Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump, Navajo Heros, Jaime Phillips, and The Washington Post

To Richard Milhous Nixon, who never let me down.

One of two dedications in a collection of Hunter S. Thompson's writings titled, "The Great Shark Hunt."

It's hard to know what Thompson would have thought, or written when it comes to Donald Trump, Judge Roy Moore, and the current line up of unrepentant criminals who pose as the alternative media. He checked out long before this band of Vandals sacked and burned the American political system and its moral underpinnings so thoroughly they make Dick Nixon look like Mahatma Gandhi.

The one thing we can be certain of is when Dr. Thompson was faced with evil he was never at a loss for words, or outrage--and neither should anyone else.

Yes, everything decent and civilized about the republic is coming unglued and it only took a year of Donald J. Trump for it to happen. Yesterday the gruesome clown, who is supposed to be the president of everyone in this nation, dragged three aged Navajo warriors into a room in the White House dominated by a painting of Andrew Jackson. Trump is a big fan of Jackson and seemed not to care ol' Hickory removed huge numbers of Native Americans from their homelands at the point of bayonets. The forced march west to what is now Oklahoma was filled with so much disease, deprivation, and death it became known as, "The Trail of Tears."

During the ceremony, which was to honor the World War II marines who served as code talkers, Trump--never able to restrain himself from insulting somebody--derisively referred to Senator Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas. In the next breath he told one of the men, "..but I like you." At that point the only surprise was he didn't call the veteran, Chief, or Tonto.

Trump's cruel racist buffoonery overshadowed the Washington Post's revelation that an employee, or volunteer of an organization called, Project Veritas had tried to scam them into running an untrue story on Judge Roy Moore. The "sting," which was set up to discredit both the Post and Moore's female accusers, had been in the works since the day after the publication ran a story about the former Alabama supreme court judge's amorous advances toward a 14 year old girl.

Project Veritas was established by one James O'Keefe in 2010. It also employs a guy named Robert J. Halderman who is a former TV producer. Shortly after the group's founding, O'Keefe was convicted of a misdemeanor when he tried to gain access to a federal building with a fake ID and Halderman did six months in jail after he attempted to blackmail late night TV host David Letterman.

Impressed by the no holds barred enterprising spirit of the organization, a Trump charity donated $10,000 to Project Veritas during the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign. Not long afterward the candidate himself began to quote their, "in depth reporting," on professional demonstrators who were allegedly paid by the democrats.

The short version of the latest sordid tale goes this way. Immediately after the initial Post report about Moore's predatory behavior a reporter received an email from a woman who claimed she had some serious dirt on the republican senate candidate.

The Post says the woman, identified as Jaime Phillips, contacted Post journalist, Beth Reinhard with the offer of a story. A scant day later a right wing web site reported on a tweet from an account ID'd as @umpire43. It read, "A family friend in Alabama just told my wife that a WAPO reporter named Beth offered her $1,000 to accuse Roy Moore." The paper immediately denied it had offered anyone money. The entire twitter account, which was known for flights of alt right fantasy has since been deleted.

Alarm bells really began to go off as Ms. Phillips became overly edgy when Reinhard told her the Post would have to fact check her story and asked for documentation of what the woman alleged was an abortion demanded and paid for by Roy Moore when she was 15.

After insisting to speak to another Post journalist Ms. Phillips bolted from a second in person interview after she was confronted with proof she had established a Go Fund Me page. On the page she was asking for contributions to help her with expenses as she began a new career with an unnamed right wing news outlet dedicated to exposing the truth about the left wing.

The Post then details how two of its journalists followed Ms. Phillips after the second interview and witnessed her walking into the offices of Project Veritas. At last report her car remains in the parking lot there and James O'Keefe is refusing to answer any questions about her.

No one, including The Washington Post, knows if the Moore campaign was involved in the attempted scam, if Project Veritas was acting on its own, or was perhaps doing so at the behest of that chubby Nazi, Steve Bannon. My money is on Bannon, but it is highly doubtful we'll ever know for sure. 

Given past evidence it is pretty clear that even as these words are being typed desperate alt right minions are getting ready to portray Jaime Phillips as a left wing plant paid for by--you guessed it--The Washington Post.

The in depth story of the entire grotesque saga appeared on line at washingtonpost.com on Monday, 11-27-17 at 11:35pm.

