I’ve been pretty angry and upset over this whole Tygpress.com thing over the past three or four days. But in the scheme of things, it’s small potatoes compared with what’s going on in the United States.
At least 53 people were shot dead and many more were wounded by separate mass shooting incidents in just this past week.
Within 13 hours of the El Paso shooting, where 20 people were shot and killed yesterday, another 10 people were shot and killed in Dayton, Ohio last night. In both cases, high capacity, military-style, semiautomatic assault rifles were used to inflict maximum casualties.
A mass shooting is “an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree. This may include the gunman himself, or police shootings of civilians around the gunman.”
As of August 4th, 2019, 251 mass shootings that fit that definition have occurred just this year. As a result, more than 1,000 people have been shot, and more than 280 have died.
When is enough enough? When will our elected representatives in Congress and our elected officials around the country stop sending out their thoughts and prayers, which do no good whatsoever, and take meaningful action to address this epidemic?
Republicans keep repeating the NRA mantra, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” But guns do kill people, and when you have more guns in this country than you have men, women, and children, and a divisive President who sows the seeds of racist and nationalistic hatred, what the fuck do you expect?
Republicans continue to blame anything but guns. One former Republican senator, expressing the NRA screed that “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” blamed the El Paso massacre on not enough gun-carrying shoppers at the Walmart. Another current Republican congressman blamed violent video games. Are you kidding me?
Wake the fuck up, America. It’s time to do more than to send useless thoughts and prayers. It’s time to take definitive action to pass common sense gun control legislation on the federal level. Otherwise, mass shootings in America will be an everyday occurrence and we risk becoming numb to this deadly assault against our fellow citizens.
Photo credit: Andres Leighton / AP.
This, That, and the Other 
I didn’t realize more killed in Dayton. It’s time to remove all assault rifles from the public’s hands.
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I totally agree.
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it’s so odd that more people don’t scream to pass the assault weapons ban AGAIN. We had it for over ten years and according to the FBI statistics there we NO MASS SHOOTINGS when the ban was in effect. Gee, how can there possibly be a corollary????
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The news has been so disheartening. I watch from your northern cousin and am dismayed 😦 God Bless you all.
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It’s good to keep things in perspective. Thank you, Fandango!
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TERRORISTS USED BOX CUTTERS!!! When are people going to wake up and realize it’s not the weapon that’s killing people, it’s hate!!!
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It’s hate and it’s access to semiautomatic assault weapons. Hate is bad, but hate coupled with a deadly weapon is, well, deadly. By the way, when was the last time box cutters were used to commit mass murders? 18 years ago.when was the last time guns were used to commit mass murders. ALMOST EVERY FUCKING DAY!
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so far as the fbi statistics..box cutters have been used exactly 3 times for terrorist killings..and all three times occurred on the same day aboard individual aircraft…….on 9/11/01. These guns kill massive amounts of people all at once and have no place in an enlightened society. they are NOT for hunting, for sport or for “collectors” to look at. they are entirely for killing as many people as possible in a tiny amount of time. Tell ya what..let’s just ban white males, christian, under the age of 50…better? everyone else can just have a weapon of war
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I have to say that I think video games don’t help. They attract and to some extent train the same sorts of attitude that are also encouraged by the Difficult Toddler.
That is not to say that we don’t need meaningful gun control. That is way over due.
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“We will never know what is “enough” until we know what is ‘more than enough”. I think we have seen MORE THAN ENOUGH OF MASS SHOOTINGS. It is time for action. Time to vote out those who support the NRA, and those who stop control laws from being passed in the senate.
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I heartily agree, to see the madness from across the pond, in Britain it seems insane. You only have to look at NZ to see what progressive real leadership is, after their white supremacist mosque shooter, guns handed in and their measure of development is now not GDP but a kind of happiness index. I really hope Trump doesn’t get a second bite at the presidential cherry and that Boris Johnson loses in a general election, the brexit party is defeated and common sense and unity prevails. For fuck sake, these people are the leaders of the real world and I wouldn’t trust any of them to shut the gate after I leave my folks house. Great Post Mr Fandango
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Thank you. I think we all hope the insanity will stop soon.
