Gun Violence in Chicago, Tamar Manasseh & M.A.S.K

The iconic downtown Chicago skyline at night  

Last Wednesday night I watched my beloved New York Yankees win their third-straight away-game against the Chicago White Sox on my iPhone as I battled through a tough case of writer's block.

While the Yanks boast one of the best records in baseball, they limped into Chicago early last Monday morning for a 3-game series against the White Sox, still licking their wounds after losing 4 straight games to their AL East rivals the Boston Red Sox.


A positive end to tough road trip after getting swept in Boston's Fenway Park.

While the Yankees arrived home early Thursday morning for a few hours rest before they beat the visiting Texas Rangers 7-3 to start a welcome eleven-game home stand up in the Bronx, the images of Chicago still linger in my mind.

As a sports fan, former TV reporter and ex-professional athlete, I appreciate good camera work, and one of the visual highlights of the past three Yankees-White Sox game broadcasts (which I watched using the Fox Sports App on my iPhone) were the various stunning evening views of the Chicago skyline with the illuminated downtown towers and streetlights of the city's vast neighborhoods stretching off into the distance on three consecutive clear nights.

My younger brother, who's in town for the weekend, was born in Chicago when my family used to live just outside the city in the suburb of Downer's Grove, Illinois in the early 70's, and I've visited the Windy City a few times since for both work and pleasure.

Most recently for a Penn State vs Notre Dame football game in South Bend, Indiana a few years ago (as a fan, not a player) when I got to spend the weekend at a friend's family's swanky high-rise condo on Chicago's famous Gold Coast on the west side next to Lake Michigan - talk about a view.

Those images, both on the screen of my iPhone and in my mind, stand in stark contrast to the shocking spate of deadly shootings that rocked some sections of Chicago last weekend.

17-year-old Jahnae Patterson, one of 12 people shot
and killed in Chicago between August 3rd - 5th

As was widely reported, between 6pm Friday August 3rd and the night of Sunday August 5th, a staggering 74 people were shot in an explosion of violence that left 12 people between the ages of 11 and 62 dead.

That grisly death toll included 17-year-old Jahnae Patterson who was killed early last Sunday morning when two alleged gang members approached a group of people she was talking with on a sidewalk in the Lawndale section of Chicago and opened fire.

The high-school junior was shot in the face and five others, including two boys aged 11 and 14-years-old, were wounded.

As her horrified mother Tanika Humphries told reporters, "They took my baby's life for no reason."

"No reason" is about the only way to possibly sum up that volume of gun violence taking place over the course of three days - according to Chicago PD, in one three-hour period during that stretch, a person was shot every six minutes.

The devastating toll that the injuries, loss of life and psychological trauma has taken on the residents of the economically-marginalized communities where gun violence is so prevalent, is all but invisible to the radar of the current White House administration - and the majority-Republican lawmakers in Congress responsible drafting the kinds of legislation that could help curb the availability of illegal guns in America.

I mean let's be honest, of all the different guns used to shoot 74 people over three days in Chicago last weekend, how many of those firearms were legally purchased or registered?

How many came from neighboring states like Indiana with much more lax regulations on firearms?

As journalist Tony Cook reported in an Indianapolis Star article re-posted on USA Today.com back in 2015:

"A report from Chicago authorities found that nearly 60% of illegal guns recovered in the city from 2009 to 2013 were first sold in states with more lax gun laws. The largest portion came from Indiana, which accounted for 19% of the illegal guns in Chicago. The report blames Indiana's lax gun laws, which allow gun owners to sell their weapons to other people without background checks or paperwork recording the sale."

NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre with accused Russian spy
Maria Butina in 2014

Don't hold you breath waiting for the National Rifle Association to answer pesky questions like that.

The NRA hasn't had much to say on that lately, or much else for that matter.

They're too busy deifying the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms.

As if it were a commandment etched in stone on a mountain by God, rather than a section of the U.S. Constitution written back in 1787 just six years after occupying British Army forces under General Charles Cornwallis surrendered to the Continental Army under General George Washington at Yorktown on October 19, 1781.

The ideologically conservative, dependably self-righteous and normally preachy front for gun manufacturers has been conspicuously silent in the wake of the arrest last month of Maria Butina, the 29-year-old Russian national charged with conspiracy and acting as an agent of a foreign government.

The accused Russian spy has ties to, or met with, a long list of current and former Republican politicians including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and many others.

Including South Dakota businessman Paul Erickson, a well-known Republican political consultant and conservative rainmaker currently under investigation for acting as a link between Russian figures working to influence the outcome of the 2016 elections and top Republican officials.

Butina's deep ties to the NRA, as well as to Aleksandr Torshin, the deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia (a close ally of Russian President Vladimir with alleged ties to the Russian mafia),  have made the NRA's well-known outsized influence over the Republican Party a rather prickly subject for both the GOP and Donald Trump as the latter's ties to Russia threaten to topple his chaotic presidency.

Is the President of the United States responsible for alleged gang members going on a three-day shooting spree in a major American city?

Of course not, but leadership starts at the top, and the contrast in how a sitting president uses the office to address the epidemic of gun violence in Chicago couldn't be more stark.

President Obama addresses the IACP in Chicago

Back on October 27, 2015, President Obama gave a speech to law enforcement professionals gathered at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) annual conference in Chicago.

