zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — IMO, these paired mass casualty shootings call for mass humility on both sides of the divide — let’s build a corpus callosum for the nation ]
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Let’s just do this with headlines, the El Paso shooter above, the Dayton shooter below:

The moral would appear to be: no matter what “side” you’re on, there may be some folk who take it to an extremist extreme. They may kill for ideas on “your side” — at least in contemporary American politics. I tend to the left, so Crusius is no surprise, but Connor Betts, WTF?

ANd you’ll tell me it’s the opposite way around for some of you — WTF are Crusius and others like him doing?

And BTW, DoubleQuote!

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Okay — Connor Betts:

The Dayton shooting was the 250th mass shooting “event” in the US this year, but its exact motivation is unclear at the time of this writing — the shooter, Connor Betts, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest, killed his sister among others, and had written a “hit list” of girls while at High School at one point — so school issues and family feud are among the possible explanations for his violence, which killed 9 in 26 seconds before he was taken down by police. He was far from a Breivik follower, however. His Twitter page revealed, as reported by Heavy:

Or quoting Heavy again —

[H]e described himself as “he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / i’m going to hell and i’m not coming back.” He wrote on Twitter that he would happily vote for Democrat Elizabeth Warren, praised Satan, was upset about the 2016 presidential election results, and added, “I want socialism, and i’ll not wait for the idiots to finally come round to understanding.”

That’s pretty aggressively [is that the word?] left and male, eh?

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Sources:

Heavy, Patrick Crusius: Suspect’s Twitter Page Shows Trump Support

Heavy, Connor Betts: Twitter Posts on Being a Leftist, Guns

Readings:

Politico, What Both Sides Don’t Get About American Gun Culture

The Hill, Graham to offer bipartisan ‘red flag’ bill with Trump’s support [added]

[ by Charles Cameron — it seems particularly sad to “left-leaning” me ]
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I don’t really fit left or right, but as a near-“non” where it comes to violence, I’m particularly saddened by this:

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Given my quasi-Mennonite sympathies, and even thought it may be irrational in the final analysis, I’d be less saddened if the “sides” were reversed…

Source:

WaPo, Black-clad antifa members attack peaceful right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley

[ by Charles Cameron — second of two posts ]
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And here’s the second of two posts, one from myself and one from Zen, both about today’s Comey testimony — in an initial attempt at balance in response to our friend Scott observing:

This blog has been getting a little partisan since November…can we go back to being a little more objective?

I don’t suppose Zen will mind my making a post of it here, since he posted it en plein air / en clair on FaceBook himself:

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The Comey testimony is amazing on a number of levels.

My initial read is that the President didn’t obstruct justice in a legal sense but his actions in attempting to influence the investigation of General Flynn provide more than a theoretical ground for an article of impeachment.

Historically that is not going to get you a conviction in the Senate by itself. Not even in a Democratic Senate, without other articles and clear evidence supporting them. Which is why Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton finished their terms after being impeached and Richard Nixon resigned even before articles could be voted upon.

The GOP has a POTUS who is out of control in the sense that he won’t accept normal staff assistance and advice to avoid transgressing obvious red lines in the daily conduct of his office.

The last administration inappropriately tried to influence Comey in an investigation too – but note that the President personally didn’t wheedle him. There’s good reasons he didn’t. While the type of convo between Comey and Trump was common with J. Edgar Hoover and US Presidents, ever since Watergate this has been understood to be suspect behavior at best and a red line to be avoided.

If Trump continues as he has done he will soon be in dire straits and all the complaints about hyper partisan media and Never Trump/Obama mole leakers will not matter, no matter how accurate