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…. and I wouldn’t trust any of these people to shut the gate …
WISE WORDS
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Thanks, I’m the only one to shut that gate, there again I wouldn’t want to be in charge of anything more than shutting the gate!!
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I just saw the report from Dayton on the news here. It certainly puts things into perspective. I hate guns.
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It’s good to hear something from an American. We hear of your shootings in the UK, and there is lots of “what a pity”, and “why don’t they do something about it?” but unfortunately, not many proposed solutions, our analyses just don’t go anywhere near deep enough.
How do you think we solve it? Out pre-conceptions and that the NRA funds both sides so political will to change is non-existent, also that a lot of people carry weapons to protect themselves from the excesses of the state itself. Are these valid assumptions?
Sorry, very blunt questions for such a sensitive issue.
In some respects the NRA are right, people *do* kill people. But there are people who’d do this the world over. The difference between our society and your’s is that your’s seems to give them the means to make it happen.
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The NRA funds candidates who support the free and open proliferation of guns and it’s mostly Republican (conservative) candidates who do so. As to carrying defensive weapons, fine. Our Bill of Rights allows people to bear arms, but civilians don’t need military-style assault weapons that can mow down dozens of people in minutes. And yes, our fucked up society does give people the means to commit mass shootings. It’s outrageous.
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I’ve thought for some time that you need to stop groups like the NRA from having influence on politicians. That would mean visiting political funding, a massive step. Then hoping that politicians see sense. But as for all the weapons that are already out there…I’ve not managed to think of any solution which wouldn’t itself be bloody, that’s why I wondered if you’d thought of one.
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Some countries have used gun buy-back programs that have had a positive impact. I don’t know if that would work in the U.S., though.
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Incidentally Fandango, do you know how the NRA raises money to fund the politicians? Presumably largely from the manufacturers themselves?
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Yes, from gun manufacturers and from dues paying members and from merchandise sales.
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They do get it from manufacturers, and the dues (what a crock). I don’t know anything about their merchandise. They also got lots of money (etc.) from Russia for the 2016 election cycle.
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I never visited their site before, but of course they have one complete with a store. Like a baseball team or something. I find that really quite sick, but I guess you’re used to it. God knows how much money they make from this stuff, but it’s certainly available.
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Some people should never be allowed to own a gun and nobody needs to have an automatic weapon.
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I totally agree.
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Great post, and I agree 100%
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
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I hadn’t heard any of the news at all. See I am an ostrich (maybe a very apt comparison too, but I bet my blood pressure is a lot lower because of it too). I heard about those shootings in church of all places. Yeah. This world is f*cked up.
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Good to hear these words from another country, thanks so very much. I see Moms stormed the White House this morning asking for gun control. We need to keep at it.
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One former Republican senator, expressing the NRA screed that “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” blamed the El Paso massacre on not enough gun-carrying shoppers at the Walmart.
They’re not satisfied that guns are available on the shelves.
They want everyone in there to fund the industry for which they are lobbyists.
It’s all about the Benjamins…
… and Russia’s efforts to destroy us from within, in part by working with the NRA…
… to get hateful money-grubbers elected … culminating, so far, in hater Donald Trump.
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Nothing is going to change. If something was going to change, it would have happened awhile ago. This is because the US government is run by money and special interests. It’s the same reason why we have endless wars.
Most people want gun control, most people don’t want endless wars, most people realize that we have to do something about global warming. But the government is owned by greed and extremists who don’t represent the interests of the people. If change is to occur, the whole system needs to change.
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I cannot disagree with your comment. I feel the same way.
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I’m 90% with you, but we need to just go that bit further and think about *how* it needs to change. Remove the influence of money, sure, but how?
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One way is to require campaigns be publicly financed with a limited budget rather than as a free for all.
