WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 2022
"Gun culture," black and brown: There's nothing "wrong" with adopting "gun culture," until such time as there is.
That said, our nation's gun culture may not always seem to be wholly rational. Here's Charles Blow's recent account of the culture surrounding him when he was growing up:
BLOW (5/29/22): I grew up in a gun culture. If there was a family in my hometown that didn’t have guns, I didn’t know them. One of the required projects in shop class was the making of a gun rack. My own home was filled with guns, and at one point we even had a gun case with a carousel for the long guns in the living room.
Almost no one in my town needed those guns. We weren’t active hunters. Crime wasn’t raging. We were probably safer without them than with them.
Furthermore, people rarely, if ever, practiced shooting. Some guns were owned without ever being fired. People owned guns and had no idea what it felt like to fire them.
Blow grew up in Gibsland, Louisiana, a small town which was very heavily black. In certain basic ways, the local "gun culture" he describes doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
("Some guns were owned without ever being fired. People owned guns and had no idea what it felt like to fire them.")
There's nothing "wrong" with a culture like that, until it turns out that there is. That said, the culture Blow describes doesn't exactly seem to make perfect sense.
Intriguingly, a somewhat similar local "gun culture" may have existed—may still exist—in Uvalde, Texas. We start with a column about Uvalde in Monday's Washington Post.
The writer's name is Neil Meyer. Neil Meyer is a good, decent person. His column started like this:
MEYER (5/30/22): I was born in Uvalde, Tex., lived there recently and love its complex history and people. Like most, I’ve been struggling under the weight of grief to understand the violence that left 19 children, two teachers and a young killer dead last week. But I’m not surprised.
First, you would be challenged to find a more heavily armed place in the United States than Uvalde. It’s a town where the love of guns overwhelms any notion of common-sense regulations, and the minority White ruling class places its right-wing Republican ideology above the safety of its most vulnerable citizens—its impoverished and its children, most of whom are Hispanic.
"Most of" the people in Uvalde are Hispanic, Meyer says.
That's a large understatement. According to the Census Bureau, this town of 15,312 souls was 81.8% Hispanic last year, and was only 14.9% non-Hispanic white.
There's nothing unusual about such demographics in this part of south Texas. That said, according to Meyer, you'd be challenged to find a more heavily armed place than Uvalde.
Uvalde is very heavily Hispanic. Apparently, it's also very heavily armed. According to a portrait of the city in Tuesday morning's Washington Post, some of the apparent oddities Blow described may also be present there.
The piece was written by Bailey and Lott. Their portrait of Uvalde's relationship to guns starts in the manner shown:
BAILEY AND LOTT (5/31/22): Guns have long been an inextricable part of Texas culture, tightly woven into small towns like Uvalde, a predominantly Latino community of about 16,000 about an hour north of the U.S. border with Mexico. Here, children are raised to hunt and shoot from a young age, and many residents, including family members of the victims, say they own guns for their own protection. It is an affinity that cuts across the partisan lines that typically define the gun debate in other parts of the country.
[...]
In a town that many residents have described as “heavily armed” and in a state where it is common to see guns openly worn, many appeared to have left their weapons at home in recent days, visiting unarmed the makeshift memorials and attending church services that have popped up across town to honor the dead.
Nothing is, or has been, automatically "wrong" with any portion of that.
Growing up in suburban Boston, we ourselves weren't "raised to hunt and shoot." There were no guns in our home for protection.
Blow never know of a home without guns. We never knew of a home which had them.
That doesn't mean that something was automatically "wrong" with Uvalde's traditional relationship to guns. That said, some of the apparent oddness from Blow's portrait may perhaps be surfacing in this portrait:
BAILEY AND LOTT: Outside Robb Elementary, where he was trying to catch a glimpse of President Biden on Sunday, Edgar Sanchez said his daughter was a fourth-grader at the school but left early that day, a decision that might have saved her life but has left her traumatized. Sanchez said he hopes Biden pushes for tougher gun-control measures, even if that means giving up his own AR-15.
“Honestly, I have one,” Sanchez said, explaining that he had purchased the weapon to keep himself and his family safe. “If they told me the kids would be safer if I got rid of it, I would.” He added, “I’ve never shot that assault rifle.”
[...]
