Trump Continues to Defend Saudi Murder of Journalist

Trump with Saudi dictator Mohammed bin Salman.

Time and time again Donald Trump comes down on the side of autocrats and dictators that range from Vladimir Putin who has had people assassinated and poisoned to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un who has executed his own half-brother and runs slave labor camps. Now, Trump is seemingly siding with the Saudi Arabia rulers who ordered the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.  Yesterday, Trump even floated the ludicrous claim that rogue killers might be responsible.  Never mind that (i) Khashoggi disappeared in the high security Saudi consulate in Turkey, and (ii) no one under the Saudi regime acts without approval of the ruling monarch or his lieutenants.  The New York Times reports as follows:

The Trump administration pushed back on Tuesday against rising condemnation of Saudi Arabia and showed support for its crown prince, who has been linked to the disappearance and possible killing of a leading dissident journalist inside a Saudi consulate in Turkey.

In his strongest language to date over the missing journalist, Mr. Trump said in an interview with The Associated Press: “Here we go again with you’re guilty until proven innocent.”

After days of leaks by Turkish officials that accused Saudi Arabia of sending a hit squad to kill Mr. Khashoggi and dismember him with a bone saw, this was the latest indication that the Trump administration would help the kingdom defuse an international crisis for its top Arab ally.

The administration’s moves have come as criticism of Crown Prince Mohammed has intensified — including by Republican members of Congress, business leaders and human rights officials — over Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and apparent murder.

The reported killing has created a bipartisan uproar in Congress, shaking the foundations of the close American-Saudi relationship with calls for suspension of military sales punctuated by particularly strong rebukes of Crown Prince Mohammed, who basically rules the kingdom for his father.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and formerly a strong advocate of Saudi Arabia, has been among the most outspoken critics of the crown prince over the Khashoggi mystery, even before more facts are known.  

Two other pieces in the New York Times show the ridiculous nature of Trump's efforts to defend the murderous Saudi regime.  The first shows that the detail that arrived in Istanbul and apparently murdered Khashoggi have close ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who is virtually ruling the kingdom.  Here are excerpts:

One of the suspects identified by Turkey in the disappearance of the Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi was a frequent companion of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — seen disembarking from airplanes with him in Paris and Madrid and photographed standing guard during his visits this year to Houston, Boston and the United Nations.

Three others are linked by witnesses and other records to the Saudi crown prince’s security detail.

A fifth is a forensic doctor who holds senior positions in the Saudi Interior Ministry and medical establishment, a figure of such stature that he could be directed only by a high-ranking Saudi authority.

That would undercut any suggestion that Mr. Khashoggi died in a rogue operation unsanctioned by the crown prince. Their connection to him could also make it more difficult for the White House and Congress to accept such an explanation.

How much blame for Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance or death settles on the 33-year-old crown prince has become a decisive factor in his standing in the eyes of the West and within the royal family.

[I]n the last few days, as major American businesses have withdrawn from a marquee investment conference in Riyadh and members of Congress have stepped up called for sanctions, the United States, Turkey and Saudi Arabia appear to have been searching for a face-saving way out.

The royal court was expected to acknowledge that Mr. Khashoggi was killed in the consulate, and to blame an intelligence agent for botching an operation to interrogate Mr. Khashoggi that ended up killing him.

President Trump floated the possibility on Monday that Mr. Khashoggi was the victim of “rogue killers.”  But such explanations would run up against a host of hard-to-explain obstacles.

The suspects’ positions in the Saudi government and their links to the crown prince could make it more difficult to absolve him of responsibility. The New York Times has confirmed independently that at least nine of the 15 suspects identified by Turkish authorities worked for the Saudi security services, military or other government ministries.

Turkish officials have said they possess evidence that the 15 Saudi agents flew into Istanbul on Oct. 2, assassinated Mr. Khashoggi, dismembered his body with a bone saw they had brought for the purpose, and flew out the same day. Records show that two private jets chartered by a Saudi company with close ties to the Saudi crown prince and Interior Ministry arrived and left Istanbul on the day of Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance.

Turkish officials said Mr. Khashoggi was killed within two hours of his arrival at the consulate. That timeline would not have allowed much time for an interrogation to go awry.

 A Times main page editorial notes how the lies floated by the Saudi monarchy and Trump are rapidly collapsing.  Here are highlights:

If Secretary of State Mike Pompeo flew to Riyadh to read the Riot Act to Saudi rulers over the apparent murder of Jamal Khashoggi, he hid it well behind cheery smiles and professions of amity. But then outrage has been conspicuously absent from the Trump administration in the two weeks since Mr. Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, never to be seen again.

