@on the cusp @on the cusp That was before Hillary 2016 politicized Sandy Hook.

Thank you, Harvey Weinstein, for making that suggestion to Hillary. I'm happy to say I haven't seen a single movie with your imprimatur since.

Republicans for politicizing shootings, such as Sandy Hook?
The MSM meme is ugly partisanship is the cause.
Well, the cause is the proliferation of semi-automatic weapons which both parties have refused to address with real and effective gun control.
The man was a nut.
A nut with a gun.
Nobody deserves to get shot due to political beliefs.

@on the cusp No, nobody deserves to. My position isn't that the politicians deserved to get shot--it's that they are the ones who have been pushing the idea for decades that Americans need to remain armed in order to restrain the power of the central government. Another check in the checks and balances scheme. That is the libertarian and far-right argument against gun control.

As I've said elsewhere, this is a stupid argument, in part because the US military so outguns the American populace that the guns ordinary folks buy at the gun show might as well be sticks a little kid picks up to stop an oncoming tank. Even if this were a good argument in theory--I'm not saying it is--it would be a crap argument in reality!

But it IS their argument. And now they're shocked because a citizen has shot his gun at politicians?

You don't have to believe that they deserve it to believe that this is their hypocrisy biting them right in the ass.

Republicans for politicizing shootings, such as Sandy Hook?
The MSM meme is ugly partisanship is the cause.
Well, the cause is the proliferation of semi-automatic weapons which both parties have refused to address with real and effective gun control.
The man was a nut.
A nut with a gun.
Nobody deserves to get shot due to political beliefs.

@on the cusp
My father was NOT a supporter of RFK, but he said, "It's wrong when a US Senator gets shot for speaking his mind, whatever his views".

Republicans for politicizing shootings, such as Sandy Hook?
The MSM meme is ugly partisanship is the cause.
Well, the cause is the proliferation of semi-automatic weapons which both parties have refused to address with real and effective gun control.
The man was a nut.
A nut with a gun.
Nobody deserves to get shot due to political beliefs.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

And that requires hypocrisy, and sometimes outright lying.

I'm not going to blame him for saying the same thing I and others have said here: that politicians who constantly spew NRA talking points and pretend that they support gun owners because civilians should be able to check the power of the government with their guns shouldn't be surprised when....civilians shoot at the government with their guns. That IS the libertarian argument--and, more generally, the far-right argument--against gun control: we need to have people's militias to keep the government from getting too big for its britches. It's an absurd argument in multiple ways--but it IS their argument.

If they actually meant anything they said, they wouldn't be surprised when a much-beleaguered and unhappy population produces a few people who take the gun they bought at the gun show and aim it at politicians. Why is this a surprise? Because they aimed at Rand Paul and not at some "liberal" Democrat?

But it's not just Republicans who have done this. Using this incident to make political hay for the Democrats is disgusting and hypocritical. The Republicans have a bad position on gun control; the Democrats have no position. Or, technically their position is this: "Whatever gets us the most applause from whatever crowd we're currently standing in front of!"

@Bob In Portland Here's what's important: that we reach out to the grassroots right and tell them that we're not interested in shooting them; that this is just one more instance of Big Media and Big Government trying to do character assassinations on everybody who disagrees with them.

We should reach out to Hard Bastard. He might help.

We actually DON'T want to kill right-wingers. At least, I've never run into one of us who does. Somebody's trying to rake up an ideological war to go with the race war they've strengthened and expanded. But that somebody isn't a grassroots leftist, and I'm guessing they make at least high six figures, maybe seven.

The extraordinary number of op-eds condemning progressive Democrats, tied to a couple of incidents by "leftists", follows the general demonization principles used by the Deep State and its handmaiden, the CIA and the CIA's handmaidens in their Mighty Wurlitzer.

Last month here in Portland, a reactionary fascist with signs of psychotic mental issues, slashed three men's throats on public transportation in the city. Because he had at one time said something polite about Bernie Sanders in the middle of his violent anti-Semitic rants on FB the alt-righters swarmed to the comments section of The Oregonian and proclaimed that he wasn't alt-right at all but a progressive Democrat who supported the Jew Sanders. I noted at the time how remarkable that was.

Then the baseball massacre. Now the op-ed pages are jammed with dire warnings about the violent left.

This is the same tactic used by the elite over and over to scare the underclass into avoiding progressive solutions for the inequality of wealth and power.

If you lived in the time of Haymarket Square riots, or the Palmer raids, or McCarthyism, or the bombings of the SDS and the weirdness of the SLA, then you should be familiar.

Propaganda has to be simple in order for the message to get across. Sometimes it's clever, sometimes you don't know who pulled what strings to make some false flag happen. But underneath it all, it has to be simple.

As I explained here: https://caucus99percent.com/content/okeydoke-americans-were-supposed-get
the whole "Putin-Trump treason" okeydoke was supposed to be Clinton's casus belli. This would have launched a big war with Russia. However, someone in the Deep State didn't count the electoral votes, or didn't realize how unpopular Clinton is.