As he visited the memorials in Uvalde, [Richard] Small said, he thought of his gun cabinet at home, and one of the weapons in it. Small said he bought the rifle at least 15 years ago but had barely fired it. “I don’t even think I’ve used a full box of ammunition with it,” Small said. Along the back of his gun, he remembered, there was a label. “Law enforcement use only,” it read.
There's nothing wrong with having a gun for self-protection and never having to fire it. That said, we thought we were almost catching a glimpse of the apparently irrational aspect of the "gun culture" Blow described in his Louisiana home town.
In posting these excerpts, we're describing the presence of "gun culture" in communities which are heavily black and Hispanic. This may help us modern "upper-class" liberals rethink the cartoonized versions of "gun culture" we may tend to carry around in our heads and blurt out on cable TV.
For whatever reasons, "gun culture" doesn't appeal to the redneck crackers of our cartoonized dreams and to no one else. And by the way—why did people in Uvalde feel the need for those weapons? Other tribal cartoons may take a hit as we read explanations like this:
BAILEY AND LOTT: [O]thers were wary of seeing what happened in Uvalde turn into a fight over guns. As she sat at the memorial for the victims last week, Amanda Flores said she knew all 21 victims of the rampage, but still does not believe that the tragedy should turn into a debate over gun ownership. Flores, 43, said she and her family members own firearms and view them as essential tools to keep their family safe in “a border town.”
“With all of the problems we have right now with the immigrants crossing over, you don’t know how many fast-speed chases go through here, we need them for our protection,” said Flores, whose grandson was at Robb Elementary when the shooting began but escaped uninjured. “All of them coming in, they are coming in as illegals, they can have guns. And what are we supposed to do? Throw rocks at them?”
By ethnicity, Amanda Flores is Hispanic. She said that she and her family regard firearms as essential tools to keep their family safe, given their fears about the dangers associated with illegal immigration across the southern border.
She even used the term "illegals!" We wouldn't and don't use that term ourselves, but it's even possible that there's something we liberals can learn from that.
Tomorrow, we'll show you how Uvalde County voted in the 2020 election. The full county—population, roughly 25,000, including Uvalde proper—is roughly 73% Hispanic.
The way the heavily Hispanic county voted may help us self-impressed blue tribe members rethink some of the cartoonized portraits with which we approach such matters. Some will say that we fashion such cartoons as part of our constant attempts to find new ways to lose.
Charles Blow described a "gun culture" which possibly didn't seem to make a whole lot of obvious sense. What he described feels like a bit of a fetish, but then we humans aren't "the rational animal," and we never have been.
At any rate, Blow was describing the culture of a black town, and the heavily Hispanic town of Uvalde has long been heavily armed too. There's no ultimate right and wrong to most of this, but something is extremely wrong when we construct cartoonized portraits of the deeply important, and complex, matters at hand.
Spoiler alert! Uvalde County voted for Trump in 2020—did so by a 20-point margin! The silly peacocks we see on TV—the people we're trained to regard as "elites"—tend to be puzzled by such manifestations, and as we submit to their Storylines, we the liberals and progressives are swept toward election defeats.
We humans may not be "the rational animal," our corporate-selected top elites perhaps least so of all. Simply put, we have to stop assuming they have good judgment.
Tomorrow: Our tribe's reactions to Buffalo. Also, propaganda wherever you look
Maybe, like you, Bob's paid by the Establishment to put up with it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDana Milbank, via Digby:
Delete"Having a rational discussion of serious issues in the age of truthiness is pointless, says Milbank, not because there is no broad consensus on many, but because one side is “hijacked by disinformation.”
Republicans share 200-500 percent more fake news than Democrats, an MIT study finds. Researcher Brian Guay tells Milbank the amount of bullshit floating around the right-wing disinformation ecosystem is part of the problem. Guay believes Republicans share it more because they encounter it more. (“Flood the zone with shit,” yes?)"
Brian Stelter says:
"Steve Bannon to Michael Lewis: "The Democrats don't matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit."
-----------------
Somerby's ongoing attacks against the mainstream media are right in line with Steve Bannon's strategy. In fact, Somerby's attacks don't make a lot of sense outside of such a political tactic. The existence of a free press is crucial to maintaining democracy. Somerby is bent on convincing his readers that the press is the problem, over trivialities and nitpicks that undermine faith in the accuracy of papers such as the NY Times and the Washington Post. It should be clear which interests Somerby is promoting.