The Saudis have reportedly been searching for a cover story for the disappearance of the gadfly Saudi journalist, who had been living in self-imposed exile in the United States and writing columns for The Washington Post. Denial is no longer an option — Turkey appears to have pretty solid evidence that Mr. Khashoggi was killed by thugs flown in from Saudi Arabia — so the word in Washington is that the Saudis will try to claim an attempted kidnapping or interrogation gone bad.

On Monday, when Turkey had already leaked considerable evidence of a hit, Mr. Trump was behaving like a royal apologist.

Some of Mr. Trump’s more serious Republican supporters have taken a far less forgiving stance toward Saudi Arabia and its heir apparent. “This M.B.S. figure to me is toxic,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, who is normally a close ally of the president, using the crown prince’s nickname. “This guy has got to go.”

[T]he White House should have been first to suspend participation in a major investment conference in Riyadh next week until the Saudis provided a credible account of Mr. Khashoggi’s fate, rather than leaving it to American media organizations and business executives to take the lead in pulling out.

If Saudi Arabia is allowed to get away with some lame story about the apparent murder of Mr. Khashoggi, the world’s growing gang of autocrats will feel even less constraint. There are plenty of measures at Mr. Trump’s disposal that would send the right message, from personal sanctions against those behind the Khashoggi operation to a suspension of arms deliveries to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Trump’s aides, members of Congress and allied leaders need to insist that he take the lead in demanding that Saudi Arabia acknowledge what really happened, and why it’s terribly wrong.

One is certainly left wondering why Trump is so strenuously playing apologist for the Saudi dictators.  What are the Saudis holding over him?   Or does Trump merely support the murder of journalist who inconveniently report the truth?   Something does not add up. 

White Supremacist Kills Two in Portland

The new face of the GOP

The Washington Post has a lengthy piece on the brutal murder of two good Samaritans in Portland, Oregon who sought to assist two Muslim women under harassment by a white supremacist - and I suspect Trump supporter.  Sadly, the event is symptomatic of the manner in which first Trump's campaign of hate and division and now his continued anti-Muslim efforts have made racists and extremists feel empowered to attack other citizens who differ in skin color, religious belief, sexual orientation, etc. What is frightening to me as a former Republican is the sad reality that individuals with views nearly identical to those of this murderer have been welcomed with open arms into the GOP.   Here are brief excerpts from the Post story: 

Two men were stabbed to death and one injured Friday on a light-rail train in Portland, Ore., after they tried to intervene when another passenger began “ranting and raving” and shouting anti-Muslim hate speech at two young women, police said.

Portland police on Saturday identified the two slain victims as 53-year-old Ricky John Best and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai Meche.

A third victim, 21-year-old Micah David-Cole Fletcher, is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Police identified the suspect early Saturday morning as 35-year-old Jeremy Joseph Christian, of north Portland. Christian is being held without bail on two counts of aggravated murder, one count of attempted murder, two counts of intimidation in the second degree and one count of possession of a restricted weapon as a felon.  

The Portland Mercury, a local newspaper, reported that Christian was a “known right wing extremist and white supremacist” who had attempted to assault protesters at local demonstrations in the past. Video from April 29, shot by Mercury reporter Doug Brown, showed Christian arriving at a “March for Free Speech” draped in an American flag and carrying a baseball bat. While there, Christian yelled to the crowd that he was a “nihilist,” shouted the n-word at people and gave Nazi salutes, Brown reported.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a Facebook page they said belonged to Christian showed he held racist, white supremacist and extremist beliefs. On that profile, the Facebook user said he supported creating a “White homeland” in the Pacific Northwest and declared on April 9 that he had “just Challenged Ben Ferencz (Last Living Nuremberg Persecutor) to a Debate in the Hague with Putin as our judge. I will defend the Nazis and he will defend the AshkeNAZIs.”

On April 19, the anniversary of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the user praised bomber Timothy McVeigh in another status update.

On April 28, the same Facebook user shared a meme that showed a picture of Confederate statues being removed.   “If we’re removing statues because of the Civil War, We should be removing mosques because of 9/11,” the meme stated.

Words do have consequences and frankly, I am over pundits who describe Trumps appeals to hatred as "hyperbole."   It's hate speech plan and simple and the GOP seemingly believes it's just fine. 

