A tragedy occurred this week, even though as I type this there were no fatal casualties other than the shooter himself, it needs to be noted that the Alexandria attack on congressional Republicans was a tragedy by any means or measurement. I can say without hesitation or reservation that we all hope the best for those who were injured and wounded in this incident.
But it also should be noted that there is very good reason to look askance at the newfound desire from Republicans for a “pause” on extreme and harsh political rhetoric in reaction to this event. They argue that the blame for this shooting lies with the “Hate” that is being fostered by liberals for conservatives. They say the source of the problem is that liberals just won’t shut up and leave our poor, poor snowflake conservative Congress critters alone.
I for one am here to tell you I have absolutely no intention of doing that, and I have plenty of reasons why not.
First of all, it’s not like this is really a new argument the GOP has decided to put forward following this shooting. Just a few days prior, Eric Trump railed about the “hate” that has been heaped on him and his father following a report that The Donald had been skimming money from Eric’s charity foundation directly into his own pockets.
In reviewing filings from the Eric Trump Foundation and other charities, it's clear that the course wasn't free--that the Trump Organization received payments for its use, part of more than $1.2 million that has no documented recipients past the Trump Organization. Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament.
Additionally, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which has come under previous scrutiny for self-dealing and advancing the interests of its namesake rather than those of charity, apparently used the Eric Trump Foundation to funnel $100,000 in donations into revenue for the Trump Organization.
Eric’s response to this report, which came from that dirty rotten hippy publication Forbes, was to argue that “All Morality is gone” and “these are not even people.” But it’s actually more telling to listen to what else he said because he made this not just personal, but into a specific target attack on the entire Democratic agenda in general.
Asked by host Hannity, “Don’t you wish you went to Washington so you could deal with this everyday?” the president’s son sneered at Democrats.
“I’ve never seen hatred like this, ” he responded. “To me, they’re not even people. It is so so sad.”
“Morality is just gone,” he continued. “Morals have flown out the window. We deserve so much better than this as a country. It’s so sad — you see the Democratic Party and they are imploding. They’re imploding, they have no message. You see the head of the DNC who is a total whack-job. There’s no leadership there. And so what do they do? They become obstructionists because they have no message of their own.”
Democrats are obstructionists because they have no message of their own? Frankly, the Republicans and the president haven’t even taken the first steps to try and reach out to Democrats on anything. Dems actually do have some fairly specific proposals on healthcare, but instead congressional Republicans passed a bill without their input despite a horrible CBO score and now the Senate Republicans are doing the same thing almost literally under the cover of night using a secret bill that no one has even seen.
I would argue that our agenda is to remain part of the Paris Climate Accord, to further investments in, and support of, clean and renewable energy sources rather than gut them as Trump has threatened, to retain and repair the Affordable Care Act rather than repeal it, to strive to make college affordable if not free, to address the opioid crises by increasing access to treatment rather than cutting that funding, to increase mobility for workers who’ve lost their jobs by helping them retrain for newly emerging industries rather than cutting that funding or gutting worker safety rules, we would prefer to continue to investigate and reform abusive police departments rather than ignore them and shut down effective civil rights enforcement and that stating our positions — or pointing out Trump’s legal and ethical failings — doesn’t come from a place of hate. It comes from a place of truth.
Most people don't criticize Donald Trump because they hate him, obviously excluding the contractors he repeatedly ripped off and women who have accused him of sexual assault, it’s because they love America and seriously fear what he seems intent on doing to it, and for that matter the rest of the world.
But now, after last week’s shooting we have Congressional Republicans complaining that their constituents have come up to them and angrily said that they’re trying to get people killed [by repealing the ACA.] They argue that’s not fair, and that’s just so so mean.
Yeah, well, math, facts and commonsense show that between 25,000-36,000 people per year will likely die if the ACA is repealed without a viable replacement:
Uninsured adults are at least 25 percent more likely to die prematurely than adults who have private insurance. See state-level breakdowns of the 26,100 people between the ages of 25 and 64 who died prematurely due to a lack of health insurance in 2010.