Somerby lost his way, he used to fight against narratives that harmed society, now he fights for them.
DeleteTired: "De-fund the police is a terrible slogan."
ReplyDeleteWired: "De-fund the police yesterday!"
Today, Somerby wishes to convince us that (1) there were no guns in his Irish neighborhood in Boston in the 1960s (when he grew up). There were certainly fewer guns around then, but the idea that they weren't in Boston is laughable. White Boston families then didn't display them or brag about them, but they DID own them.
ReplyDeleteToday, Somerby implies that the ownership of guns by black families when Charles Blow grew up (several decades later than Somerby) is unlikely, odd, strange. Somerby talks about that strangeness multiple times, as if black people were not supposed to own guns, not allowed, or as if Blow were lying about his own past. Then Somerby talks about the gun culture of Uvalde (which is in TEXAS), implying that hispanics own the guns there, although it seems likely that many of those guns were owned by the wealthier white population of the town.
Then Somerby ties it all up with a neat bow by concluding that minorities who own guns are also part of the gun culture in America, not just white "crackers" (an offensive term). No one has ever suggested that only white people own guns in America, but Somerby's implication is clear -- don't blame white people for these racist shootings or for the gun deaths perpetrated by teens caught up in the internet's stew of hate and gun fetishism -- because minorities own guns too -- even though black mass shootings are extremely rare and hispanic ones nearly unheard of.
And in today's attempt to shift the focus from white Americans to minorities (who are more often the target of mass shootings), Somerby ignores that Ramos, the teen who shot 19 children in Uvalde, did not find his guns in his home or anyone else's home. He shot his grandmother (who was caring for him) using guns he bought from a local store shortly after turning 18 (after his sister refused to buy him a gun). Despite his ongoing mental health issues, the store sold him those guns without questions about his purposes. And then he deliberately went to a hispanic school to kill children. He made prior threats via the internet, threatened girls he wished to date, and told people he was going to kill. But Somerby wishes to blame a hispanic gun culture that has nothing to do with what Ramos did.
What kind of famous reasoning is Somerby engaging in when he ignores actual facts of this case and attempts to use a false narrative to evade the blame that squarely belongs on the right wing and its support for irresponsible gun fetishism? And this, today, after Somerby bent over backwards to excuse Kyle Rittenhouse. And said nothing about the Buffalo shooter who deliberately targeted black people in a supermarket, much as Ramos targeted these children in their local school. This didn't happen because black and hispanic families keep guns for self-defense. It happened because wayward teens are lured by the gun culture flourishing online, where adult white men pose with automatic weapons and threaten to kill those who piss them off. Much as Republicans posing with AR-15s in campaign ads do. And the NRA does in the ads it targets toward boys.
But Somerby thinks Charles Blow is odd. Somerby is your drunk uncle, with a dash of dementia thrown in.
Somerby repeats over and over that there is nothing wrong with owning guns, having them in the family home, participating in our American gun culture. He mainly objects to characterizing white Trump supporters as gun owners when others own them too. But how does this exercise in validation of the pervasiveness of gun ownership address our current crisis in mass shootings? It doesn't.
ReplyDelete"There's nothing "wrong" with a culture like that, until it turns out that there is. That said, the culture Blow describes doesn't exactly seem to make perfect sense."
What doesn't make sense about black people wanting to defend themselves in their homes? Blow grew up in the South. We only just recently enacted federal anti-lynching legislation, against Rand Paul's wishes. Somerby doesn't describe what part of Blow's experience "doesn't make perfect sense." He just keeps calling it odd.
People buy guns because they feel threatened, but also because guns make them feel powerful, in control. An underclass responds to such feelings as much as the dregs of white society, the Lauren Boeberts and Madison Cawthorns and all the Bundys, and those with resentments that drive them to kill other people.
No one has ever said that the white supremacists own all the guns in our gun-obsessed society. We have been saying that the marginalized people who own guns AND USE THEM ON THOSE THEY HATE, are a serious problem.
It should be obvious to Somerby that this shooting by Ramos of kids who could have been him, at a similar age, may be a symbolic suicide motivated by self-hate but directed outward by anger. Ramos's family tried to get help in dealing with him, but there weren't resources available. Somerby will never say anything about that -- because he doesn't give a damn about the kids or who died. He only wants to excuse white gun owers, gun manufacturers, and the political party that promotes fear to gain votes, by promising they will defend the right to own guns.
