Your mission: Using the above chart, it should be possible to discern just what chemicals are floating around Trump’s head. Once you solve the mystery drop a call to the EPA, FDA, and of course, the BBA (that’s Barbers and Beauticians Association) to prevent this toxic mix. The chart is from the folks at Compound Interest. Visit their site for a full-sized version.
Last week, I began writing the APR just as the word of events in Orlando was starting to hit the news. At first it seemed perhaps no one had died. Then it seemed perhaps that as many as seven people had died. Then twenty. Then … Here we are. It’s only been a week. One long week.
The New York Times looks at stopping the next shooter before he shoots.
How does a democratic society counter self-radicalization and prevent domestic attacks by those who have absorbed the call of terrorist groups to kill innocent civilians? …
There is simply no way to monitor all the phone calls, social media postings, emails and other methods that might be used by extremists to reach those susceptible to their propaganda. Even if there were, doing that would transform an open society into one in which government monitoring is pervasive.
Not that this isn’t a valuable question, but in the case of Omar Mateen, it more and more appears to be the wrong question. Sure. The radicalization of people living in the West does occur. It occurs to people who come under the thrall of the murderers in ISIS or al-Qaeda. It occurs to people who come under the thrall of the murderers in the KKK or Aryan Nations. It happens to anyone who bathes in hate and discovers that the temperature suits them.
But that is’t what happened with Omar Mateen.
Mateen wasn’t someone who became radicalized by listening to messages from radical groups. Mateen was someone who had always been violent, abusive, and quite likely pinned by the conflict between what he wanted, and what he thought he should want. So far as we are aware, Mateen did not receive one moment of training, one penny of funding, or one word of encouragement from anyone in or associated with ISIS. He didn’t learn his violence from them—ask either of his two battered wives. He didn’t learn his love of weapons from them, that was something he’d indulged for much longer than ISIS has existed. He wasn’t radicalized. He didn’t need to be.
Mateen was simply, terribly a violent man who turned his hate and conflict outward. In that way, he was very much like other mass shooters. Terrorist may be the right term, but Omar Mateen was a domestic terrorist, not someone invented elsewhere. His profile and his actions have much in common with other American shooters, no matter what their background or religion.
He made several phone calls claiming to work for one group or another, but these calls made it clear that far from being a close follower of any of the groups he mentioned, he didn’t know how these groups operated or related. It’s likely that he, like many shooters, was trying to paint his actions as being part of something larger. That doesn’t make it true, any more than Dylann Roof was part of some larger race war, despite his lengthy manifesto.
Donald Trump has his magic words of “radical Islamic extremist,” and a lot of people are finding them very handy. Handy for cutting off those who want to discuss the motivations behind Mateen’s actions or the ease with which he was able to kill so many people so quickly. They find the phrase convenient, because labeling Omar Mateen as a radical Islamic extremist gives them permission to do nothing. Or to do something they wanted to do in the first place, even if had nothing to do with the murders in Orlando.
Just like last time. Just like every time. Which pretty much guarantees we’ll be right back here again, looking for reasons to blame people on the far side of the world, for the killer who grew up next door.
Come on in. Let’s see what else is going on.
Leonard Pitts is my hero.
Yes, Hitler.
Some of you questioned my evocation of history’s great villain in a recent column on House Speaker Paul Ryan’s surrender to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. I likened Ryan to Franz von Papen, a German politician who helped Adolf Hitler rise to power under the naive delusion that he could control him.
A handful of Trump fans found that. as one put it, “a bit of a stretch.” One guy expressed his skepticism through the time-honored expedient of the triple punctuation mark: “Hitler???”
Yes, Hitler.
Damn straight. The fact that words and names have been misused in the past, should not disqualify their use when they are justly deserved.
Almost by definition, Hitler and Holocaust comparisons trivialize that era and reveal the ignorant insensitivity of those who make them. But the key word there is, almost.
Because for the record, I’m not the only one who sees the shadow of Germany in the 1930s over America in the 2010s. Once again, a clownish demagogue bestrides the political landscape, demonizing vulnerable peoples, bullying opponents, encouraging violence, offering simplistic, strongman solutions to difficult and complex problems, and men and women who bear more moral authority on this subject than I ever could see something chilling and familiar in him.
I say this almost every week, because it’s true every week, but you should go read the rest of Pitts’s essay. And I don’t say that because I’m basking in the glow of feeling like Leonard Pitts completely justified things I’ve been saying for months. Let me rephrase, I don’t entirely say that because ...
Anne Applebaum on thoughts that kill.
