“There’s a numbness I imagine some of us are feeling, because there’s a sameness to this. Anywhere, USA. It just feels like this happens over and over and over again. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. It begs the damn question: What the hell is going on in the United States of America?”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, after a mass shooting at a rail yard in San José
The attack – which took 10 lives, including the gunman – is the 232nd mass shooting in the U.S. this year.
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“The bills, which seek to abolish critical race theory, were more important than expanding Medicaid; maintaining federal unemployment benefits; enlisting more Texans to get COVID-19 vaccinations; or overhauling the state’s electric power grid. The bills are also part of a backlash against growing efforts to bring more accuracy and inclusion to historical texts and a wider movement to whitewash U.S. history. Old, racist approaches to education are new again.”
Elaine Ayala, columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, on the Texas Legislature’s ill-timed ban of discussions of racism in Texas classrooms
“Some people have no shame.”
President Joe Biden, criticizing Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) and other Republicans who opposed his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package, but are now taking credit for it
“I think the perception is on the part of the public that the January 6 Commission just trying to get to the truth of what happened, and that Republicans would be seen as not wanting to let the truth come out. I don’t believe that’s what’s the motivation, but I think that’s the perception.”
Sen. Mitt Romney, about the reluctance of his fellow Republicans to support a bipartisan commission to study the actual causes of the January 6 Capital Hill riots
“What are you afraid of?”
Sen. Chuck Schumer, after Senate Republicans blocked a bipartisan commission intended to study the actual causes of the January 6 Capital Hill riots
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Last week the state of Texas loosened gun restrictions. That’s almost incomprehensible in a state that already boasts some of the most relaxed (weakest) firearm regulations in the nation. But, for the hamster-dick right-wing extremists that dominate the Texas state legislature, any kind of gun restriction is a prospect more terrifying than a bunch of angry Black and Brown women storming into a Proud Boys meeting armed with attitudes and hair brushes.
And that’s pretty much who comprises both the Texas state legislature and the Proud Boys: old and middle-aged White men pissed off the world is no longer theirs to play with. Thus, they assert control the only way they know how – with guns.
Now, in Texas, people no longer need a license or even proper training to tote a firearm anywhere within the state’s 268,597 sm. (695,663 km).
Gosh, what could possibly go wrong?
Gun rights advocates have always proclaimed that responsible firearm owners have nothing to fear and the general public has nothing to fear from responsible firearm owners. But they’ve also screamed that any measure of regulation is a step towards elimination. They’ve warned about those proverbial “slippery slope” dilemmas, even though any nearby slope is slippery because of all the spittle flying out their chapped lips from screaming about gun rules.
Someone with more than half a brain stop the madness!
Contrast that shenanigans with the new voting regulations – restrictions – the same state legislature imposed shortly before then. Those rules limit early voting hours, ban drive-through voting and require large counties to redistribute polling places that could move sites away from areas with more Hispanic and Black residents.
The voting measures don’t surprise me. Ever since Barack Obama won his first election – fairly, legitimately and without question – legions of (mostly White) conservatives in state legislatures around the country have done everything they could to ensure that never happens again.
Conservatives have spouted the usual rhetoric about protecting the integrity of the voting process, just as they claim the need to protect their right (their right) to own firearms. I’ve noticed many of those old men – allegedly tough and strong – always express some degree of paranoia; their fear of someone invading their property and hurting their loved ones. Therefore, their guns are readily available. Stupid, paranoid people in the U.S. always reach for their guns and Christian Bibles when things look scary.
Strangely, though, they’ve long since recognized the power of the vote. Voting is actually more powerful and with longer lasting effects than firearms. A bullet could kill someone. A vote can put someone in office who will enact legislation that may alter society for decades.
And thus, they are scared.
It’s almost laughable if it wasn’t so serious. Right-wing extremists always seem to forget – or perhaps, never truly understood – that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is the first amendment for a reason. You vote first to enact and ensure change in society. Then again, as I stated above, perhaps they do understand the significance of voting – and that’s why they do what they can to assure that only people with their similar and limited intellectual prowess can vote. With their guns and Bibles by their sides.
My parents told me of seeing television footage of White police officials attacking Black citizens protesting against discrimination and segregation laws and trying to vote in the Deep South in the 1950s and 60s. I recall my father, in particular, telling me that the former Soviet Union would display those images on their own TVs and point out this was an example of democracy.
The U.S. always promoted itself as a beacon of democracy; a government of and by the people.
I’ve seen those black-and-white images of 1950s and 1960s America in various retrospectives of a time how we used to be. Considering what conservative-dominated states legislatures have done to voting and gun laws in recent years, I keep seeing those old images in contemporary colors.
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“Just warms your heart to see.”
Harry Khachatrian, a contributing editor for “Daily Wire”, about the January 6 Capitol Hill riots
“Let’s stop pretending that the media is not a participant and that it is somehow entitled to not be treated like every other active enemy.”
Kurt Schlichter, senior columnist at the right-wing site “Townhall”, about the January 6 Capitol Hill riots
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“You don’t care about the American people! Why do you support terrorists and antifa?”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
According to two Washington Post reporters, Ocasio-Cortez was headed towards an exit in the Capital building when Taylor-Greene shouted “Hey, Alexandria!” twice and proceeded to follow the New York congresswoman.
