punch bowl

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Okay, let’s just acknowledge this right up front: Canada is nice. If Earth handed out a Miss Congeniality prize, Canada would win. Canada is the neighbor everybody wants. Canada wouldn’t just lend you their shovel if you asked to borrow it, they’d offer to help you use it — then, when you failed to return the shovel, they’d wait for a few months then ask to borrow their own shovel back so they could help a Nigerian orphan hold a funeral for a beloved stuffed Koala bear named Tulip. Canada is the type of nation that comes to a complete halt at stop signs, even when there’s no traffic. If you ask Canada how it’s doing, it’ll say “Just fine, thanks” and mean it. And then Canada will ask how YOU are…and it’ll mean that too.

You have to be a total jackass to piss off Canada. It’s pretty easy to piss off France and Italy, and it’s really not hard to get Germany to make a face at you. The U.K. is fairly piss-offable, but that’s partly because they really enjoy making harumphing noises. It’s hard to tell if Japan is pissed off or not; Japan can play poker. But Canada? You have to be a total jackass and work hard to piss off Canada.

Comrade Trump, unfairly forced to listen to somebody talk about something other than him.

Comrade Trump did it. Did it easily. Trump’s super power is the ability to drop a turd in the punch bowl. And let you know he did it. And that he did it just because he knows it pisses you off, and because he’s sure he can get away with it. In other words, Trump is a total jackass.

At the end of every G7 summit for the last 40 years, they’ve issue a statement “guided by our shared values of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and our commitment to promote a rules-based international order.” It’s a general affirmation of their common principles and economic aspirations. The language of the statement is nitpicked by policy experts from all seven nations, making sure there’s nothing in it that will offend anybody while still being hopeful. All seven nations agree on the statement and sign it. You can read the 2018 joint statement here.

After arriving late for the G7 breakfast, Trump arrives late for a Gender Equality meeting.

Comrade Trump signed it. Well, wait…I don’t think Trump actually signed it himself, because he left early. He came late to meetings, told the G7 leaders they ought to allow Russia back into the group (they’d kicked Russia out after it invaded and seized Crimea along with a big chunk of Ukraine), imposed tariffs on their goods, got pissy when they said they’d impose tariffs right back, refused to wear headphones for translation when other G7 leaders spoke, then left the summit early. And Canada was fairly polite through all that. At the news conference at end of the summit, Prime Minister Trudeau answered a question from the press about imposing counter-tariffs against the U.S. He said:

“I have made it very clear to the president that it is not something we relish doing. But it is something that we absolutely will do. Because Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around.”

Comrade Trump believes he has the right — even the obligation — to push people around. He…get this: he ordered his people still on the ground in Canada to officially rescind the U.S. signature on the joint statement. Seriously, after hearing Trudeau say Canada won’t be pushed around, Trump (who’d been complaining that the U.S. was tired of being pushed around) had a tantrum and said he’d unsign the joint statement. Not only that, he had his cadre of spokespersons accuse Trudeau of ‘back-stabbing’ and ‘betrayal’.

Total jackass. Trump went to a summit with an incredibly receptive and friendly group of nations who’ve been allied with the U.S. for decades, and managed to alienate them. After which he insulted them. He essentially dropped a turd in the G7 punch bowl then got pissed off because they didn’t like it.

And now Trump is about to hold another summit with the Aggressively Reckless and Paranoid Boy King of North Korea (a nation which, let’s face it, unlike the members of the G7, isn’t disposed to be friendly to the U.S. to begin with). A summit for which Trump said he didn’t really need to prepare. A summit with a hostile nuclear state that’s threatened “unimaginable” destruction of the U.S.

I don’t know. Maybe it’ll turn out okay. But I’m not confident. It’s one thing to drop a turd in the punch bowl when you’re among friends. It’s another thing altogether to drop a turd in the atomic stew when you’re meeting with an unstable dictator you called Little Rocket Man. I figure the best case scenario will be that Trump agrees to give Kim Jong Un a nuclear submarine in exchange for a chance to run a beauty contest for the ‘Army of Beauties’ that cheered on North Korean athletes in the Winter Olympic.

I don’t even want to think about the worst case scenario.

 

suicide

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Kate Spade a few days ago. Anthony Bourdain today. I’m rarely surprised when I hear somebody has committed suicide. Saddened, yes, to be sure, but hardly ever shocked or surprised. Why? Partly because there are so many reasons for folks to want to kill themselves, and partly because thoughts of suicide are universal, and partly because the thought of nonexistence can be so strangely attractive.