Go back and count how many times Somerby says "there's nothing wrong with that" (or an equivalent phrase). I count six times. What Somerby finds wrong is the stereotyping of the white people who DO own too many guns, and who use them too. He thinks the focus on such people by "elites" (whatever he means by that) is wrong -- not this heavy gun ownership by everybody, except his sainted mother. Even though the white people with guns are the ones using them to target minorities and children. The statistically rarer black or hispanic kid who does something similar doesn't mean that domestic terrorism by white men with guns is not a serious problem. Somerby should know better than to make this kind of bankrupt argument.
The kid who shot up the King Sooper market in Boulder was Middle Eastern, but not a Muslim terrorist. He was a disturbed young man who is still in a mental institution because he is not sane enough to try for his crimes. Such young men do not excuse the Dylan Roof's and the Payton Gendron's and the Kyle Rittenhouse's from their cold-blooded hate crimes committed because of white supremacist motives. Domestic terrorism by white hate groups or those influenced by them, is a serious threat and needs to be specifically addressed by our police and intelligence services. Somerby is trying to deflect attention from this segment of the shooting public with his focus on Uvalde. That is racist on Somerby's part, consistent with his attempts to promote conservative goals and not at all what any liberal would be saying about this subject.
And notice that despite all the stats about gun ownership, Somerby does not urge gun control at all.
"Need" is the wrong standard for Rights. The Right of Freedom of Speech means we can say what we WANT, not just what we NEED to say, Similarly, the RIght to Bear Arms isn't just restricted to arms that we NEED.
ReplyDeleteAlso, "Need" is not well-defined. If authorities restrict your speech or your arms to what they think you need, your opinion may differ from theirs. Civil liberties means YOU decide what you need to say, not the authorities.
As a practical matter, some jurisdictions where gun licensing is required are overly tight on their judgment of "need". They effectively ban gun ownership except in special circumstances.
There is no circumstance in which people who live in a society are permitted to do whatever they want, regardless of their infringement on the rights of others and the harm they may do to others and to society.
DeleteI agree with David. As a slave holder is South Carolina, I have a need to make sure I am able to put down any slave uprisings with my "well regulated militia" down the next county, since the Federal Government is opposed to a standing army. Good point, David.
DeleteThe right to bear arms is in the form of a "Well Regulated Militia", our National Guard. The gun nuts can never recite the first part of the amendment, so why should I care what they say?
DeleteD & c -are you saying that if someone wants a bazooka or a machine gun, or believes he needs one, then laws that prohibit such ownership violate the second amendment? seems like it.
DeleteAC/MA - you have a good point. The right to bear arms is not unlimited. Where to set that limit is a difficult question.
DeleteI personally don't like having my rights defined by some insane person who might abuse them. An insane person might drive a vehicle into a crowd or use fertilizer to make a bomb, but those products are shouldn't be banned.
I do agree that it's reasonable to ban weapons that are just too risky, like bombs. However, an AR-15 is no more risky than an ordinary semi-automatic hunting rifle.
@12:23 - that ship has sailed. The Supreme Court has ruled that there is a right to bear arms, independent of militia use. For better or for worse, we're stuck with that interpretation.
Thank you, David, for the view from the "Do-Nothing" Party. However, I thought your party favored "originalist" interpretation of the Constitution. Are we supposed to ignore the interpretation that we lived with for more than 200 years, up until 2008, because you said so?
DeleteIgnoring the troll comments, yes it should be a feature of our democracy that our rights are not defined by what the worst person does with them. Our troop of privates shouldn't have to run an extra mile because one guy slacked off, to use a metaphor.
DeleteAt the same time, these rights need to be curtailed to a reasonable degree. I can't have a nuclear weapon in my garage, but where is the line exactly?
LOL.
DeleteDavid thinks the Supreme Court still uses precedent from former rulings to inform their decisions.
Alito and Thomas put that old chestnut to rest.
I agree with David. As one of Al Capone's captains, the banning of tommy guns infringed on my right and "need" to enforce my bootlegging enterprise in a competitive manner.
Delete@1:28 - The Supreme Court had never ruled on the meaning of the 2nd Amendment. There was no precedent.
Delete@1:47 Liberals also sometimes go against precedent. Brown v Board of Education changed a prior Supreme Court Decision. Or, in my own field, the SEUA decision in 1944 that allowed federal regulation of insurance.