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Another is to change laws about lobbyists.
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That’s not all, though.
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Oh, hey. I’m buying Moscow Mitch merch, to help Kentucky Democrats get rid of Mitch McConnell (Speaker of the House) in 2020. A person could also contribute directly to his opponent’s campaign. So, yeah, that’s fighting fire with fire — for now.
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I agree with you. I think you’d be able to change the laws on lobbyists, that’d happen naturally after you changed the rules on funding. The goal should be that come election time, a politician is responsible only to their eletors.
How comfortable are you with that, though? State funding of political campaigns? It’s not something that particularly bothers me but does it not run counter to the US ethos?
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We (UK) have rules about how much can be spent, but (a) they don’t seem very watertight and (b) enforcement seems to be half-hearted. A local campaign is subject to rules, a national campaign isn’t, so I suspect it’s easy to fudge them. Requires political willpower and the politicians who win elections are generally the beneficiaries.
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Enforcement is an issue. Takes will, competance, and more money.
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It does run counter to the ethos of some people, not sure what percentage. I think mainly of those who call themselves very conservative or libertarian. Maybe Trump’s base (which is a disgrace to traditional conservatism to some extent but maybe the face of the mask pulled off).
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Overturn Citizens United and have Congress passes campaign finance reform laws.
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At this point, there has been so much damage done, a lot of it originating from the Reagan administration decades ago, so change won’t come overnight. It’s going to take many years. One thing we can do is to try to elect politicians who represent the people’s interests, not just their own. Politicians who want to stop endless wars, overturn Citizens United, and a whole slew of anti-corporate interest decisions. Bernie Sanders and AOC aren’t perfect, but they are easily among the best politicians the US has at a federal level because they recognize that the government should be a tool for the people.
But, this also means that things have to get worse before they get better. A reason why we so the popularity of a Sanders or an AOC is Trump. Trump isn’t some anomaly, but a representation of the US at its worst. I think it’s very likely that Trump will win a second tern and, hopefully, this will spur the progressives even more. True progressives who represent the working and middle classes, unions, and who want to act against the corps and their influence.
But, again, in order to make a substantial change to the system it’s going to take decades of contributing to progressive movements and politicians. Reagan basically derailed everything and led us to where we are now. But it’s not completely hopeless, but the short-term is going to be miserable no matter what.
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I hope you’re wrong about Trump winning a second term, but I fear that you’re right.
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I like that Bernie and Elizabeth have decided not to pick on each other.
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I wouldn’t mind if they ran together.
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Unlikely.
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Absolutely, excellent post.
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Thanks.
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I agree with you 100%. Very well written. Maybe we need a badge for “We wouldn’t need thoughts and prayers if we have gun laws (and lawmakers) that prioritize people over weapons and profit”?
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How about this?
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LOVE It!!! You are quite talented in graphics as well as words! I just added a link to this post as well. Would it be ok for me to include your newest creation to that post? Pretty please?!
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Yes you may, but I can’t take credit for it. It’s actually an image of a print by “robisrael.”
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Oh! I just looked him up! He has s T-shirt with that image on it! 😁
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I need to get me one. It’s perfect!
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Yes! We can be twinsies…😉
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Where’s their concern for Ukraine being able to count on funds (that Congress formally allotted and that were pre-cleared in terms of Ukraine’s behavior) to support their defense against Russia?
https://apple.news/A3duRSkMJRxekDerWdY2LNQ
…. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” the Rolling Stones anthem that has become Trump’s theme song, blared over the church loudspeaker in Spanish when he finished his speech. Maybe “Onward Christian Soldiers” would have been more appropriate.
Trump painted himself as a president who is protecting American evangelicals from those on the political left who want to “punish” people of faith and “destroy religion in America.” One of the evangelical Christians in the audience screamed “Pocohontas,” a racist reference to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Trump was visibly pleased.
