Stateless In Palestine

The belief that all humans have certain rights, endowed by the Creator as Jefferson put it, is common. The lesson of Chapter 9 of The Origins of Totalitarianism (“Origins”) by Hannah Arendt is that such rights mean little or nothing if there is no one to enforce them. Realist diplomats after WWI knew that the successor states would not enforce the human rights of minorities and refugees unless forced to do so. They created the Minority Treaties to provide that enforcement, backed by the League of Nations.

It didn’t work. It turns out that the important part of Jefferson’s observation is the next phrase: “that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….“ Absent the protection of the state, the mystical state of having rights is useless. And even having formal rights, like citizenship, is no protection against denaturalization. Arendt provides an example:

Yet, one need only remember the extreme care of the Nazis, who insisted that all Jews of non-German nationality “should be deprived of their citizenship either prior to, or, at the latest, on the day of deportation” (for German Jews such a decree was not needed, because in the Third Reich there existed a law according to which all Jews who had left the territory—including, of course, those deported to a Polish camp—automatically lost their citizenship) citizenship) in order to realize the true implications of statelessness. P. 280, fn omitted.

The problem of statelessness, and thus rightlessness, which runs through Origins is still with us. One salient example today is the Palestinian people. Arendt wrote about the impact of establishment of The State Of Israel in 1947.

The notion that statelessness is primarily a Jewish problem was a pretext used by all governments who tried to settle the problem by ignoring it. None of the statesmen was aware that Hitler’s solution of the Jewish problem, first to reduce the German Jews to a nonrecognized minority in Germany, then to drive them as stateless people across the borders, and finally to gather them back from everywhere in order to ship them to extermination camps, was an eloquent demonstration to the rest of the world how really to “liquidate” all problems concerning minorities and stateless.

After the war it turned out that the Jewish question, which was considered the only insoluble one, was indeed solved—namely, by means of a colonized and then conquered territory—but this solved neither the problem of the minorities nor the stateless. On the contrary, like virtually all other events of our century, the solution of the Jewish question merely produced a new category of refugees, the Arabs, thereby increasing the number of the stateless and rightless by another 700,000 to 800,000 people.

And what happened in Palestine within the smallest territory and in terms of hundreds of thousands was then repeated in India on a large scale involving many millions of people. Since the Peace Treaties of 1919 and 1920 thé refugees and the stateless have attached themselves like a curse to all the newly established states on earth which were created in the image of the nation-state. P. 289 — 90, fn. omitted, my paragraphing.

The problem of the stateless and rightness Arabs described by Arendt has not been solved. The Palestinian Authority has no ability, or will, to protect the human rights of Palestinians and Gazans. Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a government. No Hamas member from top to bottom cares about the lives of the people of Gaza, let alone their rights, though apparently the “leaders” care about their own safety and luxuries, living the rich life in Qatar.

The State of Israel doesn’t care about the Palestinians either. There’s the ruthless bombing. There’s the settler attacks in the West Bank, which go unpunished. Israel has sold oil leases that were thought to be the property of the Palestinians. Even as the war continues, it announced its intention to build 3,000 new housing units for settlers in the West Bank.

The failure of assimilation

In earlier chapters of Origins, Arendt discusses the history of anti-Semitism in Europe, especially France. She tells the story of Alfred Dreyfus. But probably she wasn’t aware that the French Vichy government deported Dreyfus’ granddaughter, Madeleine Levy, to Auchwitz, where she was murdered in the Holocaust. Nor does she mention the deportation and murder of other assimilated French Jews such as the family of Nissim de Camondo; there are monuments to these dead all over France. I read this part of Origins as saying that assimilation of Jews into European society was a failure, at least up to then.

Arendt was herself a Jew and stateless, and worked for Zionist organizations in the early 1930s in Germany and then in Geneva. Given her premise about human rights, it’s easy to understand why she might favor the goal of Zionism to establish a home state for Jews. If the Jewish people are to have rights they need a state that is willing and able to protect those rights. This is the founding goal of Zionism.

Revisionist Zionism

Rick Perlstein wrote an essay for The American Prospect discussing a book by Eram Kaplan, The Jewish Radical Right: Revisionist Zionism and Its Ideological Legacy. According to Perlstein, Kaplan says that there were two factions in the Zionist movement, Labor Zionism and Revisionist Zionism. Labor Zionism is the faction that seemed to prevail. It’s the faction of the Kibbutzim, people working the land to make the desert bloom. It’s the faction for which Jewish kids collected dimes to plant trees. It’s the founding story of Israel I learned growing up in the 50s.

Perlstein’s essay focuses on Revisionist Zionism. He begins with a discussion of an interview by the excellent Isaac Chotiner of a leader in the settlement movement. Chotiner talked to Daniella Weiss, a leader in the settlement movement for over 50 years. Weiss believes that the State of Israel should include all the land from the Euphrates to the Nile. She says Arabs and other non-Jews who live there now have no political rights:

Q. When you say that you want more Jews in the West Bank, is your idea that the Palestinians there and the Jews will live side by side as friends, or that—

A. If they accept our sovereignty, they can live here.

Q. So they should accept the sovereign power, but that doesn’t necessarily mean having rights. It just means accepting the sovereign power.

A. Right. No, I’m saying specifically that they are not going to have the right to vote for the Knesset. No, no, no.

Weiss may seem like an extremist, but Perlstein tells us she’s stating the ideological position of Revisionist Zionism. Perlstein writes that Kaplan says that the Revisionist faction was a fascist ideology, based on Italian Fascism.

Perlstein describes the ideas of a founder of this faction, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, showing the connection to Benito Mussolini’s fascism, including its emphasis on violence and moral purity as a means of returning to a former glory. Perlstein says the language used by Weiss in the Chotiner interview is the doctrine of Revisionist Zionism.

And make no mistake: What this settler told [Chotiner] was doctrine. “For Jabotinsky,” Kaplan writes, “human rights, civil equality, and even political equality could not create harmony among individuals. Only the common ties of blood, history, and language could bring people together.”

Perlstein tells us that Benjamin Netanyahu’s father was an associate of Jabotinsky, and argues that Netanyahu carries the entire tradition of Revisionist Zionism forward.

Discussion

1. The blithe disrespect for the human rights of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is shocking. You have to read it to believe it.

2. Perlstein’s essay is a bare introduction to Revisionist Zionism, and it’s the first I ever heard of it. It’s also shocking.

3. One of the many issues Perlstein discusses is the way his understanding of the history of the State of Israel has changed since he was a child. Perlstein is a historian, but he tells us he never heard of the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem until he was 30. Well, I never heard of the Tulsa Massacre until I was in my 60s.

After Kansas City, Who is Next?

A KC Chiefs-branded AR-15 from Guns.com.

I knew yesterday was going to be weird. I just didn’t know how weird.

Yesterday, the Hallmark holiday of Valentine’s Day fell on the Christian observation of Ash Wednesday — two very different kinds of days — and then the Kansas City Chiefs went and won the Super Bowl, which added the Chief’s parade and celebration rally to collide with the other two holidays. As the players were boarding the observation deck buses to start the parade, I noticed Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, who had a cross of ashes on his forehead – a sign he had been to an early morning mass. Behind him was Taylor Swift’s boyfriend and future NFL hall of famer Travis Kelce. Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day, right at the heart of the Super Bowl victory celebration.

All around the metro area, schools were closed, in large part because a sizable number of teachers, custodians, bus drivers, and cafeteria workers informed their supervisors that they would be taking the day off, and nowhere near enough substitutes could be found even if the schools wanted to try to hold classes. Similarly, many businesses found the same dynamic with their people wanting to take the day off. Some closed completely, while others tried to make due with a skeleton staff. Estimates of the crowd size went as high as a million people, and traffic around the area certainly made that seem about right.

I was not at the event, but know many who were. I was watching the wall-to-wall coverage on KSHB television, the “home of the Chiefs”. They had reporters all along the parade route, all throughout the crowd, and sitting in midst of the crowd at the rally on an elevated open-air temporary broadcast booth.