In Orlando, Omar Mateen killed 49 people in a gay nightclub. Before doing so, he wrote on his Facebook page that “The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west” and “You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance.” He made an open threat: “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa.” Yet there is still no evidence that he had any real connection to the Islamic State. Although his language was radical enough to inspire an FBI investigation, no direct links have been found. At the same time, Mateen abused his ex-wife; a local imam has described him as reclusive. A former colleague has said, “He talked about killing people all the time,” hardly a sign of mental balance. …
In the Yorkshire town of Birstall, Tommy Mair has been detained in Thursday’s killing of Jo Cox, a Labour member of Parliament who was actively campaigning for Britain to remain within the European Union, and actively campaigning on behalf of Syrian refugees, too. Two witnesses say that Mair, a reader of neo-Nazi and white supremacist books and websites, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, shouted “Britain first” while stabbing Cox.
Cox’s murder actually was timed to coincide with actions of the Independence Party. But Mair is much more likely to be called a “lone wolf” by the British press than Mateen is by the American media.
Dana Milbank on Republicans, Orlando, and meat.
After last weekend’s terrorist attack in Orlando, the people’s representatives in Washington scrambled to counter the growing threat to national security . . . from vegetarianism.
A nearly 15-hour filibuster by Senate Democrats to force action on keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists produced little: They’ll get a vote, but the measure is likely to be defeated by Republicans on Monday.
House GOP leadership, meanwhile, killed a Democratic effort to extend non-discrimination protections for gay people — the demographic targeted in the Orlando shooting.
That is tooth-achingly stupid, and hateful, but hang on … And now, a Moment that Really Happened in the United States Congress:
But the House on Thursday did pass a plan to block the spreading menace to the U.S. military posed by Meatless Mondays.
“I rise to ensure that our men and women in uniform have options on their menu when they seek nutrition in the cafeteria,” Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.) proclaimed. “Ideologically motivated activists are working to take meat off the menu in institutions across the country.”
I’ve never been a user of emojis, but if there’s one out there which encapsulates screaming and being carried away to a rubber room while falling into hysterical laughter, I’d like it pointed out. Because I would use the hell out of that.
Frank Bruni on the Republican melt-down
In the Year of Trump, Republicans are racing for the exits. It’s as if the Emerald City suddenly turned into Chernobyl. The list of luminaries who plan to skip Donald Trump’s coronation in Cleveland includes the 2012 nominee (Mitt Romney), the 2008 nominee (John McCain) and the two-term president who preceded them, George W. Bush. The Bushes en masse are taking a pass.
Small wonder that one of Trump’s advisers recently suggested that the candidate not wait until the climactic hour to deliver his remarks but, in a break with precedent, speak every single night. Not just double Donald. No mere triple Trump. Four luscious scoops of him.
It’s an idea where narcissism meets necessity. And it’s reason to take that trip to the Arctic Circle that you’ve long fantasized about.
Are we sure the Artic Circle is far enough? Can we get Elon Musk to speed things up? How about an early test of that Mars rocket?
Over the last several days, Politico published a story noting that Trump’s vice-presidential finalists may come down to the puny band of miscreants who can bear to say yes.
Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump has announced that his vice-president will be his old friend, John Miller! And remember: Never seeing the president and the vice-president at the same time is a safety feature.
Nicolas Kristof has taken a long time to admit this mistake.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a controversial compromise bill for welfare reform, promising to “end welfare as we know it.”
I was sympathetic to that goal at the time, but I’ve decided that I was wrong. What I’ve found in my reporting over the years is that welfare “reform” is a misnomer and that cash welfare is essentially dead, leaving some families with children utterly destitute.
There’s still a general idea that people are getting “Welfare checks” that can be converted into cash, but almost all benefits these days are in forms that mean a person who has no money and gets support, still has no money. So you end up with situations like this ...
Recent research finds that because of welfare reform, roughly three million American children live in households with incomes of less than $2 per person per day, a global metric of extreme poverty. That’s one American child in 25. They would be counted as extremely poor if they lived in Africa, and they are our neighbors in the most powerful nation in the world.
… even when billions in support are rolling out. It’s a foolish, dismissive way of doing business that assumes that people are poor by choice, and that the poor are incapable of making good decisions. It’s also a system that means people who are poor to start with, are very likely to stay that way.
Kathleen Parker on gun safety regulations and why we don’t get them.
Come Monday, Senate Democrats and Republicans are scheduled to roll out four gun-control bills — two from each side — attached as amendments to the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill.
And, of course, given that 60 votes are needed to pass, none is expected to. …
The holdup, as always, is how to balance the right to bear arms with the right to avoid being killed by a nut with a semiautomatic weapon. This shouldn’t be too terribly hard to figure out, though you’d think we were cave dwellers trying to map the human genome.
The one good thing about Trump as candidate? It’s made Kathleen Parker 73% reasonable. She still pulls out a party line saying 10% of the time, and like all of us, she’s just flat wrong another 17% of the time, but she no longer seems to feel the need to act as a mouthpiece for a party that’s picked a dead chia pet as a candidate.
