The man authorities have identified as the shooter who murdered eight people and wounded at least seven others at a mall in Allen, Texas, on Saturday, Mauricio Garcia, appears to have been a white supremacist. He sported Nazi tattoos and wore a patch on his vest that said “RWDS,” which stands for “Right Wing Death Squad.” (Hispanic-Americans often identify as white, and as scholar of white power movements Kathleen Belew noted on Twitter, today’s militant right holds together largely because of their interest “in hurting vulnerable communities, antisemitism, anti-Islam, anti-trans, misogynist violence.”)
An incredibly somber and sobering letter today. One that scares me more than any recent one because of lack of media coverage of the Trump/Orban statements and the implications that there is a widening globalized movement of these far right extremists. Trump is moving to ever more extreme language and positions with the support of his minions like Gosar.
Heather, what is the path out of this nightmarish landscape? We can’t just give up to the suppression. Why aren’t there dozens of law suits challenging this takeover of our democracy? I am tearing my hair out. Thank you for your work on behalf of all of us. A million thanks.....
The ramping up of violence in this Country is doing nothing more than proving tyranny works. The fact that a few cellar dwellers are not the reason for this level of violence should positively scare the shit out of you. These murders are the effort of well defined groups. As long as States are encouraging this type behavior with non existent gun regulations, the murders will not stop.
And this week, Herr Paperhanger, er, I mean Drumpf, is holding his own Nuremberg Rally down at Merde A Loco. His favorite Nazi punks will be offering anti-semitisim, misogyny, racism, Holocaust denial, election denial, homophobia transschrecktlikeit and paeans to the Nazi dictator of Russia.
This, this warning needs to be heeded and acted upon because otherwise with voter suppression AND the monsters out there with easy access to AR-15s and similar weapons, democracy will falter as the mass murders (and these are murders not just "shootings") continue in this country. This is just insane. After Sandy Hook, it's incredible that this is still happening. Words fail me tonight.
"Election lawyer Marc Elias recently warned that “we cannot out-organize voter suppression” and that the myth that we can “minimizes the real world effects of repeated, targeted suppression laws. It shifts the burden from the suppressors to the voters. It suggests that victims of voter suppression simply need to be better ‘organized.’”"
When you note,"Ohio, Arkansas, South Dakota, Idaho, and Florida have all passed voter suppression laws this year," it is important to observe that this destructive politics has all been fascilitated by permissive Supreme Court rulings. It is incredible and unacceptable that the Supreme Court has undermined the foundations of democracy.
Yes, voter suppression is real, and getting worse, but only because of robust voter self-suppression. “Voter turnout for the 2022 U.S. congressional elections was the 2nd highest for a nonpresidential election year since 2000, with 52.2% of the citizen voting-age population participating.” Ooooh! 52! 🤬 Only 47.8% off registered voters didn’t show. That’s not just voter suppression, or gerrymandering, that’s mostly just a lot of apathy. 2020 on the other hand, had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century, at 66.8%, so only 33.2% no-shows. Still bad, but not 52.2% bad. But according to Elias, I’m supposed to believe voter suppression increased by 14.6% of the vote in 2 years? I can hear it now, “midterms are always lower...” And look where that landed us! It’s apathy x decades, folks, and the word the DNC dare not speak.
This is a VERY disturbing report. I'm going to be working a VERY conservative event next week and I'm now very curious about the content. Is Victor Orban going to be praised and held up as a beacon of light and truth ? These people don't tend to be Trumpers, they seem more "old school" conservatives. So we will be paying close attention and sending back "Post Cards from the Edge".
Some people may ask..."why do you work for these people?" ...mainly because I get to hear them first hand and we also hear what's bubbling under the surface. The things that are not verbalized on stage with a microphone.
How do we stop the MAGA juggernaut? Jack Smith must indict ALL of the suits who were involved in the planning and execution of Trump's January 6 coup attempt. NOW! Bottom line: Rule of Law.
I arrived as a Freshman at UCLA in1966 to find all the University of California campuses under fierce political attack led by then Governor Ronald Reagan. On January 20, 1967 at the first UC Regents Meeting Attended by Reagan, "Ronnie" was able to engineer the firing of Clark Kerr as the President of the University of California system in a 14 to 8 vote. My tuition was less than $70 a Quarter in 1966 not that much more than about $25 a Semester paid by my Uncle 2 decades earlier in WWII. Tenure was under attack as well as the make-up of the student population. The LAPD had undercover police agents attending certain lectures most notoriously in a history class when students hounded an outed Agent out of the class who made his escape in a waiting car. Protection of 18 to 30 year old's voting rights (students or not) is a critical element of 2023-24 organized resistance. Maybe it is time to reorganize students for a democratic society a good name then & now.
"His [Trump's] drive for authoritarianism dovetailed with a religious movement to create a new ideology for the Republican Party, one that explicitly rejects democracy."
