When I read the initial stories indicating police inaction in Uvalde (allowing the mass murderer to kill additional children) last Tuesday, my first thought was that this completely believable news would be buried, quickly erased from the dominant media narrative, and in a week or so, anyone claiming the police stood around harassing parents while nine- and ten-year-olds were being slaughtered inside the school would be dismissed as a "conspiracy theorist". The cops would be venerated as heroes.
I've been pleasantly surprised to see the exact opposite happen. One big reason: The attempts to fool the public and mask their cowardly actions were so pathetic and their dereliction of duty too massive to successfully cover up. (Why would anyone ever believe anything a police officer says about anything?)
We have learned that Uvalde police held a training exercise dealing with school shootersonly two months ago. The training instructions were explicit: the "first priority is to move in and confront the attacker". Also: "The best hope that innocent victims have is that officers immediately move into action to isolate, distract or neutralize the threat, even if that means one officer acting alone." The guidelines state: "A first responder unwilling to place the lives of the innocent above their own safety should consider another career field."
Some some of the kids who placed 911 calls during the attack could hear the police officers' voices in the school hallway (and were baffled why the officers were not coming to save them). We now know that the police were told there were surviving children in the rooms (and some were calling 911 at that very moment) that needed to be rescued. (That's yet another lie exposed.)
In all, 19 children and two teachers were killed, with another 17 people wounded . . . In the days that followed, local heartbreak bubbled into rage as Texas officials waxed on about police bravery, glossing over law enforcement missteps that took days to acknowledge.
Only now, a more reliable chronology is emerging through official statements, 911 logs, social media posts, and interviews with survivors and witnesses. . . .
New details have dispelled earlier accounts of a confrontation between the gunman and an armed school police officer outside the school, a story the authorities changed four times. First, officials said the gunman exchanged fire with the officer outside the school before going in. Later, McCraw said that there was an encounter, but no gunshots were exchanged between the two. On Thursday, officials said there had been no confrontation at all and that the gunman had simply walked in. On Friday, McCraw added that the school police officer was not on campus but rushed there after the 911 call about a man with a gun at the crash [and drove right by the heavily-armed gunman].
The Uvalde elementary school back door wasn’t propped open.
“A law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said surveillance video and audio verifies the teacher removed the rock holding the door open and closed it.
— Roger Sollenberger found true love, suckers (@SollenbergerRC) May 31, 2022
And now we learn today that THIS attempt to blame it on a teacher was also a COMPLETE LIE by the cops, as video shows the teacher slamming the door shut. pic.twitter.com/JsgQzNRuIU
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 31, 2022
— The Kansas City Defender (@KCDefender) May 29, 2022
Kansas City cops shot 26-year-old Leonna Hale, a pregnant Black woman with her hands up, 5 times, then handcuffed her while she was bleeding out. When you compare this to Uvalde there can be no conclusion but that their job actually has nothing to do with keeping people safe.
— Read Wobblies and Zapatistas (@JoshuaPotash) May 30, 2022
When SCOTUS decided in 2005 that it wasn’t a cop’s job to protect civilians, it was because of a domestic violence incident where the cops failed to protect a woman from someone she had a restraining order against! pic.twitter.com/IUXybt0nuv
We were told today, in the latest version of events offered by authorities in Texas, that police left children locked in a classroom with a gunman for 78 minutes as they repeatedly called 911 begging for help, not knowing that their would-be rescuers were standing idly by. If there is a more poignant and more savage allegory for a country with a clear and urgent reason to solve an obvious policy problem that lacks either the will or courage to do so, it couldn't be imagined by a vengeful god.
Robb Elementary School's vaunted security plan didn't stop the killing. Nor did the presence of a guard, who has given conflicting stories about his actions that day. Above all it was the inability of the police force to take down the shooter that should show once and for all that a "good guy with a gun" is not an effective strategy to stop school shootings when a police force with guns can't even do it.
The tiny Uvalde school district has its own seven-person force; the 15,000-person city spends 40 percent of its budget on policing, and in 2020, the Uvalde Police Department proudly touted its nine-person SWAT team that was getting to know the layouts of local schools. . . .
If the town SWAT team can't stop a school shooter before 19 children are dead, what's the point? Republicans have since moved on to other innovative proposals, like building schools with only one door, or giving up on schools altogether.
The reason the police didn't go in sooner? According to a Texas Department of Public Safety official, it was because "they could've been shot."
Well, yes, that's true—police officers could have been shot if they confronted a heavily armed madman. But that's the paramount reason we have armed agents of the state in the first place, to defend the defenseless from murderous predators.
The official went on to rationalize the decision, saying that police were able to "contain" the gunman inside one classroom. This is great news, provided your kids weren't barricaded in there with him. Calling 911 and begging for help. For at least a full 40 minutes. . . .
It's bad enough that officers failed to even attempt to confront the Uvalde shooter. What's arguably worse is that police reportedly threw parents to the ground and pepper sprayed one parent. One woman told The Wall Street Journal she saw police use a taser on a father who wanted to go into the school and save his child. "They didn't do that to the shooter, but they did that to us," she said.
I have been working in the mental health field for two decades. I am trained as a clinical psychologist, and currently lead a national foundation focused on mental health and addiction. . . .
In the wake of the shooting at Robb Elementary, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has used mental health as his dominant explanatory model for why the shooting occurred. Ironically, Texas is one of the 12 states that has not chosen to expand Medicaid, largely under Abbot's watch. And when you look at the data and see how Medicaid is the largest payer for mental health and addiction services, it seems that if the governor really cared about the issue, he would have done something about that long ago.
