Trump shooting brief thoughts, ending with the NYT

First, we now know the suspect is Thomas Michael Crooks. He was 20 years old. His dad reportedly bought the weapon, about six months ago. The son appears to have been a gun and explosives semi-nut, if the T-shirt he was wearing is any indication. Also, per the AP, bomb-making materials were found inside his car. Also per that first link, he was a registered Republican, but also reportedly donated to the Progressive Turnout Project PAC. Even that donation isn't what it seems, per Ryan Grim. He notes it's a more spammy org than something like Politicus, and also that, by the date of the donation, Crooks would have been 17 at the time and it was thus illegal.

As of the time of this posting, no motive has been identified. He apparently left no social media hints or anything like that.

That story has a good aerial photo of the layout of the site. And, yes, it's pretty unbelievable that the Secret Service did not have the building where Butler was at secured. No, it doesn't look good that the shooter got with 150 meters. And, unlike Lee Harvey Oswald, this wasn't a weekday and I'll presume he didn't work there. (Oswald was at roughly the same distance from JFK.) Per another Beeb piece, a witness said he could see Crooks "bear crawl" onto the roof, and even see that he had a gun.

The Beeb now has a video reconstruction.

The Independent has more, as British newspapers appear to be having fun generally running circles around American ones:

A local police officer encountered Crooks before he fired towards Mr Trump, AP sources say. Not long before shots rang out, rally goers noticed a man climbing to the top of a roof of a nearby building and warned local law enforcement, according to two law enforcement officials.

One officer climbed to the roof and encountered Crooks, who pointed his rifle at the officer. The officer retreated down the ladder and Crooks quickly took a shot toward former President Trump, and that’s when the US Secret Service counter snipers shot him, said the officials who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Oy.

Longer-term issue: How well or or how poorly do presidential detail Secret Service coordinate with local law enforcement and what can be done to improve that?

The Independent also got his uncle to speak.

Reached by phone, Crooks’s uncle, Mark Crooks, told The Independent that he had “no idea” what might have spurred his nephew to take aim at the former president.

“I don’t know what to say,” he conceded.

The uncle said he hadn’t had any contact with Crooks “in years”, despite living just 20 miles away.

“I haven’t seen the kid since he was little,” Mark Crooks said. “He never wanted to bother [maintaining a relationship with me and my wife], so we don’t see him.”

More oy, and the kid now officially seems a bit thrown off.

==

More sidebar to the story:

First, yes, NRA wingnuts, this does raise again the issue of gun control and peripherals, just weeks after SCOTUS said bump stocks were constitutional.

Second, per the general tenor of tweets that I was calling out, duopoly-style tribalism got played up on Musk's cesspool.

Third? No, Speaker Mike Johnson, there's no need for the House to conduct a full investigation. That's what law enforcement agencies do. And, now that we know he was a registered Republican and his dad bought the gun, that's going to be a big fail, but you'll make it an ugly one, I'm sure.

==

Now, to the backstory:

I had LESS THAN ZERO desire to post something here last night, though I did do some callouts of the nuttery on Twitter.

This is the first:

Of a four-part chain, followed by:

At the same time?

For #MAGAts claiming without proof that "the left" had anything to do with whatever happened to Trump on the stage today?

Fuck off.

Fuck off with a gun barrel up your ass.

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) July 14, 2024

And part 3:

For the #falseflag nutters?

A. Trump wasn't hit by a bullet itself, reportedly, but glass fragments. (Guess the now-dead suspect was a crappy shot.)

B. Teddy Roosevelt delivered a campaign speech after being shot in the chest in 1912

3/x#History

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) July 14, 2024

Then part 4:

For #falseflag nutters, part 2?

C. Same ppl saying John Connally was wounded when Oswald killed JFK are probably at the same time #JFKassassination conspiracy theorists.

You can fuck off along w/ the wingnuts blaming leftists, and fuck off with a Mannlicher 6.5mm up yr ass. 4/x

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) July 14, 2024

With a special sidebar for Jim Stewartson, 

Shock me that:
A. Jim Stewartson has changed his name to drop the claim to be fighting disinformation.
B. That he's now promoting disinformation, including the #falseflag nuttery. https://t.co/QVqGKQbfpC

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) July 14, 2024

who's already a conspiracy theorist and I think mentally ill, and I have no idea why people whom I follow or vice versa follow him.

That said, my ideas on "following" on Twitter may be different from others. If I want to see the latest stupidity from an egregious idiot, I can just search for them without following.

Per this Beeb piece, not all the Twitter nuttery was (apparently) from the US, but a great majority of the social media nuttery was from Twitter, as Elmo's clown car was exactly that yesterday. 

And, "oh, goody," a political advisor to LinkedIn owner and BlueAnon mega-donor Reid Hoffman tried to push the "staged" idea onto journos. Dmitri Mehlhorn appears to have been smoking Russiagate-style crack. Meanwhile, Hoffman's own comment from recently about wishing he had made Trump "an actual martyr," looks incredibly stupid.

==

Meanwhile, I must ask WHAT ROCK the NYT editorial board has been sleeping under with a rushed-out Saturday house editorial with the title: "The Attack on Donald Trump is Antithetical to America."

Another tweet of mine has the reality, instead, or at least a nickel version of it:

"The Attack on Donald Trump Is Antithetical to America"
WHAT ROCK has NYT editorial board been sleeping under?
1st assassination attempt? On Andrew Jackson. 1st successful, Lincoln.
Garfield. McKinley. JFK.
Attempts on Ford & Reagan. Many threats re Obama.https://t.co/6GQ6cNgudV

— TheRealSocraticGadfly 🍉☢️🌻🌲 (@real_gadfly) July 14, 2024

OK, let us break that out more.

Jackson's attempted assassin was just nuts. (Interestingly, he went to St. Elizabeths, eventual home 150 or so years later, for John Hinckley.)

But, most other actual or would-be assassins, as I noted in a newspaper column on the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination?