Trump the strongman was on display. Like autocratic leaders before him, he stirred fear among his people and offered them safety under his regime.
……….
I am used to this kind of thing from Trump, but I was stunned when I witnessed evangelical Christians — those who identify with the “good news” of Jesus Christ —raising their hands in a posture of worship as Trump talked about socialism and gun rights.
……..
I usually get angry when members of my tribe worship at the feet of Trump. This time I just felt sad.
{John Fea, a history professor at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania… }
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It makes me feel sad, too. Very, very sad.
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I couldn’t agree more Fandango. I’m sick of the same response again and again. Lot of good it’ll do to ease the pain of that kind of loss, never mind the candles at midnight. Get rid of the damn guns and we wouldn’t have to be terrified of shopping or going to the movie theatre 😢
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A mass shooting is “an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree. This may include the gunman himself, or police shootings of civilians around the gunman.”
As of August 4th, 2019, 251 mass shootings that fit that definition have occurred just this year. As a result, more than 1,000 people have been shot, and more than 280 have died.
Can you tell me your source(s) for this, Fandango? Especially… I’m reading a different number of total mass shootings this year at some else’s site. And your number is more like what I’ve heard in the news. But I haven’t made note of a spokesman or source.
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Wikipedia using the search term “Mass Shootings 2019.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_2019
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Thank you.
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Love the robisrael print! There has to be a point where we hit a big enough number of innocents killed when congress will wake up.
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I don’t know. I thought after those poor elementary school kids at Sandy Hook in Connecticut Congress would have done something. But no. Then the Parkland shooting in Florida. The nightclub, church shootings, synagogue shootings, shopping centers, movies, bars, concerts. Still nothing. All anyone gives are thoughts and prayers.
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Thoughts and prayers are nice, but they do nothing. I have to hold onto hope for 2020 to change things, if we can all survive until then. 😦
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I come from a country where guns are only seen in action movies and the bad guys are usually killed not in a shootout but a measured shot or sniper shot to minimise casualties. This is why I don’t understand American’s fascination with guns. In a period of invasion, I could understand, but in peacetime? The reasoning of having guns in the house escapes me.
“Otherwise, mass shootings in America will be an everyday occurrence and we risk becoming numb to this deadly assault against our fellow citizens.” – a true warning indeed. What a well written piece of work against guns.
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America was created in a bloody revolution and our founding fathers wanted to protect citizens from invasion or insurrection by allowing “well-regulated militias” the right to bear arms. But they never envisioned that anyone and everyone would live in a virtually unregulated society with high-capacity, semiautomatic killing machines.
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I learned this is in a freshman US history course in college. Makes you wonder that such a basic fact of history is either not known or misinterpreted.
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Or interpreted in the most convenient way.
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You’re so right. It IS time to take action not say words.
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At least one bill has already been passed in the House on this subject; like other bills on additional issues, though, Moscow Mitch has refused bringing it to the floor for a vote in the Senate.
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My mother and I had this exact conversation yesterday.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/oan-trumps-new-favorite-channel-employs-kremlin-paid-journalist?ref=scroll
… ironic given he is working for a Russian outlet fingered in the 2016 election attack.
………….
In all of Rouz’s OAN segments reviewed by The Daily Beast, he is introduced as a “One America correspondent,” with no disclosure of his work for Russia’s state-owned media, where he continues to file stories daily, primarily on economic news.
“This completes the merger between Russian state-sponsored propaganda and American conservative media,” said former FBI agent Clint Watts, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “We used to think of it as ‘They just have the same views’ or ‘They use the same story leads.’ But now they have the same personnel.”
Rouz didn’t respond to email and telephone inquiries for this story. Reached by email, OAN President Charles Herring invited The Daily Beast to submit written questions about the network’s arrangement with Rouz. But after receiving the questions, Herring cut off contact.
Online records show Rouz graduated from Novosibirsk State University in 2010 and went on to earn a master’s degree in international relations at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics. His byline first appears on Sputnik in December 2014.