P.S., for Fox News viewers, "hyperbole" is defined as exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.  Obviously, many are taking Trump's statements literally and acting on them.  As for the "good Republicans," if you don't want to be lumped in with people like this killer, there's an easy solution: stop voting Republican. 

Carnage in Manchester - The Evil Fruits of Religion

In the aftermath of the horrific bombing in Manchester, it is appearing increasingly certain that the suicide bomber was either acting on behalf of ISIS or at a minimum following its anti-Western, anti-modernity religious based jihad.  While shocking, the atrocity is in keeping with what religion has unleashed throughout history: hatred and violence against those with different beliefs and those who have cast off Medieval ignorance and myths.  Be it Catholic versus Protestant, Hindu versus Muslim, or Christian versus Muslim, religion and the tribalism that it needs to survive are the common threads.  The religious tenets of ISIS, like those of fundamentalist Christians in America, are threatened by science, knowledge and modernity and those who through there lives demonstrate that there is another way of believing and living become hated an targeted.  ISIS uses murder and violence.  Here in America, at least to date, Christofascists push for passage of anti-LGBT laws and special rights to discriminate against others. Differing responses, yet both reactions to perceived threats to fairy tale based beliefs, or, in the case of Islam, the delusional writings of an individual who would likely be in a mental institution nowadays.  An editorial in the New York Times looks at the horrible situation.  Here are excerpts:

By Tuesday, 22 people had died, and 59 others had been hospitalized, some with life-threatening injuries. The dead included 8-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos, who had come with her mother and older sister, and 18-year-old Georgina Bethany Callander, who had posted an image of her brand new driver’s license on Instagram.

The Islamic State said one of its “soldiers” had carried out the bombing, which took the life of the man British police officials believe was behind it, Salman Abedi, a 22-year-old whose parents emigrated from Libya. It is still unclear whether Mr. Abedi acted alone or as part of a network. No one yet knows what motivated him to commit such a horrific deed. It is also unclear whether the Islamic State’s claim is legitimate. Only further investigation can answer these questions.

Meanwhile, as hard as it is amid the shock and the mourning, it is important to recognize this attack for what it is: an attempt to shake Britain — and, by extension, the rest of Europe and the West — to its core, and to provoke a thirst for vengeance and a desire for absolute safety so intense, it will sweep away the most cherished democratic values and the inclusiveness of diverse societies.

The Islamic State wants nothing more than to watch Western democracies embrace its mad version of a holy war pitting Muslims against Christians, the newly arrived against others. This has been the goal of other attacks in Europe. With cold calculation, extremists have ripped apart the lives of people simply out enjoying themselves — whether at a concert or sitting around cafe tables in Paris in November 2015, or gathering for Bastille Day fireworks in Nice last year, or shopping at a Christmas market in Berlin in December.

Maximum vigilance is needed, and Britain raised its threat level from severe to critical. Public spaces must be made as safe as possible, even as people recognize that more attacks will very likely occur, despite our best defenses. In Britain, as in the rest of Europe and in the United States, it is critical that immigrants, especially Muslims, are not stigmatized. As Richard Barrett, former director of global counterterrorism operations at MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, said, “engaging the community and letting the community inform us” is one way “to understand why people do this” and to prevent future attacks.

The quickest way for open societies to lose the freedoms they enjoy and the Islamic State seeks to destroy would be to whip up divisive ethnic, racist and religious hatreds. But there will be those who try. The Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson tweeted on Tuesday: “We need a State of Emergency as France has. We need internment of thousands of terror suspects now to protect our children.” Then there was the unbelievably vile tweet by Katie Hopkins, a British commentator: “We need a final solution.” She later changed “final” to “true” in a new tweet after her original was widely condemned.

Throughout history religion has needed an "us versus them" mentality to survive just like any cult or gang.  It is easy to reflexively blame Islam, but the real driving force is the rejection of knowledge and the embrace of ignorance and antiquated, myth based beliefs.   Religion is the real enemy of humankind be it Islam or Christianity.  Both have destroyed countless lives through the centuries and brought death and destruction.   