Federalist Society honcho, Opus Dei acolyte, and the plutocrat's useful man - shell company entrepreneur Leonard Leo - was explicitly working to repurpose our democratic republic as a clerical fascist state when Trump was merely a racist landlord sexually assaulting women and Orban was a politician promoting democracy.
My teenaged daughter was having lunch with one of her friends, who is trans, at a local sandwich shop yesterday. They were sitting at an outside table. A man pulled beside them in his truck, called them “scum,” and refused to leave. My daughter called me, and I could hear him shouting at them. My husband and I told them not to engage and get up and leave immediately. They did, and were safe, but rattled. Rhetoric has consequences.
I have been following the reports about the Texas shooting. I do have questions about this that have come to mind after learning his military release only 3 months after joining, and his Neo-Nazi embrace.
First, Garcia had mental issues. How in the hell did he acquire the weapons he had, tactical gear, etc? How does anyone walk into any gun shop, gun show, or anywhere else and purchase this stuff?
Second, he’s a member of a Neo-Nazi organization. How does anyone with this relationship to an organization such as this walk into any gun shop snd purchase these, or any, weapons and tactical gear of any kind?
What SHOULD have happened when he walked in the gun shop and purchased these weapons snd tactical gear is this. The gun dealer should have picked up the phone and notified the local law enforcement agency.
Now, for all those that say “why should he do that? No laws were broken.”
This may be very true, but, who buys AR-15s, semi automatic pistols, full tactical gear, and the like? Who wears, Carrie’s, this stuff hunting for dear or something? I can answer this. Not one person. The ONLY reason anyone is purchasing tactical gear is to possibly do something stupid, like kill people and protect himself from return fire.
At the very least, it would have afforded the local law enforcement agencies to look into him, and learn everything about him that they are now learning, AFTER the fact. AFTER he kills 8 people at a mall.
This just reinforces what I said on a previous post:
The regulations to purchase/own firearms had to be changed.
A. Extend the waiting period from 3 days to 30-60 days.
B. Change the Application to Purchase a Firearm. Make it more extensive than simple “yes” “no” answers. Get the individuals medical history, cross Minsk history, have them list every firearm they currently own, with serial numbers. The gun dealer must enter this application to the Federal “Cloud” for all agencies to automatically have instant access so background checks may begin.
C. The individual must have a complete medical/psychological assessment completed.
D. The individual, irregardless of prior firearms education/training must successfully complete a Federal Firearms Safety Course.
F. ALL law enforcement agencies (local, county, state, and federal) must complete a thorough background investigation of the individual.
G. A National Firearms Database must be established for the gun dealers to enter any firearm/ammunition sold, prior to it being delivered to the individual and leaving the premises.
H. All gun dealers should be required, by law, to check this database to ensure any individual isn’t going to numerous gun dealers to purchase numerous firearms.
I. No firearm may be sold at the same time as purchasing ammunition. There must me minimum of 3-5 day waiting period prior to being able to purchase ammunition for any firearm. If an individual goes into a gun dealer to purchase ammunition, an “Application to Purchase a Firearm/Ammunition must be completed. Then a minimum 3-5 day waiting period for all checks to be completed before the individual my pick up the ammunition.
J. The penalties for violations should be extremely harsh.
For firearms dealers, if an individual purchases a firearm, and the stipulations/law isn’t followed to the letter, or the dealer fails to do his diligence on the computer checks, entering the information, or checking fir prior purchases as laid out in the law, a felony charge shall be imposed, and his firearms license to sell be immediately revoked with no opportunity for reinstatement.
For individuals, a felony charge should be imposed if they are found to have lied on the Application to Purchase a Firearm/Ammunition. If, during the 30-60 day waiting period this individual is found to be incompetent, mentally, to own/possess or have in his/her possession or premises any firearm, then his Application shall be immediately flagged, his immediate family notified, and given them the opportunity to remove all firearms from the residence where this individual resides. If the family doesn’t complete this, then the authorities shall remove them.
K. Weapons of mass destruction, weapons used by military/law enforcement, shall not be manufactured or sold to the general public, by any licensed gun dealer, or individual.
Yes, mental health is an issue for someone owning a firearm, and knowing when/how to use it properly. But, not every case of masa shootings have individuals with mental health issues committing them. Case in point. This last mass shooting in Texas was committed by an individual with ties to Neo-Nazi groups. That’s not mental health, Governor. That’s just plain old fashioned white supremacy!
Unfortunately, the culture wars do resonate with voters. Fear mongering has succeeded in mobilizing voters against the very values they believe they are defending. Iowa's just completed legislative session passed new laws allowing child labor ostensibly as protection of parental rights, forbidding medical care to LGBTQ+ youth, instituting school vouchers, banning books, relaxing standards to recruit teachers because of significant teacher shortages. Many more dreadful measures have passed. It has been disheartening to witness the path this state is following.