"When we had Sandy Hook, that was another crazy day," Mike Mims, CEO of Cherokee Caskets of Georgia, told The Daily Beast. "So we're tired. We're tired of doing these things."
The Cherokee factory in Griffin, Georgia, ran full-tilt for 20 straight hours from Wednesday into Thursday. . . .
Ganem began consulting with the Uvalde families on Wednesday at the Civic Center and on Thursday at their homes. He sought to determine what individual touches they might want.
"I'll sit down with them and they tell me all the stories about their loved one . . ." Ganem told The Daily Beast. "I can see them light up on very specific things." . . .
"They sent us pictures of her hiking and in the mountains," he reported. "And we're actually putting them in with the wrap and we'll incorporate the colors on the exterior to go with that. So it'll look like a giant photo across the top of the casket. And it's gonna be beautiful."
Two days after the murders of 19 third- and fourth-grade children and three adults at a Texas elementary school (an additional 17 other people were injured), the emerging news about the inaction of police officers on the scene (and the increasing number of fantastical lies told by numerous Republican officials, from Governor Greg Abbott on down, desperate to create a fictional account of the massacre that will (hopefully) absolve them of blame for slavishly doing the bidding of the NRA and gun manufacturers and keeping the supply of millions of dollars in corporate bribes pouring into their wallets) has added another layer of unimaginable horror to the slaughter.
Numerous armed and well-trained police officers stood around outside doing nothing as gunshots could be heard inside in school. They stayed busy harassing the mothers and fathers and other citizens who were pleading and begging and demanding that something -- anything -- be done about the murders that were being committed at that moment. The police actually broke out handcuffs and pepper spray to control the crowd of frantic, crying parents. The police took more action to silence the parents than they did to silence the AR-15 being used to kill those parents' children.
One mother was 40 miles away when she first learned of the shooting. She drove to the school and was temporarily handcuffed after begging the police to do their jobs. When the cuffs were removed, she eluded the police, jumped the school fence, ran inside the building, and somehow was able to re-emerge with her children. She started off 40 miles away. That gives you an idea of how much time passed with no action from law enforcement.
There were reports that some police officers did enter the school -- but only to rescue their own kids before getting the hell out, hopefully without interacting with the murderer.
The police have now given three official stories to the media; who knows how many more they will tell? It's no surprise that each new explanation has attempted to further excuse, explain away and distort the inactivity of the police.
As questions mount over the police response to the shooting rampage in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children dead, footage has surfaced showing desperate parents pleading with police officers outside the school to take action as the massacre was unfolding inside.
The video, filmed by a nearby resident outside Robb Elementary School and verified by The Washington Post, was taken at 11:54 a.m.—after 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos had entered the school and barricaded himself in a classroom before opening fire on kids and teachers.
"These cops are right here. Bro, there's a [expletive] shooting at the school and these [expletive] cops are telling everybody to leave, dude, while everybody's here trying to pick up their [expletive] kids," the man filming the video can be heard saying.
The kids "are all in there and the cops ain't doing [expletive] but standing outside," he says moments later, before adding, "You know that there are kids, right? They're little kids, they don't know how to defend themselves." . . .
Victor Escalon, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, provided an updated timeline of events on Thursday yet it still raised more questions than it answered. . . . He also repeatedly denied to explain why, or how, it took an hour for specialist teams to arrive and breach the classroom. . . .
The new information will do little to comfort traumatized witnesses and grieving families who told the Associated Press they saw several police officers standing around outside the school even as the shooting was underway.
"There were five or six of [us] fathers, hearing the gunshots, and [police officers] were telling us to move back," Javier Cazares, the father of one of the children killed, told the Post.
"We didn't care about us. We wanted to storm the building. We were saying, 'Let's go,' because that is how worried we were, and we wanted to get our babies out," Cazares said.
The harrowing video from the scene seems to make the police response all the more baffling.
Distraught parents can be seen literally collapsing into themselves and wailing in anguish as officers refused to answer their pleas to go inside the building.
After one officer reassures them, "We're taking care of it," a crowd of angry parents yells that the gunman "isn't dead yet."
Multiple parents can be seen trying to break through the police cordon to reach their children, only to be held back by cops or relatives. Police officers' matter-of-fact reassurances to parents are drowned out by piercing, agonized screams that sound more animal than human.
Desperate parents gathering outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Tex., were ordered by police to move away as they begged officers in tactical gear to go inside after a gunman. Some tried to rush in themselves; one man was pinned to the ground by officers, video recorded at the scene shows, and a witness told The Washington Post that a woman was handcuffed. . . .
But even as police from local, state and federal agencies responded to the scene, an hour passed before a heavily armed tactical team entered a 4th grade classroom and killed 18-year-old Salvador Rolando Ramos . . .
At a chaotic news conference Thursday, Victor Escalon Jr., a regional director at the Texas Department of Public Safety, gave a starkly different account of the police response to the massacre than what officials had said earlier this week. . . .
The new details were released as authorities faced growing questions over the response by law enforcement to the attack and the use of tactics that Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and other officials previously claimed helped to prevent more deaths at the school. . . .
After two days in which officials had offered partial and contradictory details of the timeline of the shooting, Escalon offered another, equally confusing account on Thursday. . . .
