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A gunman opened fire at U.S. Congressmen and others who were gathered at a practice this morning for the Congressional Baseball Game. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and at least four others were reportedly injured. The gunman, who has been identified by unnamed sources as James T. Hodgkinson III, was taken to a local hospital where he died from his injuries:
A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday at a park in Alexandria, Va., as Republican members of Congress held a morning baseball practice, wounding at least five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).
The suspected gunman is James T. Hodgkinson III, 66, from Illinois, according to multiple law enforcement sources. President Trump announced that the gunman, who was wounded in a shootout with officers, has died at an area hospital.
The wounded also included two Capitol Police officers and a congressional aide, according to one law enforcement official and witness accounts.
Congressman Scalise was shot in the hip and is in stable condition.
Hodgkinson's motive may have already been identified by the media:
A Facebook page belonging to a person with the same name includes pictures of Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and rhetoric against President Trump, including a post that reads: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co."
Charles Orear, 50, a restaurant manager from St. Louis, said in an interview Wednesday that he became friendly with Hodgkinson during their work together in Iowa on Sanders's campaign. Orear said Hodgkinson was a passionate progressive and showed no signs of violence or malice toward others.
Also at LA Times, Reuters, The Atlantic, The Hill, and CNN.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:24PM (17 children)
Bullshit. Donnie Tiny Hands capitalized on the duress and anger that everybody had towards the complete shit-fest that America has become. That's true.
However, he is completely responsible for whipping it into a frenzy in the last year and a half. Nobody was constantly pushing hate like he was, and he didn't do jack diddly shit to moderate himself and condemn the other hate filled pieces of shit that came of out of hiding to celebrate hate with him.
Now, we're just a fucked country run by Russia that is in a perpetual state of civil war every day. We may not be firing guns at each other yet, but this was just the tip of the iceberg. All because of the hate that piece of shit whipped up, because hate is what fills him and motivates him.
If if was just under the surface before, that was because of the last 10 years of the Great Depression II: The Fuckening. That doesn't absolve the Orange Anus for taking us away from unity as fast as possible to "Fuck you, I got Mine" which is where we are.
Civil War is pretty much inevitable now.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Wednesday June 14 2017, @09:52PM (4 children)
Cough. Hopefully not. I would like to think that most of the population of the US is smart enough to know that a state of civil war is really no good for, you know, people and other living things. Much as I dislike many of the things that are going on, words and paper are a far better choice than a shooting conflict. Everything our citizens depend on (and hopefully are still able to recognize that they depend on) such as sanitation, food supplies, power, fuel... all these things depend heavily upon a civil society. Break that assumption, and you're going to starve, get too cold/hot, live in the dark, and be unable to travel, in no particular order but pretty much guaranteed to all come about.
My chief concern right now – and I emphasize right now – is that all these threats of taking medical care from people are going to create some thoroughly angered individuals. Basically, if you never give a baby candy, it'll just sit there and burble. But if you give it candy, and then take away the candy, it's going to scream until something is done about the offense or until is distracted by something more interesting. The problem with medical care is that the "candy" is the extended or even immediate life of family members, and inevitably, some people are going to be left without said family members, they will inevitably be very, very angry, and they are going to be able to rather precisely assign responsibility for their losses. And as for the "more interesting" bit, there may not be anything more interesting anyone can offer those people.
See, the thing about taking everyone's guns? That was right-wing agitprop, and it never had anything behind it. So no one really got past the armchair warrior stage. But the signs exist that taking people's medical care is quite possibly going to come about, legislation to that effect is in play right now in the senate, and the suffering that will cause is far beyond the insult to one's liberty that comes about by being told you can't have a gun. The potential for more-than-armchair reactions seems to me to be much higher than it was for those concerned about their 2nd amendment rights.