Therefore, what was left of the okeydoke has been used to bring down the execrable President Trump. It has so far not brought him down, and most people haven't clamored to the neoliberals who can't seem to even mouth a promise to the working class. So everyone in Washington is being dragged down by this overplayed scandal, except one man. Bernie Sanders. He was the most popular politician in the US at the time of the election and he still is.

The Deep State needed to throw shade on him. Thusly, a new round of lone nuts, striking terror in the heart of America in the name of Bernie.

@gulfgal98 the democratic party operates on 2 levels. There is the level where the politicians send out their fundraisers to wealthy people able to write large checks to the candidate. In return the wealthy get to speak their concerns directly to the candidate in exclusive social situations. The go betweens get to act as self important gate keepers and impart the top down message to the lesser campaign workers.

On the second level there's a whole bunch of policy wonks trying to figure out the "message" to induce "regular people" voters to vote for their candidate. However they're stymied by not really knowing, or wanting to know, "regular people voters".

although he is definitely one of the most vile of the bunch, but it is the entire neoliberal establishment of the Democratic party. The complete and utter disdain for anyone who still does not worship the Clintons has turned the Democratic brand into vast wasteland of arrogance and hubris. And they do not seem to care. Their attitude is one of the meritocracy which has total disregard for the vast majority of people in this country. It is a very coarse and toxic attitude that reflects sharply upon a party that has not only lost its soul, but even worse, has lost its humanity.

I monitor Twitter on behalf of Caucus99%. Part of that task is to tweet out essays from here which gives our writers greater exposure. But also I re-tweet other tweets I read, particularly those that reflect the mission and ideas of the writers and commenters on this site. This also adds to our visibility and followers.

Occasionally, I will respond to a tweet. Since I am tweeting under the C99 banner and not my own name, I am careful not to let my own personal feelings creep into those tweets. Since Jeremy Corbyn stunning showing in the UK elections, the establishment Democrats have gone off the rails with nasty tweets denigrating Corbyn, Bernie, the lift wing in general. Leading the charge have been Joan Walsh, Neera Tanden, and Joy Reid. Joy Reid has been particularly vile and after several nasty tweets of hers, I felt compelled to respond to this one.

All the arrogance, hubris, and disdain of the Clinton wing of the Democratic party for real people is summed up in this disgusting tweet.

— Caucus99% (@caucus99) June 13, 2017

The establishment has gone into overtime attacking the real left. Earlier this week the New York Times did a hit piece on Lee Camp. Then today, the Times published an extremely nasty hit piece on Bernie Sanders using guilt by association to connect him to the shooting of Steve Scalise.

The establishment is scared, very scared. They are losing their grip and they know that the jig is going to be up soon.

@gulfgal98
these are the same people who thought that Obama did a great job as president and wish he was still president.
I was over at the other place and read too many comments about how the republicans are to be blamed for everything that's wrong with our government, but no mention of the democrats voting for the same damned legislation.
Everything that Bush did, Obama did. Rarely did anyone call him on it. If anyone tried to tell people that, they were called an Obama hater and a .
The same label was applied if anyone said the same thing about Hillary.
The blindness is dumbfounded.

Awesome tweet!

although he is definitely one of the most vile of the bunch, but it is the entire neoliberal establishment of the Democratic party. The complete and utter disdain for anyone who still does not worship the Clintons has turned the Democratic brand into vast wasteland of arrogance and hubris. And they do not seem to care. Their attitude is one of the meritocracy which has total disregard for the vast majority of people in this country. It is a very coarse and toxic attitude that reflects sharply upon a party that has not only lost its soul, but even worse, has lost its humanity.

I monitor Twitter on behalf of Caucus99%. Part of that task is to tweet out essays from here which gives our writers greater exposure. But also I re-tweet other tweets I read, particularly those that reflect the mission and ideas of the writers and commenters on this site. This also adds to our visibility and followers.

Occasionally, I will respond to a tweet. Since I am tweeting under the C99 banner and not my own name, I am careful not to let my own personal feelings creep into those tweets. Since Jeremy Corbyn stunning showing in the UK elections, the establishment Democrats have gone off the rails with nasty tweets denigrating Corbyn, Bernie, the lift wing in general. Leading the charge have been Joan Walsh, Neera Tanden, and Joy Reid. Joy Reid has been particularly vile and after several nasty tweets of hers, I felt compelled to respond to this one.

All the arrogance, hubris, and disdain of the Clinton wing of the Democratic party for real people is summed up in this disgusting tweet.

— Caucus99% (@caucus99) June 13, 2017

The establishment has gone into overtime attacking the real left. Earlier this week the New York Times did a hit piece on Lee Camp. Then today, the Times published an extremely nasty hit piece on Bernie Sanders using guilt by association to connect him to the shooting of Steve Scalise.

The establishment is scared, very scared. They are losing their grip and they know that the jig is going to be up soon.

@NCExile for keeping disaffected Trump voters from going Bernie. Might work so perfectly for them too.

(First, I hate guns, and you probably wouldn't want to put me by myself in charge of regulating them if you like them at all. I'm fine with people disagreeing with me, just wanted to make my position on those instruments of death clear so nobody thinks I'm in any way happy about anybody getting shot or shot at.)