Officials had previously stated that the gunman was confronted by a school police officer who fired at him. Later, they said the officer had confronted him but did not open fire. Escalon said on Thursday that both versions were inaccurate: No officer confronted the gunman before he entered the west side of the school at 11:40 a.m., Escalon said, adding that he walked through a door that appeared to have been unlocked. . . .
Police and public officials have cautioned that their massive investigation is ongoing and what is known about the shooting will undoubtedly change in coming days and weeks. . . .
Authorities have not said precisely what time the gunman was shot, but Escalon on Thursday said it was approximately one hour after the first responding officers arrived. Uvalde police announced on social media at 1:06 p.m. that the gunman was under the control of law enforcement.
Onlookers pleaded for police to enter Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas while the gunman who killed 21 people was inside the school for roughly an hour . . .
[The police inaction] rais[ed] questions about why it took so long to stop the attack.
"Go in there! Go in there!" frustrated onlookers shouted at officers during the attack, according to the AP, but witness Juan Carranza told the outlet the officers did not go in.
"There were more of them. There was just one of him," Carranza told the outlet. . . .
There are also questions about the initial information provided by police about the shooting. Though some reports initially said police exchanged gunfire with Ramos before he entered the school, officials now say no gunfire was exchanged until he entered the school. And although DPS spokespersons repeatedly said that the suspect barricaded himself in a classroom and started shooting after he was confronted by police, McCraw said Wednesday that the officers "were responsible" for containing the gunman in the classroom. All of the children killed in the shooting were in a single classroom, according to DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez.
A law enforcement official told the AP that Border Patrol agents involved in the response also had trouble breaching the classroom door and had to get a staff member to unlock it with a key. . . .
McCraw declined to provide a timeline of events during a news conference on Wednesday but a state official told the Times that the gunman, who first shot his grandmother and then crashed her pickup truck outside the school at around 11:30 am, was killed shortly after 1 pm. . . .
The school went into lockdown around 11:43 am, according to a timeline put together by the Washington Post. . . .
By 12:10 pm, a Facebook live stream showed that police had established a perimeter around the school. By 12:17 pm, school officials announced on social media that there was an "active shooter."
Shots were still being heard at 12:52 pm . . .
Even though local officers were at the scene, Salvador Ramos locked himself in a classroom, told the class, "It's time to die," and proceeded to slaughter 19 third and fourth graders and two middle-aged women over the course of an hour. This all happened while police waited for backup outside.
During that time, video shows desperate parents begging the officers at the scene to go into the building. . . . Instead, the video seems to show officers performing crowd control to keep the frantic parents away from the school.
Although a bunch of unarmed, hysterical parents storming the school may not have helped, it's striking that police appear to have waited about an hour for backup before entering the school.
Juan Cloy, a retired former assistant chief of the Canton, Mississippi Police Department, is currently a lead instructor at the Justice Training Institute. While Cloy declined to comment on the shooting in Uvalde, he told The Daily Beast that when an active shooter situation occurs, law enforcement must pursue that attacker right away.
"Even if you're off duty, if it's an active shooter, you go straight to where the gunfire or commotion is," Cloy said. "You run straight into it, to stop the killing, stop the harm."
A boy who survived the Uvalde shooting described what happened when police finally penetrated the premises.
"When the cops came, the cop said: 'Yell if you need help!' And one of the persons in my class said 'help.' The guy overheard and he came in and shot her," the boy told KENS5 News.
Telling the children to yell out was yet another strange decision by the responding officers. Active shooter drills instruct victims to remain quiet.
"If the active shooter is nearby, Lock the door. Silence your cell phone and/or pager. Turn off any source of noise (i.e., radios, televisions). Hide behind large items (i.e., cabinets, desks). Remain quiet," the Department of Homeland Security advises. And although SWAT teams bust down doors using battering rams with some regularity, a school staff member had to unlock the door to the classroom.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., called a journalist a "propagandist" on Wednesday before storming off from an interview about gun violence in the wake of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that left nineteen children and two adults dead.
The interview came after a vigil for the victims of the massacre, where British journalist Mark Stone of Sky News approached Cruz to ask him if now was the time for gun reform.
"You know, it's easy to go to politics," Cruz replied. "The proposals from Democrats and the media? Inevitably, when some violent psychopath murders people… if you want to stop violent crime, the proposals the Democrats have? None of them would have stopped this."
Stone then asked the Texas senator why mass shootings are a uniquely American phenomenon.
"Why only in America?" Stone inquired. "Why is this American exceptionalism so awful?"
"You know, I'm sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful. You've got your political agenda. God love you," Cruz shot back. "Why is it that people come from all over the world to America? Because it's the freest, most prosperous, safest country on Earth. Stop being a propagandist."
But Stone pressed on: "Senator, I just want to understand why you do not think that guns are the problem. It's just an American problem."
"You can't answer that, can you?" Stone added before Cruz walked out of the interview.
In the last 24 hours since the Uvalde massacre, Fox News has proposed at least 50 "solutions" and none of them are gun control. pic.twitter.com/EqYcqk9H3k
Ingraham: There’s been a lot of school shootings… Something is going on out there. There’s something happening to our national psyche or to families or to mental illness. I don’t know what it is. pic.twitter.com/8LqCacO75O
Fox News host Katie Pavlich appeared on the network today and deflected blame from gun manufacturers. Left undisclosed by Fox: Pavlich works as an "ambassador" for a gun manufacturer and appears at NRA meetings to promote their firearms. https://t.co/YV3N88ETLY
After every mass shooting, Fox News insists the key problem is mental health, not guns. That's wrong -- but they also oppose increasing access to mental health care. It's a dodge, a way to change the subject between massacres. https://t.co/UUMs2JWBHr
Texas School Shooter Was Stopped Outside The School By Armed Cops . . . How Was He Allowed To Go Inside With Multiple Firearms And Kill 22 People?
