8/31/19: August ends in blood and gore, much as it began, with another pair of
mass shootings. On Friday night we learn that the only way to stop a bad
guy with a gun is if good guys never go outside. This time a shooting at a high school football game in Mobile,
Alabama, leaves six teens wounded, five critically. According to USA Today,
in a news conference, Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste “cautioned
people to be alert in public gatherings.”
____________________
America
has a gun problem.
____________________
Or to be perfectly safe, one should hunker down in a bunker.
Don’t go to church. Don’t go to elementary school. Don’t go to the theater, to
a concert, to a Walmart, to night clubs or bars, and don’t attend high school
football games.
Or drive.
This afternoon we have another
mass shooting. Texas, again. White guy, again. Heavily armed, again. As far as
we know, the bloodbath began when the suspect was stopped by a Texas Ranger for
a driving infraction. The suspect then wounded the good guy with a lesser gun
and started shooting at cars for no reason. Before the rampage ended, the
murderer had hijacked at least one automobile, then a mail truck, and killed
four bystanders and wounded 20.
So, let’s just be blunt. America has a gun problem.
Conservative voices offering up “thoughts and prayers” don’t cut it.
As is so often true, as when a first grader prays for a pony,
and doesn’t get it, this blogger seriously doubts prayers will move President
Trump or the Republican Party. GOP lawmakers fear the wrath of the N.R.A. like
people in West Africa fear the first signs of Ebola.
*
Great Barrier Reef is dying.
HURRICANE DORIAN continues to bear down on the Eastern
Seaboard, with pretty much every scientist worth a nickel saying, “We told you
so.” As oceans warm, and they are, hurricanes grow stronger.
The latest evidence of a grave threat to the health of our planet
comes from our friends Down Under. Off the northeastern coast of Australia, the
1,400-mile-long Great Barrier Reef is dying. As oceans heat, reefs round the world are
“bleaching.” The Great Barrier Reef has suffered significant bleaching events
in 1998, 2002, 2016 and 2017. The health of the Reef is updated every five years
and this month it was downgraded from “poor” to “very poor.”
As the government agency in charge of monitoring the
situation notes, “Significant global action to address climate change is
critical [emphasis added, unless otherwise noted] to slowing the
deterioration of the reef’s ecosystem and heritage values and supporting
recovery.”
Scientists warned earlier this year, that fresh evidence
shows oceans are warming faster than expected. As that fount of “Fake News,” Scientific
American magazine, notes, quoting Science magazine, that other fount
of “Fake News:”
Multiple studies in the past few
years have found that previous estimates from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change may be too low. A new review of the research, published
yesterday in Science, concludes that “multiple lines of evidence
from four independent groups thus now suggest a stronger observed [ocean heat
content] warming.”
So: Hurricane Dorian is going to be stronger when it hits
than it would have been in the past.
It’s that simple. But it’s still too difficult for the
orange-colored simpleton in the Oval Office to grasp.
Again, “thoughts and prayers,” for the environment.
*
FOX NEWS HOST Tomi Lahren, who likes to push her patriotic
“Freedom” line of athletic wear, admits…um…
Okay, her fine products are made in China!
“Like many American small business owners, Alexo [the company
Lahren partners with] aims to be Made in America. We are working towards that,”
Lahren, who has touted “American made” on her show, explains.
Amy Robbins, the Alexo CEO, talks about how difficult it is
to make clothing in the USA. You know – as if no one used to produce t-shirts
in North Carolina, as recently as twenty years ago. “Due to the increased
labor costs and heightened regulations many US based manufacturers face,”
Robbins says, “we were left with little option but to manufacture overseas to
start out.”
Yes, you don’t want to have to pay U.S. workers a living wage
to start out, not if you could get the Chinese to work for measly wages.
“We’re working diligently to bring our manufacturing back
home to the US,” she promises, “and work with other hardworking companies that
pride themselves on integrity and quality.”
“Integrity.”
That is not the first word that comes to mind, when one
thinks of manufacturing products in Communist China.
*
The definition of propaganda.
SPEAKING OF INTEGRITY, that reminds us that Mr. Trump ends
the month tweet-hating on Fox News, because Fox has started reporting stories (occasionally)
which make him look less than fabulous.
When Trump rises on this last morning in August, he starts
tweeting and retweeting like a fat man grabbing for candy out of a box. Tweet
#1 comes at 6:45 a.m. The tweets come, fast and furious, from then on. Half an
hour later, we get
a gem: “Has
anyone noticed that the top shows on @foxnews and cable ratings are those that
are Fair (or great) to your favorite President, me!” Trump tweets. “Congratulations
to @seanhannity for being the number one shoe [sic] on Cable Television!”
Yes, a shoe that is “great” to the president is a great show,
and everyone should watch. But Americans should NOT watch all the mean Fox News
people who are reporting stories that “your favorite President” does not like.
Here, it would seem appropriate to provide the definition of
propaganda: “Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to
promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.”
(By 8:07 a.m., when “your favorite blogger” takes time to
check, President Trump is on Tweet #49.)
Speaking of “propaganda,” the White House announces that
Trump is spending the weekend at Camp David, where he is focused on the threat
from Hurricane Dorian. In other words, Trump is acting like a real president,
albeit a real president addicted to tweets. Checking back later, we see that
tweets #50-53 come by 10:18 a. m.
Then Trump’s Twitter feed goes silent for three-and-a-half
hours. Reporters explain that Trump has headed off to Trump National Golf Club
in Potomac Falls, Virginia.