I doubt I know anybody who hasn’t, at one point or another, thought about how nice it would be if you could just remove yourself from existence. All your problems, all those life complications, all that stress and anxiety and pressure — all of it, just gone.

For some folks there might be some measure of vindictiveness in the thought; that whole ‘They’ll miss me when I’m gone‘ thing. But I suspect most folks who indulge in the thought of suicide are more likely to be thinking something like ‘I wish I’d never been born.’ It’s not death itself that’s attractive, it’s deletion. It’s not being whited out or erased from the page so much as having never been written onto the page in the first place. That way nobody misses you when you’re gone, nobody suffers.

Kate Spade

Most of us never act on those thoughts, of course. Some do. Some succeed. But here’s the thing: everybody has a reason to commit suicide. Everybody. Most of us also have reasons not to do it.

Here are my reasons for suicide: 1) I’ve witnessed/done way too many ugly things in my life; I have way too many ugly images in my head, and not a day goes by without at least one of them popping up, 2) I’m getting old and my body is beginning to fail; I hurt a lot; my knees are crap; I can no longer do things I used to do easily, which is sometimes comical and sometimes terribly frustrating, 3) I’m moderately poor; I never expected to live this long, so I took no steps to insure I’d have enough money to live comfortably as I aged (in the same way I took no steps to insure I’d be healthy). I’m not so poor I’ll ever miss a meal, but more poor than I ever expected to be.

I don’t regret any of that. I may not like the images in my head, but I’m glad I’ve lived the sort of life where I experienced stuff most folks haven’t. I may be beat-up physically, but I’m glad I’ve lived the sort of life where fear of pain or suffering never stopped me from doing something. And I may be poor, but I’m glad I’ve never felt the need for financial security and I’m glad I’ve never made a safe career choice or taken a career path for a steady paycheck.

Anthony Bourdain

Here are my primary reasons for NOT committing suicide: joy and curiosity. Every single day — hell, several times each and every day — I find something fascinating to see, think about, watch, study, enjoy. Every day — several times a day — something happens that makes me laugh, that delights me, that makes me stupidly happy. Every day, several times a day, I’m glad I’m alive. All that far outweighs any passing desire to delete myself from existence.

Besides, the convenient thing about suicide is that you can always do it tomorrow. It’s almost always an option. There’s some weird comfort in that.

I need to acknowledge, though, that I’ve never experienced actual depression. I’ve been deeply sad, I’ve been desperate, I’ve been terrified, but I’ve never felt any sort of sustained depression. That’s a closed box for me; I can understand it intellectually, but I’ve no idea what it’s like to live with any more than I know what it’s like to be blind. But if depression makes a person blind to beauty and joy and curiosity, I understand why it would seem to close any option for living.

So I’m sad about Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. I’m sad for their friends and family. I’m sad they felt they’d run out of options. I wish they’d been able to find a reason to delay the decision to kill themselves. I wish they’d continued to find reasons to delay that decision. I’m not surprised by what they did, and I think the world is a slightly lesser place without them in it — not just because they were celebrities or accomplished in their chosen fields, but because their continued existence was part of what made being alive worthwhile for others.

I think that’s probably true for almost everybody who considers suicide.

bughouse

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As the kids say (or used to say) I haz been bizzy. Not too busy to follow the news, but too busy to write anything thoughtful (or snarky, or thoughtful-snarky) about it. And you guys, there’s been a LOT to write about.

I mean a LOT. For example, many people are saying the President of These United States appears to be bughouse nuts (SPOILER: he pretty much really is bughouse nuts). Yesterday Comrade Trump decided to promote himself to Czar Trump, declaring he has the absolute power to pardon himself for crimes. I can’t recall if that was before or after he declared that appointing a special counsel to investigate Russian ratfucking of the 2016 election was unconstitutional, based on something he might have heard somebody on FOXNews say before cutting to commercial.

“I’m not bughouse, I’m not bughouse, you’re bughouse!”

Is that bughouse nuts or what? (HINT: it’s totally bughouse nuts.) And this afternoon Trump was planning to hold the Traditional President Meets the Super Bowl Champions Event, but then sort of semi-half-canceled it. It was going to be a party. The Philadelphia Eagles would show up, Trump would get to be photographed shaking hands with manly men (some of whom aren’t white, which makes for a better photo-op), there’d be music, good food, a lot of happy Eagles fans milling about, it would be fun.