From the Washington Post: "Two Uvalde police officers and a school resource officer fired at the shooter, but it did not stop him from entering the building."
Sgt. Erick Estrada of the Texas Dept of Public Safety tells @andersoncooper the shooter crashed his car near the school, got out with a gun and wearing body armor, was engaged by law enforcement, but made his way into the school anyway and went classroom to classroom shooting.
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 25, 2022
The school district for Robb Elementary has its own police department with 5 cops and 1 security guard. The city of Uvalde's police department recieved just under 40% of the entire city's budget for the year and got a 500k grant from the state. Neither stopped today's massacre.
— Muffuletta Matzo Man (@NeeNeinNyetNo) May 24, 2022
There was an armed cop at Columbine. And at Stoneman Douglas. Virginia Tech had an entire armed *police force*. "Put cops in schools" and "Arm the teachers" have always been bad-faith dodges to evade the elephant in the room -- the prevalence and ease of access to guns.
Guns are banned at the NRA convention in Texas this weekend when Trump speaks. Let that sink in.
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 25, 2022
In February 2017, Trump reversed the Obama executive order restricting access to guns for the mentally ill. Less than a month in office; as if he couldn’t wait. https://t.co/HEBgc5NIZu
— Mimi *Vote out NRA Candidates* (@MaryWeglarz) May 25, 2022
Texas . . . Where 19 Dead Children Is A "Success Story"
NEW: Gov. Greg Abbott attended a fundraiser for his reelection campaign Tuesday night in East Texas, hours after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school over 300 miles away in Uvalde. https://t.co/D5k7j8FxKd
Greg Abbott just said the Uvalde shooting “could have been worse.” Holy shit.
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 25, 2022
“As horrible as what happened is, it could have been worse…”
Governor Abbott is using his remarks to praise law enforcement. The same law enforcement who engaged with the shooter but then let him go into the school and massacre children while they waited for backup.
A student has been arrested after he was caught with an AK-47 outside his high school near Dallas, just a day after one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. https://t.co/KZ2JP2gfsa
Montpelier police said they have seized firearms but made no arrests during an investigation that started more than a week ago into a “potential threat” made to Montpelier High School. https://t.co/ht0hFmTc9s
Current Death Toll: 1418 19 children (second, third, and fourth graders) and 3 adults
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately defended the use of assault rifles and other weapons. After that, he threw his hands up in defeat and admitted nothing can be done and everyone in the US should get used to daily mass shootings because "we can't stop people from doing bad things".
Numerous other Republicans are saying the same thing. An occasional pile of dead eight-year-olds and a few uncomfortable questions is a small price to pay to keep the NRA money spigot flowing into their wallets.
Seven- and eight-year-old kids should not live in fear of suddenly having their bodies ripped apart by automatic weapons fire while practicing their multiplication tables. I know I'm getting a bit radical and "politically correct", but that is simply what I believe.
Fox Lies & Propaganda blamed the school for the 22 deaths, citing a "flimsy fence" and the fact that each child had not been provided with a "ballistic blanket". The network made a specific point to urge that absolutely "no sweeping massive changes" of any kind should be made in response to this latest mass murder at a US elementary school.
There have been more than 200 mass shootings this year (May 24 is Day #144), including 27 school shootings. This was the 16th mass shooting in the US in the last 10 days.
Elsewhere:
"In Australia, we had a terrible mass shooting in the late 90s: 35 dead. Within a month, our government had enacted draconian gun laws and guess what? No mass shootings in over 25 years."
"Same here in Scotland. We had a mass school shooting. 16 children and 1 teacher died. We changed our gun laws. 26 years later, no mass shooting"
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s immediate response to the latest gun massacre of elementary school children was to rush to the defense of the guns used to massacre those children. pic.twitter.com/4xl2txvmNr
“I’d much rather have law abiding citizens armed and trained so that they can respond when something like this happens, because it’s not going to be the last time.” - Ken Paxton
Texas AG Ken Paxton’s response to school shooting: “We can’t stop people from doing bad things .. they’re not gonna follow gun laws.” pic.twitter.com/jXHveB12gq
— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 24, 2022
Five minutes ago, conservatives were accusing teachers of being demented sex perverts trying to groom their children.
Fox is doing everything short of outright blaming the school for being a "soft target." Here they criticize Robb Elementary School for having "flimsy fencing" that didn't stop the shooter. pic.twitter.com/le6OqbKg2W
Just realized the guy calling for "man traps" to stop school shootings is the same one who linked the San Jose mass shooting to vaccinations.https://t.co/GFLu53BFv2
This is Tony Gonzales, who represents the district that contains the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that just got shot up. pic.twitter.com/imRGq3Y8Nn
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 24, 2022
NEW: Ted Cruz just attacked people who are “politicizing” Uvalde and looking for “immediate solutions” like gun reform. Reminder, Texas Republicans just passed dozens of new laws making obtaining and trafficking guns as easy as possible, including without any training or license.