None of them were criminally insane by the definition of either their times or ours, but all of them had some degree of mental unsteadiness.

And, they were all politically motivated.

John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln after recognizing the Civil War was almost over and kidnapping him wouldn't work.

Charles Guiteau? A semi-insane office seeker upset that James Garfield wouldn't give him a major position.

Leon Czolgosz? An "anarchist of the deed," as they were known back them.

Oswald? Off his rocker, but believing that Cuba was indeed the worker's paradise, and that it did deserve "fair play."

Squeaky Fromme? To the degree that "Charlie's Girls" and the whole Manson cult was politicized, this was political. And, to the degree that being a Charlie's Girl was nuts ...

Sara Jane Moore? Many years later, she cited her radical political views related to the Symbionese Liberation Army. But, she had other issues that indicated she wasn't fully together.

So, only Hinckley and Richard Lawrence, Jackson's would be assassin, were apolitical.

But, the NYT editorial is worse beyond that.

America's "culture of the gun" also means this is not antithetical to America. Rather, it's right up the American exceptionalism alley.

And, the NYT is in a city in a state which DRASTICALLY changed its ballot access laws for third-party and independent candidates at the presidential level in 2021, and as far as I know, the NYT said boo about that on its editorial page. For its editorial board to try to lecture intelligent non-duopoly voters in America about democracy is both laughable and disgusting.

Oh, my callout of this American exceptionalist pontificating extends to any Congresscritters and other politicos, as well as other members of the media, who talk similar stupidity.

And, above all, to

 

John Nichols actually gets it right, and draws parallels to the attempted assassination of Teddy Roosevelt in Milwaukee.

==

Finally, while I have no political use for Brainworm Bobby, I don't give a rat's ass that the Secret Service says you need to poll at 20 percent to warrant protection. Biden can override that anyway, or Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas can if Biden's not blocking that. Update: That FINALLY is going to happen.

Texas Progressives talk guns, lies, killings

Greg Abbott "hearts" murderers. #fify on the header, Trib. The Monthly has more. I had nuanced thoughts at the time Perry was arrested, including on the issue of guns in general and Garrett Foster's carrying of his, whether or not it was ever pointed at Perry.

Trump, Abbott lie at NRA convention. Again, #fify on the header, Trib. 

Republicans aren't trying to flip Henry Cuellar's seat because, as the Trib showed in the body text, without using the exact words, "he's a useful tool." 

Semi-Bushie Mat Mackowiak is joining a crowded field to replace Matt Rinaldi as state GOP chair. Best of luck.

The Lege continues to browbeat universities on DEI.

A reminder that Gaza and Atlanta's Cop City are closely tied.

Off the Kuff had some math-related thoughts about the judge's decision to throw out a 2022 Harris County judicial election. 

Speaking of, Kuff still can't talk about the thuggish repression here in Tex-ass of pro-Palestinian protestors at Texas public universities, but CAN talk about Ernie Johnson helping a bar mitzvah.

SocraticGadfly dropped Part 1 andPart 2 about presidential debate fraudulency of last week.

RIP Dabney Coleman, per this Monthly profile. 

RIP Putin flak Russell Bentley, also in the Monthly.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project noted the death of the kind & effective Galveston activist Roxy Williamson.  

Jason Stanford dives into Mike Hixenbaugh's new book about "objective" journalism. 

Deece Eckstein eulogizes the Rev. Bill Lawson. 

The TSTA Blog keeps reminding us that Greg Abbott is the root cause of all the school district budget cuts.  

Kimberly Mata-Rubio will never stop fighting for her daughter Lexi or any of the other children who were murdered at Robb Elementary.

The Texas Lege and a season of mass murder, capped by Allen (for now)

You read that right.

First, thank doorknobs in some ways for the Texas House's calendar deadline and its having billls that ran out of time? Shockingly, the House didn't vote to legalize sawed-off shotguns. Fortunately, reciprocal gun licenses and school marshals with open carry also died. Sadly, on gunz, the move to raise the age to purchase semi-autos to 21 also died.

Vis-a-vis the semi-autos, and other gunz issues, CD Hooks reminds us there have been EIGHTEEN mass shootings since the start of the Lege, AND that, like at Uvalde, Strangeabbott has made up shit about at least one of them. 

That's the season of mass murder.

And, it's still being politicized.

The Allen shooting. Two memorial services. Two different churches. Politicizes vs non-politicized. The Observer (still purity-testing ads free) has the details.

Various streams of loathsomeness intersect over Allen shooting

Explicitly, I'm talking all the "thoughts and prayers," I mean "tots and prayers" crowd. I'm also explicitly talking Allen's Congresscritter, Rep. Keith Self, and the Libertarian National Committee Chairwoman, Angela McArdle. There's plenty of implicit loathsomeness beyond that.

The Allen Premium Outlets mass shooting will surely lead the Lege to ... do nothing, as has been the case in the past. (Well, maybe it will mandate that all malls have armed guards.) Or, like Rep. Keith Self, who represents Allen, you can say that "almighty god ... absolutely is in control of our lives" as a justification for doing nothing.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, Mises Caucus thrall and head of the Libertarian National Committee Andrea McArdle offers this nuttery:

Potential Theory: Mass shootings in "nice" areas make national news more often than gun violence in low income, urban areas because corporate media & politicians think progressives are more outraged by shootings in "nice" areas.
Yes, no, maybe?

— Angela McArdle (@angela4LNCChair) May 7, 2023

After telling her the truth about Allen and Rep. Keith Self (truth she should already already know, as she currently lives here in Tex-ass), including a kick in her nads by telling her that he was almost a Mises Caucus Libertarian, I of course told her to fuck off. Let's also not forget, per Wiki, her support for German New Medicine (and on Tim Cess Pool's podcast, no less) an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

 

At the state level, the Lege could take one action immediately: Pass HB 2744, to raise the age of purchase of AR-15s and similar from 18 to 21. But, neither the tots and pears there, nor the libertarian wingnuts, will back that idea. League of Women Voters also says that HB 636, which would allow election judges to bring guns to polling places, should be blocked. Agreed. In today's world in general it's stupid, and in #StartTheSteal world of conspiracy theories, it's stupider yet.