I don't claim to know what's going to happen. But I see some fairly serious potential for problems if the medical care thing isn't dealt with in a forward-looking, actual-better-care manner. Anyone who thinks they'll be angry with higher taxation really hasn't thought through how angry someone could be if they directly lose an SO or a child to existing policy reversals.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:18PM (3 children)
Nobody, except for some military jarheads with blood lust, think war is good for anyone. Internally, or externally, it's a fucked deal that illuminates how avarice and power corrupts all that it touches. It's touched the whole world.
How quaint. I guess you believe voting solves things too?
ONLY violence, sea changes, and massive strikes/riots changes anything. It's not about better or worse, but about effectiveness. People started out with the quest for the 8-hour day by talking. The Elites responded with cops moonlighting (mercenaries) as their personal enforcers that shot women and children dead in front of their husbands.
We get nothing by talking, nothing by writing, nothing by voting. The only possible choice that involves very little conflict is massive national strikes. ALL of that conflict is related to scabs crossing the line because their desperation, and not being represented or cared for by those striking. The Elites play us against each other in this way.
In order for talking and writing to work, the other side has to be evolved enough to be receptive. They're not, and are nothing but pigs on two feet wholly bereft of any compassion, empathy, or humanity. How does talking work with these people again? I don't mean to imply the rank and file Republicans, but those that lead the party and hold office, along with the Elites driving it behind the scenes (Dark Money Politics). The really fucked part is, that when it comes to the Elites, party lines don't mean anything. I hold Democrats to nearly the same degree of contempt that I do Republicans, but that is largely isolated to the politicians and Elites. The average Republican voter has the ability to be a decent person, and could probably be reasoned with.
Ahhh, the duress. "We can't strike! We don't have enough food!", "We can't fight back! We're too weak!", "We can't push for change because they'll hurt us!". Nobody is deluded to think we don't need those things except for a very small fringe group with their own economic ideas that can pretty much be summed up as anarchy.
Society is already broken, and the complete breakdown in its fabric is well under way. There is no other future when living wages no longer exist, and the Elites own politics as their own personal engine of avaricious change. Sanitation, water, power, etc. are already broken and in incredible disrepair. Flint was the tip of the iceberg, and local taxes are going down faster because the average American Worker isn't paid a living wage, compounded by the fact that the American Worker is besieged on all sides by rich Elites bleeding them dry. Wages don't go up, but the cost of commodities do. More problematic is that for entire counties the average rent isn't 30-40% of income, but 150-400% of income. War on the poor is a fucking understatement.
Anger has nothing to do with it. Medical is wholly unaffordable, and yet, other countries demonstrate that the ONLY reason why American medical is unaffordable are the parasites in the system. When less than 40c on the dollar goes to your health care, that means health care is broken. Where government is picking up the tab, the taxpayer is so poorly represented it borders on criminal negligence. That fucking cunt that runs Mylanta deserves a hot spike up her asshole in hell for all eternity. You wonder how we have no fucking money, and yet are the wealthiest country on Earth? When a hammer costs $400 because a government procurement contract is run by fucking idiots.
You bet there will be blood when they take away the health care. Nobody will believe it's because of ethics, morality, or that it's more American somehow to not have medicine available to all. EVERYONE will believe the simple truth: Elites were being greedy little bitches, couldn't pay living wages, and cannot even be bothered to treat their wage slaves as human beings.
Yeah, that can start civil war. Americans don't sit there and watch the pigs on two legs go about their business. We rise up, kill that fucking pig, burn his house down, and watch his family run out of town to complain the "King" pigs that the slaves finally had enough. That's American history, and the true American way.
No shit. You can go an entire life without owning a firearm, but you can't go your whole life without seeing a doctor. Not unless you are very, very, lucky and don't mind living to or past the average life expectancy. The average American Worker, or wage slave, now lives considerably less long than the average Elite. That is precisely because of the rampant income inequality that has creeped up the last 40 years with the death of unions and the outsourcing of work to cheap hell holes where it is easy and common to abuse the people.