An incredibly somber and sobering letter today. One that scares me more than any recent one because of lack of media coverage of the Trump/Orban statements and the implications that there is a widening globalized movement of these far right extremists. Trump is moving to ever more extreme language and positions with the support of his minions like Gosar.
Heather, what is the path out of this nightmarish landscape? We can’t just give up to the suppression. Why aren’t there dozens of law suits challenging this takeover of our democracy? I am tearing my hair out. Thank you for your work on behalf of all of us. A million thanks.....
Thank you Heather.
The ramping up of violence in this Country is doing nothing more than proving tyranny works. The fact that a few cellar dwellers are not the reason for this level of violence should positively scare the shit out of you. These murders are the effort of well defined groups. As long as States are encouraging this type behavior with non existent gun regulations, the murders will not stop.
Democracy loses and Tyranny wins.
Be safe. Be well.
And this week, Herr Paperhanger, er, I mean Drumpf, is holding his own Nuremberg Rally down at Merde A Loco. His favorite Nazi punks will be offering anti-semitisim, misogyny, racism, Holocaust denial, election denial, homophobia transschrecktlikeit and paeans to the Nazi dictator of Russia.
Okay, so Garcia was a militant neo-nazi, but more importantly, was he a Drag Queen or a woke teacher or librarian--something really dangerous. <sigh>
This, this warning needs to be heeded and acted upon because otherwise with voter suppression AND the monsters out there with easy access to AR-15s and similar weapons, democracy will falter as the mass murders (and these are murders not just "shootings") continue in this country. This is just insane. After Sandy Hook, it's incredible that this is still happening. Words fail me tonight.
"Election lawyer Marc Elias recently warned that “we cannot out-organize voter suppression” and that the myth that we can “minimizes the real world effects of repeated, targeted suppression laws. It shifts the burden from the suppressors to the voters. It suggests that victims of voter suppression simply need to be better ‘organized.’”"
When you note,"Ohio, Arkansas, South Dakota, Idaho, and Florida have all passed voter suppression laws this year," it is important to observe that this destructive politics has all been fascilitated by permissive Supreme Court rulings. It is incredible and unacceptable that the Supreme Court has undermined the foundations of democracy.
Yes, voter suppression is real, and getting worse, but only because of robust voter self-suppression. “Voter turnout for the 2022 U.S. congressional elections was the 2nd highest for a nonpresidential election year since 2000, with 52.2% of the citizen voting-age population participating.” Ooooh! 52! 🤬 Only 47.8% off registered voters didn’t show. That’s not just voter suppression, or gerrymandering, that’s mostly just a lot of apathy. 2020 on the other hand, had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century, at 66.8%, so only 33.2% no-shows. Still bad, but not 52.2% bad. But according to Elias, I’m supposed to believe voter suppression increased by 14.6% of the vote in 2 years? I can hear it now, “midterms are always lower...” And look where that landed us! It’s apathy x decades, folks, and the word the DNC dare not speak.
This is a VERY disturbing report. I'm going to be working a VERY conservative event next week and I'm now very curious about the content. Is Victor Orban going to be praised and held up as a beacon of light and truth ? These people don't tend to be Trumpers, they seem more "old school" conservatives. So we will be paying close attention and sending back "Post Cards from the Edge".
Some people may ask..."why do you work for these people?" ...mainly because I get to hear them first hand and we also hear what's bubbling under the surface. The things that are not verbalized on stage with a microphone.
How do we stop the MAGA juggernaut? Jack Smith must indict ALL of the suits who were involved in the planning and execution of Trump's January 6 coup attempt. NOW! Bottom line: Rule of Law.
I arrived as a Freshman at UCLA in1966 to find all the University of California campuses under fierce political attack led by then Governor Ronald Reagan. On January 20, 1967 at the first UC Regents Meeting Attended by Reagan, "Ronnie" was able to engineer the firing of Clark Kerr as the President of the University of California system in a 14 to 8 vote. My tuition was less than $70 a Quarter in 1966 not that much more than about $25 a Semester paid by my Uncle 2 decades earlier in WWII. Tenure was under attack as well as the make-up of the student population. The LAPD had undercover police agents attending certain lectures most notoriously in a history class when students hounded an outed Agent out of the class who made his escape in a waiting car. Protection of 18 to 30 year old's voting rights (students or not) is a critical element of 2023-24 organized resistance. Maybe it is time to reorganize students for a democratic society a good name then & now.
"His [Trump's] drive for authoritarianism dovetailed with a religious movement to create a new ideology for the Republican Party, one that explicitly rejects democracy."
