Ceasefire

CW: Kate Madison wrote this comment today. I'm repurposing it as a post for reasons that will be obvious when you read it.

By Kate Madison

Picking up on the gun control comment section of yesterday: I am a member of Central Coast Oregon Ceasefire--a local group of gun control activists (mostly women, ahem!), which is affiliated with the Oregon chapter, and more loosely with the national chapter. We are said to be the most active and involved local chapter in the nation, and I believe it.

First of all, Central Coast Oregon is "purple," thanks to the old hippies who live in Newport--but we are in the middle of Bright Red 2nd Amendment crazies. We sponsored a gun "buy-back" in Newport in April, but changed the title to gun "turn-in" when the local police got nervous. We held our "turn-in" at the Newport Police Station, under the direction of the Police Chief. CCCO members were not allowed to touch the guns being turned in (for vouchers at local businesses), which would be melted down to sell. So we kept track of the number of guns--an amazing 345, in a small city of 12,000--and issued the vouchers. I was one of the volunteers and I learned a lot about tragedy and crazy.

First of all, when I arrived at the Police Station on a chilly, rainy Saturday AM, there were already over 100 people waiting on the steps for the Police Dept. to open. These were the "protesters," who had come from not just Oregon--but Nevada, Idaho, Montana and even Wyoming--to meet people who had come to turn in their guns-- before they got in the doors--and to offer them a higher price. They carried posters which touted the 2nd amendment, and portrayed us as "Pussies on Crime, etc." (As I walked in, they chanted, whistled and gave obscene gestures.) I felt like an employee at an abortion clinic in Kansas.

That we actually got 345 guns is nothing short of amazing, because these protesters were quite verbal and pushy with people trying to get in the doors. I talked with all of them, and every person turning in a gun referred to personal experience with gun violence. One person had accidentally shot and killed a friend while cleaning his gun. All had become believers in the necessity of strict gun control and felt hopeless about our government ever doing the right thing.

I tell you this, because I am a believer, obviously, in the necessity of gun control and will continue my work against most odds--except in Oregon. We are lucky right now to have a Democratic governor and a totally Democratic legislature--albeit with a lot of Blue Dogs. Two weeks ago they passed a Universal Background Checks bill and this week a Domestic Violence bill (which includes banning gun possession by abusers). Our Democratic representative joined our Ceasefire celebration last Sunday and regaled us with stories about the hate mail he has received--from all over the U.S.

However.....this is a start. I am not hopeful that this legislation will be the answer to gun violence in Oregon, but it is a beginning. The sad part to me is that it has taken a completely Democratic controlled state to get ANYTHING passed.

America is to me the land of deliberately missing the point. Sad.

The Commentariat -- June 21, 2015

Frances Robles of the New York Times: "A website discovered Saturday appears to offer the first serious look at [mass murderer Dylann] Roof's thinking, including how the case of Trayvon Martin ... triggered his racist rage. The site shows a stash of 60 photographs, many of them of Mr. Roof at Confederate heritage sites or slavery museums, and includes a nearly 2,500-word manifesto in which the author criticized blacks as being inferior while lamenting the cowardice of white flight.... It is not clear whether the manifesto was written by Mr. Roof or if he had control of it."

Terrorism is act of violence done or threatens to in order to try to influence a public body or citizenry so it's more of a political act and again based on what I know so more I don't see it as a political act. -- James Comey, FBI Director, Saturday

I have to do it. You rape our women and you're taking over our country. And you have to go. -- Dylann Roof, allegedly, before murdering nine people of color, one a prominent politician & civil rights leader, at the AME church

I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me. -- Dylann Roof, on a Website believed to be his

Sounds like terrorism to me. -- Constant Weader

... It would be a good idea if Comey read this piece by historian Heather Richardson on how perfectly Roof's act of terror follows a pattern of Southern white male terrorism that goes back to the early years of the nation. ...

... Timothy Phelps of the Los Angeles Times: "During the attack at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., on Wednesday night, suspected gunman Dylann Roof tried to kill himself, according to the son of one of the victims. 'He pointed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger, but it went 'click,'" because the chamber was empty, said Kevin Singleton, the son of 59-year-old Myra Thompson." ...