The parade rolled out, and many of the players who started on the rooftops of the observation buses got out and walked the route, engaging with the crowd. They signed jerseys, took selfies, and high-fived with what felt like everyone in the front row of the street. They danced and shouted, tossed footballs back and forth with folks in the crowd, and did impromptu interviews with KSHB reporters along the route. And while the parade proceeded, musicians and DJs were amping up the crowd at Union Station who were waiting for them to arrive.

Union Station is a grand old railroad building that sits at the bottom of a massive bowl. To the south is a huge grassy area, which goes uphill to the US National World War I memorial that sits on one of the high spots of the whole city. In that bowl, hundreds of thousands of people had gathered to party. There were old folks, who remember Len Dawson and the first Super Bowl which the Chiefs lost and Super Bowl IV, which they won. There were young folks, who were there in 2020 for the parade and party right before everything shut down for COVID, they were there last year, and they were back again yesterday. There were also the folks in between, who missed the Len Dawson era, but lived through the fifty year drought between Super Bowl wins. There were rich folks and poor folks, lifelong Chiefs fans and newcomer Swifties, there were folks from all parts of Kansas City, from the majority African-American folks south of the Missouri River to the white folks north of the river to the Hispanic community on the west side. Folks from the suburbs were there, from both Missouri and Kansas. Folks from the Ozarks and the Flint Hills, folks from Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas, and all across the country were there. They brought blankets and lawn chairs and coolers, filled with beverages and food to last the day. It was a joyful sea of red.

The MC for the rally was longtime KC Chiefs radio announcer Mitch Hulthus. He cast the day as a massive history lesson, which other speakers who followed picked up on. KC Mayor Quinton Lucas and Chiefs owner Clark Hunt both spoke of how the Chiefs had changed KC’s image with the world, noting how the Chiefs brought the NFL draft to KC last year and were instrumental in bringing the World Cup to KC in 2026. Missouri’s republican Governor Mike Parson was greeted with loud boos that pretty much battled with the volume on the PA system throughout his speech (boos from Kansas folks because he’s the Missouri governor and boos from the KC folks because he deserves it for his long history of disrespecting Kansas City). When the players took the stage, the crowd went nuts. Every player was grinning from ear to ear, and as the microphone was passed around, the word “Three-peat” echoed louder and louder, and their praise for the Chiefs fans grew ever stronger. Some players were eloquent, some had had one too many adult beverages along the parade route, and quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Mitch Hulthus seemed to be working to keep the rally going while at the same time trying to keep the folks who had overconsumed from falling off the front of the stage. Finally it came to an end, the music came up, and the crowd cheered and shouted and danced.

And then the shots rang out.

Some folks did not hear them at all. Others heard them as they echoed off the surrounding buildings, and wondered where they were coming from. But the folks near Union Station itself heard them, and knew where they came from. Older folks looked around, many wondering what to do, but all the kids didn’t hesitate. Instead of “duck and cover” drills at school that their elders grew up on, they have been living with “active shooter” drills at school for their whole lives, and they took charge and told their elders what to do. Everyone started running.

They jumped barricades and ran into Union Station, which had been blocked off as a staging area for the players, their families, and folks on stage. They jumped barricades on the edge of the bowl, and ran for the side streets. The reporters anchoring the coverage for KSHB threw the broadcast back to the folks at the station, and dropped to the floor of their elevated broadcast area which suddenly felt very exposed and dangerous. At past rallies, it took hours for the area to clear, but yesterday it felt like it emptied out in ten minutes. Left behind were strollers, backpacks, blankets, coolers, and tents. Cell phones were dropped, and there were random empty shoes.

I won’t say more about the deaths and injuries, as the numbers still seem to be shifting. I won’t say much about the shooters, save to say that three people have been taken into custody, no motive has been announced or is obvious from the context, and no description of the specific weapons used has been released.

At the now-routine press conferences afterwards, the familiar words were said. “We stand with the victims . . . We thank the first responders . . .  We pray for those in the hospitals . . . Here’s what we know about the status of the investigation . . .” Just as one press conference was ending, though, the police chief stopped walking away, and turned back to the microphone to make one more statement: “This is *not* Kansas City.” (start at the 11:40 mark)

Those five words touched a nerve.

Social media exploded in Kansas City, with many chiming in to say “this is *exactly* who we are.” Kansas City set a record last year for homicide deaths, largely involving guns. There is huge distrust in the police within the African American community, because of a pattern of racist (and deadly) police interactions with that part of Kansas City that finally forced the resignation of the previous police chief. Similarly, a non-trivial part of the white community thinks the police are being too lenient with “those people” and that is why violent crime is so bad. In one of the more racist parts of Kansas City, a young black youth named Ralph Yarl rang a doorbell, mistakenly coming to the wrong house to pick up his siblings (he had the right house number, but should have been one street over), and the elderly white homeowner shot him through his door. Kansas City has a pattern of using guns to settle beefs, to “stand your ground” when threatened by innocent folks, and to a non-trivial degree, don’t trust the police to help.

For all the talk that “the Chiefs bring people together” (or, more generally, “sports” or “the Super Bowl”, as Biden said in his post-shooting statement yesterday), this is not the first time gun violence has touched the Chiefs in a very personal way. Back in December 2012, well before the Patrick Mahomes/Andy Reid era, 3rd year linebacker Jovan Belcher came to the Chiefs facilities on a Saturday morning, got out of his car, and pointed a gun at his head. He told then-general manager Scott Pioli and other coaches that he had killed his girlfriend/mother of his child, Kassandra Perkins. They tried to talk him into putting the gun down, but Belcher pulled the trigger and killed himself. Police soon discovered that he had been drinking, and had been having relationship issues with Perkins. When the police went to her home, they found her dead – shot and killed by a different gun legally belonging to Belcher. Maybe I’m the only one who connected yesterday with Belcher and Perkins. I listened to the news coverage, and heard nothing. I ran an online search for mention of Belcher in the last 24 hours, and came up with *crickets*.

Despite KCPD Chief Graves’ words, guns and gun violence have become an ordinary part of ordinary life, and not just in Kansas City. We use them to end our own lives, when we feel things are so out of control in our lives that ending it all seems like the only solution. We use them to settle beefs in our homes, either by using them to threaten or using them to kill. We use them to settle beefs in our communities. We use them to settle beefs in our nation.

And all that world-wide coverage of the Chiefs that Clark Hunt and Mayor Lucas talked about is now going to come back to bite Kansas City. In Europe, every major shooting in the US makes folks wary about traveling here. Now, even as Kansas City worked hard to win the right to host several games in the 2026 World Cup, this shooting will make hosting those games that much more difficult — and not just in Kansas City. Who wants to risk their lives for a sporting event?

This was not the first shooting involving the Chiefs. It wasn’t the first shooting of the year in Kansas City, or even the first shooting of the day in Kansas City. As one local sports talk-radio host said yesterday, Kansas City has joined the list of cities where you say the name and everyone thinks about guns and violence and death, like Uvalde or Sandy Hook. When folks say “Super Bowl rally”, it will evoke the same memories as Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (which happened on Valentine’s Day six years ago!), the Pulse Nightclub, and Columbine High School. This is who we are, now.

I’ll say it again: no, Chief Graves, this *is* who we are. It’s who we are, in Kansas City and across the country. The gun in that photo above lists for the low, low price of $2999.99 at Guns.com. It is, however, out of stock. Why doesn’t that surprise me?

Until we learn to argue with one another without leaping to violence, the question is not if there will be another shooting like this, but where it will be. I’m not one of those folks who were asking “how could this happen here?” yesterday. My question is simply “Who is next?”

________

Corrected to note that Ralph Yarl survived being shot. I inadvertently mixed up that shooting with another event.

Active Shooter Event at Michigan State University [FINAL UPDATE—08:50 AM]

[NB: check the byline. Updates to appear at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

12:28 A.M. ET —

Suspect has been found off campus; they are confirmed dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

MSU Police spokesperson Chris Rozman confirmed there were three fatalities and five injured.

Active Shooter status has now ended.