If it happens to me, I already know who I will be killing. That's not a joke. They will not get to go forward in life, exploiting the fuck out of other people, so that somebody else may die because of them. That's my line in the sand, and after they cross that, I will engage in a killing spree to rival them all. Not indiscriminately, but precisely, and my targets will be all people that are involved in the law, but especially those that profited from my loved ones death. Killing may not be the best word either, as I intend for them to live. Just with horrifically broken bodies that require a lot of medical care on a daily basis, that exist only as pain amplifiers.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:35PM
And here I am without mod points!
Please accept a virtual +10 from me.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:57AM (1 child)
And then you go on to fantasize about your war on others.
You do plenty here to earn that complete lack of respect you get. Maybe you should learn how to help fix the world instead of merely being another problem on it?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:49PM
Fuck off you piece of fucking shit. I don't give a fuck what a sociopathic little whining bitch like you thinks. "Muh society!".
You want me to be on you like white on rice again? I can. I've been ignoring you, would you like that to change? Then shut the fuck up. There is absolutely nothing positive to be gained by our interaction, unless it is your eyes bulging out of your head when I crush your fucking neck.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @10:54PM (9 children)
Your evidence for this claim?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:37PM (8 children)
You're right. All I have are the reports from the FBI and the U.S intelligence agencies. Not to mention a huge coverup over the current investigation with the person in charge being fired by the suspect being investigated. Just multiple high level people in the CIA and intelligence community telling us.
<sarcasm>No actual evidence, just mountains worth of smoke...........</sarcasm>
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:57PM (4 children)
Mountains of smoke and you just act like it is true? Talk about cognitive dissonance pushing an agenda! We should only talk facts here. Like so many other narratives you're buying into this trope like a real rube. I bet you believe in the moon landings too...
But have you personally been to the moon? Its all a hoax! You have no proof we were there except easily doctored video!
Not to mention the earth is flat. Just look out your window, drive to the next state, still flat! Then there is the UN symbol, obviously showing a flat earth. And planes, hey all fly weird routes, but if you use the true flat shape of the earth then they are really just flying straight lines! Stop being a sheep.
And don't get me started on the lizard people.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:48AM (3 children)
You're the rube that can't understand sarcasm tags, you stupid fuck.
As for evidence, you or I can't see it. We're not allowed. James Clapper, however, HAS SEEN THE FUCKING EVIDENCE.
I'm not pushing an agenda you fucking moron. I've waited for the FACTS, which are NATIONAL SECURITY and TOP SECRET at the moment. I would learn about it the same time you would, and that would be when the government is ready to disclose it. Reality Winner beat them to the punch by disclosing *some* of the evidence, but not all of it.
That's JAMES CLAPPER, a FORMER DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE. Not some gone-full-retard AC on a niche website with less than 10,000 users. I don't agree with all of his positions (he's for backdoors in encryption), but the man has served his country with distinction. If you can easily dismiss his warnings, then you are a complete fucking moron. Dismissing mine, I can understand, but his? Utter stupidity.
You want more people? James Clapper isn't the only high level official crying foul, but one of many. All of them having security clearances. The people that have agendas are the ones conveniently ignoring the facts because they're not tired of "winning" yet.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:39AM (2 children)
Oh man you gotta chill. I was just messing with you a bit and tried to make it obvious with the conspiracy nonsense. I guess you could read that as saying your a conspiracy wacko... Sorry about that. But really, you need to meditate and stop letting people bait you emotionally. Gotta stay calm!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)
Go fuck off and die in a fire. The only thing you make obvious with the conspiracy nonsense is that you may be an Infowars subscriber that believes Hillary is diddling little kids with a strap-on in the basement of a pizza parlor. Those fucking nuts are everywhere, and unsurprisingly, are Trumpanzees.
I'm not a conspiracy whacko when James Fucking Clapper and others in government are saying they've seen evidence and are raising the alarms. Only conspiracies I've ever talked about have been revealed to be true. All of those related to the NSA/FBI/CIA and their un-American activities.