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 24, 2022
Arizona Congressman Ruben Gallego
Fuck you @tedcruz you care about a fetus but you will let our children get slaughtered. Just get your ass to Cancun. You are useless. https://t.co/0tArGHosep
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, along with Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz, is scheduled to speak at the NRA's annual meeting in Houston on Friday, three days after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that has left at least 14 children and one teacher dead.
Trump addresses Parkland shooting, says, "all of us agree that we must harden certain schools... We want armed guards... We strongly believe in allowing highly trained teachers to carry concealed weapons." pic.twitter.com/iSHC8fBmXF
TRUMP: "Tragically, there's no sign more inviting to a mass killer than a sign that declares 'this school is a gun-free zone. 'Come in and take us. You know they're cowards... there's no stronger deterrent for a sick individual than knowledge that attack will end their life." pic.twitter.com/GYwJ71gbjA
. . . As Long As The Shooter Was Not Packing A Tomato Or A Pie
Former president Donald Trump said he feared protesters would hit him with tomatoes, pineapples and other “very dangerous” fruit at his campaign rallies, declaring in a sworn deposition that “you can be killed if that happens.” https://t.co/cXJDe1ma3K
Donald Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen testified that Trump was unusually afraid of taking a pie to the face and instructed his security to severely beat up anyone who tried to get him. https://t.co/W6pgVZFaKp
(PS) What conclusion are we to draw from 192 House Republicans voting against money to relieve the baby formula shortage other than that they are willing to kill babies to score political points against Biden? Someone tell me any other way to read their inhumane, horrifying vote.
The 9 Republicans who voted NO to expand families’ access to baby formula using WIC benefits are:
- Andy Biggs, AZ - Lauren Boebert, CO - Matt Gaetz, FL - Louie Gohmert, TX - Paul Gosar, AZ - Marjorie Taylor Greene, GA - Clay Higgins, LA - Thomas Massie, KY - Chip Roy, TX
The bill is aimed at ensuring that families in need can continue to buy baby formula with WIC benefits by easing current restrictions that limit parents' options. This would protect families during supply chain crises or product recalls.
So, the origin of the baby formula pocalypse was Abbott management's refusal to repair dilapidated and failure-prone drying machines turning the plant into proverbial petri dishes for cronobacter, because...
In the last 24 hours, Republicans have voted *against* funding to fix the baby formula shortage, *against* investigating white supremacist domestic terrorism, and *against* making it illegal for gas companies to price gouge American consumers.
— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) May 19, 2022
Remember 193 House Republicans voted against lowering costs of insulin to $35. pic.twitter.com/6DOggdSy54
GOP Witness Tells Congressional Hearing (While Under Oath): In US Cities Such As Washington D.C., Fetuses Are "Burned To Power The Lights Of The City's Homes And Streets"
During yesterday's hearing on abortion rights, the GOP's main witness claimed that D.C.'s electrical company powers the lights with incinerated fetuses.
Republicans aren't even trying to make their lies sound plausible anymore.
Republicans also pretended women wait until they're in labor, and then demand abortions while the baby is crowning. Does anyone believe this? I doubt it. They just say this crap to demonize the over 800,000 people a year who get abortions. pic.twitter.com/qSAH7sJjxb
From "kids are pooping in litterboxes at school" to darker conspiracy theories like "great replacement," the GOP is increasingly committed to governance based on lurid fantasies and conspiracy theories, not facts. pic.twitter.com/2GnvoBoLAR
Was she told by the committee chair, her testimony was under oath, to please repeat what she had just said, reminded that lying is a felony & given a chance to correct herself. Failing that, the chair should have her escorted from the room & referred to DOJ for lying under oath.
Breaking WaPo: On Jan. 6, around the time the Trump mob swarmed the Capitol, a top Trump appointee at the State Dept. met with two election denial activists.https://t.co/zIBmHIpsnT
The Washington Post falsely reported the above information today as Exclusive and Breaking News!
However, the Post is well aware that this information was published online -- and in far greater detail -- way back on June 13, 2021 by Seth Abramson, a former attorney and a best-selling author, at Proof. Abramson's June 2021 article was non-paywalled when it was published and numerous Post reporters subscribe to Proof.
(EXCERPT) I would like acknowledgment from the Washington Post for breaking this story a full year before it falsely called it a Washington Post exclusive. pic.twitter.com/XnkRvN5WvS
I'm not the only person experiencing this. Independent journalists have gotten to basically every single January 6 story before major-media journalists. Then, when award season came around, major media awarded itself a series of crowns and tiaras for its often redundant J6 work.
If I had not been interviewed by the Post multiple times; if I did not know exactly which Post journalists follow the PROOF project; if I did not face grief the Post never has faced over being a hard-working journalist who charges subscription fees; this would be less upsetting.
All @WashingtonPost has to do to make this right is put my name in its story and link to the non-paywalled article at PROOF that reported this news on June 13, 2021, a full year before the Post called the same information a Washington Post exclusive. That is all I am asking for.
One reason the House January 6 Committee reached out to me is that I've consistently published breaking news at PROOF that predated its appearance in major media by 6 to 9 months—or even, as here, a year. Why? Because I find and watch obscure online content major media does not.
(PS) There are 200+ articles at PROOF—nearly all "evergreen" articles as relevant today as when they were published. Approximately 50 of them contain information that is *still* unreported by major media. The others became "breaking news" months after their publication at PROOF.
(PS3) Nor is this good for the Post. This feed ranks #3,366 worldwide for engagement (out of 400 million feeds)—and PROOF is the fourth single-author Substack to reach 10,000 paid subscribers—so a *lot* of folks are seeing this Post "exclusive" knowing they saw it at PROOF first.