The guys in suits who run the Philadelphia Eagles had told Comrade Trump’s people that probably like seventy or eighty of their folks would be there — players, coaches, guys in suits, maybe some cheerleaders. But apparently nobody bothered to ask the players, who mostly said “What? I ain’t going. The president’s a racist. Also? I hear he’s bughouse nuts. You wanna get together after, text me and I’ll meet you someplace.”

So the guys in suits told the president’s people, “Uh, look like it’s just us. Maybe ten, twelve folks. Sorry. Hope you didn’t spend too much on the appetizers.”

Trump’s people told Trump, and Trump went bughouse nuts. He decided to cancel the party, which made his people sputter (allegedly). They told him “But Czar Trump, we’ve already decorated the Rose Garden, and we’ve booked the United States Marine Band AND the Army Chorus — we’ll never get our deposit back. Also too, what about the team’s fans who are planning to attend? Did we mention that Kellyanne Conway is a super Eagles fan? Do you want to disappoint Kellyanne? You know how she gets.”

“Today I’ll be honoring the Super Bowl Champion Marine Corps Band with songs by the Army Chorus. Winning!”

So Comrade Trump decided to only semi-half-cancel the party. He just uninvited the guests of honor. And, of course, he took to Twitter:

Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!

Did any Eagles players stay in the locker room during the anthem last season? Well, no. That rule wasn’t even a rule until last week. Did any Eagles players take a knee during the anthem last season? Well, no. Not one. But some of them supported the protest. And to a person who’s bughouse nuts, some players who support a protest is exactly the same as Treason with a capital T and is also a direct insult to the President, which is also Treason.

So this afternoon, Comrade Trump will be hosting the United States Marine Band AND the Army Chorus AND some fans of the Philadelphia Eagles (including Kellyanne) in the Rose Garden to celebrate the Philadelphia Eagles unexpected victory over the dog-ass New England Patriots in the Super Bowl…but without the actual Philadelphia Eagles.

Is that bughouse nuts? (HINT: yes, it totally is.)

happy meal memorial day

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You guys! Tomorrow is…wait, are you ready for this? Sit down. Just sit your ass down and get ready for some news! You guys, tomorrow…and I’m not making this up…is Memorial Day AND the unofficial first day of summer AND Burger Day! How cool is that? Totally cool, is how cool.

I know this is true on account of this is the actual headline and lede from USA Today:

National Burger Day: Juicy burger deals Monday collide with Memorial Day

Memorial Day is considered the unofficial start of summer and a popular day to grab a burger. This year, there’s an additional reason to enjoy a beef patty whether you attend a holiday weekend barbecue or go to your favorite restaurant. Monday is National Burger Day and several restaurants are celebrating with deals.

Sweet Jeebus of the Pickle, aren’t we lucky? Honor dead soldiers AND get a good deal on a bacon cheeseburger, all on the unofficial start of summer! You guys, is this a great country or what? I declare, this calls for…you know what this calls for? I’ll tell you. It calls for poetry!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is about as American as a poet can be. His son got all shot up during some battle in the Civil War, so our boy Henry put out a chunk of poetry about war and all. Take it away, Henry!

Rest, comrades, rest and sleep!
The thoughts of men shall be
As sentinels to keep
Your rest from danger free.
Your silent tents of green
We deck with fragrant flowers
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.

Rest and sleep, comrades…after you’ve had your burger! For a limited time, you can get the Carhop Classic at Sonic for US$2.99! You guys, we’re talking about a quarter pound double cheeseburger and medium tots! OR you can get yourself a classic signature slinger and medium tots, also for just under THREE BUCKS! Holy crap, is that a real deal? (Hint: yes, it’s a real deal.)

You know who else is the real deal? Joyce Kilmer, that’s who. Yeah, I know, he’s got a girl’s name and he wrote that poem about trees that every kid in America learns at some point, but there’s more to him than that. He was a soldier, you guys. In the War to End Wars. And he churned out some poetry before he got himself shot in the head and killed by a sniper before the Second Battle of the Marne. Okay, Joyce, you’re up!

The roses blossom white and red
On tombs where weary soldiers lie;
Flags wave above the honored dead
And martial music cleaves the sky.