Texas Lege: Blank checks for guns, back of the hand for gun violence; ditto on fentanyl issues

 

That's just one of several takeaways from last week's work by the Lege, courtesy of the Trib, but it's a biggie.

The House voted to REQUIRE schools to have armed guards (as well as every classroom to have a panic button). Some version of this will surely pass the Senate and the final bill be signed into law by Strangeabbott. The Trib notes that both houses continue to give the back of the hand to Uvalde families who want the sales age for semiautomatics raised to 21. The Trib doesn't even mention lack of discussion about a serious red flag law.

==

A parallel is playing out on drugs, where both houses are passing "tough on crime" bills while Sen. Joan Huffman continues to block a House bill to get fentanyl test strips legalized. As the story notes, it's weird because she's actually been supportive of other addiction help. And, addiction support groups are right; murder charges for fentanyl distributors and others will just make low-level dealers, and users who know  them, even more leery of law enforcement. More War on Drugs stupidity.

The guns on the rack

I stole the guns

That were on the rack

 

And which

You were surely ignoring

And not only

Because of Ramadan.

Or Yom Kippur.

Or Good Friday.

 

They were dangerous.

No forgiveness needed.

I will forgive you

This time.

 

Riffing, of course, on William Carlos Williams' "This is Just to Say."

 

The "thoughts and prayers" Lord's Prayer for the NRA

Our gun nut who art in heaven

Hallowed by thy clip;

Thy bullets come;

Thy shooting done in schools as at other sites.

Give us this day our daily ammo

Forgive us not our zeal as we support it in others.

Lead us not into surrender

But deliver us from meekness.

For thine is the AR, and the AK, and the Sig Sauer, forever and ever, Amen.

Some national and global tidbits from Texas Progressives

Omaha has seriously cut gun violence. Here's how. For people like me, who ardent on gun control, I think this demonstrated that a multifaceted, community-based approach is needed.

The London Review of Books has a great longform on "the reaction economy." In other words, there's advertising and other money to be made off trolling.

China impersonating journalists? Shock me. And, it's COVID-related, too? Alert the fake leftists like Rainier Shea, Max Blumenthal, and Howie Hawkins + Margaret Flowers. And, it was past time to add "pseudoleftism" to my list of labels.

Great piece at Counterpunch by Sam Husseini on possibly the Senate's most maverick member in at least 50 years. No, not Fred Harris. James Abourezk.

And, another good one, by Melvin Goodman, about how Warmonger Joe and his former boss, Dear Leader, have liked to personalize Cold War 2.0 against Russia and Putin.

Lula tells Warmonger Joe to fuck off.

Uvalde tensions transect race and creed

Tensions, not just over the Robb Elementary shooting, but fanned yet further by it, are splitting Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Uvalde, whose own history reflects Anglo-Hispanic tensions and others. A big portion of it, the piece notes, is a wingnut Anglo deacon. (For the unfamiliar, at diocesan level action, parish priests are rotated every four-five years. However, deacons, who are lay leaders and consecrated but not ordained, generally come from the local populace and hence aren't going anywhere.) BUT? The current priest, per the story, is himself also a Uvalde native — and Hispanic. And, that said, the tensions are not all Anglo-Hispanic. A Hispanic deacon, while not a wingnut, apparently thinks Hispanic activists in the parish need to stand down. And, the author said "Father Eddy" has indicated the same. Both have preached to that end. 

I first thought that part of the problem might be that the church functions as a de facto community center as well. Wrong! Per City-Data, there's at least nine non-Catholic churches there. (Interesting, there's a Spanish Protestant church, but it's Methodist, not Baptist or Pentecostal. Weirdly, Sacred Heart's school is listed but the parish is not.) And, although the church has four Sunday masses, by per-grade attendance, its parochial school is not that much bigger than Sacred Heart-Muenster. AND, the Episcopalians (interesting them, not Baptists, on a place like Uvalde) have a K-2 parochial school, too.

More background, assuming City-Data is half right? The county as a whole, of which Uvalde is about 60 percent, broke 60 percent Trump in 2020. That's while being 75 percent Hispanic. So, Fr. Eduardo Morales and the unnamed deacon aren't alone among Hispanics in their political sensibilities or even close. That said, this is nothing new. Uvalde County, like Anglo places with "Blue Dog" Dems, first shifted Republican at the presidential level in 1996 and hasn't looked back since.

So, Michael Luis Ortiz shouldn't be so disappointed. His expectations should have been lower all along. I mean, I blogged a full decade ago about how Texas Democrats should stop assuming demographics is destiny. And, a year ago, I said similar to national Dems on youth demographics.

Never Abbotters go Dumpster diving for crappy ads

Yes, Texas has its equivalent of Never Trumpers, and they're exemplified by the Mothers Against Greg Abbott PAC, which like the Project Lincoln of Rick Wilson and other Never Trumper Republican Grifters, includes "moderate" Republicans and centrist independents as well as Democrats.

Their latest stunt? Exploitative of children, as shown by the picture below that leads the Chronic's story.

Abbott's a shit on guns, I totally agree. But, this is manipulative and exploitative of a kid's emotions.

Second, it's a PAC. Those of us not ensconced in the duopoly know the cozy arrangement that Beto-Bob, aka R.F. O'Rourke, has had with PACs in his political past.

Third, the Dems in Mothers Against Greg Abbott are surely ConservaDems at heart, as they call for change "from the center."

Fourth and related? Though they have a subvertical for "Press and News Articles," as well as an "About," under "Information," there's not a lot of detailed position-type stuff. For example, and knowing Beto-Bob's history, while also knowing that state-level "national health care" is dicey, where IS their position on anything beyond Medicaid expansion? Where is their position on unions? On actual lawsuit reform?