(PS4) To try to make it up to you all for all this "me me me" content—I know it's unseemly and renders this thread self-indulgent—I'm now unlocking the *second* PROOF report I wrote on Joe Oltmann, which I published 96 hours after the June 13, 2021 report.
I don't blame Abramson for being pissed off. I have first-hand experience of what it's like to report something new and then see someone come along later, report the exact same thing without attribution, and take all the credit. It's an extremely shitty feeling that never really disappears.
A honest newspaper with professional ethics would give proper credit to the reporter who broke the story 11 months ago. Of course, that would raise the question: Why has the Post ignored this important news for almost an entire year?
If you are interested in the January 6 plot, and you want to know now what everyone will learn 10-14 months from now, subscribe to Proof. It's usually $5/month (which is a hell of a bargain), but there appears to be a special deal during May reducing the monthly cost to $3.54. Seth's coverage of the January 6 Committee's public hearings in June will be required reading.
(Note: This is not a paid advertisement. I'm simply a very satisfied customer with a ton of respect for Abramson's work.)
Which of the following two statements was uttered by Fox's Tucker Carlson? And which statement was in the manifesto posted by Payton Gendron, the white supremacist who murdered 10 people (and injured three others) at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket on Saturday.
Statement #1:
How, precisely, is diversity our strength? Since you've made this our new national motto, please be specific as you explain it. Can you think, for example, of other institutions such as, I don't know, marriage or military units in which the less people have in common, the more cohesive they are?
Do you get along better with your neighbors, your co-workers if you can't understand each other or share no common values? Please be honest as you answer this question.
Statement #2:
Why is diversity said to be our greatest strength? Does anyone even ask why? It is spoken like a mantra and repeated ad infinitum "diversity is our greatest strength, diversity is our greatest strength, diversity is our greatest strength...". Said throughout the media, spoken by politicians, educators and celebrities. But no one ever seems to give a reason why.
What gives a nation strength? And how does diversity increase that strength? What part of diversity causes this increase in strength? No one can give an answer.
Hard to say, isn't it? The two statements are basically identical.
Tucker Carlson has been pumping out Neo-Nazi, White Nationalist, Ku Kux Klan propaganda nearly non-stop for several years. At the same time, he has been urging his viewers to take action, whipping his followers into an angry, violent mob. As Media Matters' Justin Horowitz reported:
Over the weekend, a racially motivated and deadly mass shooting at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket ended with 10 fatalities. The suspect in the mass shooting allegedly wrote a hateful manifesto that repeatedly cited the "great replacement" theory as a motive for violence against Black people. . . .
The Buffalo shooting was not the first to be inspired by the great replacement and other white nationalist theories. A 2019 mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, was motivated by the idea of a "white genocide." Some of the 2017 "Unite the Right" rallygoers in Charlottesville, North Carolina, were also galvanized by the idea.
these tucker carlson "great replacement" clips are just from the last year and I may have missed a few. pic.twitter.com/l04NvLJq2C
White nationalist Nicholas J. Fuentes openly brags that Tucker Carlson and Fox News basically repeats his talking points about The Great Replacement theory. Fuentes spouts antisemitic, racist, anti-LGBTQ, xenophobic and misogynistic rhetoric and is banned on most social media. pic.twitter.com/myLWS1Aij9
— Decoding Fox News (@DecodingFoxNews) May 15, 2022
Even as the shooting was happening in Buffalo (one of five mass shootings last weekend), attendees at a Donald Trump rally in Austin, Texas, were told by one guest speaker that it would be great if they "went out and just went berserk on the skulls of the Democrats and the Marxists and the communists."
On Carlson's first show since the mass shooting in Buffalo, he did not mention the "great replacement" theory (because he's a coward who won't stand behind his beliefs). Instead, he played the victim, claiming that the "ruthlessness and dishonesty of our political leadership" want to silence powerful truthtellers like himself. Oh, and he lied and lied and lied. A few examples:
What is hate speech? Speech that our leaders hate. Because one mentally ill teenager murdered strangers, you cannot be allowed to express your political views out loud. That is what they are telling you. That is what they wanted to tell you for a long time, but Saturday's massacre gives the pretext and justification.
Neo-Nazis LOVE Tucker Carlson. Andrew Anglin, the founder of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, gushes that Carlson "literally our greatest ally" because he explains and promotes white supremacy in a simple package that the general public can easily understand.
Salon's Amanda Marcotte writes about the "great replacement" theory:
This particular paranoid hypothesis is deeply rooted in neo-Nazi and other white nationalist circles. A cabal of rich Jewish people, the theory holds, has conspired to "replace" white Christian Americans with other races and ethnic groups in order to gain political and social control. Carlson doesn't actually say "Jews," and generally blames the sinister plan on Democrats, socialists or unspecified "elites," but otherwise has kept the conspiracy theory intact. (Antisemitism remains the mix by singling out individual Jewish people especially [George] Soros, as the alleged ringleaders.) It's not like Carlson only invokes this narrative on occasion. As Media Matters researcher Nikki McCann Ramirez has documented, Carlson is obsessed with this idea that the people he calls "legacy Americans" — a not-so-veiled euphemism for white Christians of European ancestry — are under siege from shadowy forces flying the banner of diversity. He uses anodyne terms like "demographic change" to make the point, but has gotten bolder more recently, using the word "replacement" to make it even clearer that he's borrowing his ideas from the white-supremacist fringe. . . .