Nearly 36,000 people could die every year, year after year, if the incoming president signs legislation repealing the Affordable Care Act.
This figure is based on new data from the Urban Institute examining how many people will become uninsured if the law is repealed, as well as a study of mortality rates both before and after the state of Massachusetts enacted health reforms similar to Obamacare.
So when people say this, they aren’t being mean, they’re being factual. This is not hate speech, this is criticism. Fact-based criticism.
Civility is generally a good thing. But something I think being more civil isn’t what’s really being asked here. Yes, of course, we should focus and be critical of the issues and, where reasonable, refrain from demonizing any particular faction or group. But IMO that’s not what these Republicans are asking for. What’s being asked is for liberals to simply shut up, and then “all will be well.”
I don’t speak for anyone but myself, but I can pretty much guarantee that’s. not. gonna. happen.
After the many previous mass shootings that have plagued the nation, the complaint from the right has typically been—“Now is not the time to make things political”—when people mention that perhaps the reason so many people are getting killed by guns, might have something to do with the prevalence of guns themselves. In response, they’ve often argued that this critique is an attack on everyone’s Second Amendment Rights. Asking for trigger locks is too much. Asking for comprehensive background checks is too much. Our rights are clearly more important than the lives lost.
It doesn’t matter that America averages 33,000 deaths per year as a result of firearms. It doesn’t matter that over 60% of those deaths are suicides by people who are perfectly legal gun owners, not criminals, not gangbangers, not terrorists. It doesn't matter that the Alexandria shooting was the 154th mass shooting so far this year, and not even the only mass shooting to occur that same day. It doesn’t matter that this particular shooter was a legal gun owner, who had a history of violence against women and perhaps that has as much do with his final actions as anything specifically political. We may never really going to know for sure what his motivations truly were.
But none of that matters because we have to protect our rights, damnit.
Now we’re told that the real problem isn’t that we have more guns in the nation than we have people, it’s because some people have the nerve to use their First Amendment rights to talk too much and that they are just too vulgar.
Talking with Fox News, Gingrich pointed fingers at left-wing “hysteria” that he says has exploded ever since President Donald Trump’s election last fall, as evidenced by Kathy Griffin’s latest stunt in which she held up a likeness of Trump’s severed head.
“The intensity on the left is very real,” Gingrich said. “Whether it’s a so-called comedian holding up the president’s head in blood, or it’s right here, in New York City, a play that shows the president being assassinated. Or it’s Democratic leading national politicians who are so angry they have to use vulgarity because they can’t find any common language.”
Right, so Kathy Griffin’s joke-fail with the fake Trump head that had “blood coming out of his wherever” and Senator Gillibrand dropping an F-Bomb is why a guy grabbed a gun and went after Republicans?
Remind me exactly who was it that invited Ted Nugent—who once said Hillary Clinton was a “Worthless Bitch”and Barack Obama was a “piece of shit” and that he and Eric Holder needed their “heads chopped off” and Hillary Clinton should be “hanged”—to the White House for dinner again?
Then again, maybe it’s all the fault of Shakespeare?
[Don] Trump Jr. retweeted a report about those witness claims, and he also approved another tweet by a conservative commentator linking the shootings to a recent production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” that depicted the president’s assassination.
Because it’s not like somebody thought to do the same thing, a modern day version of Julius Ceasar including the assassination of the head of state, when Obama was president.
Except that they did in 2012.
While Delta Air Lines and Bank of America have dropped their sponsorships of New York’s Public Theater over a President Trump-inspired staging of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” corporate sponsors at the Guthrie Theater had no public reaction to a 2012 staging that featured a black actor in the role of Caesar.
That
production, part of a national tour done in collaboration with the Acting Company of New York, starred Bjorn DuPaty, a tall basketball aficionado who resembles then-President Barack Obama (pictured above).
Caesar is stabbed to death in the middle of the play.
