Sunday Bloody Sunday In Baton Rouge

Baton Rouge PD officer Markell Morris

Yet another shocking act of terror committed by another disturbed lone gunman armed with an assault rifle and a twisted personal agenda.

Another bloody consequence of the almost unrestricted access to firearms in America.

On Saturday I had to work so yesterday, Sunday, was my one day off - but it didn't really feel like a day off.


The news that a disgruntled former Marine murdered three law enforcement officers on Sunday morning left me feeling numb.

While Gavin Long left a slew of social media posts that offer a glimpse into his anger and frustration over the killing of Alton Sterling by two Baton Rouge PD officers, his violent response cannot simply be pinned on a legitimate protest movement.

Long's incomprehensible decision to shoot six members of the law enforcement community took the lives of three innocent people and forever altered the lives of family, friends and associates who knew them.

His actions on Sunday morning didn't vindicate anyone, or right a wrong, it marked him as a ruthless killer, dishonored his service in the Marine Corps, and did a disservice to the millions of people who are using peaceful means to demand an end to the disproportional use of deadly force against people of color by some members of the police community.

His actions also undermine the legitimate protest movement against police brutality and excessive use of force and the apparent unwillingness of local, municipal and state justice systems to hold officers who use unjustified force accountable for their actions - just today we learn that a fourth Baltimore PD officer was acquitted of the heinous death of Freddie Gray while in the custody of the BPD.

Baton Rouge police killer Gavin Long 

What was going on in the mind of Gavin Long?

Since this just happened yesterday, results from the investigation will take time obviously, but knowing that he was a decorated Marine begs the question: 

Did undiagnosed, or untreated, Post Traumatic  Stress Disorder from his time as a Marine serving abroad in Iraq play a part?

Some of his associations certainly raise questions.

He's allegedly been linked to anti-government "sovereign citizen" groups that refuse to pay taxes or recognize the authority of police or courts; not unlike another paranoid ex-soldier who took the lives of innocent people, convicted Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh.

  

CNN reports that an email linked to the shooter Gavin Long shows he was associated with a group called 'Freedom From Covert Harassment and Surveillance'. 

The group's mission statement describes their elusive purpose to help people who've been, "Marginalized and abused by...Remote Brain Experimentation, Remote Neural Monitoring, of an entire humans body.

Despite Long's fragile mental state and association with fringe groups prone to a radically distorted view of reality, conservatives have been quick to use the demented act of a single individual to try and score cheap political points on the eve of the start of the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

Why? Open carry activist outside the convention

Trump immediately took to Twitter to blame the actions of an unbalanced lone gunman to try and cast blame for the incident on President Obama, childishly admonishing a two-term president with a law degree from Harvard for not having "a clue." 

The Republican candidate tried to fan the flames of hysteria by suggesting the "our country is a divided crime scene, and it will only get worse!"

Sage observations from the presumptive GOP nominee for the White House.

Trump's divisive Twitter posts made no mention of how Gavin Long was able to acquire at least two assault rifles and a hand gun in the first place; and carry them across state lines from Missouri to Louisiana.

No, Trump's political advisers likely encouraged him to "go Benghazi" and try and seize on a frustrated and dismayed American populace by trying to make the post-shooting narrative about the president and Hillary Clinton, in part to appease the NRA by not making the issue about the loaded assault rifle that Long used to kill three police officers and wound three others.

According to the latest statistics from the Gun Violence Archive, this (latest) heinous act in Baton Rouge is one of 29,113 gun incidents in the United States in 2016, and one of 7,503 deaths caused by guns this year.

The outrage over this incident is shared by most Americans, including the family of Alton Sterling who was gunned down on video recently by two members of the Baton Rouge PD, but the fiery rhetoric by some conservatives has been toxic and divisive.

I'm listening to NPR's coverage of the Republican convention and earlier they mentioned that a group of armed militia types were seen marching outside the convention center in single file, and Republican Governor John Kasich ignored a call from Cleveland's largest police union to place a temporary ban on Ohio's open-carry laws during the RNC event - he said there was nothing he could do about it even though he's the governor.

So Republican open carry activists are walking around public places in downtown Cleveland with loaded weapons; it's a reflection of a distorted view of reality in which Trump and his supporters seem to exist.