A few months later, he emigrated to the U.S., settling in Los Angeles in the spring of 2015, where he played guitar for an indie rock band called White Tar.
A former bandmate, whose stage name is Jov Paradice, told The Daily Beast that Rouz was secretive about his day job, except to say ……
……………..
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Trump’s New Favorite Channel Employs Kremlin-Paid Journalist
Sr. National Security Correspondent
Updated Nov. 02, 2019 2:02AM ET
Published Jul. 22, 2019 4:41AM ET
If the stories broadcast by the Trump-endorsed One America News Network sometimes look like outtakes from a Kremlin trolling operation, there may be a reason. One of the on-air reporters at the 24-hour network is a Russian national on the payroll of the Kremlin’s official propaganda outlet, Sputnik.
Kristian Brunovich Rouz, originally from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, has been living in San Diego, where OAN is based, since August 2017, reporting on U.S. politics for the 24-hour news channel. For all of that time, he’s been simultaneously writing for Sputnik, a Kremlin-owned news wire that played a role in Russia’s 2016 election-interference operation, according to an assessment by the U.S. intelligence community.
Rouz’s on-air reports for OAN include a wholly fabricated 2017 segment claiming Hillary Clinton is secretly bankrolling antifa through her political action committee. Clinton, Rouz claimed falsely, gave antifa protesters $800,000 that “went toward things like bricks, hammers, bats, and chains.”
Other smears target billionaire financier George Soros, a longtime Kremlin bête noire. In one segment, Rouz amplified a thoroughly debunked claim that Soros collaborated with the Nazis during World War II… …
Kremlin propaganda sometimes sneaks into Rouz’s segments on unrelated matters, dropped in as offhand background information. …
[This article goes on for quite a while. It’s worth reading.]
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“This completes the merger between Russian state-sponsored propaganda and American conservative media,” said former FBI agent Clint Watts, a research fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “We used to think of it as ‘They just have the same views’ or ‘They use the same story leads.’ But now they have the same personnel.”
Rouz didn’t respond to email and telephone inquiries for this story. Reached by email, OAN [One America News] President Charles Herring invited The Daily Beast to submit written questions about the network’s arrangement with Rouz. But after receiving the questions, Herring cut off contact.
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https://www.npr.org/2018/05/11/610206357/documents-reveal-how-russian-official-courted-conservatives-in-u-s-since-2009
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I found the following article, today, because I was looking for information on Patrick Hussion — as I tune into this warped station from time to time (to see what they’re up to). I would not call even his show straight news (as it is billed).
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/story/2019-09-26/one-america-news-san-diego
One America News counts Trump as a fan. But the San Diego channel is fighting for millions more viewers
September 27, 2019
In a television studio tucked into a Bay Ho business park, Graham Ledger looks into a camera and opens with his signature line: “Stand by. The doors to the newsroom are locked and the PC police are not getting in.”
…
…
….
…
…
…
The network, called OAN or OANN for short, has a fan in President Donald Trump, who has praised the channel to his 62 million followers on Twitter, particularly as his cozy relationship with Fox News begins to show fractures.
“Watching Fake News CNN is better than watching … @FoxNews,” …
…
….
“One America News has a lot of information to release on Ukraine that will leave President Trump very happy,” the network’s founder and CEO Robert Herring Sr. teased in a tweet earlier this week amid the latest political firestorm.
…………………………
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Good grief; this channel has a swearing-in going on right now, as if that’s a good getting-to-the-truth. We’ve got Okhendovskyi, Artemenko, Telizhenko, Giuliani, and so on.
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Trump Trial …. Giuliani’s Ukraine Trip Baggage [with OAN] | MSNBC (Ari Melber)
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Counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226 percent increase in hate crimes
~ The Washington Post
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🤦🏼♂️
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Assault weapons are a safety issue. Can you imagine if a political party kowtowed to the auto industry and refused to legislate a requirement for seat belts back in the 60s? One day society will look back at us and shake their heads and wonder how we could have been so stupid to allow those guns in our country.