I am a person that believes that hateful rhetoric can sometimes inspire negative outcomes, so I’m not ignoring the center of their concern. But I do think there’s a difference between strong rhetoric and violently dangerous hateful rhetoric. There’s a difference between strong speech built on facts and hate speech built on lies, and I have my doubts that many of the Republicans really know that difference at all. They’re just using this tragedy as an opportunity to attack the First Amendment rights of those they oppose while taking no responsibility of their own.
For example, there was the time this guy showed up a pizza parlor because someone was promoting a totally false story that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were linked to a child prostitution ring. And I’m not just saying he was there because of that story. He said he was there with a gun because of that story.
A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Northwest Washington carrying an assault rifle and fired one or more shots, D.C. police said. The man told police he had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a false election-related conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton that spread online during her presidential campaign.
I for one do not recall Republicans criticizing the deliberate spreading of this false story and finding fault with the media outlets — like Newsmax and Breitbart — that pushed it without having a shred of proof. But now, today we have this:
Fox News anchor Melissa Francis then played a clip from Rep. Rodney Davis (R-IL) who said some of his best friends are Democrats and that the House passes a lot of bipartisan legislation, “but it’s the major issues that lead to political discourse that has in my opinion, led to such an uptick in just hateful, hateful rhetoric of all sides, and I stand here today and say stop. We have to stop.”
BERGMAN: I agree with Rodney wholeheartedly in that the hateful rhetoric serves no positive purpose. In fact, today it served a negative purpose. But unfortunately, and I’m looking at all the media in the eye when I say this: friendships and cordial relationships don’t make good news. So I can tell you, especially as the president of the freshman class of Republicans, we are united along with our Democratic freshman counterparts to bring civility back to the 115th Congress.
FRANCIS: So you think it’s the media’s fault?
BERGMAN: I think the media is complicit if they keep inciting, as opposed to informing.
The media are inciting instead of informing? You mean “inciting” like telling people what the CBO score for Trumpcare is? Yeah, okay.
I just have to say I’m skeptical of Republicans who claim they really want to stop all the “hateful, hateful rhetoric” on all sides. It’s not like we heard all this Kumbahyah talk when it was suggested that somebody may have helped incite violence against dozens of congressional offices by using a map placing targets on their districts—I didn’t hear Republicans saying people shouldn’t do that.
Gabrielle GIffords is who said it.
On April 23, 2010, an angry phone call came into a congressman’s office in Tucson, Arizona. The voice on the line was a male, on the young side, brimming with fury over immigration. The caller announced he was going to “come down there and blow the brains out” of the congressman and his staff, an aide later recalled. Then the caller said he would do the same to Mexicans crossing the border. Minutes later, police evacuated the offices of Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat whose congressional district sits immediately to the west of Gabrielle Giffords’. [...]
As several media outlets reported, the door to Giffords’ Tucson congressional office was vandalized last March after her vote in favor of the health-care bill. But the event that ratcheted up the violent chatter was the April signing of Senate Bill 1070, an Arizona law that gave local police broad powers to discover illegal immigrants.
As shown by the above video, it was Gabriel Giffords herself who brought up the issue of the crosshairs map before she was ultimately shot in head, and five others persons were killed, by a crazed shooter in Tucson later that year.
But rather than denounce rhetoric that actually did promote violence and vandalism at the time, instead what we heard back then was “Blood Libel.” An argument based on the idea that Giffords herself pointing out the incitement, was itself a source of the incitement.
To his credit Rep. Steve Scalise himself had much better things to say about Giffords than Palin did.
Still as a result of all this, I don’t take these fresh new platitudes all that seriously. I really don’t think they’re sincere because there have been plenty of chances for that sincerity to be shown, and repeatedly they have failed.