In an effort to shed light on some of the root causes of gun violence in the city, and bring attention to the devastating effects on local communities, Obama highlighted specific ways in which lax gun regulations in neighboring states allow illegal firearms to flow unchecked into the city - and the socioeconomic factors that contribute to the violence.

As journalist Rick Pearson reported about Obama's speech for the Chicago Tribune:

"Obama said the root of the city's gun violence rested in neighborhoods facing poverty, few job prospects, rampant drug abuse, broken families and easy availability of guns that youths can buy cheaper than books."

On the rare occasions that Donald Trump or his White House press secretary Sarah Sanders bother to publicly mention gun violence in Chicago, it's not about the toll it takes on the communities where it happens.

It's usually in the context of a dishonest attempt to use the firearms epidemic in the Windy City as a talking point to justify NOT passing new gun control legislation - and of course nurture Trump's warped perception of the city as some kind of violent, dystopian wasteland overrun by crime and populated by the types of "others" he regularly vilifies.

Both Trump and Sanders, dependable mouthpieces for the NRA's propaganda, are both fond of spreading the oft-repeated lie that Chicago is an example of why gun control laws are not effective.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sander tears up
as a student asks her about gun violence in May, 2018 

As Sanders suggested in a White House press conference in October, 2017 after the horrific mass shooting in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead and 851 injured.

When a reporter asked Sanders whether the Las Vegas mass shooting indicated the time had finally come for the Republican-majority Congress to act and pass gun control measures, she robotically repeated the standard Republican response to any kind of mass shooting.


Saying that it was "premature" to discuss passing stronger gun control legislation, Sanders said:

"If you look to Chicago, where you had over 4,000 victims of gun-related crimes last year, they have the strictest gun laws in the country. That certainly hasn't helped there." 

As reporter Matt Dietrich reported in an article for Politifact.com, that statement was a lie.

Back in 1982 the city of Chicago did pass a ban on all handguns, so at one point it actually did have some of the most stringent firearms laws in the country.

But as Dietrich reported, two years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C. in the case of District of Columbia vs. Heller in 2008, the conservative-majority SCOTUS decision in McDonald vs. City of Chicago in 2010 struck down Chicago's ban on handguns.

A prime example of the NRA and firearms manufacturers actively lobbying to use the federal courts to override gun control laws passed on the state, local and municipal level based on arcane and often questionable interpretations of the U.S. Constitution.

A Chicago protest against gun violence

By 2012, with a solid Republican majority in Congress and most state legislatures around the country, the state of Illinois allowed its citizens to carry concealed firearms after a lower federal court ruled that a ban on carrying concealed firearms was unconstitutional.

But that hasn't stopped Trump and Sanders from repeating the NRA propaganda that Chicago has the "strictest gun laws in the country".

Even as thousands of Chicagoans have been injured or killed by the almost unrestricted proliferation of firearms that have flooded into the city.

Including the 74 victims injured or killed in Chicago last weekend.

On the Tuesday August 7th edition of the PBS Newshour, host Nick Schifrin (who filled in last week for the vacationing regular host Judy Woodruff) did an interesting segment on the recent spate of deadly shootings that rocked some sections of Chicago from last Friday evening to Sunday evening.

If you want to get a sense of how those shootings are impacting the people who live in those communities, scroll forward to the 37-minute, 20-second mark to watch the PBS segment.

Schifrin interviews local community activist Tamar Manasseh, a founder of Mothers/Men Against Senseless Killings (M.A.S.K), a grass-roots group that works to prevent violence, address food insecurity and housing issues, and also ensure that local citizens have access to city services.

Tamar Manasseh out on the block in one of MASK's
distinctive, pink "Moms On Patrol" t-shirts

Manasseh was motivated to try and do something to stop the gun violence devastating neighborhoods on the south and west sides of Chicago after becoming fed up - and her approach is simple.

She began coming out onto a street corner to establish a presence of caring adults by simply cooking food and feeding neighborhood kids dinner; her efforts have attached local volunteers and encouraged men and women to simply start showing up and being visible in high crime areas to deter street violence.

Her efforts have paid off as shootings have drastically dropped in the in the Lawndale section of Chicago where she lives, MASK also now has chapters and volunteers out on the streets working to make a difference in Evansville, Indiana, Memphis, Tennessee and Staten Island, New York.

PBS correspondent John Yang also interviewed Manasseh back in the summer 2016 when over 500 people had been killed - including 90 in the month of August 2016 alone.

In my view, Manasseh's efforts represent the kind of volunteer spirit and sense of giving that is the true definition of what American values are.

People stepping up to improve the lives of folks in their communities by giving of their time, energy  and resources - and just being a good neighbor.

Susan Bro visits the spot where her daughter Heather
Heyer was killed by a neo-Nazi in Charlottesville

On a weekend when a lot of media focus was on the one-year anniversary of the violent white supremacist marches that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, Tamar Manasseh and the volunteers who work on behalf of MASK demonstrate how average Americans can make a positive difference.

Rather than simmer and shake my head over the string of shootings that took place in Chicago last weekend, I just went online and donated a few bucks to MASK (you can donate here) because it's a group out on the front lines quietly making a difference in the lives of average Americans.

People who've been largely ignored by the current White House administration and Republican leaders in Congress who control the purse strings and the ability to draft legislation that could make a difference.