You know what else cleaves the sky? The new Chili’s Chili Burger, that’s what! You can cleave the sky with one for only US$6.99 Monday–BUT you have to mention National Burger Day. You can also get the Classic Bacon Burger or an Oldtimer with Cheese for the same price, but you still have to mention National Burger Day. You fail to say National Burger Day, you’ll have to pay full price. Life is full of risks like that, you guys.

Paul Fussell, there’s a guy who understood risk. He wasn’t really a poet, though, but I’m going to include him on account of his precise explanation of the progress of fatalism among combat troops is basically poetry. During World War II, in some battle in Alsace, our boy Paul spent a morning sucking dirt in a hole while most of his unit was wiped out by machine gun fire. But even though he escaped the direct fire in the morning, that afternoon what was left of his troops came under artillery fire and poor Paul took a nasty bunch of shrapnel in the leg.

So, what have you got to say, Paul?!

It can’t happen to me.
It can happen to me.
It is going to happen to me.
Nothing is going to prevent it.

And nothing will prevent you from getting half off a Wendy’s Baconater (the offer is good one-time per customer). That’s two (2!) quarter pound beef patties with six (ohmygod 6!) strips of bacon. There’s not a single veggie to duck! PLUS you can ger yourself a Frosty for only fifty cents! You guys, that’s a meal that won’t wound your wallet!

The unofficial beginning of summer, National Burger Day, AND Memorial Day. A great deal! A great burger! A great holiday! You guys, a great country!

respect

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If you ever doubt the pernicious effect Comrade Trump has on the social and political fabric of this unfortunate country, look at this statement by Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the National Football League:

It was unfortunate that on-field protests created a false perception among many that thousands of NFL players were unpatriotic. This is not and was never the case.

This season, all league and team personnel shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem. Personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room until after the anthem has been performed.

First he acknowledges that taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem was NOT an unpatriotic act. He then creates a policy that’s based entirely on what he’d just admitted was ‘a false perception.’ From the beginning, NFL players taking a knee was about social justice and police violence against unarmed black men. It was never about the flag or the national anthem.

Which is disrespectful? Silently taking a knee during the national anthem…?

This new NFL policy is cowardly bullshit made in deference to a bullying POTUS who lies and is willing to corrupt any person or institution that he dislikes at any given moment in time. Goodell goes on to say this:

[A]ll league and team personnel shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem. Personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room until after the anthem has been performed.

Forced ‘respect’ isn’t respect; forced ‘patriotism’ isn’t patriotism. It’s just compliance. This sort of submission to bullying is not only injurious to the concept of a free society, it also encourages Comrade Trump to continue to lie and bully others. For example, this morning Trump doubled down on his bullying, saying:

“You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there, maybe you shouldn’t be in the county.”

Cowardly bullshit from a draft-dodging bully who hasn’t ever in his life willingly made any sort of sacrifice for his country.

…or a draft dodging tax-evader hugging the flag?

Goodell and others have described the locker room option as a compromise between respect for the flag/national anthem and the right to protest. Again, that’s cowardly bullshit. It would be cowardly bullshit even without the hypocrisy of having admitted the protest was NOT unpatriotic. Limiting protest to a closed room out of sight is NOT a compromise; it’s a cowardly and underhanded strategy to silence the protest.

But here’s a true thing: NFL teams are private companies, and the First Amendment doesn’t prohibit private companies from stifling political speech. The NFL has a legal right to cave in to Trump’s bullying.

But here’s an even more important true thing: the NFL can force players to either stand during the national anthem or hide their protest in the locker room — but in doing so, they erode genuine respect for the flag, for the national anthem, and for the United States. True patriotism, true respect for the things that make this nation great sometimes means confronting ugly truths.

Taking a knee to protest injustice is by far more patriotic than submitting to the demands of a bully.

our ignorant president

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First, let me point out that by calling Comrade Trump ‘ignorant’ I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt. To call him ignorant is simply to say he’s lacking in knowledge. Everybody is ignorant about some things. Trump, who has lived by the credo that bigger is better and ostentation is impressive, is ostentatiously ignorant about a lot of things. One of which is counterintelligence.

A LOT of people are ignorant about counterintelligence; they don’t understand what it is or how it’s practiced. There’s no reason they should be familiar with it, But, sadly, Trump is POTUS; he should understand it — especially since a counterintelligence operation was put into place to protect him from Russian influence.