We didn’t hear this call for civility and unity from the GOP after Sandy Hook which Trump-pal Alex Jones says was a “false flag” and Paul Ryan said Obama was only talking about it to “distract from his failed policies,” not after the Holocaust Museum Shooter who was planning to target David Axelrod, or the Knoxville Unitarian Church Shooter, which was an “attack on liberals” inspired by a book from a frequent O’Reilly guest, or Dylann Roof’s murder spree in Charleston in reaction to the trial of George Zimmerman and right-wing rhetoric about excessive black violence pushed by the CCC and often shown on Bill O’Reilly’s program, or the attempted attack on the Oakland ACLU and Tides Foundation inspired by the overblown rhetoric of Glenn Beck about those organizations, or the Las Vegas cop killers who were from the Bundy compound and said they wanted to “spark a revolution” against the government, or the attack on Planned Parenthood inspired a by phony video by right-wing anti-abortion activists, or the Alt-Reich Nation killer who knifed ROTC Cadet Lt. Richard Collins to death earlier this year, or the Sikh Temple shooter who mistakenly thought the worshipers were Muslim, or last month’s terrorist in Portland who killed two bystanders with a knife after harassing a pair of Muslim girls, or the more 1,000 Hate crimes that sparked up immediately after Trump’s election.
I’m not holding my breath that things are suddenly gonna get all unity-like because Rep. Scalise was shot in the hip. Hopefully, he and all the rest recover safely. But I’m terribly sorry I just can’t take empty meaningless platitudes like this seriously.
Or this.
To which I say...
Sure I’m a skeptic, but I’m not a cynic. I’m not saying there’s absolutely no hope. If the GOP can take responsibility and apologize for their own participation in this escalating rhetoric—the way that Kathy Griffin apologized within hours—I just might believe them. Maybe.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it had came up when Trump was saying "KNOCK THE CRAP OUT OF THEM!" to his rally crowds.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it came up when Trump was saying "I'll pay for your lawyers fees" to beat protesters.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it came up when Trump said 3-5 million illegal votes were cast against him.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if they didn't lie about "Voter Fraud" while gerrymandering and suppressing the Democratic and minority vote.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it came up when Trump said Judge Curiel was too racist a Mexican to make a fair decision.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it came up when Trump said Gold Star Father Khazir Khan was allied with ISIS.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it came up when Trump said Mexicans were rapists, killers and criminals. And some, a few, were “good people.”
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it they had ever said the same thing to #AltRight bigoted so-called “free speech champion” trolls like Milo or Richard Spencer.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it they ever recognized a terrorist when he's a white guy and his victims are liberal, black or Muslim.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if, when Russia waged a CyberWar against America, they wouldn’t stick their heads in the sand or else #BlameObama for something he once said to Medvedev.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if they didn't call the findings of all 17 intelligence agencies and the investigation of 18 different mysterious contacts with Russians a "witch hunt."
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if people like Jason Miller weren’t calling Senator Kamala Harris "hysterical" for asking Jeff Sessions tough questions.
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if it came up when Eric Trump was saying his father’s critics were "not even people."
I might believe the GOP was sincere about harsh rhetoric if so many of them hadn’t said Barack Obama was an illegal alien with a falsified birth certificate, an illegitimate president, a secret Muslim, an Arab, the anti-Christ, a communist, a socialist, a liar, a criminal, a drug dealer, a welfare thug-in-chief, a food-stamp President, was incompetent, was the founder of ISIS, a fraud, a radical black liberation theology Kenyan Mau Mau revolutionist anti-colonial who simply wasn’t smart enough to get into Harvard or become editor of the Harvard Law Review without affirmative action, who needed Bill Ayers to ghost-write his own best-selling book about his own life and father because he really hated America and all it stood for and—when they were feeling bold—was really just another lazy nigger.
But none of that has happened. Not yet. We haven’t heard an apology for any of it either. I’m not expecting we will.
As a result I have no intention of backing off the Republicans or Trump with what I have to say about them or their policies one iota. I will not be giving them an inch. The state of my dangerously factual liberal rhetoric will remain strong, and it will remain loud.
And to be honest, I lied, I’m not sorry about it at all. Not even slightly.