More information and updates will appear at the bottom of this post. Content posted earlier will remain in place.

~ ~ ~

11:33 p.m. ET — Michigan State University still has an active shooter situation.

Students should continue to monitor the MSU Emergency page for updates:

https://msu.edu/emergency

Local news station reported MSU issued another bulletin at 10:05 p.m. ET advising students should run, hide, fight — run away if possible, hide if possible, fight as a last resort as necessary.

The events appeared to begin at Berkey Hall on the northeast side of campus, move to the Student Union toward the northwest, and then to IM East on the southeast side of campus.

Campus police as well as Lansing city, Ingham County police departments are on site along with Michigan State Police and surrounding counties.

Campus has been shut down; persons moving around on campus are subject to search. A SWAT team has arrived and is currently clearing Berkey Hall.

There have been multiple injuries and one reported death. Ambulances are on hand; victims are being taken to Sparrow Hospital.

In other words, this is students’ and parents’ nightmare in progress.

~ ~ ~

10:31 p.m. ET —

Local live coverage at:

WILX-TV NBC affiliate
https://www.wilx.com/2023/02/14/shelter-place-shots-fired-michigan-state-university/

WLNS-TV CBS affiliate
https://www.wlns.com/news/local-news/shots-fired-at-msu-students-instructed-to-hide-run-hide-fight/

Lansing State Journal – USA Today network member
https://www.lansingstatejournal.com/

City Pulse – does not yet have live reporting but will likely have reports in the morning.
https://www.lansingcitypulse.com/

The State News – MSU student newspaper
https://statenews.com/article/2023/02/students-staff-describe-experiences-on-campus-with-shooting

Michigan State Police just told WLNS-TV they are not confirming any deaths.

A news briefing is expected at 11:00 p.m. ET.

~ ~ ~

10:47 p.m. ET —

From WNYC’s On The Media, here is a handy consumer media guide for use in Active Shooter events and other breaking news situations:

See their The Breaking News Consumer’s Handbook: Active Shooter Edition for more.

~ ~ ~

11:02 p.m. ET —

MSU Police spokesperson Chris Rozman addressed media, public.

Incident began at Berkey Hall at 8:18 p.m.

Several victims at Berkey Hall found by police responding minutes after the initial call.

Another shooting followed at Michigan State Union building.

Five victims so far, several with life-threatening injuries.

Suspect left MSU Union building on foot; believed to be a short Black male wearing red shoes, jean jacket, ball cap.

Police are checking security camera video at this time; the shooter has not yet been found.

Parents have been asked not to come to campus.

Police spokesperson asks interested persons to follow their Twitter account.

There have been false reports of additional shooters/shootings.

Next update will be at 12:00 a.m.

~ ~ ~

11:15 p.m. ET —

MSU Police did not confirm this during the presser, but MSU spokeswoman Emily Guerrant has informed WILX-TV there was one death.

WILX-TV now says they’re not providing any more details not shared by police.

~ ~ ~

11:25 p.m. ET —

Still images from security cameras believed to be of the suspect have been released to the media and on Twitter:

Grand River Avenue along the north edge of MSU campus has been shut down. It is normally very busy due to the number of retail and food businesses located on Grand River which serve campus.

~ ~ ~

11:40 p.m. ET —

A WILX reporter confirmed there are three dead in addition to five hospitalized at Sparrow Hospital at this time.

~ ~ ~

12:03 a.m. ET — 14-FEB-2023 —

MSU Police have pushed back the next update to 12:20 a.m. ET. No additional information has yet been received.

~ ~ ~

12:28 a.m. ET — 

MSU PD spokesperson Rozman provided a phone number and an email address for any tips related to the shooter.

Call: (844) 99M-SUPD or email: [email protected]

Please note the shootings appeared to have been confined to two locations on campus — Berkey Hall and the MSU Union.

A WILX reporter is at another off-campus location near the Larch and Lake Lansing Road intersection where police have cordoned off the road where they are working. This intersection is about three miles to the west of campus. This scene may be related to the shooter’s demise.

MSU Police have planned another update at 1:30 a.m.

~ ~ ~

8:50 a.m. —

The shooting suspect has been identified as 43-year-old Anthony McRae (spelling subject to confirmation). He was unaffiliated with MSU. A tip was called in by someone who knew him immediately after they recognized him from the still images from the security camera shared by police last evening.

All of the shooting victims both deceased and currently hospitalized are students at MSU.

There is no known motive at this time.

The victims will be identified later today after next of kin have been notified.

All classes are canceled until next Monday at MSU though the campus may be open. Counseling services will be available to students.

Hatchet Speed Arrested on a Small Part of his $50,000 “Panic Buying” Arsenal

Last month, I reminded readers that every single one of the 5,000 people in whom the FBI might still have an investigative interest relating to January 6 — even just the trespassers — could be the next Ricky Shiffer: a Trump supporter mobilized by Trump’s false claims of victimhood who attempted to breach an FBI office, only to be killed in a shootout with police.

That’s because there are 5,000 more like him out there.

I don’t mean, there’s a shit-ton of Trump supporters who could go postal at any moment. There are far more than 5,000 of them.

I mean, there are 5,000 people who participated in January 6 that the FBI might have predicated investigative interest in, but has not yet arrested.

That’s a fairly conservative number. In recent days, DOJ passed the 850 arrest mark for January 6 defendants. There are probably 1,500 to 2,000 more people who entered the Capitol on January 6 whose arrest would be comparatively easy (because their trespass is fairly easy to prove) who have not yet been arrested. There are probably 250 identified suspected assailants still at large (over 530 people, including those who’ve been arrested, are listed on the FBI site). And there were probably 10,000 people who breached the external barricades but did not enter the building that DOJ would only arrest if there were something extra — the political profile of Ryan Kelley or Couy Griffin, the pre-existing Deferred Prosecution Agreement of Owen Shroyer, conspiracy ties like Stewart Rhodes — to justify the arrest. Sure, the people who attended the January 5 rally, as Shiffer did, were more likely to participate in more radicalized online networks; those people weren’t in DC just to hear the loser of an election speak.

But at every moment that DOJ has been investigating the leaders that orchestrated January 6 (which provably started within weeks of the attack) and at every moment that DOJ has been investigating Trump’s other criminal acts, DOJ and FBI have been trying to deal with the growth of political violence that Trump has deliberately fostered. DOJ spent the weeks after January 6 doing triage, trying to arrest enough people to get visibility on the very real plans for follow-on attacks before or at the Inauguration. DOJ spent the year after January 6 trying to incapacitate the militia networks that served as an organizing structure for the attack. And DOJ has spent the last six months, as it turned more overtly to investigate several sets of crimes by the former President, trying to anticipate which of those 5,000 veterans of January 6 would, alone or in concert, attempt to reignite a civil war.

I hope that, given the Shiffer example, impatient people who’ve never bothered to understand the crime scene itself will remember that everyone they’ve dismissed for a year as low-level January 6 trespassers may be the next Ricky Shiffer. It’s easy to imagine that if you just arrest Trump all that political violence will dissipate. But that wouldn’t even have been true in 2019, if Mueller had indicted, and it sure as hell isn’t true now. And every step DOJ takes to get closer to arresting Trump, or even just hold the butchers like Fitzsimons who took up arms on January 6 accountable, the mob of people that Trump radicalized on January 6 remains an urgent threat.

In that post, I referenced an earlier one focused on January 6 misdemeanants where I explained why a similar misdemeanor arrest, that of Hatchet Speed, might be among the trespassing arrests that carried far greater significance.

One reason I said that is because a cleared defense contractor with ties to the Proud Boys — who in his arrest affidavit was described as just another face in the crowd — poses a particularly urgent concern.

This is the kind of guy — a cleared defense contractor who went to the insurrection with some Proud Boys “with whom he keeps in contact” — whose cooperation DOJ has used fruitfully in the past. He’s also the kind of guy who presents the ongoing urgent concern about our Deep State being riddled with militia sympathizers.