Let me repeat that bit, because it’s important. A counterintelligence operation was put into place to protect candidate Donald J. Trump from Russian influence. That’s the heart of this whole mess.

Back to basics: counterintelligence is the gathering of information to protect something or someone from acts of espionage. The goal of counterintelligence isn’t to find evidence of a crime; it’s to identify and monitor foreign intelligence activity, then render it ineffective.

That leads us to kompromat. What the hell is kompromat? It’s a Russian term, a portmanteau, the squishing together of two words — in this case ‘compromising’ and ‘material’. Compromising material, of course, is what’s used to blackmail somebody. But kompromat combines blackmail with what’s called ‘black public relations’. With ordinary blackmail, the blackmailer says “Do this or I’ll make the compromising material public.” Kompromat is more subtle; the compromising material is publicly teased out. Rumors are started, questions are asked, hints and suggestions are made — all of which are damaging to the person being blackmailed, but none of the damage is necessarily fatal. Kompromat is the Death of a Thousand Cuts coupled with the implication that those cuts can be stopped and the wounds healed…but only if the compromised person cooperates.

The Russian secret services didn’t invent kompromat, but they are well-known to be masters at it. They routinely try to acquire kompromat information on foreign politicians and businessmen — and Trump has been doing business with some really shady Russians since the late 1990s. He’d had a string of bankruptcies, most of which he’d been able to lawyer his way out of while his investors lost their shirts. This led to every major U.S. bank refusing to lending him money. But those shady Russians had deep pockets and were willing to open them.

Here’s the weird and dangerous thing about post-Soviet Russia: there’s no way to differentiate between oligarchs and former intelligence officers and political figures and organized crime gangsters and legitimate business people. It’s not just that these different groups cooperate with each other, it’s that they’re often not really different groups — they’re often all interconnected. These are the people who provided Trump with financing when nobody else would. He literally owes these people. That makes him vulnerable.

By the summer of 2016, the FBI were aware from at least two different sources that at least four significant members of the Trump campaign were in contact with known Russian intelligence/criminal elements. So the FBI launched a counterintelligence operation to find out what the Russians were up to. If they hadn’t done that, they’d have been derelict in their duties.

Again, the first goal of counterintelligence is to identify and monitor foreign intelligence activity. This has to be done covertly in case the activity is actually innocent. It was, after all, entirely possible that nothing suspicious was taking place between those Trump campaign members and the Russians.

What Trump, out of ignorance, doesn’t understand is that this counterintelligence work was done to protect him, protect his campaign, and protect the democratic process from Russian interference. Out of ignorance, Trump is apparently under the impression the FBI ‘infiltrated’ his campaign in an effort to ‘spy’ on it and entrap his campaign staff into breaking the law. Again, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt by saying he’s just ignorant rather than suggesting he’s actually complicit.

“There was NO COLLUSION with Russia! It’s a WITCH HUNT! Deep State Fake News total disaster ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?”

BUT if you look closely at how Comrade Trump has behaved toward Russia and Putin, it looks a LOT like complicity. If you look at Trump’s refusal to implement the sanctions voted by Congress, if you look at Trump’s policies toward the Ukraine, if you look at Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that Russia interfered with the election, if you look at just about everything Trump has said or done about Russia — well it looks a lot like a successful Russian kompromat campaign.

Ignorance is the best case scenario.

forgetting

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Yesterday we had the school shooting. Today we’ll name the victims. We’ll create a makeshift memorial, with teddy bears and balloon hearts, with heartfelt handwritten notes and painfully sincere poems, with photos of the dead before they became the generic dead. Today we’ll swear to remember them and keep them in our hearts and prayers forever.

“To the students, families, teachers and personnel at Santa Fe High School – we are with you in this tragic hour, and we will be with you forever…” — President Comrade Donald J. Trump

Like so much of what Trump says, this isn’t true. We won’t be with the victims and their families forever. Tomorrow — maybe later today — we’ll start the forgetting.

Not the parents, of course. Not their family members and their friends. They actually will remember the dead and grieve for them. But the rest of us? Well, school shootings are like buses; another one will come along pretty soon. Most of us will retain a better memory of the last bus we took than we will of individual victims of any school shooting.

We’ll forget. That’s just a fact. Back in December of 2013, on the anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, I made a similar comment about another school shooting victim.