Did you read the Heller decision, David?
Delete2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56. Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Stevens, Souter, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined.
So what's your problem.?
Right wingers' vision for the world is so incredibly dark and immoral, their minds have been twisted to such a degree.
DeleteWhat a fucked up world where those that want a better society are viewed with such hate by those wounded right wing sops like Somerby and his fanboys.
Why does Somerby claim that the views of white gun owners held by liberals is "cartoonish," when there is no parody the left could create that would top the mockery Republicans have been making of themselves, especially over guns (e.g., in their campaign ads and statements).
ReplyDeleteAnother brilliant column by Somerby. The use of the word cartoon is perfect. Democrats could be helped by trying to see these issues for as they are and not through a cartoon lens. But it may be too late. Hispanics are decamping en masse from the Democratic Party as we speak.
ReplyDeleteIn your dreams...
DeleteIt's all over the news.
Deletehttps://columbustelegram.com/opinion/columnists/hispanic-voters-abandoning-democrats-ship/article_f856b4f9-2319-5292-aaff-15697969c2e1.html
"In Ominous Sign for Democrats, Poll Says Inflation Top Issue for Latinos"
DeleteIt says they are "shedding" Hispanic voters. The Democrat Party is "shedding" Hispanics, people are saying.
DeleteSo as Democrats, we have to find out why. We can't blame this one on Putin can we?
DeleteRelax.
DeleteSome shit for brains already told us 2 of every 5 new Hispanic voters aren't choosing the Democratic Party.
The lesson: Fear Right-wing mathematics at your own peril.
It's a great distraction from the Durham/ Barr comedy show, where the "Russiagate is a Democrat Plot!" story has completely fallen apart.
DeleteRussiagate was clearly a Democratic plot. That's been proven. The Sussman case was not a verdict on whether or not Russiagate was a Democratic plot!
DeleteIs that how they spin it to you? So funny.
3:11, exactly. Give Inspector Javert 3 or 4 more years and I am sure he will get to the bottom of it finally. Don't worry, you'll get to hang Hillary eventually.
DeleteOh yes, liberals have a more “cartoon” way of looking at the world than someone who would vote for Donald Trump. Tell me another.
DeleteThe Alfa bank story was concocted by the Clinton campaign and they brought it to the FBI. There's no dispute about that. It's all documented in Sussman's indictment. I don't know about all of it taking Hillary down. I don't expect that. But at least we know about it. Just like we know the DNC took out Bernie in 2016 thanks to wikileaks. Just like we know she was telling corporate fat cat bankers one thing and the public , the people who vote for her, another. Someone as powerful as her rarely gets taken down. It's just good to understand how the sausage is made. What the Clinton campaign did when they invented the Russiagate story and sold it to the FBI in the media may not have even been illegal. But it would be pretty dumb to pretend like it didn't happen. Although I know that is what you re being led to believe. Which is cool. It's not like the people who have been lying to you all along are going to admit it now.
DeleteThink about it. If you were Hispanic would you be excited to be a Democrat?
DeleteI wonder how many Hispanics were allowed to vote in that town with Boss Hoggs running the show.
Delete4:41, the best part of the trial was when the lead prosecutor was grilling Secretary Clinton and got her to confess, wouldn't you say?
DeleteRussiagate is the kind of story you get when Right-wingers convince the press not to report on the GOP's bigotry addiction.
DeleteI miss Rationalist, and his imaginary Republican voter who cares about something other than bigotry and white supremacy.
DeleteRussia, if you're listening, 4:41 needs much better talking points about how Democrats are to blame for Donald J.Trump being blackmailed by a former KGB agent.
DeleteMueller's non investigation generated an entire volume detailing the most obvious ways in which Trump was colluding with Putin and his cadre of fascist worshippers. Mueller spent a couple sentences explaining how he was too much of a right wing pansy to actually go after Trump, but then offered a large volume of evidence.
DeletePutin and Trump are extreme right wingers, denying their corruption makes you complicit. Those that deny this rather obvious circumstance, however, have so lost their minds, all they can do is spit and sputter their nonsense, rationality is a trait that has long left these morons.
Whether Dems are losing some portion of the Latin vote has been researched and found to be false; Republicans have been successful at motivating infrequent right wing Latin voters, but so have progressive Dems as we have recently seen in Texas.