I'm almost afraid to put ideas in their heads, but have any of the neoliberal pearl clutchers or their pet media dragged out the "Bernie loves the NRA" bullshit they tried to use back during the primaries yet? I haven't read the hit pieces yet and may not because I'm not sure I can physically handle the anger and despair that these things will cause. I'm still trying to recover from the election itself as well as the actual horrible things that the Tweeter-in-Chief and his cohorts are attempting to do and in some notable cases doing, so my health doesn't have a lot of room left for this particular shitstorm if I get too up close and next to it.

If I take a step back, it's almost fascinating how differently the two sides of the duopoly coin continue to treat their unruly "wings". The Republicans have for some time been seeing the monster they created by using an Astroturf mat large enough to turn the entire map of old Dixie into an enormous interstate football field turn around and primary them and in their ultimate revenge, foist the Current Occupant of the White House on them, but they still need that base and know it, so they don't insult them in public.

Meanwhile, back in NeoLib / Clinton-World, there isn't a bucket big enough in the universe to catch the boiling streams of contempt and blame they continue to heap on those of us who have seen through their mendacious hypocrisy. Every time I read the word "meritocracy", I involuntarily retch. If that's what they were going for, it worked. Meanwhile, I agree with those who are saying that this current upswell of slander and idiotic-attempted-association is likely to grow even if, as I deeply hope, it doesn't work. Their best skill as seen by ClintonFail 1.0 and 2.0 is to double-down on what didn't remotely succeed the first time.

I guess they're hoping to keep any more of those Republican voters who don't like Trump that they thought would lead them on to victory from seeing that Bernie and others with similar policies actually know what they're talking about and want to work together to make their actual lives that they're living now better. If we're all one Tweet or Facebook rant away from having a shootout at the local park... (Oh, do please note that the dear Republicans that all of the Neoliberal Democrats love so dearly were terrorized while practicing "America's Pastime". I know it's almost certainly a coincidence as a sport played outdoors at this time of year, which made the shooter's targets more vulnerable than if they had been doing some indoor activity like pretending to legislate.)
... well then, no unhappy undecided voter wants to be associated with such dangerous radicals as ourselves. I really, really hope it doesn't work now, and I think as time goes on, such propaganda will continue to lose its power.

People have begun to see the man behind the curtain, and they aren't going to be distracted by the big scary head on the screen, even with the pyrotechnics and smoke and the volume turned up to eleven, forever.

Great comment!! You need to turn it into a diary! @NCExile

(First, I hate guns, and you probably wouldn't want to put me by myself in charge of regulating them if you like them at all. I'm fine with people disagreeing with me, just wanted to make my position on those instruments of death clear so nobody thinks I'm in any way happy about anybody getting shot or shot at.)

I'm almost afraid to put ideas in their heads, but have any of the neoliberal pearl clutchers or their pet media dragged out the "Bernie loves the NRA" bullshit they tried to use back during the primaries yet? I haven't read the hit pieces yet and may not because I'm not sure I can physically handle the anger and despair that these things will cause. I'm still trying to recover from the election itself as well as the actual horrible things that the Tweeter-in-Chief and his cohorts are attempting to do and in some notable cases doing, so my health doesn't have a lot of room left for this particular shitstorm if I get too up close and next to it.

If I take a step back, it's almost fascinating how differently the two sides of the duopoly coin continue to treat their unruly "wings". The Republicans have for some time been seeing the monster they created by using an Astroturf mat large enough to turn the entire map of old Dixie into an enormous interstate football field turn around and primary them and in their ultimate revenge, foist the Current Occupant of the White House on them, but they still need that base and know it, so they don't insult them in public.

Meanwhile, back in NeoLib / Clinton-World, there isn't a bucket big enough in the universe to catch the boiling streams of contempt and blame they continue to heap on those of us who have seen through their mendacious hypocrisy. Every time I read the word "meritocracy", I involuntarily retch. If that's what they were going for, it worked. Meanwhile, I agree with those who are saying that this current upswell of slander and idiotic-attempted-association is likely to grow even if, as I deeply hope, it doesn't work. Their best skill as seen by ClintonFail 1.0 and 2.0 is to double-down on what didn't remotely succeed the first time.

I guess they're hoping to keep any more of those Republican voters who don't like Trump that they thought would lead them on to victory from seeing that Bernie and others with similar policies actually know what they're talking about and want to work together to make their actual lives that they're living now better. If we're all one Tweet or Facebook rant away from having a shootout at the local park... (Oh, do please note that the dear Republicans that all of the Neoliberal Democrats love so dearly were terrorized while practicing "America's Pastime". I know it's almost certainly a coincidence as a sport played outdoors at this time of year, which made the shooter's targets more vulnerable than if they had been doing some indoor activity like pretending to legislate.)
... well then, no unhappy undecided voter wants to be associated with such dangerous radicals as ourselves. I really, really hope it doesn't work now, and I think as time goes on, such propaganda will continue to lose its power.

People have begun to see the man behind the curtain, and they aren't going to be distracted by the big scary head on the screen, even with the pyrotechnics and smoke and the volume turned up to eleven, forever.