Republican lawmakers practically tripped over themselves passing a massive tax cut that slashed taxes on the wealthiest Americans and U.S. corporations already flush with cash - even though it's going to literally explode the same federal deficit conservatives spent 8 years whining about when Obama was in office trying to get Congress to pass critical infrastructure spending initiatives.

On a weekend when another 27 people were shot in the streets of Chicago, including one person killed, Trump is playing golf and spending taxpayer money to have Secret Service personnel protect him and his family at a Bedminster, New Jersey country club that he owns and profits off of while he tweets about spending $8 billion in taxpayer funds to build a "Space Force".

If Trump authorized just a fraction of that to someone like Tamar Manasseh to spend on providing meals to kids in marginalized neighborhoods in Chicago to help curb gun violence, just imagine the lives that could be saved and the positive impact it could have on local communities.

A small percentage of that kind of money could go a long way in counteracting the impact of unrestricted firearms in Chicago and other communities.

And it would make a helluva lot more difference in the lives of Americans than a "Space Force".

Are Republicans Indoctrinating New Democrats?

A civilian after a Saudi airstrike in Yemen [Reuters] 

Journalist Nicolas Niarchos' gripping New Yorker Radio Hour segment on WNYC, titled "The American Bombs Falling on Yemen", sheds light on a dark corner of American and British foreign policy.

The role of the U.S. and U.K. governments in the systematic bombing campaign against Yemen being carried out by Saudi Arabia.

The ongoing conflict has claimed an estimated 12,907 civilian lives.

But Niarchos' New Yorker Radio Hour piece focused on the death a highly-regarded Yemeni politician named Abdulqader Hilal Al-Dabab during a Saudi airstrike on a funeral in Sana'a on October 8, 2016 that killed 140 civilians and injured over 500 people.

The Saudi government blamed the airstrike on poor intelligence - one can only wonder what the reasoning is for the disturbing number of innocent people killed by airstrikes at weddings in Yemen.

Aside from the shocking civilian death toll, as an American, one of the most troubling aspects of "the forgotten war" is that most of the bombs, missiles, rockets and aircraft being used by the Saudis in Yemen are made by American, British and French defense contractors.

U.S. military aircraft also conduct airborne refueling operations for Saudi military aircraft and assist with targeting in Yemen for the 100-plus airstrikes per-day that currently take place - airstrikes that have destroyed homes, hospitals, markets, roads, schools, airports and port facilities.

Niarcho made the troubling observation that one of the long-term costs of America's role in what some experts are calling the world's worst humanitarian crisis, is that untold numbers of young Yemenis angered at U.S. support of the Saudi's, are being indoctrinated by radical Islamic terrorist groups eager to use the war as a recruiting tool.

Saturday's March For Our Lives protest in Washington

Given the borderless, asymmetrical nature of terrorist attacks by splinter groups associated with or funded by ISIS, the idea that the U.S. military and American defense contractors' engagement in a destructive proxy war in the poorest nation in the mideast is having the unintended effect of bolstering the ranks of ISIS (who may in turn attack innocent western civilians) is a truly frightening irony to ponder.

I was thinking about that on Saturday as Americans took to the streets in support of stricter gun control laws.

Members of Congress may be on their spring break, but the hundreds of thousands who turned out in cities and towns across America and the world for the March For Our Lives protests over the weekend left little doubt that Republicans have their homework cut out for them.

Given the numbers of people who turned out over the weekend, it's pretty clear that the Republican Party's worn rhetoric about protecting American's 2nd Amendment rights is not going cut it when it comes to the upcoming mid-term elections.

Saturday's protests made it clear that people are fed up with the Republican-majority Congress refusing to pass gun control legislation despite the thousands of Americans killed by gun violence over the past eight years that the GOP has controlled the House.

The recent spending bill passed by Congress (once again passed at the last minute with little in the way of public input or feedback) did contain goodies for both conservatives and liberals, and it rebuked the Trump administration's efforts to gut federal agencies like the State Department and EPA by underfunding them.

But there was little meat on the bone in terms of the kinds of meaningful gun control legislation that a majority of Americans now support.

Including reinstating a ban on selling semi-automatic rifles, banning large capacity ammunition clips and bolstering federal background checks for firearm purchases.

You've seen clips of some of the emotional and impassioned speeches made by young Americans mobilized in support of gun control to stop the senseless mass killings that are making America less safe.

Republicans are not going to hold onto a congressional majority by placating the NRA and the tiny fraction of the American populace who view any type of reasonable gun control law as some kind of blasphemy against the 2nd Amendment.

Mainstream Americans, Democrats, Republicans and independents alike support the 2nd Amendment.

But they want students to be safe in schools and colleges and people to be safe in public places like churches, movie theaters and clubs.

Bottom line: a majority of the American people, including licensed gun owners like myself, people of different ethnicities and religions, Republicans and Democrats, old and young - all support stricter gun controls.

A WWII U.S. Army vet who fought under General
George Patton at the Battle of the Bulge

To me it's like the U.S. backing the Saudis' war against Yemen having the effect of indoctrinating people into a radical Islamic, anti-American mindset.

By dragging their feet on gun control and refusing to respond to calls for reasonable legislation that will help stem the flow of civilian deaths by firearms in this country, Republicans are inadvertently indoctrinating a whole generation of young people into the Democratic Party.