It turns out that, by the time the FBI arrested him for the DC crime, they already knew he spent the months after Joe Biden’s inauguration “panic buying” an arsenal of weapons and speaking approvingly of a whole ideological swath of terrorists.

That was disclosed yesterday in an affidavit unsealed along with an indictment for three unregistered silencers in Virginia (Seamus Hughes first found the arrest).

5. The FBI has obtained evidence that, in the months following January 6, 2021, SPEED purchased numerous firearms and firearm parts. In a meeting with an FBI undercover employee (UCE-1), SPEED made comments suggesting that he was “panic buying” during this time.

6. As reflected in ATF Form 4473s completed at the time of sale, SPEED purchased at least twelve firearms between February 11, 2021, and May 26, 2021 :

a. On February 11,2021, SPEED purchased an FN 509 (9mm pistol) from Vienna Arsenal;

b. On February 15,2021, SPEED purchased a Smith & Wesson Mod 10-6 (.38 SPL revolver) from Herndon Arms;

c. On March 12,2021, SPEED purchased a Glock 27 (.40 pistol), Mossberg 590 Shockwave (12-gauge shotgun), and Tikka T3X (6.5 Creedmoor rifle) from Vienna Arsenal;

d. On March 30, 2021, SPEED purchased a Sig Sauer MCX (.300 Blackout pistol) and a Benelli Supernova (12-gauge shotgun) from Vienna Arsenal;

e. On April 30, 2021, SPEED purchased a Sig Sauer Virtus (multiple caliber rifle) and Walther P22 (.22 pistol) from Vienna Arsenal;

f. On May 21, 2021, SPEED purchased an S&W Mod 60 (.38 SPL revolver) and S&W Mod 36 (.38 SPL revolver) from Vienna Arsenal;

g. On May 26, 2021, SPEED purchased a Sig Sauer MCX Virtus (5.56 pistol) from Vienna Arsenal.

7. Financial statements and other evidence collected in the course of the investigation reveal that SPEED purchased more than $50,000 at firearm and/or firearm part retailers, including the purchase of the twelve firearms described above, in the months after January 6, 2021. For example, financial statements from one of SPEED’s credit cards show that, just in the one-month period between February 15, 2021, and March 16, 2021, SPEED made the following purchases at firearms and/or firearm part retailers:

a. February 16,2021 – $4,109.00 at Silencer Shop in Texas;

b. February 16,2021 – $980.41 at Alamo Ammo in Texas;

c. February 16,2021 – $207.00 at Trex Arms in Tennessee;

d. March 3, 2021 – $668.99 at Reeds Family Outdoors in Minnesota;

e. March 8, 2021 – $194.90 at Greenacres Sporting Goods in Florida;

f. March 8, 2021 – $5,389.97 at OpticsPlanet, Inc., in Illinois;

g. March 8, 2021 – $100.42 at OutdoorLimited.com in North Carolina;

h. March 8, 2021- $215.31 at SGAmmo LLC in Oklahoma;

i. March 9,2021 – $1,137.29 at Ammo Freedom in Texas;

j. March 10,2021 – $1,919.99 at Guns Dot Com in Minnesota;

k. March 11,2021 – $80 in MidwayUSA in Missouri; 1

l. March 11, 2021 – $4,207.13 at SP & G Shooting Range in Virginia;

m. March 12,2021 – $660.99 at OutdoorLimited.com;

n. March 12,2021 – $290.74 at Armageddon Gear LLC in Georgia;

o. March 12,2021 – $297.80 at Freedom Munitions in Idaho;

p. March 12,2021 – $189.46 at EuroOptic Ltd Online in Pennsylvania;

q. March 12, 2021 – $695.00 at ESAD Arms LLC in Texas;

r. March 14,2021 – $568.00 at MidwayUSA in Missouri;

s. March 14,2021 – $374.12 at Silencer Shop in Texas;

t. March 15,2021 – $328.95 at Peak Case in Utah

At a meeting in March, Speed described to an undercover FBI officer how he liked to read Eric Rudolph and Ted Kaczynski so he could figure out how to improve on their game plans.

13. At the meeting on March 1, 2022, SPEED stated that he thought what Rudolph did was a mistake and that the bombing did not accomplish anything. But SPEED noted that Rudolph “was a right winger that got tired of what was happening and he wrote a book over his several year[ s] running from the FBI.” SPEED said that he “thought that was cool and … lover d] the fact that [Rudolph] can say what he did because he ha[ d] nothing to lose by writing [the book].” SPEED noted that he was “trying to find more books like that because [he] love[d] reading about people that are like ok, yeah, you’re assassinating bad guys, that’s cool, but if it’s approved then you’re always killing the small fry, you’re never actually going after the people who actually … ,” and then trailing off.

14. During the same meeting, SPEED also stated that he “like[ d] to read more stuff like that, like Ted Kaczynski,” who is commonly known as the “Unabomber.” SPEED stated the following (with my emphasis added):

Kaczynski wrote a manifesto and once again, like the stuff he did was not effective, but I can commiserate with where he was coming from. Because I think as people who can see their country fall deeper and deeper into wherever we’re going, we all know we have to do something so it’s useful to see what worked and what didn’t work. So, it’s useful to get into these people’s heads and you know, try and come up with a better game plan than they had.

15. During a meeting with UCE-l on March 15,2022, SPEED discussed Eric Rudolph again. In doing so, SPEED suggested Rudolph went wrong because he targeted rich people, when it is not about the money. SPEED said that instead it is “about power.” [emphasis FBI’s]

Speed spoke approvingly of kidnappings and talked about how he might pick victims.

27. In this conversation, SPEED continued by describing how kidnappings would be more effective than killing people. SPEED stated the following:

[K]idnappings are harder than killing people but they’re more effective. What I would love to see is you take somebody out, and they simply disappear. Nobody knows what happened to them. That means we can’t report on it, the media doesn’t know how to spin it. … And all of those people who were left behind have … no way to close that bridge, no way to know if they’re in danger. … We need to foster distrust within the opposite side, just like they do for us…. If you leave nothing behind, they never find the body.

This affidavit was submitted in conjunction with his arrest in June (and was the basis for putting him on house arrest with it). Since then, though, he has been permitted to attend weekend drill exercises as a member of the Navy Reserve at (!!!) Andrews Air Force Base.

Yesterday’s indictment feels like a stub for something else. It’s based on his possession, when he was arrested in June, of those three silencers. And while the government submitted his bond conditions in that docket, it’s not even clear whether he remained in possession of the three silencers after he was released after his June arrest.

EDVA started the paperwork to arrest him last Wednesday, September 2. That was two days after he requested to travel to Tampa Bay, ostensibly for a medical appointment, on September 11.

A number of militia members charged in January 6 are from the area. And Sarasota is where a lot of Trump’s — and Mike Flynn’s — post January 6 plotting has taken place.

This arrest presumably also derails any attempt Trevor McFadden would make (as he suggested he might back in July), at a scheduled status hearing on September 30, to accept a plea from Speed and release him with a hand-slap.

This is a man with a highly trained skillset and an arsenal who has been thinking a lot about terrorism in recent months. But before June, he was just another January 6 trespasser in the crowd.

3 Things: GOP’s Continuing Deadly Assault on America

[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

The GOP hasn’t stopped since January 6, 2021 and years earlier. They want to wreak maximum damage on this country and blame anybody and everybody but themselves for it.

We’re supposed to believe they’re the arbiters of what’s right for this country but everything they do is demoralizing and destabilizing.

It’s almost as if they were acting on behalf of another hostile country.

One only need to look at how the GOP have handled state and federal response to the mass shooting in Uvalde and elsewhere to see they don’t care how many Americans die so long as they continue to get their blood money.

If uncontrolled guns were the only damage they inflicted on this country, but no – the Grand Old Party of Death goes wide.

~ 3 ~

The pandemic isn’t over. It’s not ending because far too many right-wing Americans have been brainwashed by the right-wing ecosphere into believing vaccines, boosters, masks, and social distancing are evil.

The logic fails over and over; it doesn’t help when The New York Times continues to run crap by David Leonhardt which undermines encouraging mask wearing up to and including mandates.

