioned violence." 
---
I know many people who own guns.

And I can guarantee to a moral certainty none of these people would cause harm in the course of firing guns.

Had a spirited conversation in 2008 with a friend who advocates a complete ban on guns in America.

Still, I believe such policy is wrong.

One problem with gun control is the lack of an accompanying discussion of criminal sanctions. Do we really want to make criminals out of people who own guns?

No.

The answer to the mindless menace of violence—including especially the prison-industrial complex—is to organize a society based upon rights, love and peace.

Not exactly a new idea, but one that American politics systemically suppresses—attempts to think and imagine are seen as needed to be stricken from discourse as 'socialist,' 'European,' 'radical,' any term connoting something alien and scary.

Hate and dehumanization have consequences. In the words of RFK:

I have saved this one opportunity to speak briefly to you about this mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by his assassin's bullet. ... We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort.

We learn to share only a common fear - only a common desire to retreat from each other - only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.

But we can perhaps remember - even if only for a time - that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short movement of life, that they seek - as we do - nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our hearts brothers and countrymen once again.

- RFK, April 5, 1968

Gary Kamiya Is Off Today

The Devil, strike that, the culture made me do it!

Gary Kamiya strikes out today with his piece on cop killer Richard Poplawski.

The sub-headline asks "amid the deafening din of the right wing's anti-government rhetoric, how extreme is (Poplawski)?"

Kamiya should have stopped at the editor's sub-headline in his 1,100-word piece.

Kamiya's internally incoherent argument is a brew of sloppy reasoning with a misreading of Hobbes' social contract theory thrown in.

Kamiya attempts to connect rightwing killer, anti-Semitic nut-job Poplawski to rightwing, mainstream nutty political culture.

Writes Kamiya:

As his friend, Edward Perkovic, told the Associated Press, Poplawski feared 'the Obama gun ban that's on the way' and 'didn't like our rights being infringed upon.'

Such obsessions don't come out of a vacuum. Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the GOP have been whipping up hatred and fear of Obama and 'liberal Democrats' for years. Joined by the National Rifle Association, which has run false and irresponsible ads claiming that Obama is planning to take away Americans' guns, they have encouraged and helped to create a pathological right-wing subculture in which free-floating hatred of 'the government' mixes with a maniacal fetish for guns. Poplawski is the diseased fruit of that ugly tree. ... Theirs is a Hobbesian world in which law enforcement cannot be trusted to stop criminals. Hence their favorite slogan, 'When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.' Poplawski proudly subscribed to that belief.

Hobbes Loved the State

To begin with, the social contract theorist Thomas Hobbes believed in the necessity of a strong state—a society in which protection and security triumphs over individual will—lest the individuals' lives be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". (Leviathan, yuck!).

Yet, Kamiya identifies Hobbes with the right-libertarian's skepticism of state and police power. If Kamiya has read Leviathan, he didn't understand it.

Myself I share the libertarian's skepticism of state power [this skepticism is healthy if one beleives in a classical liberal democracy], though I don't own or particularly value guns.

Feared Obama, So Poplawski Killed Three Cops

Kamiya writes of Poplawski, "He is responsible for his action. You can't tar every conservative because a pathological murderer shared some of his or her core beliefs."

Right, so what then does a pathological murderer have to do with the rightwing, whack culture? Not much.

But Kamiya tries to insinuate a causal connection: Feared Obama because of Rush and Fox , so Poplawski killed three cops.

Is Kamiya saying that Rush, Fox and the like are also anti-Semitic, like Poplawski? That they advocate killing cops so Obama does not take their guns, like Poplawski?

Kamiya instead lamely suggests that "they have encouraged and helped to create a pathological right-wing subculture in which free-floating hatred of 'the government'", qualifying his earlier admonition that you can't tar conservatives with a whack like Poplawski out of existence.

So the rightwing are political culture polluters, says Kamiya. Maybe then we should police and outlaw these culture polluters, right?

Look, Rush and Fox are slime because they have little regard for liberty, care about power and not people, and their political rants are poorly reasoned. But in this regard of uninformed, poorly reasoned polemical tracts, they have a friend in Gary Kamiya today.

- via mal contends

SC Decision Striking Down Gun Control Is Fine with This Progressive

Update II: Supreme Court pushes the gun issue back to the forefront of the nation's agenda
Update: Candidates React to Supreme Court’s Gun Ruling
via mal contends - The Supreme Court reinterpreted the Second Amendment in its landmark decision, District of Columbia v. Heller (07-290), and found a right to own and carry a handgun.

That's okay with me. I like the result.

Quote from ScotusBlog:

Examining the words of the (Second) Amendment, the Court concluded 'we find they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation' — in other words, for self-defense. 'The inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right,' it added.

I think DC v. Heller is a partisan opinion by a corrupt and partisan Supreme Court (consonant with Republican electoral strategy to ward off Democratic gains in the west), but a citizen cannot have too many rights.

Hey, we may have to remove this government, in theory, by force sometime in the future.

As for politics, I have met women who keep guns in their homes and on their person for the sake of feeling safe. What man would presume to tell a woman that she cannot feel safe?

It's time for Democrats to realize that the libertarian urge to carry a gun is not all that different from the liberty interest that is vested in the right to privacy, and in the enumerated liberties in the Bill of Rights that progressives cherish and Republicans despise.

I personally do not like guns, so I don't own them.

But the liberty interest in owning a gun is valid, even if the rightwing jurists made up their interpretation of the Second Amendment out of whole cloth and political electoral concerns.

Let's hope Obama realizes this and realizes that not everybody who owns a gun is a nut. Some people, rational people, just like guns.

Some like guns for safety, some like guns just for fun. And as Scalia and the disingenuous members of the five-four majority know, a lot of these gun-liking folks live in swing states in 2008.