That's not good for the long-term prospects of a political party whose average voters are older than average Democratic voters.

A party who aren't attracting as many new members either.

Republican members of Congress sitting at home watching Trump implode and quietly hoping the March For Our Lives protestors are going to slowly fade out would do well to think about which party those young activists are going to register for when they turn 18.

Aside from the odd reflexively-right-wing Tomi Lahren wanna-be, Saturday's protests gave an awful lot of soon-to-be voters a master class in influencing the legislative agenda of the congress that represents them.

And they're going to be voting the issues that directly impact their lives.

Many of them have already been indoctrinated into the Democratic Party, not necessarily because of what Democrats did, but for what they stand for.

And for what Republicans ignored.

CPAC Blames It On the 'Black Guy'

American Conservative Union communications
director Ian B. Walters speaking at CPAC

Well another year has come and gone for the annual gathering of conservative activists and politicians known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Co-founded in 1973 by the American Conservative Union, CPAC basically serves as a kind of think-tank platform for a range of conservative issues.

It offers leading conservative thinkers and politicians an opportunity to sound out their policy positions and political views in front of a crowd that embraces a decidedly right-wingy view of America.

It's a multi-day conference that helps to shape the overall message of the Republican Party and influence the legislative agenda of GOP politicians all across America.

For Republican presidential hopefuls, the road to the White House runs through CPAC.

If some of the comments heard there last week are any indication, the Republican Party really doesn't seem too concerned about the broader public perception that it's an organization which is openly unwelcoming to people of color - or even remotely interested in expanding it's membership beyond it's overwhelmingly white voter base.

As Jeffrey Mays reported on Sunday in an article in the New York Times, Ian B. Walters (pictured above), the communications director for the American Conservative Union that hosts CPAC, raised eyebrows at a CPAC dinner on Friday evening while reflecting back on the disillusionment of the Republican Party in 2008 after President Obama's election victory when he observed:

"We elected Mike Steele to be the R.N.C. chair because he's a black guy. That was the wrong thing to do."

According to Mays a number of conservatives, including R.N.C. spokesman Michael Ahrens, quickly distanced themselves from Walters' comments.

Former RNC chair Michael Steele

Comments which can be seen as a not-so-subtle endorsement of the racism and xenophobia of Trump, and his tolerance of white supremacist views evidenced by senior White House advisor Stephen Miller.

The comment also seems to crudely parrot the basis of  Trump's political views - which is to engage in "other-ism" and essentially place blame for the country's problems at the feet of immigrants and non-white Americans.

Steele, the popular ex-Republican lieutenant governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007, was tapped to lead the R.N.C. after President Obama's 2008 election victory as Republicans tried to come to grips with a brutal election loss.

Bolstered by George W. Bush's unpopularity and anger over the Iraq War, Obama won the African-American vote 95% to Senator John McCain's 5%, the Hispanic vote 67% to 31%, the Asian vote 62% to 35% and the Jewish vote 78% to 21%.

The Republican Party was forced to face the uncomfortable political reality that it had to find a way to expand it's membership and appeal among non-white American voters.

In 2009, Michael Steele represented something of a rarity in an increasingly conservative GOP, a progressive Republican voice who was African-American - one could arguably call him a unicorn.

Pat Buchanan after winning the New Hampshire
primary in 1996

In 1993, he was one of the founding members of the Republican Leadership Council, a political action committee (PAC) that embraced a "fiscally conservative, socially inclusive" political agenda.

The other RLC co-founders included former New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former Missouri Republican Senator John Danforth and former Massachusetts Republican Governor William Weld.

The RLC PAC was formed after the backlash from right-wing writer Pat Buchanan's divisive speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention in the wake of his failed bid for the presidency in which he claimed, in part: "There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America."  

I can still recall listening to that speech on TV and getting an uncomfortable chill when he exalted the R.N.C. crowd to "take back America's cities."

The RLC was an effort to strengthen the voices of moderate Republicans in the mold of former Congressman and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, and reject the rise of the extremist religious zealotry which has now taken root within the GOP.

Now I say all that, in part, because I think Ian B. Walter's comment that the R.N.C. selected Michael Steele as chair in 2009 "because he was a black guy" is a simplistic and incomplete summary of why he was tapped for the position.

It's also an overt attempt to pander to the overt tone of bigotry and dog-whistle racism which Trump has openly cultivated since announcing his candidacy. 

Now I might not personally agree with everything Michael Steele says in the political sense, but he's a pretty shrewd political operator who is not afraid to stand up for what he believes is right - including his criticism of Donald Trump, or his dust-ups with Rush Limbaugh back in 2009.

Michael Steele as R.N.C. chair during the 2011
Winter meeting in National Harbor, Maryland

As a conservative political commentator on MSNBC his comments and insight are always interesting and substantive.

Is it possible that his selection as R.N.C. chair in 1992 was, in part, influenced by a desire on the part of the Republican establishment to change the stiff "country club" perception of their party as an organization for old white Christian guys?

Sure it is, in fact selecting Steele as R.N.C. chair was a pretty savvy move on the part of Republicans in 2009.

When they knew they would run the risk of reinforcing the perception of the party as racist simply for attacking Obama politically as president.