It also doesn’t help when corporations are too damned greedy to the point of short-sightedness, screwing both their own business and Americans at the same time.

But it’s not just the continued onslaught of disinformation and misinformation which is hurting this country. It’s the GOP refusing to keep Americans safe; they’ve refused to provide funds necessary for vaccines, boosters, therapies, and development of new boosters designed for the current dominant Omicron variants.

15-MAR-2022White House begs Congress for Covid funding amid concern about Omicron sister variant

30-MAR-2022Biden presses Congress for new COVID funding, gets second booster shot

But Senate Republicans have balked at setting aside additional money, saying they want a full accounting of earlier spending, and House Democrats subsequently rejected a plan to repurpose money already pledged to states.

While federal regulators on Tuesday authorized a fourth shot of vaccine for Americans 50 and older, U.S. officials have said they do not have enough funding to place advance orders for additional vaccine doses to cover all Americans, unless Congress passes the stalled package.

27-APR-2022Fact Sheet: Biden Administration Underscores Urgent Need for Additional COVID-⁠19 Response Funding and the Severe Consequences of Congressional Inaction

09-MAY-2022U.S. will limit next-generation Covid vaccines to high-risk people this fall if Congress doesn’t approve more funding

21-MAY-2022As COVID funding runs out, U.S. could see rationing of supplies

Months now they’ve dragged their feet because it might help Democrats; their party’s levels in broken public opinion polls don’t fair as badly as Biden’s because the media hasn’t held them accountable for their intransigence.

The GOP doesn’t care a whit if it hurts their own voters because a red state remains red even when the bodies pile up in the morgue.

Older people are the most reliable voters and the ones who vote GOP most often, but these deaths don’t matter to the GOP because media about these deaths hurts Democrats more.

It’s death by GOP passive-aggression.

~ 2 ~

The GOP wants to kill girls’ sports in public education. Ohio is the vanguard leading the way by passing a bill in its state house allowing anybody to contest a minor child’s gender identity which would then require a physical examination of the child’s genitals if that child is enrolled in a school participating in interscholastic sports.

Read that Twitter thread and the bill linked in it. That bill is an utter dumpster fire.

It’s sexual assault by the state sanctioned by the GOP. It’s little different from Larry Nassar’s assaults on gymnasts who didn’t consent to his abuses; these minors likewise can’t consent/dissent and their parents will be obligated to consent on their behalf if the child participates in sports.

The bill doesn’t obligate male-identifying minors to go through the same invasive inspection which means this bill is clearly aimed at controlling female-identifying bodies.

It’s literally Trumpy “grab ’em by the pussy” governance beginning in K-12 education. It’s not small government and it’s not freedom; it’s anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-women Trumpism, and sane parents would rather not allow their children to be subjected to this abuse for the sake of interscholastic sports.

The GOP means death to girls’ sports, and in a secondary fashion, death to public education for girls.

Next up: mandatory burkhas – not out of line to assume this since obligatory inspection of girls’ bodies is something the Taliban would insist upon.

~ 1 ~

The GOP claims it’s the party of life but that ends with birth. They literally don’t care if American babies died of starvation.

They also don’t give a flying fuck if children starve, assuming they aren’t already dead from mass shootings.

Morley pointed out the provision for funding school lunches was in the Build Back Better bill which the GOP rejected.

Stay cool this summer, kiddies, and starve; thank the GOP while you do so.

The GOP is about as helpful to America’s children as Uvalde TX police at a mass shooting.

~ 0 ~

Regular community members consider yourselves warned this week could see a surge in trolls and trolling. The right-wing has been casting about for an approach to offset the anticipated bad news coming from the House J6 Committee hearings this week; so far they haven’t settled on one thing partly because they are dealing with blowback about gun rights and police militarization. They’ve tried blaming Antifa repeatedly; some of the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol claim the Capitol Police set them up and Antifa was responsible.

Sure, sure. Looks like a set up.

But the head troll has sent up a bat signal for the fascist horde to flood the zone with their usual shit.

Let’s not forget this bat signal isn’t just about the January 6 hearings but about Bannon’s own butt. His contempt of Congress case is back in court on June 15, coincidentally 10 days after this shout for troll mobilization.

There will be much less tolerance for bullshit here primarily because there will be more bullshit than moderators to shovel it. Bear with us, thanks.

‘This Time Is Going to Be Different’: Confronting the NRA

[NB: Check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]

I can’t read one more story today about the fathomless horror children, teachers, and parents experienced in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday. Each new report nauseates me learning that Texas state and local government failed their most vulnerable citizens repeatedly.

Knowing that a child had to play dead after swabbing themselves in their dead friend’s blood is just…I don’t have words for this, only tears and an urge to scream and rail.

If this representative was mine, I’d be screaming at him.


Par for the course with this guy who succeeded NRA’s buddy Will Hurd for Texas’s 23rd congressional district.

Utterly useless and irresponsible, unresponsive to the needs of his constituents while doing little more than lobbying for guns.

Fortunately, the young people of Texas aren’t taking the attack on their futures lying down. We’ve seen protests after mass shootings before but this feels different — they are taking it right to the NRA.

Yeah, this really feels different.

There will be more protests tomorrow against the NRA in Houston outside the organization’s convention when big name doofuses like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump show up.

I hope more protests will occur in Uvalde against this monstrous wretch who is trying to suck up to the NRA and patronize Uvalde’s citizens at the same time. One can only wonder if polling told him to do this.

You’ll recall David Hogg is a survivor of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He continues to fight for the rights of young Americans to live without the terror of gun violence.

Hogg’s promoting the next rallies on June 11. By then Congress will be back in session.

It will take more than these rallies to make change happen, though. I hope there’s effort on the ground to encourage voter registration and education about candidates who support gun control.

There’s No Doubt the GOP Now Has Weapons of Mass Destruction [UPDATE-1]

[NB: Check the bylines, thanks. Updates at the bottom of this post. /~Rayne]

I’ve been frozen by anguish and anger, unable to write something about the mass murder in Uvalde, Texas. Whatever I dump here emerges from this, and some of it will be others’ words because they’ve said it better and more succinctly.

~ ~ ~

We’ve had some discussion in one of the threads about Beto O’Rourke’s attempt to question current Texas governor Greg Abbott about Abbott’s response to Uvalde.

Abbott’s minions shouted down O’Rourke, who as a Texan was entitled to know what the state’s top elected official was doing in response to the mass murder.

This encapsulates everything which is wrong with Abbott — he and the people he surrounds himself with don’t give a flying fuck about Texans. The Abbott administration is a goddamned joke.

This careless disregard will affect more than a couple of generations of Texans who’ve already had to deal with Abbott’s general uselessness against Texas’s isolated energy grid which killed a child along with 110 other Texans in 2021.

57.5% of Texas is not white; the largest portion of this non-white population is Hispanic/Latin, making up 39.3% of the state’s citizens according to a badly-run 2020 US Census which undercounted Texas citizens and undocumented residents alike.

Which means Texas is more than 40% Hispanic/Latin and Gov. Greg Abbott could give a flying fuck how they feel about Tuesday’s mass murder he enabled by signing an bill with the loosest open carry regulations in the nation.

He really hasn’t given but lip service after previous mass murders with assault weapons in his state, supporting increasing laxity about gun control in Texas in spite of six mass shootings since he was first elected governor in 2015.

Not just supporting increasing laxity, but doing so in the face of a majority’s support for increased gun controls from banning assault rifles to background checks before sales.

The Texas Tribune does a phenomenal job of laying out how Abbott has consistently ignored Texans’ sentiments while not pointing a finger at him alone. Abbott is doing what the GOP and its foreign-financed sponsor the National Rifle Association have wanted him to do: demoralize Texans and destabilize it so that state and federal government are undermined and lose support of the people.

~ ~ ~

We had quite a few heated discussions here in the wake of George Floyd’s murder-by-cop and subsequent protests against police abuse. The heat focused on “defunding the police” rather than the problem itself: increasing militarization of the police at all levels has not led to fewer murders-by-cop, nor to reducing the number of BIPOC Americans murdered by cop, extrajudicially executed by police who’ve more or less been granted absolute immunity because of the way “qualified immunity” has been applied.