Carlson has also explicitly linked this conspiracy theory to the threat of violence, repeatedly "warning" that America faces a new civil warunless these fictional conspirators stop trying to "replace" his cherished "legacy Americans." The GOP base has been getting the message. A poll conducted in December showed that nearly half of Republican respondents buy into the idea that there's a conspiracy to "replace" white Christians with different racial and ethnic groups. That proportion has probably risen since then, as Carlson's deluge has further mainstreamed this delusional and dangerous notion. Unsurprisingly, there has been a concurrent rise in hate crimes, of which this Buffalo shooting is merely the most dramatic recent example.
In April 2021, Tucker "openly and emphatically defended replacement theory" with batshit metaphors. "What if you were a kid and you and your siblings saw your parents adopt a bunch of new kids, give them more stuff and treat them better, huh?" (video)
How obsessed is Carlson with this racist theory? The New York Times recently published a comprehensive study of 1,150 episodes of Carlson's show. One finding: Carlson "amplified the idea that Democratic populations and others want to force demographic change through immigration" in more than 400 episodes. Carlson is blunt, stating that "the Democratic Party is trying to replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World". According to Matt Gertz of Media Matters:
That's the heart of the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which is popular among white nationalists and was previously confined to the fringes of U.S. media. That racist trope motivated the likes of the mass shooters at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 and an El Paso, Texas, Walmart and two New Zealand mosques in 2019.
MSNBC Columnist Cynthia Miller-Idriss explained how Carlson spreads ugly, anti-immigrant bigotry, "using exclusionary, incendiary and dehumanizing rhetoric and language like a 'flood of illegals' alongside descriptions of mass immigration as making America 'poor and dirtier'". But it's not only Carlson.
Laura Ingraham has warned viewers that "the Democrats want to replace many of you," suggesting there is an "invasion of the country" and referring to Texas as a state that is "completely overrun" by an illegal invasion. . . . [As] the country moves closer to the actual demographic changes that are manipulated in replacement and genocide conspiracy theories, invoking the idea of a "great replacement" as an existential threat on mainstream network news reinforces and legitimizes white supremacists' fears and sense of urgency in a way that feels unique to this time….
These conspiracy theories . . . that have been core to white-supremacist beliefs for decades have no place on mainstream networks that beam into millions of Americans' living rooms each evening. And yet, here we are, with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke praising Carlson, host of the most-watched show on cable news, for "finally" promoting the "great replacement," and a white supremacist website describing him as "literally our greatest ally."
And, slowly but surely, more and more Republicans are echoing these sentiments in tweets, public statements, and speeches. While they (usually) don't issue direct calls for violence, they make no attempt to hide their sympathy and support for far-right terrorism and murder.
Even as the "great replacement" theory keeps being cited by mass shooters (such as the El Paso Walmart shooting (23 dead to thwart a "Hispanic invasion", according to the killer) and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting (11 killed by a man who believed Jewish charities helped bring "invaders that kill our people" to the US), it has become more popular with Republican voters.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the third-ranking Republican in Congress, has alluded to the "great replacement" theory in her recent campaign ads, including ones she purchased to appear on Facebook. An editorial in the Albany Times Union stated:
Ms. Stefanik isn't so brazen as to use the slogans themselves; rather, she couches the hate in alarmist anti-immigrant rhetoric that's become standard fare for the party of Donald Trump. And she doesn't quite attack immigrants directly; instead, she alleges that Democrats are looking to grant citizenship to undocumented immigrants in order to gain a permanent liberal majority, or, as she calls it, a 'permanent election insurrection.' Quite a choice of words . . .
The Harvard-educated Ms. Stefanik surely knows the sordid history and context of this. The idea of stoking racial, ethnic, and religious tribalism among voters dates back to this country's earliest days. At various times, politicians have warned that Catholics, Jews, or Muslims were out to 'change the culture,' or that Irish, Italian, Asian or eastern European immigrants would take the jobs — to 'replace' white, Protestant Americans.
Stefanik has decided to double down on her claim that Democrats are scheming to allow more and more immigrants into the country specifically to destroy the Republican Party. On Monday, she tweeted: "Democrats desperately want wide open borders and mass amnesty for illegals allowing them to vote. Like the vast majority of Americans, Republicans want to secure our borders and protect election integrity."
In 2021, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused the left of bringing in immigrants to "drown traditional, classic Americans with as many people as they can"
During a 2021 committee hearing, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry said that "we're replacing national-born American — native-born Americans — to permanently transform the political landscape of this very nation".
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is currently under federal investigation for child sex trafficking and other crimes, defended Carlson's rants, tweeting that Carlson was "CORRECT about Replacement Theory as he explains what is happening in America".
Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has also openly espoused the "great replacement" theory.
In February 2022, Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin was seen with Vincent Foxx, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier who claims he has "deep connections" to her and her campaign.
Back in 2018, Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene posted a video to Facebook that argues Jews are orchestrating a mass migration to replace white people in "the biggest genocide in human history". From all she has said since then, she still believes that. Greene also said the election of Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib was part of "an Islamic invasion of our government".
Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers (a certifiable fruitcake who (believe it or not) makes Greene seem almost normal) implied that the Buffalo shooter was a federal operative. "Fed boy summer has started in Buffalo." She has also said "we are being replaced and invaded" by illegal immigrants.