Go read it and while you do, weep for the state of the union.

And yes, ladies and gentlemen, the bar is open.

11-28-17 

Don Trump: Golf and Twitter in the Post Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Charlie Rose, Al Franken, and John Conyers World

In 2016 when Donald J. Trump was running for office one of his most frequent criticisms of Barack Obama, besides that whole place of birth thing, was the president played too much golf. In fact at one point El Donald told us when he was president he wouldn't have time to play a lot of golf because he'd be too busy.

When he hit the first tee Sunday, for the fifth time over the Thanksgiving holiday, it was his 81st round of golf since his inauguration. For those keeping count that would be a little over three times more than Obama took to the links in his first ten months in office.

But, let's face it, surreal discrepancies between promises, facts, and what is actual reality have never been a problem for Don Trump. As one observer noted, when it comes to the current resident of the White House there is no right, or wrong, there is only winning and losing.

Between chip shots and improving his ball's lie (winter rules after all) Mr. Trump found his way onto Twitter in order to continue his attack on those parts of American free press he disagrees with, or at least the ones he feels are critical of him.

On Saturday he posted, "@FOX News MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside the U.S. CNN International is still a major source of (FAKE) news and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!"

Brother Trump didn't specify which truths the rest of the world weren't seeing. Perhaps he felt his side of the public feud he's been waging with that imminent threat to the nation's security, LaVar Ball has been lacking in coverage. Ball is the insufferable parent/non stop promoter of his basketball playing sons Lonzo, LaMelo, and LiAngelo. He drove Mr. Trump into a fury because he didn't appear grateful enough after the president bragged about getting LiAngelo out of a Chinese prison sentence for shop lifting. Yes, as we've seen time and time again, once the ego is pricked, no fight is too small, or petty for our man in the oval office.

On Sunday Mr. Trump tweeted, "Since the first day I took office all you hear is the phony democratic excuse for losing the election, Russia, Russia, Russia. Despite this I have the economy booming and have possibly done more than any 10 month President. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

The petulant tone of the message moved former Obama official, Preet Bharara to respond with his own tweet which read, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! The President of the United States is Jan Brady."

Today's message from the White House was, "We should have a contest as to which of the networks plus CNN and not including FOX is the most dishonest, corrupt, and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive FAKE NEWS TROPHY!"

In addition to this craziness the New York Times reports that on at least two different occasions in the past few months The Big Orange Guy has said privately the infamous, "Access Hollywood," tape was faked. It's the episode where he clearly boasted to TV personality Billy Bush that being rich and famous allowed him to grab women by their, "pussies," with impunity. The evidence he said the words is so utterly irrefutable, then candidate Trump immediately admitted to the repugnant conversation, although he wrote it off as simply, "locker room talk."

Of course, that was then and this has suddenly become a post Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Charlie Rose, Al Franken, John Conyers, world. You have to adjust, bob and weave, never stop doing the DJT shuffle. Indeed, take a lesson from ol' Roy Moore down in Alabama. Deny everything, no matter how many witnesses there might be, or how credible they are.

Yeah, that's the ticket. Run around like a Banshee on fire while screaming the media is Satan himself, attempting to destroy those doing God's work. Then--trust The Almighty Base to believe every thing you say, no matter how bat shit crazy and obviously wrong it is.

The problem is they will. In fact they already have. Think not? Just wait until Moore gets elected in a couple of weeks and Trump goes on Twitter and celebrates the victory as another win for him.

My God, I thought Nixon was evil and crazy. That fucker was nothing, but a cheap amateur compared to this sociopathic monster.


sic vita est


11-27-17

There is Nothing Immoral, or Illegal in Alabama, Maybe Just a Little Bit Unusual

Take the bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became the parents of Jesus. There is just nothing immoral, or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.

Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler, speaking in defense of Roy Moore's search for female companionship 40, or so years ago.



Yes, things have taken a decidedly hallucinogenic turn down in Alabama. It would appear a hefty tab of LSD is no longer required in order to make divine connections between Judge Roy Moore, Saint Joseph and several underage retail clerks and waitresses in the greater Gadsden metroplex.

It's not like we hadn't been headed that way for a while. Evangelical Christians everywhere went out of their way to vote for Donald Trump after they clearly heard him bragging about how fame and fortune allowed him grab women's genitals whenever and wherever he wanted.