But there's no question that Steele was more than qualified for the position based on his track record as a lawyer in the private sector, and for his extensive work both behind and in front of the scenes on behalf of the Republican Party.

This is a guy who earned his B.A. from Johns Hopkins and his law degree from Georgetown.

He was the first African-American elected to statewide office in Maryland when he became lieutenant governor in 2003 and he made an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate in 2006, eventually loosing to current Democratic Senator Ben Cardin.

So in my view, Steele is the kind of person that Republicans should embrace, rather than try and vilify as if he was some kind of mistake as Ian B. Walters suggested at the CPAC dinner on Friday night.

But given Trump's views on race, and the Republican Party's acceptance of the de facto head of their party being a philandering bigot, maybe this current iteration of the R.N.C. does see a man like Michael Steele as a mistake - rather than an asset who reflected positively on the GOP.

After all, the CPAC crowd enthusiastically cheered Trump's rambling speech on Friday, even though it clearly contained lies and half-truths that have been fact-checked and he read a story about a snake.

And later that evening at the CPAC dinner, ACU communications director Ian B. Walter looked back nine years ago to cast blame on "the black guy." 

So much for those talked-about but never seen Republican Party "outreach efforts".

Waiting For Republicans - The Slaughter Continues

Accused killer Nikolas Cruz at his arraignment

Trump's live comments on Thursday in the wake of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida seemed like more of the same old useless bunk that most Republican politicians repeat in the wake of the numerous mass shootings that now take place with alarming regularity in America.

Republican lawmakers have controlled the House of Representatives for seven years, and they haven't passed a single piece of legislation that would help to curb the epidemic of gun violence in America.

Not one single law. Not so much as a single bill. Nothing.

Instead of the action outraged Americans from all all over the country are demanding, all we're getting from apathetic Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill is that contrived, mournful shaking of their heads and collective shrugging of their shoulders - like they have no power to do anything.

It's as if they're channeling the characters Vladimir and Estragon, from the influential post-WWII play written by Samuel Beckett back in 1948, Waiting For Godot, wringing their hands in hopeless despair repeating the phrase "Nothing to be done!"

Instead of waiting for Godot, Republican lawmakers, already nervous about the upcoming midterm elections in November, are awkwardly doing the bidding of the National Rifle Association and waiting for the outrage over 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz gunning down 17 innocent people in a Florida High School (with an AR-15 assault rifle he purchased legally) to simply go away.

What's interesting is that both Trump and his sycophant Attorney General-lackey Jeff Sessions both tossed around tough-talking dog-whistle phrases about "having the back of law enforcement" during the 2016 presidential campaign and the subsequent shaky first year in office.

Frequently vilifying President Obama while presenting themselves as saviors of law enforcement.

Trump endorsing police brutality in front of members
of the Long Island PD back in July, 2017

One of Sessions' very first policy statements after his nomination to head the Justice Department was passed by the Senate was to reverse the many consent agreements between the DOJ and local police departments.

Police departments across the country in places like Chicago, Baltimore and Ferguson with proven histories of racially-biased policing practices.

Many cops favored those DOJ consent decrees to enact long-needed reforms.

Even though the DOJ itself had spent time and money compiling data showing that such decrees were needed to reestablish trust between local police departments and the communities they serve, Sessions' bizarre rationale for revoking them was that reversing these agreements, drafted under the Obama administration when Eric Holder was attorney general, would actually make it easier for members of local law enforcement to do their jobs.

As if police departments being held to the standards spelled out in the Constitution was some kind of annoying burden imposed on cops by President Obama out of spite.

Last July, Fake President travelled out to Long Island, New York to trumpet his supposed adoration of cops to try and bolster public support for his irrational xenophobic hatred of immigrants by trying to link them to the El Salvadoran gang MS-13.

Remember Trump standing in front of members of the Long Island Police Department and basically endorsing the use of excessive physical force against suspects in custody?

Trump and Sessions were both big on painting themselves as big supporters of cops and "law and order" as a convenient dog-whistle policy stance to rally their base of hyper-conservative supporters.

But as far as gun control is concerned, are they really supporting members of law enforcement, or the National Rifle Association's pro-gun industry agenda?

Take a look at the detailed list of IACP Policy Priorities For the 115th Congress as clearly spelled out by the International Association of Chiefs of Police founded back in 1893.

Under the section titled "Reduce Firearms Violence and Target Illegal Guns", the IACP states that "A comprehensive approach is needed in order to prevent further gun violence in our communities."

Among the actions steps listed:

"Support legislation that expands background checks, and require background checks for all firearms purchases."   

And "Oppose any legislation that would limit or reduce the ability of U.S. law enforcement agencies to combat the sale of illegal guns."


It's hard to sift through the scores of scandals, firings and tweets, but try and flash back to Trump's first days in office.

One of the very first bills that he signed into law within the first thirty days of his inauguration last February was an NRA-backed law that rolled back an executive order signed by President Obama that would have made it harder for Americans with mental illnesses or those deemed unfit to handle their own finances who receive Social Security checks to obtain firearms.

As Ali Vitali reported for NBC News last February, "President Barack Obama recommended the now-nullified regulation in a 2013 memo following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School which left 20 first graders and six others dead. The measure sought to block some people with severe mental health problems from buying guns."