Another bill backed by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) would allow terrorism suspects to buy a weapon but would ensure that the FBI be notified.
Okaaaaaay. This makes zero sense and has cover-your-rear-guard written all over it.
Yup. Maybe we can spark a bipartisan effort to reach 60 votes on a measure to declare Grassley’s bill painfully stupid.
The New York Times on Paul Ryan’s innovative plan to do exactly what Republicans have been doing for 40 years.
House Speaker Paul Ryan presented his economic agenda last week, but it does not deal with the country’s problems with jobs, wages, investment, trade, inequality or other pressing economic issues. Rather, its 57 pages boil down to one idea: Roll back hundreds of federal regulations that protect consumers, investors, employees, borrowers, students and the environment.
The plan bases its case for deregulation on the claim that “the American people now spend $1.89 trillion every year, just to comply with Washington’s rules — approximately $15,000 per household.” That estimate, from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free-market group formed in 1984, has been debunked. Its fatal flaw is that it assumes regulations have only costs and no benefits. The Ryan plan recycles that absurdity. It harps on corporate compliance costs while ignoring the social and economic benefits of, say, clean air, clean water, time-and-a-half for overtime, properly underwritten loans and adequate bank capital, to name just a few of the regulatory targets.
Republicans continue to read The Jungle and think it’s a cookbook for America. News at 11.
Neal Ascherson looks at the aftereffects of Brexit.
On Thursday, Britons will vote in a referendum on whether their country should stay in the European Union or leave it. If a majority opts for “Brexit,” a long earthquake begins. It will topple the old facade of Britishness. It will disrupt, perhaps mortally, the foundations of European unity. The sense of a fateful moment suddenly peaked on Thursday, when, the police say, a young Labour member of Parliament named Jo Cox was shot to death in her West Yorkshire district by a man who is said to have shouted, “Put Britain first!” and to have been involved in the white-supremacist National Alliance in the United States.
Hey, people who are dead set on pointing up how international terror groups spread their hate across oceans, here’s a real example for you.
Ms. Cox was a rising star, admired in and outside Parliament for her selfless energy on behalf of refugees and the poor. Her friends hope her death may cool referendum passions, reminding sullen voters that “not all politicians are in it for themselves.”
Both the United States and the UK seem to be marooned in a fog of nationalism, nativism, and “firstism.” Please, let us both get a freshening breeze. And soon.
Kevin Baker on how Trump cleared away our misconceptions about Trump.
It took the killings in Orlando, Fla., last weekend and Donald J. Trump’s reaction to them to prove what he’s been trying to tell us all along. He really is unique in American politics and maybe even the modern history of the Western world.
This came into full relief when, faced with the bodies of 49 people, nearly all of them under 40, all he could think to do was ride the slipstream of our alternating rage, horror and frustration. He congratulated himself on his prescience, called again for an entire religious group to be barred from entering our country and repeated the same, appallingly dangerous suggestion that President Obama is some sort of secret traitor.
That Trump’s response was viewed as terrible by a huge percentage of Americans (a net -26% favorability), is the best evidence so far that Americans are finally beginning to understand the stakes in this election. Baker, by the way, seems to think a lot more highly of Trump than pretty much anyone this side of Trump.
Thomas Edsall considers Trump’s effect on down-ticket races in a small Pennsylvania town.
My interviews this week with Pottstown voters in working and middle class white neighborhoods showed almost no support for Trump among women, but steady support among men.
Dear women, men are idiots. But then, I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you. Sorry.
In a number of cases, local support for Trump among white men was based as much on their animosity to Hillary Clinton as it was on their faith in Trump.
Of course it was.
What makes the Trump campaign especially interesting in Pennsylvania is that Trump is going to be a crucial factor in the Toomey-McGinty Senate race.
According to Quinnipiac, Toomey is currently tied with McGinty — not a strong position for an incumbent running against a relatively unknown challenger. Trump poses a key dilemma for Toomey who must decide whether or not to endorse the Republican presidential nominee. In ordinary elections, this is not even a question.
Do it, Pat. Go all in! Get that huge Trump base behind you.
Colbert King on Trump, minority youths, and … language.
“Ignoramus,” according to Merriam-Webster, was the name of a fictional 17th-century lawyer who regarded himself as rather shrewd when, in fact, he was quite foolish and ignorant. Enter Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who denounced U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel as too biased to oversee lawsuits involving Trump University because the judge was, as Trump referred to him, “a Mexican.”
…
Labeling — or mislabeling — is pure Trump. Why bother to get to know anything about a person when pigeonholing into an ethnic, racial, religious or sexual identity will do?
I like this piece from King. Go read.