Fifth? Nancy Thompson's own story about realizing the acronym for her organization seems ... uh, not exactly the same?? ... from story to story.

Sixth, somebody's giving them big bucks for cutting ads like this, and the pros to help them do it, per this story.

Seventh, if only 25 percent of Texas' child abuse cases are sexual abuse, and if only 1 percent of those 18,000 happen in school settings, why aren't Mothers Against Greg Abbott wrapping kids in five oversized condoms instead?

==

To put it another way, per Zvi Mowshowitz, this ad is as exploitative and abusive of children as is an active shooter drill.

RIP Mr. Driving without a License Michael Badnarik

Ballot Access News alerted me yesterday to the death of the 2004 Libertarian Party presidential candidate, and what's in the header was what I immediately thought about because that's what he was known for at the time.

Wikipedia reminds me, per the first commenter at BAN, Andy, that Badnarik was indeed a true-blue Libertarian nutter in one other way, namely, in that he believed the 16th Amendment had never been properly ratified.

Also in comments there, No. 2 person said that Greens appreciated him for the investigation of alleged vote fraud in Ohio in 2004. I use the word alleged, which said commenter did not, because there was no actual fraud. Unethical vote suppression by Ohio's then Secretary of State? Plenty. Anything fraudulent? No. Mark Hertsgaard has the facts.

Well, Libertarians got butt-hurt about my takedown comments. I replied that, to riff on Liberty Valance, here at this blog, I'd rather repeat the truth before post-mortem hagiography gets set in stone. I noted I'd written takedown obits here of warmonger John McCain, warmonger and NATO-monger Madeleine Albright, First Amendment mocker Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and others, for precisely that reason.

And, per a pre-demise post he wrote at his own website, and comments therein, you're a big old gun nut if you have to take a hogleg to a medical conference. That's amplified by having a vertical called "gun friendly restaurants" at the top of the website.

And, his idea of American history was full of shit, as he claims the Civil War didn't exist, and (naturally) uses the secessionist "War of Northern Aggression" instead.

Finally, on current politics, though rightly calling out the departure of Trump, it's typical wingnut bullshit to talk about Americans who "voted for and supported Marxist/socialist legislation." It's a lie. If Badnarik, like many Republican wingnuts, knew it was a lie, then he was part of the problem on both the coarsening of American political discourse and the shifting of Overton windows, and ultimately, to hoist him by his own petard, himself a cancer on the political world. If he truly believed this bullshit, he was an even bigger idiot than the previous post about the Civil War indicates.

This:

They have converted the United States into a communist nation – sometime unintentionally, but often deliberately.

would be fucking laughable if Badnarik didn't mean it quite seriously.

And, of course, and shock me, I googled his blogging for COVID, and as you would expect, he rejected the idea of government actions in the name of public health, even to the point of threats of violence.

You bring the syringe, I’ll bring my .45, and we’ll see who leaves a bigger hole.

(Some Libertarian! [For non-Libertarians, the issue of war, but also somewhat of violence in general and its use, has been a contentious issue within the party.]) And, per him listing that quote elsewhere, I'll take him as a general antivaxxer.

And, as for the Andys of the world, just click the "obits" tab and you'll see plenty of them. I even wrote a semi-takedown of one of my most-liked authors of the past 25 years, David Roberts.

So, goodbye, Badnarik and you won't be missed in this corner of the non-duopoly world. You're the biggest nutter Texas Libertarians, at a minimum, have produced until Dan "Taxation is Theft because Me and My Poopy Pants Don't Like Paying Taxes" Behrman, and given Danny Boy's political takes, you were in the same house on COVID nuttery, too, and presumably on gunz and other lunacies.

Texas Progressives talk heat, oil, world politics

Uvalde's mayor denied a research report that a city cop had a chance to shoot the Robb Elementary gunman. I suspect we're going to see more and more denials by both local and state officials in days and weeks ahead.

Odessa may be a small city, not a town, but it's not the largest place in Texas to have water outages from lines that are 50 years old or more. Drought adds to the problem on both water and sewer pipes that are older.

And, speaking of drought? Waco has skipped Stage 1 and gone straight to Stage 2 water restrictions.

So, Marlin hired a director of tourism? The dream of its former, land-grifting, now-booted mayor made true? And, Texas Monthly actually takes his "come visit" ask at semi-face value. Other interesting stuff. Former Mayor Pro Tem Scotty Henderson is featured as the barbecue pusher before Whup's, which does get a brief mention. Sure there's no PR there. And, there is now a "paranormal university" or whatever at the Palace Theater? And the "Coffee and Bites" is pushing CBD stuff hard? Just wow. Interestingly, there is NOT a mention of the Chinese folks who were allegedly kicking the tires on buying the Falls Hotel (No. 8, reportedly in the order of original Hiltons built by Conrad). There's a cursory mention of the old VA, but none of the Houston real estate grifters who bought it and tried to flip it.

Written on the just-passed Fourth, SocraticGadfly offers an expanded book review of "Oh Say Can You Hear, with an in-depth, nuanced take on the National Anthem, including the controversial third verse, and on Francis Scott Key. 

Off the Kuff discusses the two most recent polls of the Governor's race.

Stace ruminates (sort of) on his Thoughts on Viernes about migrant deaths, Abbott's border boondoggle, and the latest on COVID-19. I note that it's "interesting" that even Stace, Democratic stalwart, is getting tired of the "just get out and vote" cries by national Dems.

Can a candidate backed by Jack Danforth block Eric Greitens bid for the Missouri US Senate GOP nod?

Grits for Breakfast covers the history of prosecuting abortion charges in Texas, and notes that the criminal justice reform movement is ill-suited to handle this development.

James Moore delves into the mind of Greg Abbott.

Texas 2036 warns of the wildfire risk this year.  

Robert Rivard reminds us that the Highland Park mass shooter, like the Uvalde mass shooter, could have been stopped before they went on their rampages.  

Jay Jordan reported on a Houston anti-fascist group protecting a family drag show against anti-LGBTQ disrupters.