Yet yesterday, a subdued, almost monotone Trump, obviously reading off a teleprompter, somberly invoked "mental illness" as the culprit in the shooting deaths of 17 innocent people by Nikolas Cruz in Florida.

He didn't even mention the words "gun laws" - like the AR-15 (pictured above) with it's rapid-fire technology and high capacity magazines had nothing to do with it.

In that same NRA-approved statement, Trump made a bunch of totally half-ass empty promises to work with members of federal, state and local officials to tackle the problem of mental illness, blah-blah, blah.

Terrified students comfort one another after being
released from Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS 

What a bunch of contrived, hypocritical horse shit.

Trump is the same spineless clown who's spent three years working with heartless right-wing Republican zealots in congress to vilify and repeal the Affordable Care Act - which mandated that insurance companies provide access to treatment for mental health conditions

Frankly I find it an insult that Trump had the nerve to try and use a press conference to reassure terrified students and teachers in schools across the U.S. that he's working to keep them safe.

Since his inauguration, when he ranted incoherently about "carnage" in America, he's shown himself to be nothing but an ignorant lackey of the NRA lobbyists who pumped millions into his presidential campaign.

Apparently the same K-Street gun lobby bozos who draft the text of his comments whenever another mass shooting takes place - so a contrite Trump can place the blame not on the almost unrestricted access to firearms, but on mental illness. "Nothing to be done!"

As if the guns used in these mass shootings are somehow like an innocent bystander that had nothing to do with anything.

To paraphrase some of the thousands of comments I've read on social media in the past 48 hours, there's no sense even waiting for Republican legislators in Congress to draft laws that would prevent a white supremacist like Nikolas Cruz from walking into a store and buying an AR-15 and a bunch of ammo.

MSD High School assistant football coach Aaron
Feis who died shielding students from gunfire

Thanks to Republican state legislators and the NRA, any 18-year-old in Florida can buy an AR-15 - it's perfectly legal - they can't buy a bottle of vodka but they can purchase the undisputed weapon of choice for mass shooters.

27 people (including shooter Adam Lanza) died at Sandy Hook Elementary and in Newton, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, Republicans who controlled the House did nothing.

49 people were killed on June 12, 2016 when Omar Siddiqui Mateen went on a shooting spree at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Republicans who controlled the House offered "prayers" but did nothing to pass a law restricting firearms access.

58 were killed and almost 500 injured back on October 1, 2017 when Stephen Paddock began firing on concertgoers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

In response the Republicans who control the House, the federal legislative body tasked by the U.S. Constitution with writing laws to protect the American people, did nothing.

The only way to mobilize and follow the recommendations of organizations like the International Association of Chiefs of Police to enact reasonable restrictions on dangerous firearms like the AR-15 and components like bump stocks and high-capacity magazines is to be registered to vote in November.

When those who are feeling powerless right now will be empowered to tell lawmakers who've done nothing in the face of the unprecedented gun violence happening in American schools, churches, malls, businesses, streets, concerts and homes, exactly what you think about their apathy, silence and prayers.

In the meantime, just remember there's so sense in waiting for Republican legislators who control which bills get to the floor to be debated or voted on to act.

That's like Waiting For Godot - they'll never show up.

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."

Horror in San Bernardino & The People's Interests

Some of the hundreds of people evacuated from the scene of the shooting  

These latest mass shootings in California have left me feeling baffled, angry and disillusioned.

Not just at the killers themselves for perpetrating the slaughter of at least 14 people at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, CA.

But also at the unwillingness of the current Republican majority in Congress to use their lawmaking authority to draft a single bill that would put more stringent federal background checks in place to prevent the wrong people from purchasing guns - and make it easier for law enforcement to track those who sell weapons used in the kind of horrific slaughter that took place earlier today.

A majority of American citizens have been calling for reasonable gun control legislation since well before Columbine and Sandy Hook - and yet here we are. Again.

There's so little known about the shooting beyond the death toll as I'm writing this (the LA Times is reporting that one of the killers is a U.S. citizen) so I'm just going to agree with the President's comments earlier that politicians around the nation have a moral obligation to do more to prevent this kind of mass murder - and that it's going to have to come from the local and state level.

Useless. Thanks for the moment of silence Mr. Speaker.

This do-nothing Congress is basically a write-off when it comes to taking any kind of legislative action in response to events like this.

They're owned by the NRA, beholden to a tiny group of pissed-off right-wing extremists who despise the very government they were elected to serve (we see you Freedom Caucus) and take a perverse stubborn pride in being functionally and politically impotent.


Newly-elected Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (pictured above) has shown little interest in doing much of anything when it comes to taking the lead on drafting and passing significant bi-partisan legislation that actually has a snowball's chance in Hell of being signed into law.

When asked during a recent 60 Minutes interview whether or not he intended to try and move any gun control legislation through the House, the increasingly-feeble looking Speaker offered up this lame-ass standard Republican response to citizens demands for gun control laws:

“I haven’t thought of proposing gun legislation, I think the big problem we have is enforcing the law as we have on the books right now,”    

News flash Mr. Speaker, those laws ain't cutting it.

Instead, in keeping with the Republican tradition of prostituting themselves to the slightest whim of the NRA, Ryan's brilliant proactive solution to the epidemic of gun violence in this country is to publicly back a mental health bill sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Tim Murphy.

