This brief clip from The Guardian provides the latest update on yet another mass shooting, this time in Indiana - yeah, it's a problem that we apparently can't resolve because there are so many in this country who just shrug and tell us to move on even though this doesn't happen to the same degree in any other country on earth (the tune at the bottom of this post is for the "shruggers")...
Update: And apparently, it's yet another white punk kid with a grievance (here).
...and this USA Today clip tells us about the other big gun story, and that is the shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Chicago (David Doel had an excellent video on this, but YouTube flagged it for some reason; I would encourage finding it and watching...apparently, this boy had a gun when he was chased and ditched it, but his hands were empty when he raised them before he was shot...ugh)...
Update: After I posted this, I watched the unedited video of the shooting. I most definitely am NOT going to post it here (trust me...you don’t want to see it. I felt like it was an invasion of sorts when I saw it).
This certainly isn’t George Floyd, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, or maybe a hundred other similar incidents. It appears (and I don’t want to say anything conclusively one way or the other to prejudice this legally) that Toledo discarded the gun as he put up his hands. In a situation with a dimly lit alley where an officer has fractions of a second to respond, that makes these events all the more problematic.
This is a terrible tragedy to Adam Toledo and his family, first and foremost. However, I can’t help but wonder what the hell he was doing in an alley in “Chi-raq” like that at 2-3AM in the morning (though that is NOT AN EXCUSE FOR WHAT HAPPENED, I hasten to emphasize). And I hope the individual who (again, allegedly) game him the gun is apprehended and sent to prison for a minimum of 20 years.
...and returning to more typical fare for this site (though I guess that varies), John and Ben Dixon tell us about the minimum wage “compromise” that the Dems who voted down $15 an hour are trying to come up with, including Curtsy Kyrsten of course (great point by John about how the “compromise” she supports is LESS than the minimum in her own state...”after years of trickle-down economics, you now get the Kyrsten squat”...sad but true, and anyone who thinks ANY REPUBLICAN would go along with it is truly delusional...and if this doesn't give away the game, I don't know what does)...
..and this segment from Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki handling a reporter trying to parrot more Repug talking points – great analysis by Cohen on the whole “oh, we can’t raise taxes on high earners because our utility charges would increase” nonsense...
...and speaking of swatting down idiocy, Thom Hartmann handles an anti-vaccine caller exactly the way we all should; I understand that he can’t shut down too many callers or else he won’t have a show, but there’s absolutely no justification in giving a platform to liars, especially when it comes to our ongoing plague...
...and Robert Reich tells us once again about the economic scams from the usual suspects, as it were...
...and given today’s top stories, I couldn’t help but have this tune in mind; maybe one of my more cynical selections from a guy who knew a thing or two about protests, I’ll admit.
Yes, as others have pointed out, we have a crisis in policing in this country where, apparently, the cops are trained to escalate any confrontation immediately (that is, if you’re not white). But I also believe that we’re not going to have any kind of unilateral reform in this country on that issue. We need to get the cops to the table, as it were, and involve them in whatever discussions and/or policy recommendations hopefully come out of such meetings with all parties represented. We’re not going to have a prayer of coming up with any solutions to keep more people breathing unless we do that.
And as far as the Indianapolis shooting is concerned...yep, just another day in this country with a “Y” in it, unfortunately; there’s roughly about 30 percent or maybe more in this country who just aren't going to budge on that issue along with the other critical ones facing us (including rebuilding this country and addressing the climate crisis, immigration reform, common-sense taxation, etc.). If someone has some kind of a magical means to remedy that, please let me know, because I’ve got nuthin’ (and yeah, this tune goes out to the “30 percent”).
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