... Abby Phillip of the Washington Post: "The continued presence of a Confederate flag on the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol has become a galvanizing cause after nine people were killed inside a black church on Wednesday." Read down to the politicians' comments. ...

... Mark Hensch of the Hill: "South Carolina state Rep. Norman 'Doug' Brannon (R) said Friday night he plans on introducing a bill to remove the Confederate flag near his state's capitol building." ...

... If you missed it, read Ta-Nehisi Coates (linked last week) on the flag's purpose as a symbol of white supremacy.

Richard Oppel of the New York Times: "One year after outrage about long waiting lists for health care shook the Department of Veterans Affairs, the agency is facing a new crisis: The number of veterans on waiting lists of one month or more is now 50 percent higher than it was during the height of last year's problems, department officials say. The department is also facing a nearly $3 billion budget shortfall, which could affect care for many veterans.... The crisis may come to a head when [VA Deputy Secretary Sloan] Gibson testifies on Thursday on Capitol Hill...." CW: While several factors are at play, including increased requests for visits, you will not be surprised to learn that part of the problem stems from Republicans' insistence on implementation of a program to shift some veterans to private care.

David Sanger, et al., of the New York Times: "Undetected for nearly a year..., Chinese intruders executed a sophisticated [hack] attack that gave them 'administrator privileges' into the computer networks at the Office of Personnel Management, mimicking the credentials of people who run the agency's systems, two senior administration officials said. The hackers began siphoning out a rush of data after constructing what amounted to an electronic pipeline that led back to China, investigators told Congress last week in classified briefings."

Dana Milbank: "... new polling shows a significant increase in the number of Americans who describe themselves as liberal and the number of Americans taking liberal positions on issues."

Larry Summers in the Washington Post: "... financial historians may look back at the next week and wonder how Europe's financial unraveling was permitted." CW: For Summers, pretty readable.

God News

"Spiritual Warfare." CW: The president of the Southern Baptist Convention threatens the members of the Supreme Court with assassination if they rule in favor of same-sex marriage. I don't see any other way to read his language. If you want to know how hate crimes & mass murder/terrorism can possibly happen in this exceptional nation of ours, there you go. Violence R Us. Steve Benen reports.

What with it's being Sunday, I was wondering what the Vatican's emissary to the New York Times thought about the papal encyclical. Well, I'm afraid Douthat has quit his job & is now accusing Pope Francis not of being a leftie but of being an apocalyptic "catastrophist." Douthat seems to think Francis should be more cheerful.

Presidential Race

Erin Dooley of ABC News: "In the wake of the massacre in Charleston, South Carolina, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton [Saturday] vowed to keep fighting for common sense gun control and delivered a blistering indictment of racism in America." ...

... Maureen Dowd: "CNN reported that Hillary had enthusiastically promoted the trade pact 45 times as secretary of state. Aside from the fact that Hillary should be able to take a deep breath and stick with something she's already argued for, it plays into voters' doubts about her trustworthiness." ...

... CW: Nobody knows what Hillary's genuine deep-down, secret views on the TPP are, but Dowd might at least play a teensy bit fair & point out that part of the job of secretary of state is to promote the boss's agenda. The task of promoting the TPP would fall to a number of departments, including state. Either Dowd doesn't understand this, or she's doing a David Brooks imitation.

Paul Krugman has more on Jeb!'s briliant management of the Florida economy in a blogpost published last week.

Marco, Worse than Jeb! Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "As a state lawmaker in Florida in 2001, Marco Rubio ... co-sponsored a bill that would have protected the Confederate battle flag's place in public spaces. The bill was described as a racially charged response to a decision from then-Gov. Jeb Bush ... to remove the Confederate flag discreetly from the capitol building in Tallahassee." The legislation failed. ...

... Brian Bennett of the Los Angeles Times has more on GOP presidential hopefuls' stances on the symbol of white supremacy. Unintentionally humorous coda: "Before Saturday, most Republican candidates had avoided a discussion about the racial motives behind the attack and instead focused on the violence against churchgoers."