No question that recent high profile incidents of violence have shocked us all.

But the Brennan Center for Justice reports that crime rates in America are at a 30 year low, meanwhile inside the Quicken Loans Arena, the theme of tonight's RNC event?

"Make America Safe Again."

The Sound & The Fury: GA Sec of State Brian Kemp Warns About "Registering All These Minority Voters"

Georgia Sec. of State Brian Kemp 

In terms of the GOP's rather feeble minority outreach efforts, March of 2013 seems like the distant past - or possibly another dimension.

That's when a far more conciliatory and humbled Republican National Committee made national headlines with the release of a frank and openly self-analytical examination of their 2012 election losses acknowledging the urgent need of the GOP to do more to reach out to women, minorities and the LGBT community.

Here's a quote from that report:
“the Republican Party must be committed to building a lasting relationship within the African American community year-round, based on mutual respect and with a spirit of caring.”

Recent comments by Georgia Secretary of State of Georgia Brian Kemp would suggest that the "commitment" to a more progressive GOP was little more than superficial self-serving hot air.

According to the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, at a GOP breakfast earlier this summer Kemp told an audience:

“In closing I just wanted to tell you, real quick, after we get through this runoff, you know the Democrats are working hard, and all these stories about them, you know, registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines, if they can do that, they can win these elections in November.”

By "all these minority voters" I assume he meant the citizens of Georgia exercising their Constitutional right to participate in the Democratic process? 

In its quest to recapture the Senate, maintain a majority in the House, keep "super majorities" in state legislatures around the nation and take another crack at the White House, the GOP is busy trying to harvest the fruits of the Southern Strategy by dividing voters along racial lines and making it more difficult for students, the poor, the working class, the elderly and minorities to vote - and not just in Georgia.

Just last Thursday federal judge Peter Economus blocked efforts by Republicans in Ohio to eliminate early voting hours and ordered the state to add more voting dates to the calendar in the interest of ensuring equal access to the electoral process in November by minorities, the elderly and the poor. Republican secretary of state Jon Husted and Republican Governor John Kasich were both active supporters of measures intended to suppress votes.

While those kinds of measures may stand in total contrast to the Democratic principles of freedom the Republicans like to claim they stand for, it's par for the course with today's GOP.

A Washington Post article reports that a staggering 95% of Republican House districts are majority white - a direct result of years of Republicans spending their time in Washington gerrymandering House districts into all manner of bizarre shapes to create Republican majority districts where they don't actually exist.

Take a moment to look at the shapes of some of the most gerrymandered districts in the country from this Wonkblog article in the Washington Post by Christopher Ingraham. These are the kinds of bush-league tactics a Republican Party that can't win on the issues employs to win elections. 

Speaking of issues, as the fall elections approach, the default Republican strategy for stimulating the economy, cutting taxes for the wealthiest citizens by stripping revenue from critical state programs (like cutting pay for teachers and firefighters or stripping funding for schools) has proved to be as big a failure as it was when it was called the "trickle down" theory under Ronald Reagan.

Bond rating agencies Fitch and Standard & Poors both recently downgraded the state of New Jersey's bond rating because of a flat economy and Governor Chris Christie's failure to shore up the states massive pension obligations in part because if his ill-advised and highly criticized decision to grant generous tax breaks to (drum roll please...) the states wealthiest individuals.

By the way, that's the record eighth time the state of NJ's bond rating has been downgraded under Christie's leadership and the state still lags almost last among the fifty states in new job creation - no wonder Hizzoner has spent much of the summer traipsing around the country trying to sew the seeds for a 2016 run at the White House.

It's the same story in Kansas where Republican Governor Sam Brownback famously trumpeted the explosion in job growth a generous tax cut for the wealthiest Kansas citizens would create. So he slashed state spending and what happened?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics as of August 18th, Kansas created a grand total of 6,900 jobs - a gain of . 5 %. Point 5 percent. Right across the state line in Missouri where tax cuts were NOT used to strip the state of revenue during a fragile economic recovery, job growth has been 1.2% for the same period.

Such is the state of the Republican Party party as we approach critical fall elections.

As Shakespeare said, "Sound and fury signifying nothing."