In fact some consider El Donald so free of sin they're willing to bet their mortal souls on him. Take Mark Lee, who participated in a CNN group interview of Trump supporters. He said--with a perfectly straight face--"Let me tell you. If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia I will tell him, hold on a second, I need to check with the president to see if it's true."

Words like lunacy come to mind in situations such as these. So does, hypocrisy, but that one has already been used by Reverend Franklin Graham. When asked about the accusations leveled at the Alabama senate candidate, he said, "The hypocrisy of Washington has no bounds. So many are denouncing Roy Moore when they are guilty of doing much worse than what he has been accused of supposedly doing."

Mr. Graham didn't specify what crimes the unnamed, "they," have committed which are worse, but since pedophilia is pretty fucking bad one can only imagine.

Other men of the cloth, like Pastor Earl Wise, simply attack the victims. He told an interviewer, "I don't know how much these women are getting paid, but I can only believe they're getting a healthy sum. How these gals came up with this, I don't know. They must have had some sweet dreams somewhere down the line." Then, almost as an afterthought--or just in case things get even worse for ol' Roy--he added, "Plus there are some 14 year olds who, the way they look, could pass for 20."

Ah, there we have the answer. Leigh Corfman is either on the take, which she adamantly denies, or, at age 14, she was a preternatural vamp who duped an innocent Roy Moore into thinking she was much older than she really was. Unfortunately for Wise and Moore alike photos of Corfman when she was 14 make her look a lot closer to 12 than 20. However, if history has taught us anything, pointing out the obvious to ardent religious types rarely yields positive results. Just ask the ghost of Galileo Galilei.

In their increasing desperation, Moore's supporters have also been attacking the veracity of Beverly Young Nelson's accusation the judge assaulted her when she was 16 as he drove her home from her job at a Gadsden restaurant. The details of the proof offered by the Moore campaign that Nelson's story is untrue have to do with the placement of a dumpster on the restaurant grounds, whether there was a back door to the joint's parking lot, and the hiring practices of the establishment's management.

Finally, to combat the nasty rumor Moore was barred from the Gadsden Mall for hustling teenaged girls the campaign dug up a guy named Johnny V. Sanders. According to Sanders, a former mall employee, the whole thing is--you guessed it--a merry mix up. Sanders' claims it wasn't the GOP's senate nominee who was barred from the mall years ago, but rather another prominent Etowah County official, who everyone now has confused with Roy Moore. When asked to identify the person in question, Sanders refused, "out of respect for his family."

Yes, it has become so weird in Alabama, as Hunter S. Thompson once wrote of another place, "Acid is redundant."

Let's face it, not even ancient Rome at its most depraved would tolerate a monster like Roy Moore in their Senate. But, right here and now, we are on the verge of seating him in ours.

So much for the American republic and any claim it might have had to some higher moral ground .

Ladies and gentlemen, as you can guess, the bar is open.


11-21-17

Bernie Bernstein Makes a Call to Alabama

Hi, this is Bernie Bernstein. I'm a reporter for the Washington Post calling to find out if  anyone at this address is a female between the ages of 54 to 57 years old , willing to make damaging remarks about candidate Roy Moore for a reward of between $5,000 and $7,000. We will not be fully investigating these claims, however we will be making a written report. I can be reached by email: AlBernstein@washingtonpost.com. Thank you.

A voice mail left from an anonymous number on an Alabama preacher's phone.



Actually it's worse when you listen to it. Whoever left the message on Pastor Al Moore's phone (no, he's not related to the candidate) spoke in perhaps the worst imitation of a New York/Brooklyn accent imaginable. It was rather like hearing a voice version of one of those horrid pre WWII Nazi posters which cruelly caricatured Jews.

Reverend Moore and an Alabama TV station attempted to email the alleged reporter at the address he left and both attempts were returned as undeliverable. That's no surprise since The Washington Post doesn't have an employee, or part time contractor named either Bernie, or Al Bernstein.

Despite the overtly anti-Semitic dialect, the editorial confusion over the name of the caller (Bernie, or Al?), and the fake email address, multiple supporters of Moore are claiming the robocall and others identical to it were generated by the newspaper, or at least its agents.

Yes, that is the road republican Roy Moore and his campaign are going down as accusations of his inappropriate and downright criminal sexual behavior years ago continue to mount.