World items

Per Foreign Policy, of COURSE Merikkka's Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ are mourning the death of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, and the mourning is kind of loosely connected to full facts of Abe's ministerial life.

Chinese censorship at the behest of Xi Jinping Thought is leading to ever-increasing self-censorship at Hollywood movie studios targeting Chinese audiences just as much as American ones. (Of course, the piece ignores Hollywood studios' long history of being gung-ho for American militarism.)

Texas Progressives salute Susan Sarandon, talk Uvalde and gas

Uvalde and related

The Trib says that even some Texas GOP donors want something done on gun control — and by Congress, not at the state level — as in things like a red flag law and expanded background checks. This includes Abbott donors with deep pockets, like Ray Hunt. Here's what Biden proposes; here's what House Dems proposed in a heated committee hearing. And, as we wait on Big Schmuck John Cornyn and Yacht Harbormaster Joe Manchin to gut this, think of Susan Sarandon.

Pete Arredondo, Uvalde ISD top cop, remains a rat in hiding. Uvalde ISD refused (NOT "declined," Trib) to fire him at a board meeting after the shooting. That's even with reports he didn't have his radio with him at the Robb Elementary scene. He's also, don't forget, on the Uvalde City Council. Meetings have to be held in public. Many city councils have "self-termination" rules after failure to attend a certain number of meetings.

A 13-year Uvalde resident says it's not as stereotyped, including noting a white elite as well as old Hispanic patróns. 

Mimi Swartz, channeling her inner Chris Hooks, talks about the weaselly Strangeabbott once again not wanting to face the music for crisis management. Former Dem political candidate Barbara Radnofsky piles on.

Off the Kuff looks at social media monitoring tools and why they were of no value in Uvalde.

Liz Hanks finds a bit of common ground with her gun-owning father. 

Robert Rivard asks Republicans a simple question.

The TSTA Blog has no patience for the Republican "solutions" to school shootings.

Other items

SocraticGadfly talks about how much, or how little, that OPEC meeting meant, while noting there IS something Biden could do, and no, it's not his plan to renormalize MBS, which he's writing about this week.

Federal prosecutors have reached a deal with builders of a private border fence in the Valley that locals say is insufficient.

Electric cars are cheaper and cheaper than ever, compared to gas-powered ones, on fueling. On non-local travel, though, the paucity of charging stations, especially fast chargers, remains a problem.

Can't afford a vacation because of those high gas prices? The Monthly has staycation ideas.

But, even if you're not homeless with limited resources, mind the heat.

The Observer header says "Southern Baptists face up to sexual abuse." The story says, no, they haven't; they've received a report about it that denominational leadership is slow walking.

"Jessica Wildfire" talks about how we'll be told it will all be mild for the rest of the decade.

The Texas Signal presents a brief history of Pride in Texas.

Houstonia lists the top LGBTQ+ bars in Houston.

Who is Nomiki Konst? Per that Politico link, a fringe player on the inside-circles of people presenting themselves as progressives within the left hand of the duopoly, while unable to explain how they worked for a nat-sec agency and in the past touted Biden for president, while apparently straight lying about some political issues, now wanting a NY State Senate seat.

Roundup of Uvalde thoughts — mine and Texas Progressives

The Uvalde cops themselves LIED. That's CLEAR by now. Why does Big Media continue to euphemize about "changing narratives"? I'm with Chris Hooks and others: they simply can't, or won't, wrap their heads around the idea of lying cops. And, did the people on the Wednesday evening presser with Abbott who called Beto a "sick son of a bitch" already have an idea about this?

==

"Hey Hey, NRA, How Many Kids Did You Kill Today?"  It doesn't get more elemental.

==

State Sen. Larry Taylor is interested in looking at upping the age for an AR-15 to 21, but then says gun control laws in general aren't good because they can't be enforced. Just a TOUCH internally self-contradictory, Taylor? Plus, we hear that bullshit from gun nutz all the time. By that logic, we shouldn't have laws at all.

==

Green Party gubernatorial nominee Delilah Barrios, after attacking Beto O' Rourke in early February because she said he he was attacking Second Amendment rights, now, post-Uvalde (update in original post) claims she'll be better than Bob on a Knob on gunz. Bullshit. She claims that "defund the police," whatever the hell that increasingly nebulous phrase  actually means for her, is all we need. I guess when you're a Second Amendment absolutist with an anarcho-libertarian as your muse on this (no, really), well ...

==

Former Jeb! 2016 prez run communications director Tim Miller at the Bulwark gets all hypocritically righteous about DPS head Steve McCraw's fuck-ups WITHOUT telling us 

1. Jeb Bush's 2016 position on gun control;
2. Jeb's current position on gun control;
3. His OWN current position on gun control.
   

He has been called out on Twitter and has not responded.

==

Dan Crenshaw is a self-refuting hypocritical sack of shit and John Cornyn is a lying, censorious sack of shit. I'm not even discussing Cruz, Abbott, Patrick, etc.

==

Betcha didn't know this: Uvalde ISD top cop Peter Arredondo, the guy who wouldn't let the parents inside Robb Elementary, got elected to the city council May 7. If he had an ounce of integrity, he'd resign.

==

REPUBLICAN Congresscriter Chris Jacobs of New York, an NRA endorsee in 2020, says that, post-Uvalde, he supports an assault weapons ban. Why won't Delilah Barrios?

Remember: As of 2019, after Rethugs in the Texas Lege shit-canned red flag laws to committee death, 53 percent of Republicans in the state supported such law. 

==

Did Heller vs DC leave states room to regulate guns in general, or handguns or "dangerous and unusual guns" in specific? So says a 2008 Scalia law clerk who quotes those words of his and others, writing in partnership with a 2008 Stevens clerk:

But Heller looms over most debates about gun regulation, and it often serves as a useful foil for those who would like to deflect responsibility — either for their policy choice to oppose a particular gun regulation proposal or for their failure to convince their fellow legislators and citizens that the proposal should be enacted.