Unfortunately that mental health bill is the same shitty piece of legislation the GOP offered up as a response to the shootings in Sandy Hook - back in 2012. (Cue sound of crickets chirping).

New Jersey Governor-in-Absentia Chris Christie has been using that exact same "enforce the existing laws on the books" cop-out line for months during his presidential campaign whenever he's asked about gun control.

Christie recently stunned New Jersey voters when he decided to veto a bill passed by the state legislature with strong bi-partisan support that would have made it mandatory for anyone convicted of domestic abuse to turn in any firearms to the local police or sell them within 48 hours - and provide proof to a judge.

But in a rebuff to Christie that reflects his growing unpopularity with people in his own state (and you wonder why he's rarely here) the NJ Senate, who recently voted to override Christie's veto of a another popular gun control bill, are set to vote to override Christie's veto of the domestic abuse firearms bill sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Gabriela Mosquera.

As a child Mosquera spent time in a shelter for battered women because of her father's abuse against her mother - so her support for the bill isn't just about simplistic political pandering as the veto was for Christie.

If the override of the veto goes through, it would be the first time the Democratic-majority legislature has used an override to pass a bill into law over the governor's objections in NJ.

It says a lot about Christie's plummeting popularity and I think it's also a good illustration of what President Obama was talking about earlier today when he said that gun control laws need to come from the local and state political level, not Congress.

By the way, you've likely heard Christie's pontificating on how much he supports the police and his using that die-hard support as an excuse to trash the Black Lives Matter movement right?

Well consider this. That first gun control bill passed by the NJ legislature that Christie vetoed?

As NJ.com reported, it "calls for including police in the judicial process of deciding whether people with a documented mental illness may expunge this from their record in order to obtain a gun permit."

So Mr. "I support the police" used his power as governor to veto a bi-partisan bill that would have allowed police officers to have a say in deciding whether someone with a documented mental illness could conceal that when trying to buy a firearm.

Yes, his decision is as absurd as it sounds.

That's why Christie's veto, little more than a transparent attempt to wheedle some political support for his flagging presidential campaign from the NRA, was over turned.

This isn't Texas, it's New Jersey, and the folks here, Republican or Democrat, expect their politicians to represent their interests.

And as we've seen from what happened in Colorado and California and recent days, reasonable gun control legislation is most definitely in the interests of the people of this nation.

A rather simple truth that's lost on some presidential candidates.
 

Something Else in Oregon & Joseph Tartaro's "Urban Initiative"

The looming threat of Hurricane Joaquin has cast a gloomy anxious pall over New Jersey; a state where many people have only just recovered from the ravages of Superstorm Sandy two years ago - and some still haven't.

But after seeing the horrific aftermath of the latest mass-shooting on the Oregon campus of Umpqua Community College where 26-year old Chris Harper Mercer used at least three different guns to kill ten people and wound seven more, can the threat of any damage Joaquin might inflict on the east coast of America be any worse than the threat posed to society by gun violence in this country? 

Unfortunately the do-nothing Republican majority that currently controls the U.S. House of Representatives have refused to use their Constitutionally-mandated authority to draft legislation and pass laws that might put into place the kinds of reasonable common sense gun control laws that might limit the access to handguns and keep mentally disturbed individuals like Mercer from obtaining firearms in the first place.
  
The response from the reactionary Second Amendment advocates like the NRA to this blood-soaked gun horror is as predictable as it is meaningless to the victims of today's shooting and their families, friends and co-workers.

National Rifle Assoc. CEO Wayne LaPierre

The Wayne LaPierres (pictured left) and other right wingers who deify America's gun culture will release the usual public statements condemning the (latest) violence and expressing their heat-felt condolences for the victims before they use the occasion to extol the lofty mythical virtues of the Second Amendment.

An Amendment that was drafted in the 18th century when our nation was a sparsely populated collection of territories with no organized law and order under invasion by a foreign power and regular citizens needed to be armed to defend themselves.

Hell, it was only about a week ago at the 30th Annual Gun Rights Conference in Phoenix, Arizona that Joseph Tartaro, the 84-year old president of the Second Amendment Foundation proposed a bold  new initiative for pro-gun advocates to begin aggressively reaching out to African-American and Hispanic citizens in urban communities and encourage them to learn to shoot firearms.

Yeah we could use more of that.

Joseph Tartaro

As Jennifer Mascia reported in an article on TheTrace.org, it was during the second session of the three-day conference when the theme of the day was "The Gun Rights Battle" that Tartaro (pictured left) shared his radical proposal for minority recruitment.

By the way, "The Gun Rights Battle" is an interesting theme given that a visibly-angered President Obama, speaking in response to the horror in Oregon yesterday, noted that right now there are enough guns in America for every man woman and child.

As of July 2014 the population in the United States was estimated to be 322,583,006 so do the math, shouldn't take you too long to figure out who's winning the "Battle" for gun rights - after the horror in Oregon we certainly know who's loosing.

Anyway back to TheTrace.org article.

In it, Tartaro acknowledged a truth to the gun-loving audience in Phoenix that scares the crap out of many American conservatives; that “Within the next 20 to 30 years, the U.S. white population will no longer be the majority.”