Stop arguing about the effectiveness of the message, “defund the police.” Don’t even try to offer “reform policing” as an alternative. Not when police stood by and let a shooter terrorize and murder a classroom yesterday, restraining parents from going in to help, whisking cops’ kids to safety, coaching potential victims to yell for police help only to have the shooter kill a victim who yelled, “Help!”


These people right here:


called the U.S. Border Patrol to help them unlock a fucking classroom door.

$4 million a year –40% of its annual budget — plus grants the city of Uvalde has spent on policing only to have their police attacking frightened parents in some twisted form of crowd control as they stood there outside a locked classroom waiting for the gunman to do whatever it was he was going to do.

Greg Abbott went to a fundraiser that evening even as the blood of children and their teacher dried on the floor of that once locked classroom, as their parents’ DNA was collected for identifying the victims who had surely be turned into mincemeat by an AR-15. That was his response to the mass shooting: pay me, I’m delivering for you, he is telling his sponsors who are perfectly alright with a demoralized, destabilized Texas.

This is the response of police elsewhere: double down on what hasn’t worked since 1999 in Columbine.

[Tweet deleted by Rochester @News_8 which said police there were looking into more active shooter training]

It’s only a matter of time before we are offered the excuse that the AR-15 armed killer could take out Uvalde’s police the way the AR-15 armed killer took out the armed guard at the grocery store in Buffalo NY during a mass shooting ten days earlier.

Except there’s no comparison between a lone security guard not wearing a plate carrier and a militarized SWAT team which should have had far more training to deal with a lone gunman situation.

We’ve already heard the excuse from that malignant sluggard Abbott that the shooter was mentally ill, an assumption based on little to know evidence. And of course Abbott is responsible for the cutting funding for mental health care in Texas.

Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that the Uvalde school shooter had a “mental health challenge” and the state needed to “do a better job with mental health” — yet in April he slashed $211 million from the department that oversees mental health programs.

In addition, Texas ranked last out of all 50 states and the District of Columbia for overall access to mental health care, according to the 2021 State of Mental Health in America report.

“We as a state, we as a society, need to do a better job with mental health,” Abbott said during a news conference at Robb Elementary School, where a gunman shot and killed 19 children and two teachers on Tuesday. …

Texans, you can do better than this lousy lying hack. You deserve better. Se merecen algo mejor que Abbott, tejanos.

Take it all down and start over. Rethink public safety from the ground up because it’s not working and it only gives the worst kinds opportunities to grift — like Abbott’s fundraising.

~ ~ ~

Even more frustrating than the endless stream of pablum offered by stupid gits like Ted Cruz, or rebellious threats against the president like Florida’s state house rep Randy Fine is the inability to connect dots.

The mass murder by an AR-15 carrying teen and previous mass shootings have been encouraged by the GOP because they are bought and owned by the gun manufacturers’ lobby, the NRA. The NRA doesn’t give a shit about Americans; it only cares that there is a sustained market for its products. It only cares that a minority of Americans are rabid enough about gun rights to act as enforcers for the lobby’s demands.

The lobby itself has been bought and owned by Russia following the 2010 Citizens United decision; a flood of Russian money laundered through the NRA bought GOP elected officials and candidates.

The Senate Finance Committee’s 2019 report based on an 18-month investigation said the NRA was a Russian ‘foreign asset’ before the 2016 election.

Considering who the NRA continues to support with campaign donations — like Senators Mitch McConnell (total $1,267,139 )and Rand Paul (total $104,456) whose state Kentucky has also been courted with Russian oligarch money — it’s likely still a foreign asset.

The NRA continues to buy the GOP; it remains pleased with the results of its lobbying because it hasn’t changed its mode of operation no matter how many mass shootings and deaths there have been.

[Screenshot, distribution of 2020 election cycle donations by NRA to major national political parties (FEC data via OpenSecrets)]

In short, Russia is conducting war on the US through its proxies the NRA and the GOP, ensuring weapons of mass destruction remain in the hands of people who are vulnerable to messaging encouraging violence — messaging which may arise from active measures over social media as a subset of Russia’s hybrid warfare..

The GOP need not worry about Putin escalating his assault on Ukraine into a nuclear war involving the US.

They’re already killing plenty of Americans using American weapons of mass destruction on American soil without a single drop of blood spattered on Putin’s doorstep.

Why would Putin waste a single warhead when the GOP will do all the dirty work for him, sitting on their hands and taking NRA money rather than do what has been proven effective (ban assault weapons) and what is popular (background checks on all gun buyers)?

~ ~ ~

A Twitter thread recap of Uvalde’s preventable disaster:

Do something. Fucking do something constructive to stop this madness, you book-burning child-killing hacks with the R after your name.

For Democrats who were elected to serve this nation, stop enabling both the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction here in our own backyards. Stop enabling lousy policing which clearly isn’t solving the problem of mass shootings in public spaces while it punches down on the public it’s supposed to serve.

For those of us who vote D, help people get IDs to vote, help them register, make sure every voter you know is educated about the ballot in your state/county/city/precinct, and get every voter to polls for the remaining primaries and the mid-term election in November. The life you save may be your own.

~ ~ ~

UPDATE-1 — 11:00 P.M. 26-MAY-2022 —

I called it.

They had gear as well as training and they weren’t willing to use it because they might have been shot. It’s called dereliction of duty.

If they don’t want to police, then fucking defund the police. Use the budget to deal with the root causes like improved local mental health care and services for precarious residents.

Three Things: SCOTUS on LGBTQ+ Discrimination, Qualified Immunity, Gun Rights

Very big SCOTUS day today. Huge — and that’s in spite of the court declining to hear cases on multiple issues.

~ 3 ~

In BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY, GEORGIA and two other cases, the Supreme Court ruled in 6-3 decision that firing an employee for being gay or transgender violates the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Title VII (42 USC § 2000e-2 [Section 703]) reads,

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer –

(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;

Dissenters were Justices Kavanaugh, Thomas, and Alito; Alito filed a dissenting opinion which Thomas joined. Kavanaugh also filed a dissenting opinion.

Overview of the three cases from Human Rights Watch:

In R.G. & G.R. HARRIS FUNERAL HOMES v. EEOC and AIMEE STEPHENS, Aimee Stephens worked as a funeral director at R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes. When she informed the funeral home’s owner that she is transgender and planned to come to work as the woman she is, the business owner fired her, saying it would be “unacceptable” for her to appear and behave as a woman. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in March 2018 that when the funeral home fired her for being transgender and departing from sex stereotypes, it violated Title VII, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in employment.

In ALTITUDE EXPRESS INC. v. ZARDA, Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor, was fired from his job because of his sexual orientation. A federal trial court rejected his discrimination claim, saying that the Civil Rights Act does not protect him from losing his job because of his sexual orientation. In February 2018, the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation is a form of discrimination based on sex that is prohibited under Title VII. The court recognized that when a lesbian, gay or bisexual person is treated differently because of discomfort or disapproval that they are attracted to people of the same sex, that’s discrimination based on sex.

In BOSTOCK v. CLAYTON COUNTY, Gerald Lynn Bostock was fired from his job as a county child welfare services coordinator when his employer learned he is gay. In May 2018, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reconsider a 1979 decision wrongly excluding sexual orientation discrimination from coverage under Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination and denied his appeal.

The dissent weighed in at more than 140 pages out of the entire 177 page syllabus and decision handed down by SCOTUS today.

The first sentence of the dissent:

There is only one word for what the Court has done today: legislation. The document that the Court releases is in the form of a judicial opinion interpreting a statute, but that is deceptive.

Right-wing ideologues are in a furor over Justice Gorsuch’s delivery of the opinion. They must have had absolute faith in Gorsuch to be so incredibly outraged that his interpretation didn’t sustain bigotry. He wrote,

An employer who fired an individual for being homosexual or transgender fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids. Those who adopted the Civil Rights Act might not have anticipated their work would lead to this particular result. But the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demands. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.