Sad but true. Wingnuts want to hide behind Heller, as do some ConservaDems like Manchin; gun control advocates can't get ConservaDems to see the light, let alone preach the light, and here we are.

==

And, some Texas Progressives thoughts:

Stace offers up a post about his thoughts on and his personal connection to Uvalde. 

The Texas Signal covers Beto O'Rourke's confrontation with Greg Abbott at a press conference after the Uvalde murders.

Reform Austin shows Ted Cruz being Ted Cruz, in the most Ted Cruz way possible. 

Therese Odell vents her rage at our increasingly longer national nightmare.

Matthew Dowd singles out four myths about guns that stand in the way of reform.

Your Local Epidemiologist has the policy prescriptions for reducing gun violence.

Gus Bova correctly calls Greg Abbott "full of shit". 

Learning more about Delilah Barrios

Texas' Green Party gubernatorial candidate was on Ryan Knight's podcast recently.

A few thoughts.

First, the Lege is who passes constitutional amendments to send to the public, and they need a 2/3 vote of both houses. You didn't mention that; if you think it would be hard as a GP candidate to get along with the Lege in general, on constitutional amendments, it would be climbing Mount Everest.

About two-thirds in, Barrios notes she reached out to Sema Hernandez, via friends, but never really heard back from her. She added that Hernandez is focused on helping "Democrats like her" or words to that effect.

Barrios sounded disappointed, but also mildly surprised.

Given the way Sema sucked up to Beto after losing the 2018 primary, to the point of claiming O'Rourke supported single-payer, or at least implying he did, when he did not, this surprises me not at all. It doesn't surprise me that Barrios was surprised, either, I think. But, it is something else to note. Namely, that she was kind of naive.

I mean, I noted almost three full years ago that Hernandez seemed well on her way to becoming Just.Another.Politician.™. And, I ventured into other territory, like the issue of being a Hispanic Dem and running for office in Texas. But I then ventured back to just how much she air-kissed Bob the Knob, either being clueless about just how much a ConservaDem he is, or else not caring. Also, between there and here, I noted that Sema didn't have much pull among 2020 Texas Dems in a much more crowded Senate race. So Barrios was barking up the wrong tree.

Related to that? Barrios "marveling" at the number of people of color who voted for Trump. On Blacks, it's surprising to me, too. On Hispanics, it's not at all surprising. If Barrios doesn't grasp that a lot of Hispanics want tighter border controls, it's another bit of cluelessness. That doesn't mean it's right (or that it's wrong) to have this desire, but the desire is real.

Interestingly, one thing she did NOT mention to Ryan Knight was how she dislikes Bob on a Knob's stance on gun control, which I blogged about not too long after she announced her candidacy. Maybe she figures that one doesn't poll well with Greenie types? And, if so, then she's potentially following Hernandez into non-New York JAP territory.

Also, from then versus now, her concern about COVID on that podcast, and her talk about being a "health care professional," was ... uh ... INNNteresting given that on that first blog of mine, I note that she is at minimum a fellow traveler of COVID antivaxxers and at max a full-on antivaxxer on all vaxxes herself. (That's not a total surprise; Greenies and Libertarians, and especially eco-libertarians, are high on antivaxxerism in general. Also, via Orac, a full 10 percent of medical doctors are antivax or the loverly "vax hesitant," so surely, among surgical nurses or whatever Barrios does [she said she works in surgery, but I'm guessing not a gas-passer], the percentage is much higher. Hospital nurses in general have shown this.) Anyway, she was asked nothing, and volunteered nothing, about her COVID stance. (At my previous blog post link, she not only stridently called out the Green Party for supporting vax mandates, but linked to a website that claimed COINTELPRO type infiltration of the GP's Steering Committee. And that favorably cites conspiracy theorist Jimmy Dore.)

Beyond that, she did little if anything on the podcast to convince me that she's resolved some hugely, BIGly self-inconsistent political positions.

==

Update, May 16: Big "marketing" fail by Barrios has now come to my attention. The Student Vote Empowerment Coalition of DFW is holding an event tomorrow at Dallas' Skyline High. Strangeabbott is skipping, shock me. But? Beto is going to be there, as is Libertarian nominee Mark Tippetts. Via an independent PR consultant, I saw about this event, organized by SMU law prof Eric Cerillo. 

Saw that Barrios wasn't listed. I asked him why.

Cedillo said "we" (he and others involved with the event, I guess) tried:

(W)e attempted to reach out to the Green candidate on a number of occasions to invite them to the forum but they were unresponsive.

There you go.

If she couldn't come due to work or something, I understand. But, not responding? Bad marketing for her AND bad marketing for the party.

The Texas Roundup says: Give me your ladders

There's lots of stuff to consider this week, between strictly Texas news and national and even global items hitting directly upon the Pointy Abandoned Object State™, including fracking, Biden and the border, and other fun stuff, so, let's dig in.

Texas

Ill Eagles are defeating border wall sections built by Trump (and by Dear Leader and Shrub Bush before him) with $5 ladders. Sadly, Status Quo Joe, rather than doing everything he can to cancel more wall-building, as shown by his detention issues, is probably going to do some difference-splitting along with Trump-blaming. (See below under the National subheader about Biden's continuing to use Trump's Title 42 declaration for arbitrary turn-backs at the border.)

A radioactive waste site out west of Andrews is struggling to safely store radioactive oil and gas waste from elsewhere, including Australia. Yes, Australia. But, don't worry; Lloyd Bentsen himself made sure that (the law says) this waste is nontoxic. That's even as the Society of Petroleum Engineers admits the truth. The Railroad Commish alleges it inspects Lotus, but, really? The RRC claims it "inspects" all sorts of stuff.

Frackers are still looking for "bigger fools" to buy them out.

New House and Senate vote bills specifically target urban counties over 1 million. Gee, wonder why. Kuff has more.

 

Permitless carry may still not get through the Senate, at least not in the House's version, says the Trib.