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“We’re not talking about eight-year-olds’ soccer. We’re talking about post-puberty sports. We’re talking about girls who’ve worked their whole lives to earn a scholarship and not have to worry about being outplayed by a boy.”
Rep. Lauren Boebert, about the proposed Equality Act, which would ban discrimination based on gender and gender identity
Boebert also claimed the bill would lead to “women getting in an MMA ring and having their skulls crushed by a man,” among other things.
“Let’s be honest with the American people – it was not an insurrection, and we cannot call it that and be truthful.”
Rep. Andrew Clyde (R – GA), on the January 6 Capital Hill riots
A gun dealer in his first term in Congress, Clyde compared the riots to a “normal tourist visit”.
“It was Trump supporters who lost their lives that day, not Trump supporters who were taking the lives of others.”
Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), presenting his version of the January 6 riots
Painting the rioters as victims, Hice noted that four of them died, including Ashli Babbitt who was fatally shot. The other three suffered medical emergencies while part of the crowd laying siege to the Capitol. Another victim is Capitol Hill police officer Brian Sicknick.
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“I’m not a politician. I’m not an elected official. I don’t expect anybody to give two shits about my opinions. But I will say this, you know, those are lies.”
Michael Fanone, Capital Hill police officer who was stun-gunned several times and beaten with a flagpole during the attack, about the January 6 riots and denials by some Republicans on the severity of the event
Fanone, who said he suffered a concussion and a heart attack during the violence, added, “Peddling that bullshit is an assault on every officer that fought to defend the Capitol. It’s disgraceful.”
“Right now it’s basically the Titanic. We’re … in the middle of this slow sink. We have a band playing on the deck telling everybody it’s fine. And, meanwhile, Donald Trump’s running around trying to find women’s clothing and get on the first lifeboat.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, criticizing his fellow Republicans for their ongoing allegiance to former Pres. Trump
“We are up currently against the ticking time bomb of an unrelenting climate crisis and an economic crisis wearing down working people. Each day the process of passing an infrastructure package is delayed by performative negotiations with the GOP – who are clearly disinterested in working with Democrats – another day goes by that we are not healing our planet or getting people good jobs to support their families.”
Ellen Sciales, press secretary for Sunrise Movement, on the apparent unwillingness of Republicans to work with President Biden on his infrastructure bill proposal
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“Chauvin was imprisoned not without his day in court, as celebrity loudmouths demanded. He was not thrown to the mob to be torn limb from limb, or boiled to death in a cauldron, or slowly dismembered on a torture rack, as used to happen in medieval times, or burned alive in a cage as ISIS liked to do.”
Miranda Devine, regarding the Derek Cahuvin trial, in a New York Post column
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“When a group of sad, disenfranchised people who have been left out of the modern economy show up at your office, you don’t have to listen to their complaints. Not for a second. Why would you?”
Tucker Carlson, in a mocking rant about the January 6 Capitol Hill riots
April 6 marked exactly three months since the event. Carlson added: “For those of you are not good at dates or don’t have calendars, this is the day that we pause to remember the White supremacist QAnon insurrection, that came so very close to toppling our government and ending this democracy forever.”
“We have a major under-incarceration problem in America. And it’s only getting worse.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, presenting his solution to rising crime in the U.S.
The U.S. has approximately 2.3 million people incarcerated, or roughly 698 people per every 100,000; the highest rate in the developed world.
“They simply let me use it as a security retreat because they knew the threat that I was under. And I was basically under presidential threat without presidential security in terms of the number of threats I was getting.”
Wayne LaPierre, executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, describing how he often sought refuge on a friend’s yacht after notable mass shootings
LaPierre made the revelation in a deposition during the NRA’s bankruptcy hearing.
“When I see people walking outside, often alone with no one anywhere near them, wearing a mask, my primary reactions are disappointment and sadness. I am disappointed because I expected better from my fellow Americans. I never thought most Americans would be governed by irrational fears and unquestioning obedience to authority. I have come to realize that I had a somewhat romanticized view of my countrymen.”
Dennis Prager, expressing frustration that so many people continue to wear masks
He also declared: “If you wear a mask, you do so in the belief that you are protecting yourself (and others) from COVID-19. So, then, why do you care if I don’t wear a mask?”
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Protestors in Atlanta earlier this week
“If racism and acts of violence are prevalent, we need to bring that to the forefront and not sweep it under the rug.”
Margaret Ann Kercher, a lawyer in Austin, Texas, on recent attacks on Asian-Americans
“We live here. We pay taxes. We work here. This is our life. This is a country of immigrants, all of the immigrants, so there is nothing we can do better than love each other, than work together.”
Xiaoxu Zheng, a 36-year-old medical researcher at Georgia State University, commenting on the rise in anti-Asian violence over the past year
Zheng who has been in the U.S. for 10 years and lives in suburban Atlanta with his wife and two children, said the protest was his first political event.
“They had lived through an unprecedented planetary pandemic, but they could not survive this: they could not outlive America’s gun epidemic. That proved more fatal than the virus.”
John Pavlovitz, in an essay on the recent gun violence in Atlanta and Boulder, Colorado
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