News Ledes, June 20 & 21

New York Times: "James Salter, whose intimately detailed novels and short stories kept a small but devoted audience in his thrall for more than half a century, died on Friday in Sag Harbor, N.Y. He was 90."

New York Times: "New York State Police troopers converged on Saturday on a spot near Friendship, N.Y., in the southwestern part of the state, where they believed a resident caught sight of the two convicted murderers who staged an elaborate escape from the state’s largest prison." ...

The Commentariat -- June 19, 2015

Internal links removed.

Afternoon Update:

Sari Horwitz & Jerry Markon of the Washington Post: "The gunman charged with killing nine people in an African American church was unrepentant during a confession to police, even after almost backing out of what he called his 'mission' because church members were so nice to him, according to law enforcement officials and others briefed on the investigation. Dylann Roof not only confessed to causing the Wednesday night carnage in Charleston, but said he wanted his actions known, said the law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is unfolding." ...

... Alan Blinder & Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "In an emotional confrontation, relatives of people killed in a shooting at a storied black church here directly addressed the suspect in court on Friday, one after another, tearfully offering forgiveness, and hope that he would confess and repent."

Joby Warrick of the Washington Post: "The Obama administration on Friday announced plans to tighten fuel-economy standards for heavy trucks, buses and vans, taking aim at a transportation sector that contributes a quarter of the greenhouse-gas pollution emitted by U.S. vehicles each year." ...

... Here's Jon Stewart's monologue from last which contributors applauded in the Comments:

David Nakamura of the Washington Post: On a fundraising trip to Southern California, President Obama reminded Democrats "'When I ran in 2008, I in fact did not say I would fix it. I said we could fix it,' Obama told an audience of about 250 at a fundraising event here at the stately hillside home of film mogul Tyler Perry. 'I didn't say, 'Yes, I can.' I said, 'Yes, we can.'"

Amateur Hour with Jeb! Tierney Sneed of TPM: A day after giving a speech in which he discussed the Charleston massacre, Jeb Bush said he didn't know if the attack was racially motivated." (CW: Had to check with Roger Ailes, I guess.) "Soon after..., Bush spokesman Tim Miller said on Twitter that 'of course' the former governor thought the attack was racially motivated." CW: Bush's spokesman knows what Bush thinks, but Bush doesn't know what Bush thinks. ...

... Jonathan Chait gets why GOP candidates are skeert to admit that white cops or other groups are racists -- they need the racist vote, after all -- but "Neither Jeb Bush nor other Republicans need the votes of racist murderers to win an election. It would be very easy to identify a confessed white-supremacist murderer without doing violence to the overall conservative worldview." ...

     ... CW: I know! I know! It's because their own inflammatory rhetoric & the beliefs of their racist followers are just barely south of violence. These politicians encourage not only racism, but also the means to carry out racist attacks. The entire confederate worldview is a violent, racist tease. Given the environment the confederates have created & nourished, they dare not say anything that might reveal their culpability.

... Lindsey Graham is a little ambivalent about flying the confederate flag. "It's who we are," he says, but at the same time he acknowledges "it's time for people in South Carolina to revisit that decision [to fly the flag]." ...

Liz Kruetz & Rick Klein of ABC News: "Hillary Clinton didn't call The Donald out by name, but she suggested in an interview Thursday that comments like ones the real estate tycoon-turned-Republican presidential candidate made during his recent announcement speech could 'trigger' events like this week's church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina."

Allesandra Stanley of the New York Times: Brian Williams' "'Today' interview was expected to be a sincere but pro forma act of contrition to clear the air before Mr. Williams goes back to work and Lester Holt takes over his former job. (Parts of the interview are set to air on NBC's 'Nightly News.') Instead, it was a tortured mea culpa that didn't close a chapter. Mostly it raised more questions and gave hardened media scolds another chance to castigate a man who has been punished plenty."

*****

CW: Another day I'm falling down on the job. I'll be traveling today, so nothing more till much later. To anyone who fills in the blanks, thank you.

Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "The Senate on Thursday passed a $600 billion defense policy bill that would rein in pension costs, ban the use of torture and authorize lethal offensive weapons for Ukraine. But it then immediately rejected a measure to pay for it, the first battle in a spending fight that could end in a government shutdown this fall."

Jennifer Steinhauer: "The House on Thursday again approved a measure to give President Obama accelerated negotiating authority to pursue a sweeping, legacy-building trade agreement with 11 Pacific Rim nations, part one of a complex legislative strategy devised by Republicans to get a trade package to Mr. Obama's desk. Led by Republicans, with the support of a few Democrats who support the trade deal, the House passed the trade promotion authority measure, 218 to 208. It will now be sent back to the Senate, where a more narrow band of Republicans and Democrats will be asked to approve it after already passing their own bill that included protection for workers, a provision favored by Democrats." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Henry Louis Gates in a New York Times op-ed: "I have no doubt that had the Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney lived, he would have become known -- and celebrated -- across our country for his leadership, rather than sealed immortally in tragedy, one more black martyr in a line stretching back to the more than 800 slave voyages that ended at Charleston Harbor." ...

... Douglas Egerton, in a New York Times op-ed on "The Lives of Denmark Vesey": "In the coming days, the world will find out more about Dylann Storm Roof and his state of mind. But to dismiss him as simply a troubled young man is to disregard history. For 198 years, angry whites have attacked Emanuel A.M.E. and its congregation, and when its leaders have fused faith with political activism, white vigilantes have used terror to silence its ministers and mute its message of progress and hope." ...

... Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times has more on the history of Emanuel AME church. ...

... Rick Gladstone of the New York Times: "... many civil rights advocates are asking why the attack has not officially been called terrorism. Against the backdrop of rising worries about violent Muslim extremism in the United States, advocates see hypocrisy in the way the attack and the man under arrest in the shooting have been described by law enforcement officials and the news media." ...

... Anthea Butler in a Washington Post op-ed: "While white suspects are lone wolfs [suffering from mental illness] ... violence by black and Muslim people is systemic, demanding response and action from all who share their race or religion. Even black victims are vilified.... There was a message of intimidation behind this shooting, an act that mirrors a history of terrorism against black institutions involved in promoting civil and human rights. The hesitation on the part of some of the media to label the white male killer a terrorist is telling." ...

... Robert Costa of the Washington Post: "After a tense overnight manhunt, Roof was nabbed about 250 miles to the north in Shelby, N.C., after a local florist said she recognized him and his car from news reports." ...

... The AP has more on Debbie Dills, the florist who first saw Roof in his vehicle near Shelby. She followed him & got a plate number, while her boss, Todd Frady, whom she had phoned, called local police. ...

... Karen Attiah of the Washington Post: "The danger in invoking the myth of the presupposed racial tolerance of millennials (and subsequent generations) is that it works to absolve today's society of actively confronting and undoing the damage of the legacy of slavery, segregation and institutionalized racism.... It ignores how the cold logic of racism, white supremacy and anti-blackness has worked for generations and how it continues to work." ...

... Michael Safi, et al., of the Guardian: "The 21-year-old accused of killing nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, had been 'planning something like that for six months', his roommate has revealed, as friends recalled Dylann Roof's tirades against African Americans 'taking over the world' and his desire to ignite 'a civil war'." ...

... CW: It is appropriate that on the day we heard the news of this racist mass murder, the Supreme Court gave the state of Texas the right to refuse to allow the confederate flag to be emblazoned on license plates. It is also notable that four confederate justices dissented, & that Clarence Thomas, the only black justice, & one who almost never sides with the more liberal justices, did so in this case. Will the proximity of their published dissent to the racist terrorism in South Carolina shame them? Nah. ...

... ** Cristian Farias of New York more eloquently makes the connection: "Rarely does a decision of the Supreme Court -- often shrouded in legal formalisms and procedural abstractions -- meet so directly with a real-time tragedy in the headlines. But Walker is such a case: Vox reports that even now, a Confederate flag still flies in the South Carolina statehouse."

And, just as one cannot burn down someone's house to make a political point and then seek refuge in the First Amendment, those who hate cannot terrorize and intimidate to make their point. -- Clarence Thomas is a lonely dissent in Virginia v. Black, 2003

South Carolina statehouse.