Today’s decision doesn’t end all discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons, only employers defined by Title VII. There is still a need for more legislation to ensure all persons in this country may rely on the same rights in housing, credit, property ownership and more. The House passed the Equality Act in May 2019 to address these shortcomings; the bill is now languishing on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s desk in spite of support for the bill from 70 percent of Americans.

Steve Silberman noted a trait shared by two of the three dissenting jurists:

One of the most passionately angry voices today:

“Bungled textualism.” ~chuckling~

~ 2 ~

The SCOTUS declined to hear cases seeking reexamination of the doctrine of “qualified immunity.” Thomas was the lone jurist who wanted to hear cases; in a six-page dissent he wrote, “qualified immunity doctrine appears to stray from the statutory text.”

There will be greater pressure on lawmakers to address qualified immunity in legislation.

Opinion piece about qualified immunity:

Rep. Ayana Pressley on qualified immunity:

~ 1 ~

The SCOTUS declined to hear multiple Second Amendment cases after it avoided addressing New York City’s regulation of guns back in April because the city repeal of the restriction render the case moot.

Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh dissented, wanting to hear a case related to New Jersey’s regulation of concealed carry guns.

~ 0 ~

There’s actually four things today — SCOTUS also declined to hear the Trump administration’s petition regarding California’s SB 54 which prevents the state’s law enforcement resources from being deployed to aid federal immigration enforcement. Alito and Thomas dissented, wanting to take up the matter; surprisingly, Kavanaugh voted with Roberts and Gorsuch to decline.

We are still waiting for a decision on Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals policy (DACA), which could cost the U.S. as many as 27,000 health care workers at the worst time possible if SCOTUS finds DACA unconstitutional.

This is an open thread.

Craig Simpson [CC BY 2.0])">CC by 2.0

Straddling the COVID-19 Barbed Wire Fence in Kansas

Pro Tip: Don’t sit on this fence. (photo h/t to Craig Simpson [CC BY 2.0])

The Democratic governor of Kansas, Laura Kelly, has put her finger in the eye of conservatives in Kansas by issuing a state-wide stay-at-home order yesterday in the face of the growing COVID-19 epidemic. Out in the western part of the state, the wingnuts have already been saying “this is an urban problem – we’re just fine – we don’t have any Chinese people here – why did she close all our schools?” and now they’ll scream just a little harder.

Note, however, that Kelly does not have the last word on this. When she issued her initial state of emergency declaration at the end of February, it lasted for 30 days. To extend it, the GOP-dominated legislature had to consent . . . which they did, but not without a fight. From the AP’s John Hanna in Topeka:

The [KS] Senate voted 39-0 and the House 115-0 to approve a resolution to extend the state of emergency until May 1 and to allow legislative leaders to extend it further every 30 days. Kelly declared a state of emergency last week, and without the resolution, it would have expired March 27.

But the resolution also requires legislative leaders to review all of Kelly’s executive orders and allows them to overturn many of them within days. It also prohibits Kelly from having guns and ammunition seized or blocking their sale.

The unanimity of those two votes is almost unheard of these days in Topeka, and it was a sign that the GOP was willing to go along with closing the schools for the rest of the year and take other measures as the COVID-19 outbreak began to surface across the state. But they sure didn’t like it, and wanted to make damn sure that they could shut down an out of control governor (in other words, a Democrat) when they did something they considered outrageous. The guns and ammo provision is another sign of how fearful the rightwing is of folks coming for their weaponry.
That was ten days ago. As soon as Kelly’s Stay-At-Home order came out yesterday, so did the folks on the right, waving around that provision that provides for a veto those orders. Again from John Hanna:

Conservatives in the Republican-controlled Legislature said Kelly overreached this month when she ordered public schools closed for the rest of the semester and complained that the state’s economy was being damaged too much. Legislative leaders have the power to revoke her orders related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman, Majority Leader Dan Hawkins and Speaker Pro Tem Blaine Finch, all Republicans, said in a joint statement that the new order “will no doubt impact our families and our businesses. As members of the Legislative Coordinating Council we have a duty to carefully assess this executive order and the reasons for it. Over the coming days we will consult with the Attorney General, health care professionals, the business community, and the state’s emergency management team to make sure we are on the right path.”

Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle, a Wichita Republican, said she was concerned about a “one size fits all” solution.

“I want to assure Kansans, particularly those in rural areas, the legislature is actively working to thoroughly review the Governor’s orders and ensure the specific needs of rural Kansans are addressed,” Wagle said in a statement.

Kansas Congressional Districts

[Note to the folks worried that the state’s economy was being damaged too much: a virus does not care.]

Speaking of those rural areas, let me direct your attention to OB-GYN Roger Marshall, who also serves as the US Representative from KS-01 (the large green area on the map to the right). Marshall is running to replace Pat Roberts in the US Senate, and he is trying to straddle a barbed wire fence on all this. He’s been loud about backing Trump’s “close the borders” stuff, but he’s still enough of a physician that he realizes that science actually matters. He doesn’t like the “big government” approach at all, but he has conspicuously not condemned Kelly for closing the schools. From an story two weeks ago in the Manhattan KS paper “The Mercury”:

Following Gov. Laura Kelly’s recent decision to close K-12 school buildings for the rest of the school year, halt mortgage foreclosures and evictions, and ban gatherings of more than 50 people, Marshall said he would rather people exercise an overabundance of caution at the moment.

“We have to assume that the virus is out in every community,” he said. “I hope there’s not, but we have to assume that. Kids and young adults, they’re super infectors so if one child has the virus, they’re going to transmit it a bunch more often than say an older person who just doesn’t have as many social contacts. Think of senior citizens, for the sake of people with illnesses.

“I hope in a couple of weeks you can say we did too much,” Marshall continued, “but I think right now, it’s so critical that this is the acceleration phase of the spread of this virus. Every virus we prevent spreading today is going to prevent dozens in the future and save many, many Kansas lives.”

Yesterday, Marshall retweeted John Hanna’s story about the Stay-At-Home order to his followers, perhaps trying to signal them that the GOP is watching this. He did not, however, attack or even question Kelly’s judgment for ordering this. To borrow from Sherlock Holmes, this is the dog that did not bark, and the silence is deafening.

And then there’s Marshall’s big opposition in the GOP primary (this was before Kelly’s order was issued yesterday):

U.S. Senate contender Kris Kobach reached for campaign gold amid the coronavirus pandemic by promising to intensify construction of a border wall to defend the country against illegal immigrants from China who may import deadly viruses.

“Over 12,000 Chinese nationals snuck across the border into the United States last year,” Kobach said in a video fundraising appeal delivered Thursday to potential voters in Kansas. “No checks. No visas. No health screening. In times of global pandemic, borders matter.”

The fence in Kansas between science and wingnuttery is made of very sharp barbed wire. Kobach is planted firmly on the Wingnuttery side of that fence, and Marshall does not want to cede all those voters to him by planting his feet firmly on the side of science. But Marshall is is going to find that straddling a barbed wire fence is not comfortable, to say the least.

The KS senate race will be very very interesting this November.

 

John Lewis Was Not Always Old

Ode to Ella Baker” by Lisa McLymont (Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)

A few weeks ago, John Lewis put out a press release announcing to all that he is undergoing treatment for stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He later sent out a tweet, lifting up one of the best lines in that press statement:

I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now.

Lewis’ summary of his life is not hyperbole. He is the last living member of the Big Six, the speakers at the 1963 March on Washington for civil rights, and now is a senior member of Congress. But it’s important to remember that John Lewis was not always old. He was just 23 when he spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as the president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) – an organization he co-founded three years earlier at age 20 – and at 21 was one of the original Freedom Riders.

Let me repeat it again: John Lewis was not always old. He has always been a fighter for civil rights, but he has not always been old.