Yes, a 17-year old girl got shot, but if it weren’t for the Sandy Hook anniversary thing, the national news media would probably have ignored it. Still, they did what they could with what they had. They emphasized the Cute White Girl Who Loved Horses angle, making her a classic innocent victim. They found some really nice high school photos of her. What was her name? Kaylee? Claire? Callie? Something like that — pretty sure it starts with a ‘k’ sound. She got shot in the head. With a shotgun. Nobody wants to hear about that. And nobody other than her friends and family will remember her in a couple of weeks. Same with what’s-his-name, the school shooter. Karl.

Her name was Claire Davis. She died ten days after she was shot. She and the shooter were the only physical casualties of that event. In the discussion that followed that post, I was taken to task by the mother of one of Claire’s classmates.

“Claire died and a entire community cares. My daughter was in that school. Many students will have post traumatic stress disorder due to this shooting. We care about this and it has nothing to do with the media. You came across very callous in this post and whatever you tried to communicate got lost in that.”

That, sadly, is exactly what I tried to communicate: that we’ve become callous, that we’ve become numbed by the sheer number of mass killings. There are so many mass killings and so many victims — so many dead, so many wounded and maimed — that as a nation, we can’t keep track of them. We identify them as individuals shortly after they’ve been killed; we give their names, we mention something specific about them in an effort to stress the magnitude of the loss, we try to say Look, this is a real person who had hopes and dreams and the potential to live a full and happy and productive life, and now that potential is GONE.

But the reality is there are just too many of them. Ten yesterday, seventeen a few months ago, three a few days before that, fifty-some in Las Vegas, a dozen here and there and they’re all inevitably clumped in the public mind as generic victims. We don’t remember them. We can’t.

But we should try.

This is Claire Davis. She was seventeen years old. She was a student at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado. She loved horses. She was a real person who had hopes and dreams and the potential to live a full and happy and productive life. She was shot on December 13, 2013 and died ten days later.

Her name was Claire Davis.

they don’t say that anymore

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Making America great again, that’s what this fuckwit says he’s doing. Another school shooting, eight to ten dead, explosive devices scattered in and around the school, and this guy’s first response? Strap on his pistol (because Texas is an open carry state), grab an American flag, slap a Trump/MAGA hat on his melon, and head to the scene to stand up for the Second Amendment.

And the other guy in this short video? The one who is outraged by the fuckwit with the flag? His answer is that we need prayers. Prayers. I suppose it’s better to ask for prayers than to strap on your little friend and start a one-fuckwit Second Amendment parade. But prayers? Hasn’t helped yet, has it. Hasn’t made America noticeably great again.

And the patriots at FreeRepublic? They know who is responsible.

“[S]ingle mother whores having children indiscriminately because they don’t need a father figure. Their bastard children growing up without morals, values or ethics. An utter sense of depravity and lawlessness. Liberals have only themselves to blame for this chaos.”

“False flag event to distract from yesterday’s IG Horowitz report on illegal acts by FBI to whitewash Clinton email investigation. As the heat increases against the deep state, watch for more of these.”

“The deep state is the group who covered up Holder’s, Obama’s, Brennan’s, Rices’s, Clapper’s, Lynch’s and Clinton’s crimes, who then tried to to stage a coup against a rightfully elected president by creating a completely fictitious narrative about collusion with the Russians. They’re funded by a global cabal that includes the wealthiest families on earth. The same families who financially fund both sides of World Wars.”

Single mothers, liberals, the Deep Fucking State. How can you possibly reason with people like this? They also know how to put an end to school shootings.

“Perhaps time to bring back public hangings.”

“It’s time to arm the teachers and students.”

“Ban violent video games. Hollyweird’s crap spewing violence is also not a help to these unstable kids of leftisms rotten fruits.”

Ban video games. Hang offenders in the town square. Arm everybody. Carry a flag to the site of a school shooting. That’s how to make America great again.

I rarely get discouraged. I’m an optimistic person by nature. But it guts me to know that this shit is NOT going to stop. It guts me that the people with the authority and power and the goddamn obligation to reduce this shit aren’t going to do it. It guts me to admit that this county, which has done great things in the past, isn’t capable of greatness now. And won’t be for the foreseeable future.

Kids used to say “I never thought something like this could happen at my school.” They don’t say that anymore.