... Schuyler Kropf of the Charleston Post & Courier: "The Confederate flag flying at the Statehouse in Columbia became part of the Charleston church shooting story Thursday after the U.S. and South Carolina flags were lowered in mourning but the [confederate flag] was left flying at its full height." ...

... Tim Murphy of Mother Jones: The confederate flag "was removed from the Capitol dome after massive protests in 2000, and as part of a compromise, relocated to the Confederate memorial. But the flag's origins in Columbia are a remnant of segregation, not the Civil War -- it was first flown over the Capitol in 1962 in response to the civil rights push from Washington. Despite the most recent incident of racial violence, don't expect the flag to come down any time soon. When Republican Gov. Nikki Haley was asked about it at a debate during her 2014 re-election campaign, she argued that it was a non-issue.... In a photo posted by the New York Times, the alleged gunman, Dylann Storm Roof, is seen posing in front of a car with a license plate bearing several iterations of the flag."

... Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic: "Roof's crime cannot be divorced from the ideology of white supremacy which long animated his state nor from its potent symbol -- the Confederate flag.... The flag that Roof embraced, which many South Carolinians embrace, does not stand in opposition to this act -- it endorses it. That the Confederate flag is the symbol of of white supremacists is evidenced by the very words of those who birthed it: 'Our new government is founded ... upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.'" ...

... Jason Horowitz, et al., of the New York Times, sort of profile Dylann Roof. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It is in our power to do something about it. I say that recognizing the politics in this town foreclose a lot of the avenues right now. But it would be wrong for us not to acknowledge it. And at some point it's going to be important for the American people to come to grips with it. -- Barack Obama

... J. M. Ashby of the Bob & Chez Show: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) is all choked up & mystified about how this could have happened in a state where "we love each other." ...

... Dave Weigel of Bloomberg: "Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told a crowd of social conservatives that a 'sickness' in the country was responsible for the mass shootings in South Carolina, adding that the problem 'isn't going to be fixed by your government..'" ...

... Matt Wilstein of Mediaite: Lindsey Graham says Roof was probably a guy just looking for Christians to kill. ...

... Brendan James of TPM: "Presidential candidate and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) on Thursday called the attack by a white gunman on a historic black church in Charleston, S.C. part of a broader assault on 'religious liberty' in America. 'It's obviously a crime of hate. Again, we don't know the rationale, but what other rationale could there be?' Santorum said on the New York radio station AM 970." CW: Maybe you boys should check the news & find out. Well, okay, not your preferred source of "news":

... Carimah Townes of Think Progress: "After the shooting..., Fox & Friends advocated for more guns, arguing people could've defended themselves if they were armed. 'Had somebody in that church had a gun, they probably would have been able to stop him,' host Steve Doocy remarked. 'If somebody was there, they would have had the opportunity to pull out their weapon and take him out.'" ...

... Also see Akhilleus's comments on Fox "News"'s coverage of the massacre in yesterday's thread. ...

... Chauncey DeVega in Salon: "... a local Charleston reporter asked a group of African-American activists, community leaders what the black community could do to prevent events like the mass shooting at Emanuel Baptist. This bizarre moment continued with the reporter ... suggest[ed] that the black community gives comfort to 'snitches,' thus wondering if black folks will in fact turn in a white domestic terrorist who had killed at least nine people."

"I'm Sorry." Margaret Hartmann of New York: Brian Williams is embarking on an apology tour.

Presidential Race

** Paul Krugman masterfully takes down Jeb!onomics, or, as the boy's old man used to say, "voodoo economics." Hilariously, Jeb! is portraying the housing bubble that brought on the Great Recession as a good thing & a feather in his cap.

Matt Taibbi: "The 47 Funniest Things about Donald Trump."

Species Megalomaniac. Species Megalopyge.

News Lede

Guardian: "The European Central Bank provided just enough support on Friday to stave off the collapse of the Greek banking system as political and financial pressure was piled on Athens before a crisis summit of eurozone leaders on Monday."