Mueller found nothing of significance. Russiagate was invented because Democrats refuse to address larger more fundamental issues and Russia gave them a sideshow distraction. The key takeaway for today though is the Sussman indictment has a detailed description of how the Clinton campaign invented a false story about Trump and took it to the media and FBI. It's very interesting. It's nothing to be ashamed about. Like I said, it probably is not even illegal. It was there a attempt to swiftboat Trump. As a Clinton voter, I wish it had worked.
DeleteWhich is more cartoonish?
Delete1. Enough Americans, living in a gilded Age of economic disparity with poor job prospects and high debt, became fed up with both parties and the endemic corruption across all American institutions to elect a buffoonish outsider as a way of giving the middle finger to the system?
Or
2. A majority of American voters are racists but those of them that we're not going to vote were swayed by Facebook ads that Russia ran based on magical polling data that was given to them by a supposed Russian agent who was also a US state department source that had met with the US State Department in May of that year?
And 10 million of the racist voters who voted for the outsider candidate also voted for President Obama four years before.
DeleteWho wants to make the first stupid reply that doesn't address the issue?
DeleteTrump didn’t win the popular vote. Russia helped manipulate the vote in the electoral college to steal an election Hillary won.
DeleteThe former doesn't matter, there's no evidence for the latter.
DeleteThe key takeaway for today though is the Sussman indictment has a detailed description of how the Clinton campaign invented a false story about Trump and took it to the media and FBI.
Delete@10:09. You must think we don’t know what Sussman was accused of lying about. He told the FBI he wasn’t working for Hillary. The jury believed him. That suggests that you are the one lying now.
DeleteIt doesn't make any sense at all.
DeleteIt doesn't matter if Sussman was working for himself or Clinton when he took the false information to the fbi. What matters is that the information was false and concocted by the Clinton campaign. There's no dispute at all about that and it's all documented in the indictment. Try to man up and acknowledge the truth instead of avoiding it.
DeleteLOL.
DeleteYou believed Bill Barr and got shown to be a sucker.
Better luck next time, genius.
The important lesson to remember is political parties should never abuse the power of the FBI and the DOJ to launch bullshit politically motivated investigations of political rivals.
DeleteSigned,
Kenneth Winston Starr and James B Comey
Exactly. Thank you 5:45 a.m. You're exactly right in what you say here about "both sides".
Delete8:16, Let me help you out with your faulty reading comprehension.
DeleteEvery radical republican accusation is a confession. There are no exceptions.
I just want to say the Sussman indictment has a detailed description of how the Clinton campaign invented a false story about Trump and took it to the media and FBI.
Delete10:44,
DeleteIsn't that a crime? Providing false information to the FBI? What was the verdict on that count? What was the "false" information the "Clinton campaign" invented?
The "false" information the "Clinton campaign" invented was that computer servers owned by Alfa Bank, a major Russian financial institution, and one linked to the Trump Organization, were being used for secret back-channel communications. Not sure if it was a crime. They could claim plausible deniability maybe. Don't know.
DeleteWhat could possibly have happened to a child to have them grow up and believe anything Bill Barr says?
DeleteI shudder at the thought of how abused they were.
The idea that it would take a a foreign enemy (or in this case a foreign country with Republican Senators on the payroll) to get Republican voters amped-up to vote for a bigot, is the stupidest thing you'll read on the internet today.
Delete(I don't fault you if you still believe the claims.)
DeleteNope, that is not the "lie" that Sussman was charged with.
DeleteAnyway, you seem confused. Wasn't it the "Deep State" that plotted to take down DJT? You seem to have things upside down and are claiming it was the Clinton campaign taking down the FBI? LOL, sorry you're such a dumb shit. Any other help I can offer, please let me know.
Here's the whole sordid story from the Great Barry Meier:
Deletehttps://www.thenation.com/article/politics/alfa-bank-ping-russiagate/tnamp/
I wasn't claiming that was what Sussman was charged with.
DeleteRussiagate is a corporate-media driven invention, designed to make people think all Republican voters aren't bigots.
DeleteYou'd have to be in denial about who Republican voters are to fall for it.
Just read the Sussman indictment. It's fascinating.
DeleteSo interesting to see your avoidance responses when you can't address.the substance of the issue. Very pathetic.
DeleteSorry you're such a disappointed dunski. Don't worry, Donald J Chickenshit is going to get her next time, Magat.