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I wonder that today. And I wonder why Republicans stubbornly refuse to take any action. Actually I know why…big donations from the NRA.
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Man, all the guns laws in California and somehow a madman was still able to shoot people in California. I wonder how many people were murdered in Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, NYC. It seems as if only people in El Paso and Dayton were murdered over the weekend.
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Good point. Too bad there aren’t strict gun control laws at the federal level instead a patchwork of state laws that enable people to buy just about whatever guns they want to in Nevada and bring them into California.
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Maybe they should make murder illegal.
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Maybe “they” should make mass murder more difficult by outlawing civilian ownership of high-capacity, military-style, semiautomatic assault rifles.
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Hahahahaha, right, cause murder and mass murder never existed before the gun. Gosh Fandango, I had no idea you were so sheltered.
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Other than with bombs, terrorists flying planes into buildings, or gas chambers, tell me about modern day mass murders that happen with great regularity that DON’T involve guns, please. Help us shelter me, BC.
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Knives, automobiles, chemical attacks, acid attacks, don’t forget about the Flint water crisis, let’s not forget about mass starvation, tribal conflicts in African countries, the cartels, medical malpractice, beheadings on a weekly basis in Muslim countries, stonings in a weekly basis in Muslim countries, Malitov cocktails, Somali pirates, stranglings…etc.
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Most automobile deaths are accidents, not pre-meditated mass murders. Mass murder by knife? Really? Mass murder by medical malpractice? And if you would have bothered to read my comment, I referred to develop countries, not third-world countries. You are really reaching, BC, which demonstrates just how flaccid your argument is. By the way, look up the definition of “mass SHOOTINGS,” which is what this whole discussion is about. But you seem to want to distract and deflect. Just like someone else I know.
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Tell me then Fandango, what is the definition of “mass shooting”?
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The gunman in Gilroy got his gun from a neighboring state and brought it across the state border. Similarly (while differently), one of the other gunmen had his newly-bought gun shipped to a place other than his home, near his chosen target, and picked it up on the way. In Dayton, the gunman was stopped in HALF a minute, but he (one person alone) had already killed 9! Unless you think a defensive bullet can be telepathically delivered to incapacitate a perpetrator by thought as soon as anyone sees a killer, high capacity rapid-fire weaponry (especially the ammunition) ought to be limited and carefully regulated in our country. In El Paso, I’ve heard, at least one person said she normally takes a gun with her everywhere she goes… but that day she had felt she didn’t need it for a short trip to Wal-Mart.
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Whoa, so you’re saying that a murderer intentionally broke the law?!?!? How could that happen? I thought laws were supposed to protect us! Life and death happens whether we like it or not.
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You’re argument is completely nihilistic. Yes, criminals break the law. We still have laws. I know you play with these notions in alternating fashion on a habitual basis depending on what you think will throw a chaos bomb into the conversation at any time, but unless you’re in favor of complete anarchy (not only in terms of guns), it’s nonsensical.
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So, do Laws actually work? Have any laws actually prevented anything up to this point? It’s quite convenient the sudden sympathy, why the outrage only over these past 3 events?
So, what are we to believe when laws don’t actually do anything? There is more anarchy in the world today, the more laws we adopt.
There is more discipline in an anarchical dystopia than there is in America today.
Keep on drinking the koolaid of Law and order, allow yourself to be fooled time and time again.
On another note, are you and Fandango sleeping together? You seem quite smitten with him and quite defensive as well. Just an observation.
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Trump said he was “the law and order candidate” — I didn’t vote for him. Besides the fact he’s a liar about his concern for the law, the terminology has been largely co-opted by racists.
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Hahahahahahaha, ah, the racist thing again. Man, that excuse has long since passed where it even means anything.
So, let me get this straight, trump is the first businessman/politician that lies? Man Marleen, you have quite the low tolerance for real life.
