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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: 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.