In 2005, historian David McCullough noted how we as a society perceive great leaders in a speech about the Founders:

We tend to see them—Adams, Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Rush, George Washington—as figures in a costume pageant; that is often the way they’re portrayed. And we tend to see them as much older than they were because we’re seeing them in the portraits by Gilbert Stuart and others when they were truly the Founding Fathers—when they were president or chief justice of the Supreme Court and their hair, if it hadn’t turned white, was powdered white. We see the awkward teeth. We see the elder statesmen.

At the time of the Revolution, they were all young. It was a young man’s–young woman’s cause. George Washington took command of the Continental Army in the summer of 1775 at the age of 43. He was the oldest of them. Adams was 40. Jefferson was all of 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Rush—who was the leader of the antislavery movement at the time, who introduced the elective system into higher education in this country, who was the first to urge the humane treatment of patients in mental hospitals—was 30 years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence. Furthermore, none of them had any prior experience in revolutions; they weren’t experienced revolutionaries who’d come in to take part in this biggest of all events. They were winging it. They were improvising.

This is not unique to the American Founders. Historians of social change who pay attention to the leaders of these movements often see the same thing. For example . . .

  • When Martin Luther King, Jr. led the Montgomery Bus boycott in 1955, he was just shy of 25 years old. When he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he was 35, and when was assassinated on the balcony of a Memphis hotel, he was only 39.
  • When Thurgood Marshall argued on behalf of racial justice in Shelley v. Kramer before SCOTUS in 1948 – six years before he did the same in Brown v. Board of Education – Marshall was 40 years old. He won both cases, the former striking down restricted housing covenants and the latter doing away with the pernicious “separate but equal” doctrine that was at the heart of Jim Crow.
  • When Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, and Nelson Mandela co-founded the ANC Youth League in 1944, they were 31, 26, and 25 years old respectively.
  • When Dr. Paul Volberding and nurse Cliff Morrison pushed against incredible medical and social prejudices to organize the nation’s first AIDS unit at San Francisco General Hospital in 1983 as the AIDS crisis continued to spiral out of control, they were 33 and 31 respectively.
  • When Gavin Newsom (then mayor of San Francisco) ordered the San Francisco clerk’s office to issue marriage licenses for couples regardless of the genders involved on February 14, 2004, he was 36.
  • When Upton Sinclair published The Jungle, exposing the ugly underside of the meatpacking industry and spurring social change with regard government oversight and regulation of food and drugs, he was 28.
  • When anti-lynching crusader and journalist Ida B. Wells published Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases in 1892, she was 30.
  • When Elizabeth Cady Stanton co-organized the Seneca Falls Conference on Women’s Rights in 1848, she was 32.

It’s not too much of a stretch to say that the leaders of social change movements are more likely to be young than to be old.

After Lewis made his announcement, Marcy tweeted out her reactions to the news, including this:

Say a prayer–or whatever you do instead–to give John Lewis strength for this fight. But also commit to raise up a young moral leader who has inspired you. We can’t rely on 80 and 90 year olds to lead us in the troubled days going forward.

I’ve been chewing on that tweet for the better part of a month.

What immediately went through my head upon reading that tweet was the name Ella Baker, one of the less well-known leaders in the civil rights movement. In a story for the Tavis Smiley Show on PRI about the founding of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), John Lewis tells of Ella’s powerful role:

Martin Luther King, Jr. was so impressed by the actions of the students [and their non-violent lunchcounter sit-ins], says Lewis, that he asked a young woman by the name of Ella Baker to organize a conference, inviting students from 58 colleges and universities.

“More than 300 people showed up at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where SNCC was born,” said Lewis. “It was Easter weekend, 1960.”

Baker, considered by many as an unsung hero of the civil rights movement, was a “brilliant” radical who spurred on the creation of SNCC as an independent organization, says Lewis.

“She was a fiery speaker, and she would tell us to ‘organize, organize; agitate, agitate! Do what you think is right. Go for it!’ Dr. King wanted her to make SNCC the youth arm of his organization. But Ella Baker said we should be independent … and have our own organization.”

While the SNCC was deeply inspired by Dr. King and the SCLC, or the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the students in the organization didn’t always see eye-to-eye with SCLC leadership.

“We had a lot of young women, and SNCC didn’t like the idea of the male chauvinism that existed in the SCLC,” says Lewis. “The SCLC was dominated by primarily black Baptist Ministers. And these young women did all the work and they had been the head of their local organizations.”

I’m not sure where Smiley got the phrasing about Ella Baker being “a young woman” when this all happened, as she was 55 years old in 1960 and King was only 30. But Ella did exactly what Marcy was talking about in that tweet. When she saw an opening to act, she helped raise up hundreds of young moral leaders, and she helped them most by encouraging them to act out of their own gifts and strengths and not by tying themselves to the approaches of older leaders.

Which brings me to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In the days following the massacre at MSD, the students there took matters into their own hands, rather than waiting for their elders to act. These are kids who grew up entirely in the post-Columbine High School shooting world, where active shooter drills were a regular part of school life. (I’m old: the only drills we had were “duck and cover” for a nuclear attack and “head for the hallway or basement” for tornadoes.) With each new shooting, they saw the same script written by the elders play out each time – thoughts and prayers for the victims, debate over gun laws, and nothing changes. They saw it happen around the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando a year and a half earlier. Talk, talk, talk and nothing changes.

This time, it wasn’t the elders running the show, however. It was Emma Gonzales, live on every cable network, who called BS on the NRA and the legislators who were intimidated by them. It was Cameron Kasky who gathered and organized his classmates to make this a movement. It was David Hogg and a dozen others, a hundred others, who did interviews, organized demonstrations, and the 1001 other things to give their work power. They reached out to other teens affected by gun violence, especially teens of color, to amplify the common message demanding change. They became a force to be reckoned with, not only in Tallahassee where they actually got gun laws changed, but in DC and around the country.

Behind these students, though, were their teachers. These are the folks who nourished the gifts of research and organization, of public speaking and political organizing in these young people. There were parents and other adults, who took their cues from the teens and did the things that you need someone over 21 to do, like sign rental bus agreements, for example. It is clear, though, that the moral leaders are the teens, with the elders in supporting roles.

Then there’s Greta Thunberg, relentlessly pushing the elders in seats of power to take action on the climate emergency gripping our planet.  Her messages are always a version of “This is not about me and my knowledge; it’s about the scientists and their knowledge – and they say we are going to burn the planet down if things don’t change fast.” She points to data, and forces her hearers to look at it. She may have gotten attention early on because of her youth (“O look at that cute little girl, doing cute little things and trying to get politicians to act”), but being a cute little girl doing cute little things doesn’t get you seat at the table at Davos. No, she got her seat at the tables of the powerful by being the young person who said over and over and over again that the emperors, the presidents, the corporate titans, and the powers of the planet aren’t wearing any clothes.

Just like young John Lewis.

The other part of Greta’s “It’s not about me” messaging is that she has sought out and nurtured other young people around the world, who have been organizing in their communities while she was at work in Sweden. She met Lakota activist Tokata Iron Eyes, who invited her to Standing Rock to see the work they are doing. Thunberg not only accepted, but eagerly lent her support to their work, not least of which came because of her larger media profile. When she spoke at Davos, it was as part of a panel of other young climate activists from Puerto Rico, southern Africa, and Canada.

Like the MSD students, Greta has passion for her activism, a data-driven focus that she hope can break through the cynicism and self-centeredness of world leaders, and a skill at building alliances with other like minded folks. And like the MSD students, people with power are listening — and are beginning to want to hear more. While Steve Mnuchen (following the lead of Donald Trump) mocked Thunberg for her youth, another world leader had a different reaction:

Angela Merkel, though, spoke warmly about the work of the new generation of climate activists.

“The impatience of our young people is something that we should tap,” the German chancellor said. In a special address to the WEF, Merkel called for more international cooperation to tackle climate change.

“I am totally convinced that the price of inaction will be far higher than the price of action,” she declared.

Over the last month, I’ve been looking at and interacting with the teenagers in my life a little bit differently, a little more intentionally, thanks in part to Marcy’s tweet. You see, one of those teens may just be another John Lewis, and I’d dearly love to be another Ella Baker.

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