Per that piece, but the Trib has no link to a story of its own, I don't know how I missed it, but Jeebus Shot Sid Miller is suing Lite Gov Danny Goeb over COVID restrictions under the Pink Dome. Getcher popcorn, especially since "Doctor" Steve Hotze is behind the suit and Jared Woodfill is the barratry specialist of record. I guess a COVID shot ain't a Jesus shot? What's more interesting yet is that Patrick actually has apparently abandoned his "duty to die," even though he's over 70 himself; the restrictions are ONLY on the Senate side of the Capitol, but Patrick has essentially done a cross-dome callout to House Speaker Dade Phelan to tell him to get his shit together. That said, the Trib link of the previous graf DOES note that the Sidster has dropped hints about running for higher office in 2022. That leaves just Abbott or Patrick; Pee Bush's office would be a lateral move, and the idea of Sid challenging Glenn Hegar for Comptroller is mind-boggling.

Off the Kuff derides that ridiculous Abbott/McConaughey poll, which could have told us something about 2022 but failed to do so.

Will Derek Chauvin's conviction up north push forward the George Floyd Act?

Dan Solomon does another one of his fellation jobs at Texas Monthly, this one over HornsSawnOff QB Sam Ehlinger and "The Eyes of Texas," with Solomon pretending to ask a question about that.

Will the Lege officially block Strangeabbott from taking away regular state funds any time the feds offer new COVID-related money earmarked for schools? R.G. Ratcliffe looks at that and other budget issues.

Never Trumper Michael Wood hopes to make the runoff in the CD6 special election. Ain't gonna happen, but nice honest try.

Grits for Breakfast reminds us that under current Texas law, a police officer has to be fired twice before they can have their law enforcement license revoked. 

The 19th profiles Houston City Council member Abbie Kamin, the first person to serve on the Houston City Council while pregnant.

John Hryhorchuk explains what's holding up federal stimulus money for Texas public schools. 

Jef Rouner gives a legislative marijuana bill update.

The Texas Civil Rights Project documents some of the ways that the two big voter suppression bills would harm voters.

Zenen Jaimes Perez and Stephanie Gómez show why restricting voting hours makes it extremely difficult for some people to be able to vote.

Amber Briggle had to file a police report for the harassment she's received since testifying against the various anti-trans bills in the Lege.

National

For Earth Day, SocraticGadfly talked about the ecosocialist Earth Day to May Day framing by the Green Party of what a real Green New Deal entails.

Richard Trumka was elected many moons ago on the promise of a new AFL-CIO. Then why is he continuing to hassle the new new AFL-CIO at its Vermont chapter?

 

Gavin Newsom will face a recall, but unlike Grey Davis, he'll almost certainly win — in part because today's California GOP has nobody like an Arnold to lead a non-nutbar, socially somewhat libertarian, conservative opposition. 

Pro Publica, which has previously busted international tree purchasing climate change offsets as largely fake, especially in the tropics, does the same with California.

Ashli Babbitt's family is as much Babbitt grifters / Dum Fuqs as she was if they think they can win a $10 million lawsuit against the Capitol Police. (It will be great to see if white wingnuts lose this in part by being hoist on the sovereign immunity petard.) Family lawyer Terry Roberts will also have a fun time trying to prove what constitutional rights of a person committing multiple felonies at the time she was shot were being violated.

Biden continues to hate on Ill Eagles. And much of BlueMAGA continues to make themselves deliberately unaware, or else defend him in the face of knowing this. The BorderLines newsletter has more about some of the problems this causes when migrants from further south than Mexico are simply shoved back across the Mexican border.

Kendall Scudder takes the mask off as a ConservaDem

When I was living in Sulphur Springs and he stepped forward to run against Tinfoil Bob Hall for the state Senate, I said thought he was a nice guy, and decent.

BUT .... given that he, as pictured above, was ready, willing and able to ride the ConservaDem coattails of Robert Francis O'Rourke, I had my doubts about just how "progressive" he was.

And, per the header, the mask is off with him already openly touting ConservaDem (if that) Matthew McConaughey to run for gov against Strangeabbott in 2022. AND, as part of touting his true Texan bona fides, he BRAGS, Scudder does, of being a Dem with a concealed carry permit.

"Sorry," Scudder, but any Dem in an urban place like the Metromess who BRAGS about that doesn't have a "progressive" podcast.

AND, to bust your chops? When you spoke before a candidate forum in your state senate run ... teachers union regional group, a Dem-friendly group was that sponsored it ... you NEVER talked about gunz, let along bragged about a concealed carry permit.

In short, you were pandering for Dem votes and thus already three years ago were Just.Another.Politician if you didn't talk about gunz, let alone tout the idea of doing concealed carry, especially when many librulz, let alone leftists, were worried then about concealed carry and abhorred its expansion. (Said expansion included the 2015 Lege expanding concealed carry licenses to include open carry. Other nuttery has followed, such as gunz in college dorms.)

I assume his Armadilla Strategies, as a Tex-ass political consulting firm, works most with ConservaDems. As for his partner there, Lillian Salerno? The "about" at Armadilla puffs her 2018 run to be a Congresscritter. Ballotpedia has the reality. She barely beat out Republican Brett Shipp (sic) to go to the CD 32 runoff against Colin Allred, where she got her hat handed to her, after he took nearly 40 percent of the vote in a seven-person first round. I'm pretty sure it wasn't that she couldn't find a political organization with enough transparency, rather that no campaign consulting group with real skillz, and the money needed for them, was getting into that runoff. 

I also have little doubt that their Pod Bless Texas podcast promotes a ConservaDem version of Texas exceptionalism.

Texas Progressives talk gunz, stimulus, more

Besides COVID vaccines and stimulus money, there's other things on the national agenda, and that's before we see if Status Quo Joe gets actually woke on climate change. Spoiler: He won't.

One biggie, and what we're leading the Roundup off with this week, is, the few ConservaDems aside on this issue, a top divider between Dems and Reps: Gunz.