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Meaning of racist: “a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.” Yes, being racist is definitely Donald Trump’s thing.
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Is that the textbook definition? Do you discriminate against those you deem racist or prejudice? Are you prejudiced against those you deem racist?
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I don’t care for nor do I knowingly associate with racist. So, yes, as a man with discriminating tastes and values, yes, I do discriminate against such people.
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Funny how that always works both ways.
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Being a racist who discriminates against people with black, brown, yellow, or red skins, people from other countries, or people with other religions or sexual orientation is very different than someone who is a discriminating person.
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Discrimination is discrimination and prejudice is prejudice. You or anyone for that matter doesn’t get to change the meaning of words based on lackadaisical complacency or simple convenience. Fandango, you should know better.
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The lax gun laws are the problem, along with the misplaced belief that every citizen is a member of a WELL-REGULATED MILITIA.
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Hahahahaha, well, it’s seems with more regulation comes more gun control. Fandango, you seem to fancy yourself quite the intellectual, do you know the meaning of “well regulated”? Do you know what the meaning of “shall not be infringed” is?
So Fandango, where do you place your trust? Whom shall protect your family? It seems as if you are quite the totalitarian!
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Yes, I know the meaning of well regulated, but you apparently think it means free-for-all, where anybody can do anything they want any time they want to. I’m far from totalitarian. I am merely opposed to having civilians owning military-grade assault weapons. Handguns are fine for self-defense in one’s home, but a 30, 50, or 100 round magazine to fend off a housebreaker is, shall we say, a bit overkill.
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Are you a firearms instructor Fandango? What experience or knowledge do you base you lofty premonitions on?
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My only experience with firearms was when I served in the army. But I know the difference between defensive weapons and offense weapons. Do you, or do you think there is no difference?
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Please, enlighten me with the difference between defensive and offensive weapons.
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It’s almost like you have no idea what you are demanding, but regardless, you demand it anyway. Do you always live by the mantra “my way or the highway”?
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What are you prepared to do Fandango? How far are you willing to go to force others to live and abide by your standards? It’s easy to type up a placated blog to feign your virtue, but really, what action will you take?
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Yes, I know the meaning of well regulated, but you apparently think it means free-for-all, where anybody can do anything they want any time they want to. I’m far from totalitarian. I am merely opposed to having civilians owning military-grade assault weapons. Handguns are fine for self-defense in one’s home.
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Again, what experience do you refer to when making these proclamations? What experience do you have with firearms? What experience do you have with conflict and confrontation?
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I’m done with you, BC. Continuing to “debate” with you is pointless. Ta ta for now.
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You can sit down now Fandango, I know it’s hard to open your mind and your heart to the truth of the world and humanity. You’re all tuckered out.
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You accused me of falling for “Law and order” “koolaid” — and I responded to that. But what the hell would you care? (You’re all about chaos.)
Also, there is such thing as racism, even if the word is sometimes wrongly used. Some people are too stupid or evil to be able to see the difference.
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Oh, so what people are stupid or evil?
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So why does the U.S. have the highest gun violence rate of all developed countries around the globe? Hmm, I wonder why other countries have video games, people with mental illness, the internet, social media, and many of those countries are less religious than the U.S., and yet mass shootings are extremely rare. I can’t imagine what’s different, can you?
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Hahahahaha, so, what countries exactly don’t have “mass” murder? I think you catch onto the “gun”. Tell me Fandango, what type of murder doesn’t bother you? What’s the difference between violence and gun violence?
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If we see someone with bomb material (the actual material or a device), we can immediately report it or shout out about it in a bar based on laws. (Trump has even blamed people/neighbors for not reporting packages [cardboard boxes] being delivered — which is him being asinine and maybe racist [like, it would make sense to report cardboard boxes if your neighbor is brown]. {I know you don’t care about the racist part, but maybe you recognize (while you’re not likely to admit it) or somebody cares (if only for their own sake) that receiving unidentified boxes shouldn’t be a reportable offense. We ought to also be allowed alarm and reporting situations if we see someone carrying a gun with hundred-round capacity attached walking down the street, even if a person holding it hasn’t shot it within our vision.