Hard to be a conspiracy whacko when you keep getting proved right, and high level people in the government are leading the charge. Not somebody in a basement with tin foil on, as your characterization suggests.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:35PM
You mean the same James Clapper that lied to Congress (with impunity) about the existence of the NSA's police state surveillance system? Yeah, that guy's totally credible.
I'm glad you retain some faith in people in the federal government, but as for me I have practically none left. Even Elizabeth Warren, who had she run for President I would have bled for, has shown herself to be a farce after rolling over for Hillary.
Trump is an asshole, and everybody else in DC is an asshole, but at least with Trump we get to see the assholes really fighting each other. And with each wounding blow struck, we get to see the assholes suffer. The rest of the American people and the world have been suffering because of them for decades, so it's gratifying to see them join the party. I say we erect a barrier around the Beltway, throw running chainsaws in to them, and chant, "a million assholes enter, one asshole leave!"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @12:30AM (2 children)
Except there was no investigation. You know this and yet you spread lies. I suspect you are a paid shill working to attempt to stir dissent.
You may be right about an upcoming civil war, but this time we won't lose.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:54AM
Yes, there very much is an ongoing investigation, and I'm not spreading lies. If you want to get fucking cute about it, Comey said that Trump was not under criminal investigation, but that there also different kinds of investigations. He basically admitted that Trump could be an "unwitting accomplice", and that the FBI often investigates people in these contexts.
This isn't about investigating Trump as much as it is about investigating Russian interference in our election. At the moment it is centered on many individuals within the Trump campaign, but not Trump specifically at the moment.
That, and you have one hell of a logic failure. You can't fire somebody for investigating something if they aren't actually investigating something. Trump is on record as saying he fired Comey BECAUSE of the investigation.... but there is no investigation? Really? There are even reports he is considering firing Mueller, who is investigating it now. Is this one of those investigations, but not an investigation?
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 15 2017, @03:42AM
The majority of US citizens are against you pal, not a chance of winning no matter how much toilet paper you've stockpiled
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:51PM (1 child)
C'mon, that's blinkered. You're conveniently forgetting all the heated rhetoric that led to Gabbie Giffords getting shot in the head. How about 30 years of right-wing talk radio? David Duke? But, wait, this shooter was a progressive guy, so you can't really blame his radicalization on the Right, can you? Otherwise you're basically saying, when right-wing people hate, it's the Right that's responsible for it, but when left-wing people hate, it's still the Right that's responsible for it. Surely you can see the flaw there.
So let's examine the heated rhetoric on the Left that has been in high gear since before the election. We've had avatars like Rachel Maddow spiraling into new hyperbolic heights. As far as I am aware, the only person brave enough to call them out on it was Jon Stewart, who held her equally culpable for the polarized climate in America. But, unchastened, they haven't stopped calling for impeaching Trump since before he was even sworn in. They were even more insta-conspiracy minded after his election victory than the Right was about Obama. I mean, isn't it obvious? It wasn't that they were wrong about Hillary winning, because they were never wrong and never will be wrong, but because Russia and Trump conspired to steal the election. All that stuff about Obama being a Marxist Muslim Manchurian candidate was total hogwash, but the Russia/Trump thing is totally real.
Me, I hope this serves as a small, cut-the-crap moment for DC, the way there was after Gabbie Giffords was shot. Stuff like this is the real consequence of their corruption and ass-hattery, and it is not only a possibility, but at the door. And I mean that in a non-partisan, a pox-on-both-their-houses way.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 15 2017, @09:02PM
You didn't read what I said. I specifically said all of that hate was there before (for quite some time), and I didn't lay it on the feet of any party. Trump IS responsible for whipping it into a frenzy, with the implication that there needed to be something there in the first place to whip up.
Hitler didn't create antisemitism, but merely capitalized on what was already there. This time with Trump it is no different. You caught the part about how other people came out to celebrate hate with him? That can only be if they had hate before him.