National

Gunz: The House passed two gun control bills last week. Will they die in the Senate? Joe Manchin is a squish but not, I think, totally so, on guns. The first would extend the background checks to Internet gun sales. (A better idea would be banning such sales; of course, you can [allegedly, you're probably getting scammed] buy scrips over the Net, so it might not stop much.) The second would expand the length of time for the feds to do background checks before sales are greenlighted from 3 days to 10.

At least 100 more people may be charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Special Ops is essentially today's CIA in the hands of presidents, to translate this Atlantic piece. And, of course, that's not good.

More here about Nevada's butthurt Harry Reid Dems.

State

SocraticGadfly talks about the winter storm kabuki theater under the Pink Dome.

Per Watergate and the whispered words in "All the President's Men," you should "follow the money" when pondering ERCOT and the PUC, especially on electric transmission infrastructure. Note to Wayne "The Gay" Christian of the RRC. It wasn't the PUC requiring money be spent on new transmission capacity for wind farms, you Dum Fuq, it was the PUC allowing electric companies to string that up and charge for it.

Danny Goeb wants Strangeabbott to rescind the massive surcharges on electricity that ERCOT let stand during the Abbott Blackout. Strangeabbott says he doesn't have the authority.

Off the Kuff examines a recent poll that shows good approval numbers for President Biden in Texas, but also for Greg Abbott and some of his priority legislation.

The quasi-technical term wasn't used, but in essence, a federal court cited Mark Elias for barratry in attempting to force Texas to continue straight-ticket voting last year. Another reason I'm not a Democrap.

The Observer says Bryan Slaton is "most likely to succeed" ... at being the next Former Fetus Forever Fuckwad Jonathan Stickland. (Per the same link, I reported Paul Anthony Hale many times on Facebook.)

The Texas Historical Commission loses my respect as Confederacy defenders.

Twitter has sued Ken Paxton and I love it, in part because it's Paxton, in part because it pisses off MAGAs, including a Trump official whose ass I kicked on Twitter, and in part because it's correct.

Strangeabbott said Gab is antisemitic. The Texas GOP's vice chair says the party should delete its account. State GOP leader and high wingnut Allen West says no. GOP kerfuffle news here. This will probably increase speculation West will primary Abbott. He's in better position than Jeebus Shot Sid Miller from the right. Goeb doesn't want it.

How is the Tarrytown neighborhood of Austin reacting to Biden's call for racial equity? Per this Medium piece, probably not well.

MrsAstrosCounty details how her miscarriages that resulted from ectopic pregnancies are officially counted as "abortions" in her medical record. 

David Beard offers three potential explanations for the shift in Latino voter preferences towards Trump in 2020. And weirdly, doesn’t include Biden’s alleged ban-to-be on fracking among the explanations. Not that impressed.

The Texas Living Waters Project warns that Texas' aging water infrastructure is another vulnerability highlighted by the big freeze of 2021.

Here's a rundown of anti-voting bills in the Lege. Of course, nutbar Bryan Hughes is shepherding them on the Senate side.

Metroplex

How many racist cops does Fort Worth have? Way too many, and yet, three fewer than a couple of years ago.

Houston

Houstonia looks back on the year in COVID.

Drew Springer, Pander Bear

Most of state Senatecritter Drew Springer's 11-bill gun nutz wish list is pandering. Some of it lacks legal standing. Some of it is unconstitutional.

The bills about intrastate gun sales? Nothing new here. Widely believed to be unconstitutional, ruled so in one case in 2014 by the Supreme Court, and in the past, opposed by the NRA, no less, per the first link, for fear it would undercut them.

The other stuff? 

SB 541? Unconstitutional. Clearly so, even more than the bills referenced above, as Drew doesn't restrict himself to intrastate sales issues here.

SB 545? Nothingburger and a pander, as there's no such legal restrictions right now.

SB 547? Pander Bear for the Shelley Luthers of North Texas and the Luke Maciases of wingnut media, as, before the SD 30 special, Drew said zip about Strangeabbott's special orders. I remember that from a campaign forum, as the other Rethuglicans, not just Luther, even Denton Mayor Chris Watts, brought it up, and Strangeabbott's lapdog Springer was silent.

SB 548? More of the "set Texas free from DC, but keep Texas cities and counties enslaved" bullshit.

SB 549? Probably has little chance of passing. Pander Bearing to the bars portion of the booze world. Probably also legally challengable as a carve-out unless the Lege changed the definition of a bar in general from 51 percent booze to 60 percent.

Garrett Foster vs Daniel Perry ("versus" Idries Shah)

Garrett Foster's death remains under investigation, with many activist Austinites having increasing concerns about Police Chief Brian Manley. Whether the (until last night) publicly unidentified driver was legally acting in self-defense or not, Foster's packing an AK-47 itself still doesn't sit well with me, and the fact that he approached the driver, even if he had the gun pointed down, sits less well yet. This is clearly an Idries Shah issue:

Sorry, Austinite activists, but I can't and won't just jump on your side. The third side is gun safety, gun control and gun violence, and there's fourth and fifth and more sides beyond that, certainly. I immediately see Manley and his oversight of APD as the fourth, and ConservaDem (and departing) Travis County DA Margaret Moore as the fifth, per Texas Monthly.

The shooter has now been identified, starting with a statement by his lawyer last  Friday. Daniel Perry is an active duty staff sergeant with 1st Cav at Fort Hood. He was driving for Uber or something, or so it is claimed. That said, did he use that as a pretense to literally crash the rally? And, the guilty flee when no man pursueth, says Proverbs, and Perry has scrubbed his Twitter, and presumably other social media as well. (But, at places like this, you can find plenty of his background.)

On the third hand of the first two sides? (Idries, again!) Perry's lawyer claims he has witnesses who say Foster had his gun raised. If true, even if Perry drove past barricades and into a crowd, Perry can then make a self-defense argument. (Whether it will fly or not, and also whether his case carries over until José Garza replaces Moore in January, all remain to be seen.)