They've also let loose a wildly racist attorney named, Trenton Garmon. He is currently pleading the candidate's case on cable news networks while, perhaps more importantly, giving the sly wink of an eye to Moore's trailer park fascist base.

On Friday night Garmon was on Don Lemon's CNN show and repeatedly referred to the host, who is black, as, "Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy." Lemon finally put a halt to it by pointedly telling Garmon his mother didn't name him that so stop saying it. The attorney smiled and said, "I hear you, man." Then he began to accuse Lemon's producer of luring him on the air under false pretenses.

Yesterday Garmon appeared on an MSNBC program hosted by Stephanie Ruhle and Ali Velshi. When asked why Roy Moore would need a mother's permission to date a girl if she wasn't underage, Garmon answered--sort of--this way, "Sure, that's a good question. Culturally speaking there's differences. Looked up Ali's background there. Wow--that's awesome that you've got such a diverse background. That's really cool to read through that. But the point is..."

Ruhle interrupted, "What does Ali's background have to do with dating a 14 year old?

Garmon continued, "I'm not finished with the context of it. Point of this is...

At that moment it became clear Ms. Ruhle wanted to punch the clown out. She demanded,  "Please answer. What does Ali Velshi's background have to do with dating children, 14 year old girls?"

Garmon said, "Sure. In other countries there's arrangement through parents for what we would refer to as consensual marriage."

That's when Ms. Ruhle said, "Ali's from Canada."

Garmon, seemingly flummoxed by her statement immediately attempted a little of the old song and dance, "I understand that. And Ali's also spent time in other countries..."

Ruhle shot back, "So have I."

There is more. Like that poor guy in Alabama who was a Post source in it's original story. He's getting text messages which tell him a U.S. attorney in the state has filed a defamation suit against him. While denying it the, U.S. attorney in question noted his office has no jurisdiction in civil actions such as defamation. Then there is Kayla Moore, Roy's wife, who put the phone number of a Post reporter on social media after a request for an interview. Later, the reporter's resume', including her current address, showed up on a public site. Mrs. Moore claimed the reporter was harassing her and her friends.

Let's face it, these crazed bible quoting fuckers make Joe McCarthy look like some cheap jack amateur. And in truth, there is a viciousness displayed here not seen since Herr Hitler was walking the planet.

Years ago the late science fiction author, Mike McQuay said, "Once you're convinced God is on your side, you are capable of anything." Those words have never been truer than in Alabama during this year of our Lord, 2017.

Just ask Judge Roy Moore, his wife, and the people who will elect him to the United States Senate in less than a month.

Or better yet, ask their victims.


sic vita est


11-16-17

Everett Dirksen, Joseph McCarthy, Roy Moore, and Casanova

A long time ago there was a republican senator from Illinois named Everett Dirksen. He was a friend of Joseph McCarthy, also a republican, but from Wisconsin. In the early 1950s Joe McCarthy was and, by the way, still is widely considered one of the most evil men to ever sit in the upper house. The two of them were such buddies when the senate voted to censure McCarthy for being a run amok witch hunting asshole, Dirksen refused to go along with the resolution.

It was a different age back then though. Dirksen, despite his conservatism, still had some sense of morality plus a connection to a guy named Abraham Lincoln. In his later years he co-wrote and helped democratic president Lyndon B. Johnson pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and a second Civil Rights Act in 1968. The two laws, among other things, kick started the mass migration of conservative southern democrats, known as the dixiecrat wing, to the republican party.

All of which leads us to one, Roy Stewart Moore. Moore is the current republican candidate for the United States Senate from the state of Alabama. He was elected twice as the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and was removed both times because of his firm belief the constitution of the United States of America--you know, the document he swore to defend--doesn't mean shit.

There is also pretty solid evidence he was, at least at one point in his life, a dirty old man.

Old, of course, is a relative concept. A guy in his early 30's, which Moore was when all this alleged philandering took place, looks young to someone on the far side of 65. However, to girls who were at the time, 14, 16, 17, and 18 it's really fucking old, not to mention creepy.

The most serious allegation came from Leigh Corfman who was the 14 year old. She told a reporter from the Washington Post, Moore had touched her genitals--or as Don Trump would say, grabbed her pussy--through her underwear, then forced her to touch his.  

The Post broke the story last week and Moore immediately claimed it was not only fake news, but a political hit job.