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I get packages in cardboard boxes delivered to my home nearly every day. It’s extremely unlikely that anyone would deliver a bomb in a cardboard box to my neighborhood. But anyone walking around carrying a 100-round semiautomatic rifle is not intending to deliver a box of cat food. Why the fuck would ANYONE need to be walking around the city or town streets with such a weapon? Besides, cardboard boxes are not made to kill. Guns are made exclusively for that purpose.
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Trump has even blamed people/neighbors for not reporting packages [cardboard boxes] being delivered — which is him being asinine and maybe racist [like, it would make sense to report cardboard boxes if your neighbor is brown]. {I know you don’t care about the racist part, but maybe you recognize (while you’re not likely to admit it) or somebody cares (if only for their own sake) that receiving unidentified boxes shouldn’t be a reportable offense [or, to Trump, suspect on you if you don’t report it].[}]
I get packages all the time, too. It should be obvious to anyone Trump was being asinine. (The alternative is racist.)
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Sorry…
Meant to put that first paragraph in italics or quotation marks.
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If we see someone with bomb material (the actual material or a device), we [already] can immediately report it or shout out about it in a bar based on [current] laws. [….] We ought to also be allowed alarm and reporting [of] situations if we see someone carrying a gun with hundred-round capacity attached walking down the street, even if a person holding it hasn’t shot it within our vision.
That’s a relatively moderate position. And I think that’s completely sensible in terms of ammunition regulation. Maybe, additonally, a person with a regular gun that fits in a purse ought to be able to shoot a person with a hundred rounds attached to a gun walking around in the streets, or maybe a person ought to be able to come out of their house with their own gun an take that guy out?
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https://www.newsweek.com/trump-owes-nearly-500000-el-paso-maga-rally-says-he-will-visit-city-after-massacre-1452703
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Tacked on to that are late fees, which bring the bill to more than $500,000. Here [link at site] is the list of fees charged to the Trump campaign rally.
“The city staff have followed the process and procedures as it relates to any invoicing that we provide, and we will continue to do so accordingly as per city and state policies,” said Laura Cruz-Acosta, communications director for the city of El Paso.
The city sent the Trump campaign invoices for six months, saying the campaign had an outstanding invoice for city services like police protection, fire department, aviation, buses and the health department, according to KSAT.
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https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/06/president-trump-el-paso-rally/2787670002/
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Mayor Dee Margo, a Republican, tweeted that “El Paso was NEVER one of the MOST dangerous cities in the US.”
On [a] Wednesday [early in February], Margo cast Trump’s visit as positive for the city.
“I’ve been saying for months that I want to talk about the border and now he’s coming to El Paso,” Margo told the El Paso Times. “I hope he’ll allow me the chance to visit with him.”
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State Rep. César Blanco, a Democrat who represents El Paso, called the rally “a slap in the face to our community.”
“His fear mongering and lies have hurt our border economy and community — one of the safest cities in America, even before the wall,” he said in a statement. “He lied in his national address from the oval office, he lied on his visit to McAllen, and he lied in the State of the Union. We should not be rolling out the red carpet, so he can come lie in our backyard.
“There are so many positive things he can learn about on his trip to El Paso, but who are we kidding. We need leaders that want to actually promote El Paso for the asset it is, not slander it.”
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As a Christian myself, I’m tired of simply “thoughts and prayers.” We need more than prayers–we need prayers to turn into action.
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Or heck, action without prayers. But action is needed. Desperately.
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I completely agree!
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This is a powerful and insightful article which really challenged me, thank you for that. I am Australian and have tried to respond to these recent mass shootings in an article on my blog. I would be really interested to hear your thoughts on my article if you have time to read it. Thank you 🙂
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Your post was very insightful. I read it and left a comment on your blog.
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