So, by Tartaro's thinking, the only way to ensure the continued expansion of "gun rights" in  America is to reach beyond the pro-gun constituency that “seems to be predominantly white and Republican.” and start reaching out to pastors and local and state political leaders with influence in predominantly minority communities who will then encourage a rising tide of gun ownership, training and eventually political activism that will ensure liberal access to firearms for future generations.

Now for you right-leaning folks who check this blog out I realize black folk are responsible for plenty of gun carnage too so don't give me any grief; Tartaro is an old white guy and I'm only quoting what he told a large audience of (mostly) gun loving white folks.

Go ahead and read the article for yourself. As Mascia reported, Tartaro insisted that,  “I know pro-gun white people can meet with urban Democrat politicians at the local, state and federal level for useful conversations when the way has been paved by pro-gun members of the minority communities,”

Now the thing is, I don't think Tartaro is crazy. Some of his views on gun ownership are a bit extreme but he's not crazy.

He's just one of the few conservatives I've seen express something that today's Republican party can't seem to understand; that indeed, there are many African-Americans and Hispanics in this nation who are very traditionally conservative socially, religiously, fiscally and politically.

Problem is, Republicans have allowed themselves, their party and their brand to be hijacked by a perpetually pissed off extremist element that tolerates bigotry, narrow-mindedness and the condemnation of "otherness."

One that embraces exclusion and vilifies inclusion.

If the GOP could learn to think strategically like Joseph Tartaro, they could win the White House.

But they won't.

They're too busy trying to shut down the federal government, flying the flag of the Southern Strategy, obsessing over women's reproductive rights and stoking the fires of imaginary issues like "religious freedom", Hillary Clinton's old emails and Benghazi to think three dimensionally enough to envision how welcoming non-white constituents could expand the Republican power base without the need for gerrymandering or voter repression.

But my point in citing Tartaro's "urban initiative" is to offer a snapshot of where the priorities of the nation's pro-gun advocates are currently focused.

And question why there wasn't a session on keeping guns out of the hands of those who would seek to use them as extensions of their mental illness or who harbor festering personal grudges during that three day conference in Phoenix last week.

Unfortunately Joseph Tartaro doesn't seem to quite understand the extent to which gun violence has decimated urban African-American and Hispanic communities in places like Baltimore, Chicago and Los Angeles.

But he's not a fool.

Texas open carry laws. The grocery store? Really?

He knows that support for the kinds of ridiculously unrestricted gun laws being passed in places like Texas and Georgia are loosing support and won't last.

Like the open carry laws that permit people to strap on a loaded handgun and pretty much go anywhere; like this lady (pictured left)  in the bread section of a grocery store with a .45 semiautomatic in a holster on her hip.

Tartaro knows that the kinds of senseless horrific mass shootings we saw yesterday in Oregon are also happening in affluent suburbs and the kinds of rural areas where the majority population consists of the mostly white conservative demographic who now make up the bulk of the pro-gun movement in this country; granted gunman Chris Harper Mercer did identify himself as mixed race.

So it's not enough for pro-gun advocates to continue using the imagined fear of a wave of armed minorities bent on crime as justification for arming anyone who can carry a gun. FBI statistics show the overwhelming incidents of gun violence in this nation are black on black or white on white crime taking place within specific communities.

There are exceptions obviously but they represent an extremely small percentage of overall crime stats; the NRA-promoted image of the brave white home owner fending off minority criminals is largely a myth - due in no small part to the highly segregated nature of American society.

Statistics show a white, black or Hispanic gun owner is far more likely to use it on someone they know personally than on someone  breaking into their home - which is why groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council have helped states like Florida pass 'Stand Your Ground' laws that essentially empower (mostly white) people to use deadly force to defend their person against someone they perceive as a threat in the same way they'd defend someone who broke into their home.

But as we've seen it's allowed deranged violence prone killers like George Zimmerman to kill innocent people and not be held legally responsible.

But again, Joseph Tartaro and other pro-gun advocates know that the more the the demographic that makes up the bulk of their constituents sees the kind of carnage that took place in Oregon yesterday, the more they recognize that common sense gun laws are just that; and not "attacks on the Second Amendment" as the NRA and their ilk like to paint any effort to enact things like mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases, mandatory federal background checks and reasonable limits of the number and type of guns people can own.

Something has to change.

As a nation we can't simply keep sitting there feeling stunned and powerless every time we see another violence-prone individual with serious mental problems, a massive chip on their shoulder and a huge arsenal of weapons wreak bloody havoc on innocent American citizens.

Chris H. Mercer (Center) & photos from his Myspace page

Listening to some of the almost non-stop coverage of the shootings yesterday on CNN I kept hearing the word "tragedy" used to describe what Chris Harper Mercer did in a classroom to people who were simply trying to educate themselves.

It's not a tragedy.

A tragedy is an earthquake, a landslide or some unforeseen natural disaster.

A tragedy is something that can't be predicted or controlled.

What happened this morning in Oregon was predictable given the easy access to guns in this country; it was inevitable given the difficulty many people in this nation have accessing mental health treatment.

What happened in Oregon this morning was preventable had Congress bothered to act decisively after any of the other horrible mass shootings that have become part of our lexicon. Sandy Hook. Aurora. Charleston.

No what happened in Oregon was something else. And the apathy of our political leaders bears no small measure of responsibility. As do we for not demanding action from those we elect to serve us.