Delete11:48, what was the lie Sussman told the FBI that he wasn't charged with? LOL
DeleteNo Republican voted for Trump because of Trump's 4+ decade history of stiffing his contractors/ employees.
DeleteYou lost another argument about Russiagate. You'll always lose that one.
DeleteRussia, if you're listening, please explain to 11:48 "which Trump associate had advance knowledge of Russia’s criminal hack-and-leak operation and whether they had any criminal exposure in it.".
DeleteYou'll always lose this one. That's why I comment about it. I don't like to see our people lose and look foolish like you do. It's very bad for us and our brand.
DeleteAdmitting mistakes and facing inconvenient truths makes you stronger. Avoiding them and denying them makes you weaker.
DeleteRussia, if you're listening, the quality of your trolls is declining dramatically. Suggest you stop using Slavs.
Delete1:27,
DeleteIt needs to be said anytime the media mentions a Republican Party member.
The Republican Party is fascist.
Cool.
DeleteWell that would be easier and require less thought. Sounds like the right choice!
ReplyDeleteI don't think you can call it a black or brown gun culture in the same way as there is a white gun culture. For example, the black and brown people who own guns are not frequenting the gun shows or visit the gun stores the way white people do. They aren't the backbone of the NRA and they don't join militias. They weren't the ones harrassing the BLM protesters with their pickup trucks, MAGA bumper stickers and Trump flags flying. They aren't welcome and don't go to Trump rallies. If they have a concealed carry permit, they don't take their gun in their gun in their car, for fear of winding up like Philando Castile. They aren't hunters either. Their subculture is very different than the one people describe by the term "gun culture."
ReplyDeleteIn some neighborhoods in urban areas, there is a drug subculture that involves guns. That isn't the same thing as a gun culture, because no one is fetishizing guns. They are protecting themselves and weapons are used in their work. In border areas of Texas, guns are used for protection from both coyotes (human traffickers), border vigilantes hunting undocumented people with brown skin, and those who cross the border in desperate circumstances without water or food, looting residences. They too do not fetishize guns.
Male teens are attracted to guns in order to feel manly and to evoke reactions from others, perhaps admiration, fear, or control. It is the same thing that the Trump supporters are seeking. Consequence, unearned respect, inclusion by others who similarly admire guns, a sense of belonging. It is pathetic that guns are an avenue to fulfill such human longings, and not bowling teams or Elks/Moose/Kiwanis or even car clubs. People don't engage in shared interests face-to-face anymore, so all such clubs have seen waning attendance. But it is easier to conservatives to blame the breakdown of the family or lack of religion, or CRT in the schools, than to acknowledge that politics has become a sense of identity for floundering white males who feel their sense of importance being undermined. But that's what it is. And Trump is their King. And no, black and brown people are not part of that subculture. Their families and their work give them importance and they have no sense of losing their privilege because they didn't have it to begin with. Tarring black and brown gun owners with the white gun kook brush is both inaccurate and morally wrong when they are also the likely victims of white gun culture.
Uvalde County voted for Trump in 2020—did so by a 20-point margin!
ReplyDeleteI have no empathy left for these fools.
Do Hispanic voters recoil from the
DeleteDems endless pandering to black
People? Do they feel threatened by
a criminal element from Mexico
in these areas? Really, I have no
idea. It seems to me it’s possible
these questions might be raised in
a respectable fashion. But I wouldn’t
expect that from Bob, he is only
interested in bashing the left.
Good point Greg.
DeleteHello!
DeleteYou have been randomly chosen to participate in a one-question survey.
If you find yourself in a crowded elevator and you suddenly realize a foul and offensive odor, would you:
A) Ignore it to the best of your abilities
B) Deny any and all involvement in the production of the odor
C) Blame it on the person standing to your left
D) Claim complete responsibility for the production of the offensive odor, even if you didn't produce it!
If you chose option D, then you should check out a wonderful website, mrmethane.com. You will be most pleased!
Thank you for your participation.
This is of “all over the map” Howler. Yes,
ReplyDeletewe learn Bob hates the liberals he sees on
TV, and that Bob is willing to simply
their views as he accuses them of
simplifying others. Beyond that he
sort of rambles around. What does
The Town going for Trump have to
do with the massacre?
It’s almost as if Bob, being unable to
write about the disaster or the coverage
of it a serious fashion just feels the need
to fill space.