Okay, a little less presidential…
Next, The Hill posts a video which they say proves Trump got bored focusing on Hurricane Dorian and snuck off to go
golfing.
Way less presidential.
Reporters (a.k.a. the “enemies of the people”) pin down White
House Press Secretary Grisham. Did Trump go golfing? Grisham doesn’t dare say
“no,” lest more damning evidence surface.
She responds, lamely, “I have no idea what that video is.”
The video is not definitive. But does that mean Grisham has
no idea where her boss has gone and she’s not going to bother to find out?
Or does she know where he is, what putter he prefers, and
just doesn’t want to admit it? (See: 9/3/19.)
*
Your pharmacist
wants to kill you.
MORE PROOF, not counting recent mass shootings, that the
Great Wall of Trump might not keep us all toasty and safe from harm. The DEA
launches a series of raids, netting 300 suspects, and
shuts down a dozen Florida pharmacies, which are part of a highly organized
drug ring. Forget undocumented immigrants with murder and mayhem in their
hearts! Your pharmacist wants to kill you. More than 200,000 opioid pills, 35
weapons and $3.3 million in assets are seized.
Meanwhile, a Utah man, Aaron Michael Shamo, is convicted of
running a multi-million dollar opioid ring, selling fake prescription pills
laced with fentanyl, a potent and highly dangerous synthetic pain killer. He’s
not an undocumented immigrant. He’s some white dude, whose lawyers describe him
as “a clean-cut
millennial who grew up in a family that belonged to the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints.”
And
no drug mule snuck fentanyl across our southern border. Shamo found it on the
dark web and had it shipped from China by mail. Shamo and an assortment of
native-born white guys were soon doing a booming business. They were allegedly selling
tens of thousands of potentially deadly, fake pills per month.
*
AS FOR KEEPING us safe with that big beautiful wall, which
Trump swears is being built, but even Fox News admits is not, we will now be “Keeping America Great”
by guarding against young immigrants who want to kill us by running us over in
wheelchairs.
CBS explains:
Due to a change in policy by the
Trump administration, hundreds of immigrant children receiving medical care
in the U.S. are facing possible deportation. The children are in the
country legally and many suffer from serious diseases, including cancer.
A vibrating vest, nebulizer and
special medication help keep 16-year-old Jonathan Sanchez alive. He’s battling
cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening disorder damaging his lungs and digestive
system. It also claimed the life of his sister Samantha, back in Honduras, when
she was just 6 months old.
The family came to the U.S.
legally in 2016 and applied for “medical deferred action,” a program that
allows immigrants to receive life-saving treatment for up to two years. But
this week they received a denial notice [for renewal], giving them 30 days to
leave the country or face deportation.
“To receive that letter is like
a big hit,” said Gary Sanchez, Jonathan’s father. “I don’t know what will
happen with the future.”
In fact, Jonathan knows exactly what will happen. “The
letter, in the words, it said that we need to leave the country in 33 days. But
in my perspective, it’s making legal homicide,” he says.
This new policy is so heartless that when CBS News seeks
comment from officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services, which share responsibility for
implementing the change, no one “would appear on camera.” An ICE official said
the agency “was not consulted about the policy change and only learned of it
once those letters were sent out.”
Typical of those facing deportation and a tacit sentence of
death, is Maria Isabel Bueso. Now 24, she came to this country at age 7, to
receive treatment for a rare genetic disorder. Doctors enrolled her in several
studies. With her help they managed to improve care for others suffering
from the same crippling disability.
“I have been feeling super
scared and overwhelmed,” Ms. Bueso told a reporter this week. As The New
York Times explained, her lower body is paralyzed from the disease,
an enzyme disorder that inhibits cells from processing sugars. “The treatment
that I receive keeps me alive,” she says.
Well, too bad for you, young lady. Back to Guatemala – which
you hardly remember – you go!
*
“Nations
with allies thrive, and those without them wither.”
AS FOR “keeping us safe,” let’s give General James Mattis,
first Secretary of Defense under Donald Trump, the final word for the month.
Mattis pens an editorial which is seen as highly critical of the president and his “America
First’ foreign policies. Mattis does not mention the president by name.
It doesn’t take a genius to read between the lines. “When
you’re going to a gunfight, bring all your friends with guns,” Mattis writes. “Nations with allies thrive, and those without
them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this
time, we can see storm clouds gathering.”
That is: Category 5 Hurricane Donald.
Jeffrey Goldberg, who has talked at length with Gen. Mattis (who
went into a lot of gunfights during forty plus years with the U.S. Marines),
explains that the general adheres to the belief that military men do not
criticize the Commander-in-Chief. Mattis is going as far as he believes he can
while keeping his integrity.
He may not stay silent forever.
Goldberg elaborates in an interview with David Green on NPR:
GOLDBERG: Jim Mattis has unique
insight, and we know he’s on record with his [resignation] letter, with other
things, things he said to me that he does not believe Donald Trump is a good
president. I think that’s fairly clear from everything that he’s written. His
book is one long indirect critique of the president.
GREENE: Wouldn’t that be a
violation of the duty that he said he’s so committed to if he does come out and
start talking at some point?
GOLDBERG: I think he has in his
mind, and I don’t know what they are. I think he has red lines in his mind. I
think he does have – and, you know, one could argue that that Trump crossed
them again and again – he quit over one of those red lines obviously. But I
think he’s a little bit burdened by this dilemma. Everything in his character
tells him – I don’t talk, but this is an unusual circumstance.
As in, Trump is a terrible leader, a terrible human being,
and a threat to the long-term safety of these United States.