Federalist Society honcho, Opus Dei acolyte, and the plutocrat's useful man - shell company entrepreneur Leonard Leo - was explicitly working to repurpose our democratic republic as a clerical fascist state when Trump was merely a racist landlord sexually assaulting women and Orban was a politician promoting democracy.
My teenaged daughter was having lunch with one of her friends, who is trans, at a local sandwich shop yesterday. They were sitting at an outside table. A man pulled beside them in his truck, called them “scum,” and refused to leave. My daughter called me, and I could hear him shouting at them. My husband and I told them not to engage and get up and leave immediately. They did, and were safe, but rattled. Rhetoric has consequences.
I have been following the reports about the Texas shooting. I do have questions about this that have come to mind after learning his military release only 3 months after joining, and his Neo-Nazi embrace.
First, Garcia had mental issues. How in the hell did he acquire the weapons he had, tactical gear, etc? How does anyone walk into any gun shop, gun show, or anywhere else and purchase this stuff?
Second, he’s a member of a Neo-Nazi organization. How does anyone with this relationship to an organization such as this walk into any gun shop snd purchase these, or any, weapons and tactical gear of any kind?
What SHOULD have happened when he walked in the gun shop and purchased these weapons snd tactical gear is this. The gun dealer should have picked up the phone and notified the local law enforcement agency.
Now, for all those that say “why should he do that? No laws were broken.”
This may be very true, but, who buys AR-15s, semi automatic pistols, full tactical gear, and the like? Who wears, Carrie’s, this stuff hunting for dear or something? I can answer this. Not one person. The ONLY reason anyone is purchasing tactical gear is to possibly do something stupid, like kill people and protect himself from return fire.
At the very least, it would have afforded the local law enforcement agencies to look into him, and learn everything about him that they are now learning, AFTER the fact. AFTER he kills 8 people at a mall.
This just reinforces what I said on a previous post:
The regulations to purchase/own firearms had to be changed.
A. Extend the waiting period from 3 days to 30-60 days.
B. Change the Application to Purchase a Firearm. Make it more extensive than simple “yes” “no” answers. Get the individuals medical history, cross Minsk history, have them list every firearm they currently own, with serial numbers. The gun dealer must enter this application to the Federal “Cloud” for all agencies to automatically have instant access so background checks may begin.
C. The individual must have a complete medical/psychological assessment completed.
D. The individual, irregardless of prior firearms education/training must successfully complete a Federal Firearms Safety Course.
F. ALL law enforcement agencies (local, county, state, and federal) must complete a thorough background investigation of the individual.
G. A National Firearms Database must be established for the gun dealers to enter any firearm/ammunition sold, prior to it being delivered to the individual and leaving the premises.
H. All gun dealers should be required, by law, to check this database to ensure any individual isn’t going to numerous gun dealers to purchase numerous firearms.
I. No firearm may be sold at the same time as purchasing ammunition. There must me minimum of 3-5 day waiting period prior to being able to purchase ammunition for any firearm. If an individual goes into a gun dealer to purchase ammunition, an “Application to Purchase a Firearm/Ammunition must be completed. Then a minimum 3-5 day waiting period for all checks to be completed before the individual my pick up the ammunition.
J. The penalties for violations should be extremely harsh.
For firearms dealers, if an individual purchases a firearm, and the stipulations/law isn’t followed to the letter, or the dealer fails to do his diligence on the computer checks, entering the information, or checking fir prior purchases as laid out in the law, a felony charge shall be imposed, and his firearms license to sell be immediately revoked with no opportunity for reinstatement.
For individuals, a felony charge should be imposed if they are found to have lied on the Application to Purchase a Firearm/Ammunition. If, during the 30-60 day waiting period this individual is found to be incompetent, mentally, to own/possess or have in his/her possession or premises any firearm, then his Application shall be immediately flagged, his immediate family notified, and given them the opportunity to remove all firearms from the residence where this individual resides. If the family doesn’t complete this, then the authorities shall remove them.
K. Weapons of mass destruction, weapons used by military/law enforcement, shall not be manufactured or sold to the general public, by any licensed gun dealer, or individual.
Yes, mental health is an issue for someone owning a firearm, and knowing when/how to use it properly. But, not every case of masa shootings have individuals with mental health issues committing them. Case in point. This last mass shooting in Texas was committed by an individual with ties to Neo-Nazi groups. That’s not mental health, Governor. That’s just plain old fashioned white supremacy!
Brilliantly written, Dr Richardson. At least one person isn't afraid to speak out for democracy.
Unfortunately, the culture wars do resonate with voters. Fear mongering has succeeded in mobilizing voters against the very values they believe they are defending. Iowa's just completed legislative session passed new laws allowing child labor ostensibly as protection of parental rights, forbidding medical care to LGBTQ+ youth, instituting school vouchers, banning books, relaxing standards to recruit teachers because of significant teacher shortages. Many more dreadful measures have passed. It has been disheartening to witness the path this state is following.