Actually it probably is a hit job, but that doesn't mean it isn't true. Besides the four women, the Post lists nearly 30 witnesses who say Moore was quite the Casanova when it came to teenaged girls back in the day.

Unfortunately for the democratic nominee, Doug Jones none of Moore's lascivious and possibly criminal behavior will make any difference to huge numbers of voters in Alabama. They checked their moral outrage at the door as soon as they cast their ballots for Donald Trump a year ago.

Alabama's Bibb County GOP chairman, Jerry Pow put it this way, "I would vote for Judge Moore because I wouldn't want to vote for Doug. I'm not saying I support what he did."

That's how low some republicans, including nearly 40 U.S. senators, have sunk. Pedophilia is forgivable--being a democrat isn't.

Yesterday Moore told a group in Huntsville he was going to sue The Post. He said he was currently uncovering more background on the allegations. He also promised to provide, "revelations about the motivations and context," of them. In other words his people are working as busy as beavers to make Leigh Corfman and the other women look like they are the ones who are to blame for this sordid affair.

Well, what else should we expect from a man who claims homosexual acts should be criminal offenses and Muslims shouldn't be allowed to serve in congress--despite that bit in the constitution which forbids any person who seeks federal office from facing a religious test.

Yes, the political and ethical descendents of Joe McCarthy, as we see in Roy Moore, are still around. And worse, just like Everett Dirksen, the vast majority of republicans, no matter how noble their intentions might be, refuse to repudiate them.

Now, ask me again why I'm a democrat.



11-13-17

Alina Fitzpatrick: Six Years in the Grave

The tale of Alina Fitzpatrick isn't, as they say, breaking news. When she walked off into the shadows around 10 pm on November 4th, 2011 she was 17, barely old enough to drive a car. If she was alive today she'd be 23 and might have achieved her reported dream of becoming a registered nurse.

We all know that isn't what happened though. On November 9th a woman and her adult son went to take a look at some property one, or both of them owned near the intersection of NE 50th St. and Anderson Rd. in the wilds of far eastern Oklahoma City.

What they found during their inspection was the nude remains of an unidentified girl who had been dumped in some weeds by the roadside. Her body bore what was described later as blunt force trauma and numerous scrapes, bruises, and lacerations suffered around the time of her death. She also had either some paper, or flimsy cloth stuffed into her mouth, as if she'd been gagged at some point.

It didn't take long for authorities to announce the body was that of Alina Fitzpatrick.

Since Oklahoma City isn't really that big of a town and is just racist enough, the usual media reaction to the lurid details of the murder of a pretty young white girl would have been vast and breathlessly horrified. The difference that autumn was OKC's news outlets already had a young dead white girl and the circumstances of her death were even more wildly sensational.

A little less than a month before Alina Fitzpatrick disappeared near the corner of NW 24th St. and Western Ave. authorities had discovered the dismembered body of Carina Saunders in the west side suburb of Bethany, OK. When her various parts, stuffed into a duffel bag found behind a grocery store, were uncovered it drove local news sources into a feeding frenzy which, to some extent, lasts to this day.

The names of possible witnesses, not to mention potential suspects in the Saunders' case swirled about in a blizzard of coverage. Most of this storm of speculation and innuendo was fueled by the over overzealous and ultimately incompetent Bethany Police Department who was in charge of the investigation.

The Fitzpatrick case, on the other hand, was being run by the Oklahoma City Police. The OKCPD didn't have a clue who the perpetrator, or perpetrators were and, unlike the rubes in Bethany they were honest enough to admit it. This dreary lack of progress simply couldn't compete with the seemingly daily revelations about Saunders' murder and it didn't take long for the tragedy which befell Alina Fitzpatrick to begin fading from the news.

Then came the report from Medical Examiner, Chai S. Choi. Unlike Carina Saunders, who had been decapitated among other things, he found none of Alina Fitzpatrick's wounds were serious enough, in of themselves, to be the cause of her death. However he did find enough meth in her system which, might, or might not have caused her to OD. Choi's final decision was an absurdist exercise in the obvious. He wrote, "There are apparently suspicious circumstances surrounding her death." At the same time he refused to label it a homicide.

Never ones to avoid an easy out, the Oklahoma City Police let their investigation grind to a halt. To the credit of the local daily paper they made one last stab at the story. In January, 2012 a reporter asked police spokesperson Sgt. Jennifer Wardlow about the status of the case. Her response was, "It's not considered a homicide, but we're keeping an open file on it."

