You knew the news had taken a turn to the absurd when the profiles of mass shooters now included six-year-old kids and elderly Asian men.
Can anyone continue to defend the open access to guns our laws provide with a straight face after the most recent spate of massacres?
These slaughters are happening somewhere in America every 14 hours or so. That’s so far beyond unacceptable that we have to ask ourselves, “Have we no shame?”
The news coverage doesn’t help matters. That one was done by a kid with special learning disabilities. Oh, that one was over a workplace grievance, apparently. And that other one? Possibly a man angry at his estranged wife.
None of that is what matters. Those conditions and motives have always existed and will always exist. They exist in other countries as well but the overwhelming majority of mass shootings happen here.
The NRA lobbyists and their client politicians oppose new restrictions on guns because, as they are fond of saying, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”
The truth is people kill people but only one at a time; guns kill people many at a time.
What’s indisputable is that not as many people would be able to kill as anywhere near as many people if we didn’t allow the possession of so many guns.
And it matters. Because every life matters and every life lost to gun violence is an ineffable tragedy that does not need to keep happening.
Please tell that to your Congressperson.
***
Another absurd twist in this news cycle is that classified documents somehow made it to the home of former vice-president Mike Pence. Are you kidding me? Mike Pence? He’s gotta be the straightest by-the-book politician of the lot. This the same guy who won’t even have a business lunch alone with a woman who is not his wife.
It all goes to show that either some sort of sick, twisted Easter Bunny is hopping around from home to home of the former presidents and vice-presidents, leaving behind deposits of classified documents like jelly beans, or we need some serious reforms about who gets to take this stuff with them when they leave the office.
Or maybe, for that matter, we are way too zealous about classification to begin with. After all, this is all done on our tax dollar. Tell that to your Congressperson that one also.
Legally, one thing has become clear. No one — from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump to Joe Biden to Mike Pence — will likely do jail time on this one. Meanwhile, has anyone thought to check Barach Obama’s digs lately? Or George W. Bush’s?
***
Now I’ve gotten those two big rants out of my system, I can turn calmly to the one truly edifying story today. It comes from NPR about the many refugee actors from the Nazis who had leading roles in Casablanca. Some of them surprised me and they may surprise you as well.
LINKS:
New year brings a grim wave of mass killings across America (AP)
California staggered by deadly back-to-back mass shootings (Reuters)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) accused Fox News of “not doing a damn thing about gun safety, not a damn thing for decades” while visiting victims of the deadly mass shooting at a Monterey Park ballroom dance hall. [HuffPost]
Seven people were killed and one critically injured in two related shootings at plant nurseries around Half Moon Bay, a small coastal town south of San Francisco, police said. (Reuters)
Half Moon Bay attack was ‘workplace violence incident,’ officials say (WP)
Half Moon Bay shooting suspect once tried to suffocate coworker, court records allege (SFC)
In Iowa two students were killed, and a teacher was injured, in shooting at a Des Moines school. [AP]
Already, in the first 24 days of the year, there have been at least 39 mass shootings nationwide, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group that tracks gun violence and defines a mass shooting as an event in which four or more people are shot or killed. (Cal Today)
Gun Violence Is America’s Never-Ending Plague (New Yorker)
Classified documents found at Pence’s Indiana home (CNN)
The White House said that a search by the Justice Department of President Joe Biden's home on Friday had been carried out after a "voluntary, proactive offer" by his personal lawyers to the department. (Reuters)
Central Question as Georgia Inquiry Wraps: Will Trump Face Criminal Charges? (NYT)
‘Decisions imminent’ in Trump election meddling case, Georgia prosecutor says (Guardian)
Justice Department sues Google over its dominance in online advertising (WP)
DOJ Sues Google, Seeking to Break Up Online Ad Business (WSJ)
Read the full Justice Department lawsuit against Google (Politico)
Four More Oath Keepers Members Convicted of Sedition in Second Trial (NYT)
A Recession Is Not Inevitable (Atlantic)
Walmart raises minimum wage as retail labor market remains tight (CNBC)
Is Cold War Inevitable? (FP)
Germany to send Leopard tanks after rethink by Scholz (FT)
U.S. Leans Toward Providing Abrams Tanks to Ukraine (WSJ)
Zelensky shakes up Ukrainian government amid growing corruption scandal (CNN)
VIDEO: Nationwide Blackout Plunges Pakistan Into Darkness (AP)
The Doomsday Clock moves to 90 seconds to midnight, signaling more peril than ever (NPR)
This Asteroid Has Survived For 4 Billion Years. That Could Be a Huge Problem (ScienceAlert)
The real-life refugees of 'Casablanca' make it so much more than a love story (NPR)
This Top-Secret Prototype Display Is Truly Groundbreaking (CNET)
Promising gene therapy delivers treatment directly to brain (AP)
The Earth’s inner core seems to be spinning more slowly. Scientists don’t know why, so this new finding is causing a lot of debate. But it’s not a sign of the end times — the same thing apparently started happening in the late 1960s, too. (WP)
M&M's is taking “an indefinite pause” from the cartoon “spokescandies” it has used in ads since the mid-1990s, according to a message on the company's Twitter account ― apparently in response to what can only be described as, well, a meltdown by conservatives like Tucker Carlson. The company said it's realized that "even a candy's shoes can be polarizing." [HuffPost]
Biden Claps In Amazement After FBI Agent Pulls Classified Document From Behind His Ear (The Onion)
LYRICS:
“The Scientist”
Songwriters: פורר טל / Buckland,jonathan Mark / Berryman,guy Rupert / Champion,william / Martin,christopher Anthony John
Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions
Oh, let's go back to the start
Running in circles, coming up tails
Heads on a science apart
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start
I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
But tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh, and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are
Nobody said it was easy
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start
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