You're correct. I don't blame the radicalization on the Right. I blame it on Trump. Without Trump, the Republicans rarely whipped up hate, but chose fear instead. Yeah, there were some things with Hillary, but by and large the Republicans at least attempted to hold on to some civility and decorum. That's gone.
Not seeing it. I don't find concerns about Trump's tax returns, his f-u to the foreign emoluments clause, and generally shitty performance to be hyperbolic when simply reported. Yes, I caught that piece with Jon Stewart too, and yes there is something to it. What you are forgetting though is that the heated rhetoric on the Left is the Resistance. We need to resist, or we lose the whole country. That's not hyperbole. It really is that bad, and until Trump decisively answers questions about this tax returns and divests himself of his financial interests, it is very reasonable to be concerned that he is a Moscow puppet being blackmailed. Maybe he is just doing this for money and to serve the interests of powerful and corrupt people. This is why is so fucking important for a president to show proof to people that he is not compromised. We have no proof, just a lot of smoke and high level people warning us.
The calls to impeach Trump are correct. One of the first things he did was to have a Mafia like conversation with a law enforcement official where he DID obstruct justice. "We had that thing you know, that thing.... I need loyalty, I will be loyal to you", just screams Mafiaa like behavior. The calls to impeach him were based on his behavior, not partisan politics. If he were just running us into the ground with the abhorrent platform of the Republicans, that would be one thing. We would still have the Resistance, but no grounds to ask for impeachment. There are grounds now for impeachment by any reasonable standard.
I don't care about all that ego bullshit, and who won, who lost. I'm not on the Left, or the Right, and I've been calling out Obama as the traitorous piece of shit that he is since *year one*.
The Russia/Trump thing MAY be real. There is a HUGE fucking difference between the racist dipshit bullshit that was laid at Obama's feet (who showed his tax returns), and the racist dipshit that shovels it now. I might be with you if all there was for evidence was rumors and fear mongering. You can say whatever the fuck you want, and I don't like James Clapper one bit, but when a person that high up in the intelligence community starts to warn us we would foolish to dismiss it. Likewise, I don't like James Comey, but he flat out testified before Congress that there was an investigation into many of the members of the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia. Comey "vindicated" Trump only by saying that Trump may be an "unwitting accomplice". Then what about Roger Stone flat out bragging that he had access and contact to the hacker group that went after the HRC campaign? Then we have the documents that Reality Winner leaked that showed a concerted effort by Russian state actors to compromise our elections.
It's not that simple dude, and you can't simplify this as conspiracy theory nonsense similar to what the Right did to Obama. There are real and actual concerns here that are being promulgated be people that have prided themselves as a group to be independent of politics, that have decades worth of experience in the intelligence community. This is not the same as a Benghazi investigation into HRC.
To give you a Star Trek analogy... when a Ferengi in a bar is talking shit about how the Romulans may invade next year, you might ignore him. When Captain Picard says he is concerned about Romulan presence in the neutral zone and that there may be compromised people in Star Fleet, you listen to Captain Picard and take him seriously.
Right now our decorated captains and admirals are warning us. Dismiss that if you want, but you can't call it conspiracy theory nonsense.
I honestly don't care if they all get shot, including Trump. That is a non-partisan pox-on-both-their-houses position. Nothing about either party is for the American Worker or progressive reforms designed to reign in the corruption of the Elites and their War on the Poor. The Republicans are at least fully transparent now in their service to the Elites, but the Democrats still like to play as if they are not supporting the Elites over their base. All of them deserve what they get at the moment. Every single thing they get, they deserve.
Especially Republicans that won't hold town halls anymore, and dismiss all opposition as paid protestors and not legitimate grievances of their constituents. This shooter was allegedly a progressive going after Republicans, but if they take away health care from their constituents? You may very well see Republicans shooting Republicans.
Like I've said for some time, Civil War is inevitable. This is just the beginning.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.