Wardlow's cold blooded indifference caused one final ripple of incredulous outrage and nine days later, OKC police captain, Dexter Nelson told the same reporter, "Homicide is just a legal term. You investigate them (homicides and suspicious deaths) the same way." He went on to say the department needed help from the public to solve the case.

After the Bethany cops screwed the pooch in the Saunders' investigation they turned it over to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Earlier this year the OSBI spent nearly a week digging up the back yard of a home on the lower west side of OKC looking for evidence. Last month they renewed the reward offered in her case. Both stories received extensive coverage by local media outlets.

In contrast and thanks in large part to a lack of media exposure and therefore pressure, Nelson's January 2012 plea for help was the last anyone in this town has heard about the murder of Alina Fitzpatrick. That's unless you count an anonymous comment posted on this blog in April last year. It read, "The police were told who did it. He was in jail on other charges and still got released."

If true, it would seem that the help from the public Captain Nelson asked for wasn't of much use and it certainly wasn't considered news worthy.

Alina Fitzpatrick was buried on November 22, 2011, the 48th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The obituary states her casket was hand made and blessed by Benedictine monks living in an Iowa monastery. Her grave site is only one of thousands located at Memorial Park Cemetery in Oklahoma City.

As far as anyone knows, her killer, or killers remain free.



sic vita est


11-8-17

Thirty-five Days Out of Las Vegas We Get to Sutherland Springs

That didn't take long. In fact it was only 35 days ago we were all aghast at the massacre in Las Vegas. It ranks as the deadliest mass shooting in United States history, but, as betting enthusiasts around the world will tell you, records are meant to be broken.

While we wait for that ghastly accomplishment we can contemplate the latest challenger. Devin Patrick Kelley wasn't able to match the sheer number of bodies in Vegas, but yesterday's nightmare at the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church did become the worst mass shooting in the history of Texas.

And--for those of you unfamiliar with the state--that takes a lot. The previous record holder was George Hennard who plowed his truck through the front of a Killeen, TX  cafeteria in 1991 prior to opening fire. Before he offed himself he killed 24 people. Way back in 1966, the original modern mass shooter, Charlie Whitman murdered 16 people. He gunned down most of them from an improvised sniper's nest on top of the tower which looms over the University of Texas campus. Then there was U.S. Army Major Nidal Hasan who killed 13 people at Ft. Hood, TX in 2009 apparently because God told him it was a good idea.

Yes, in Texas you have to go big, or go home.

The most dubious distinction of Kelley's rampage, however, was it became the worst mass shooting at a church in American history. That's how low we've sunk. We now have an ever growing list of different churches across the land which have been invaded by evil fucks like Dev Kelley. That's right, we're talking stats baby and the experts on cable news can now offer us an updated scorecard of sorts which includes denominations, demographics, motives, and body counts.

Donald Trump immediately told the media the shooting in Sutherland Springs was a mental health issue and not about guns. His only contribution to that problem, so far, has been to rescind an Obama era law which stopped mentally ill persons who draw government disabilities from being able to buy firearms. Thanks to his deft legislation it is now perfectly legal for them to do so.

At around the same time, Kellyanne Conway, who works for Mr. Trump, began babbling we should be, honoring the dead, rather than debating gun control this soon after the tragedy. She knows, or should know, since there have been 377 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone (defined as four, or more victims in one incident, including the shooter) it leaves damn little time for people around here to do anything, but honor the dead.

Meanwhile, the malignant cranks who infest YouTube are already screeching the entire shooting in Sutherland Hills was a government staged hoax. The number of different channels promoting such bullshit borders on being too vast to count. Earlier today, when added together, the, "views," of those vile places were running into the tens of thousands.

Finally, the congress of the United States of America continues to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the National Rifle Association. They wouldn't do anything after 20 grade school kids and six of their teachers were killed at Newtown, CT. and they haven't done anything about the, "bump stocks," Steve Paddock used in Vegas to mow down nearly 60 concert goers. Given this well established cowardice, why in God's name should we believe they'll do anything now?

Indeed, it's obvious that, as Bill O'Reilly put it a little over a month ago, those 26 dead worshippers--eight from three generations of the same family--"are just part of the price we pay for freedom."

Right.


sic vita est


11-6-17