Blake Masters, the Silicon Valley billionaire and Arizona Senate candidate, claimed this weekend that the Democrats' "electoral strategy" is to "open borders so they can bring in and amnesty **tens of millions** of illegal aliens."
Finally, nearly half of Republicans, and nearly one-third of the country, believe that "there is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views," according to an Associated Press/NORC poll conducted in December 2021. The poll also determined that respondents who watched right-wing networks like OAN, Newsmax, and Fox News were far more likely to believe in the "replacement" theory.
Kathleen Belew, a history professor at the University of Chicago, explains, "For people in the white power movement, everything is framed through reproduction and gender."
Which is why those racist groups are obsessed with declining birth rates among white women.
What happens, however, when the white power movement is perfectly aligned with one of the two major political parties? Well, you get policies like Texas' six-week abortion ban, which authorizes citizens to file bounty lawsuits against women seeking an abortion, or anyone who assists in almost any fashion.
You also get the leaked decision penned by Supreme Justice (and Federalist Society member) Samuel Alito, that seems poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, and with it a women's right to choose.
So, if you force more white women to give birth, and you make pregnancy more dangerous for Black women—whose maternal mortality rate is more than twice as high as white women—you begin to actualize the white supremacist fantasy–an all white Christian nation.
The right has for years exploited white fragility, and pushed the idea that their preferred version of "American" identity (where white is the default, and everyone else is an "other"), is being destroyed from within our institutions.
That's why there's so much irrational resentment over affirmative action—because the right wants whites to believe "they" are coming for their jobs. That's why there's so much panic over "critical race theory" in schools, because "they" are coming to indoctrinate our children simply by teaching them the facts of America's white supremacist history. That's why politicians like Rep. Elise Stefanik, the 3rd-ranking Republican in the House, tweeted that there's "an invasion" on our southern border—because "they" are coming to take over our country. . . .
The Republican Party's embrace of Trumpism is fueled by white supremacist ideology, and they are no longer hiding it on the fringe, but parading it out as the central plank of the party. . . .
If the endgame is to take their country back and make America white again, killing Black people and other people of color is the most obvious and despicable tactic to achieve their goal.
The document, which News 4 has reviewed, plotted the attack in grotesque detail. The writer plotted his actions down to the minute, included diagrams of his path through the store and said he specifically targeted the Tops Markets location on Jefferson Avenue because its zip code has the highest percentage of Black people close enough to where he lives. . . .
The manifesto includes dozens of pages of antisemitic and racist memes, repeatedly citing the racist "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory frequently pushed by white supremacists, which falsely alleges white people are being "replaced" in America as part of an elaborate Jewish conspiracy theory. Other memes use tropes and discredited data to denigrate the intelligence of non-white people.
In the manifesto, Gendron claims that he was radicalized on 4chan while he was "bored" at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.
The document also claims "critical race theory," a recent right-wing talking point that has come to generally encompass teaching about race in school, is part of a Jewish plot, and a reason to justify mass killings of Jews.
[M]any of those horrified by Saturday's killings responded by saying the brutal and deadly attack in Buffalo cannot — and should not — be separated from the growing embrace of the far-right nationalism that has increasingly found a home inside more mainstream institutions in the U.S., including right-wing media outlets like Fox News and a Republican Party enthralled by the xenophobic and fascistic conspiracy theories of Donald Trump.
A statement from People's Action, a progressive advocacy group:
This racist attack is a pure example of evil. It's also the predictable result of the relentless onslaught of white nationalist and antisemitic conspiracy theories spewed from the far right, increasingly distributed by major corporate news outlets like Fox News and the extremist politicians their billionaire allies have cultivated.
Kina Collins, a gun violence prevention advocate and Democratic congressional candidate for Congress in Illinois' 7th district, called the shooting a
devastating and sickening display of the racism, white supremacy, hate, and gun violence that plague this country. . . . This was an act of terrorism and it should be treated as such. It is another reminder that white supremacy has and will always be America's greatest threat. White supremacy has infiltrated our military and police departments. It was also on display on January 6th last year as insurrectionists, fueled by white supremacy, attacked our Capitol and threatened the lives of sitting members of Congress.
Journalist
Sam Sacks also made a connection between the Buffalo shooter and Trump's "Big
Lie" movement that incited the January 6 terrorists, tweeting: "The forces that drove the Buffalo mass shooter are the same that drove reactionaries to storm the US Capitol on Jan. 6. . . . They're all part of the same political project, and it's makin gains."
Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney accused her fellow Republicans of enabling "white supremacy". She tweeted: "The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism. History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. @GOP leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them."
Last week, a conspiracy theory was promoted by Republican pundits and politicians that President Joe Biden was stealing baby formula from Americans to feed "illegal" babies.
Until Republican leaders and conservative media stars explicitly renounce this white supremacist conspiracy, condemn it, and disassociate from its peddlers, it's fair to conclude they are entirely complicit with its message.
Journalists and reporters must repeatedly hound Republican officials with follow up questions about this national security threat. Recall that Democrats and President Joe Biden still are asked about "defunding the police," even though it is not a mainstream DNC position, or about critical race theory (CRT) panic even after it was revealed to be a bad-faith trojan horse created by right-wing activists to incite racial panic and anxiety.
Leading up to the election, any journalist worth their weight must doggedly ask every Republican elected official the following questions:
"Do you believe in the replacement theory?"
"Do you condemn the replacement theory, or do you support the ideology that has inspired numerous mass terrorists?"
"If you do condemn it, then why are you and your colleagues repeating it?"
