On today’s BradCast, we cover the breaking news of several mass shootings that happened today in the US, and the reactions to them, and/or lack thereof. [Audio link to full show follows below.]
In Alexandria, VA during early morning batting practice for a charity baseball game between Republican and Democratic members of Congressman, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), a Congressional aide, a member of the Capitol Police and a lobbyist were taken down in a hail of least at 50 bullets, during a shooting spree that reportedly went on, according to Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who was also on the scene, “for 5 to 10 minutes”.
House GOP Whip Scalise and the Tyson Foods lobbyist, Matt Mika, are both said to be in critical condition following surgery as of air time. The alleged shooter, reported to have been a supporter of Bernie Sanders’ Presidential campaign and an opponent of the Trump Administration (with a history of domestic violence), was eventually killed by members of the Capitol Police and the Alexandria Police after a lengthy gun battle.
We have reaction from lawmakers and statements of unity issued in the aftermath by the President, the Republican and Democratic House leaders, as well as the condemnation of the violence from Sen. Sanders.
Shortly thereafter, in San Francisco, five were shot, three fatally, before the shooter killed himself at a UPS facility.
Neither incident is believed to be related to international terrorism (the shooter in VA was a white, middle-aged man from Belleville, IL, the shooter in San Francisco has not been identified as of air time), yet a Republican Senator led off a hearing today by appearing to link the attack in D.C. to Islamic extremism.
Despite some 32,000 gun deaths per year and so many mass shootings by domestic extremists, including the 2011 Tucson shooting of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, which killed six and wounded 12 others, Congress has failed to take any action (other than to pass a bill signed by Donald Trump earlier this year making it easier for the mentally ill to purchase firearms.)
We take some great calls from listeners today, with some very smart insight on all of the above and the reasons for it (one sagely notes, after recognizing the violence on which our country was build, “we have lost our national soul”), before a few quick news headlines, details of which we must put off until another day due to the breaking news. And then, finally, we’re joined by Desi Doyen with the latest Green News Report…
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[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_TrailOfBlood_ScaliseMassShooting_SFMassShooting_061417.mp3]
*** NOTE: I’m on the road for the next two days, so will be running ‘Best Ofs’! But please read this (which I couldn’t get to today, but it’s VERY important!) in the meantime. We’ll be back with a fresh BradCast on Monday!
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As a lifelong peaceable human being, I join in the general decrying of this mass shooting violence, including from… to my great surprise… such people as the members of the Republican Party, who usually have been such reflexive defenders of the 2nd Amendment and the NRA that they entertain claims like Alex Jones’s that the Sandy Hook mass shooting was a “hoaxâ€. (Will Jones make the same claim for this incident?) Indeed, the Republicans’ anti-gun-control policy helped make possible the very dangerous situation in which so much of the country lives today — without even the protection of a traveling personal security detail.
I sent the following email to Fairness And Accuracy in Reporting yesterday, 6/14/2017:
To the Staff of FAIR:
Greetings.
6/14/2017 Roll Call Headline: “Sanders ‘Sickened’ That Shooter Was Campaign Volunteer”, followed by “Vermont independent deplores ‘this despicable act’.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/sanders-sickened-shooter-campaign-volunteer
In the article written by Eric Garcia, the first ‘graf opens with stating that the Vermont senator “said he was ‘sickened’ by the fact that the person who opened fire at Republicans practicing Wednesday morning for the Congressional Baseball Game was a volunteer on his unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign.”
Bluntly, this characterization of the senator’s words is misleading, bordering on (intentionally?) dishonest. The video embedded in the website when played allows the viewer/listener to hear the senator’s comments: “I am sickened by this despicable act, and let me be as clear as I can be: violence of any kind is unacceptable in our society and I condemn this action in the strongest possible terms.” He follow this by observing the preeminent place of non-violence in making change and as a cherished American (his word) value. He offers prayers and good wishes to the victims, in so doing naming Congressman Steve Scalise, who had been shot and hospitalized with the others. He thanks the capital police and the volunteers for their bravery in helping the victims. He also reveals that he had just learned that the shooter was a volunteer on his campaign for President in 2016.
The suggestion that Senator Sanders was sickened by the (alleged) fact that the shooter may have worked on his campaign rather than the fact that the campaign volunteer shot people is to suggest that the Senator is more concerned with the shooting somehow implicating both himself and his politics – which is to say progressive politics and its adherents, generally. Intentional or not, it is hard to avoid the clear suggestion that such an implication is the likely point of the headline and of the first paragraph of the article.
For the record, I called Roll Call and spoke with a receptionists who told me she would bring my critique to the attention of the editors.
One can hope.
Sincerely,
Donald Pruden, Jr. a/k/a The Enemy Combatant
I must say, Sanders did better this time than after the Nevada Democratic Convention, when his response was to: (1) deny that his supporters were inciting violence [though the shouters, shover, and chair-lifter at the convention, like the makers of tracked later death threats, were indeed actual Sanders supporters]; (2) say it was “nonsense†that his campaign had a “penchant for violence†[i.e. shift the terms of discussion from physical deeds to an intangible trait]; (3) add, almost pro forma, “it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence  but then (4) cast his own campaign as the victim of violence because a bullet hole had been found in the Las Vegas campaign storefront window over five months earlier (when fired, by whom, and whether random and stray or deliberately aimed, I have still not found any solution announced)… as though he were impugning his primary opponent’s campaign, in yet another “tit for tat†retort. That speech drew some well-deserved irritation.
This speech was on point and got misinterpreted, as Donald Pruden just detailed.