Abuse and Murders at a "Christian" Church

Victims' parents charged in their beatings

The fundamentalist Christians and their political whores in the Republican Party blather about the threat of Islam and Sharia law yet some of the far right Christian sects are just as frightening and insane as their Muslim counterparts.  Bring much needed focus on this reality is the murder of a 19 year old in Central New York who was savagely beaten during a "counseling session" to force him to confess his sins (the exact sins as yet are unidentified).  The victims younger brother remains hospitalized from his injuries.  I have long maintained that forcing children and youths - but especially LGBT youth is a form of criminal child abuse.  This sad case underscores that reality.  Fundamentalist Christianity id an evil, plain and simple. The New York Times has details on the sick and disturbing murder at Word of Life Christian Church.  Here are highlights:

To its neighbors in this upstate town, Word of Life Christian Church presented itself as a constant curiosity: an imposing but tidy former schoolhouse whose occupants kept to themselves, almost never opening their doors or their mouths, secluded behind a closed entrance.

Over the last three days, however, the inner life of that secretive sect suddenly spilled into the outside world. On Sunday evening, the authorities said, two teenagers — brothers and the sons of two members of Word of Life — were called into a sanctuary and savagely beaten by at least a half-dozen people, including their parents and older half sister.

“Both brothers were continually subjected to physical punishment over the course of several hours, in hopes that each would confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness,” Chief Michael S. Inserra of the New Hartford Police Department said at a news conference on Wednesday.

It is not clear what those sins were, but for several hours, into Monday morning, punches and kicks landed on the brothers’ stomachs, genitals, backs and thighs, as the so-called counseling session turned into a case of manslaughter and assault.

On Monday afternoon, Lucas Leonard, 19, was pronounced dead at a hospital, after being found unresponsive and not breathing by other church members, Chief Inserra said. Hours later, his brother, Christopher, 17, was found to be on the second floor of the church, suffering from serious injuries. He remains hospitalized.

The teenagers’ parents, Bruce T. Leonard, 65, and Deborah Leonard, 59, who live in nearby Clayville, have been arrested and charged with first-degree manslaughter in their son’s death. Four other church members, including the teenagers’ half sister, Sarah Ferguson, 33, were also arrested and face felony assault charges.

At least seven children, from about 2 to 15 years old, had also been taken from the church site, the police said, including four of Ms. Ferguson’s children, and placed in foster care.

The Leonards were apparently longtime members of the church, part of what Lieutenant O’Neill called an immersive religious environment. “This was a way of life,” he said. “Their church life, if you can call it that, was the center of their world.” Lucas and Christopher were home-schooled, said Ron Wheelock, the superintendent of the Sauquoit Valley Central School District.

Given the history of torment and torture of gays by the "godly folk" part of me wonders if the boys were suspected of being gay given the severity of their beatings.  Adding to the sick story is the fact that this "church" enjoyed tax-exempt status and thus was being indirectly subsidized by the other residents of the community.  To me, adherence to fundamentalist religious beliefs suggests a serious form of mental illness.

6 Baltimore Police Officers Charged in Freddie Gray Death

As repeated news stories from around the country demonstrate, America has a real problem with police brutality.  Even worse, young black males seem to be disproportionately killed in circumstances that raise serious questions as to the validity of claims that they acted out of fear for their lives.  A discussion is badly needed to face the reality that while there are many good police officers - the vast majority - there are bad apples who have no business wearing a badge and carrying a gun.  There should be no room for prejudice and bigotry, yet it continues to exist (yes, and there is lots of homophobia too as I found out personally back in 2003 when Wayne Besen and I were stopped and some Norfolk cops who seemingly got their laughs but tormenting some "faggots" - internal affairs work diligently to protect the officers after I filed a complaint).  After riots and unrest, six officers have now been arrested in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray.  Whether they will be convicted, will be another story. Here are highlights from the New York Times:

Baltimore’s chief prosecutor charged six police officers on Friday with a range of crimes including murder and manslaughter in the arrest and fatal injury of Freddie Gray, a striking and surprisingly swift turn in a case that has drawn national attention to police conduct.

The state’s attorney for Baltimore City, Marilyn J. Mosby, filed the charges almost as soon as she received a medical examiner’s report that ruled Mr. Gray’s death a homicide, and a day after the police concluded their initial investigation and handed over their findings. Officials had cautioned that it could take considerable time for her office to complete its own investigation and decide whether to prosecute.

The most serious charges were brought against Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., who was driving the van that carried Mr. Gray to a police station after his April 12 arrest. Along with involuntary manslaughter, Officer Goodson, 45, was charged with “second-degree depraved heart murder,” which means indifference to human life.

All six officers were arrested and appeared before a judicial officer. Bail was set at $350,000 for four of the officers and $250,000 for the other two, according to court records. By late Friday, court records showed the officers had been released from jail.

The death of Mr. Gray, 25, a week after he suffered a spinal cord injury brought to a boil long-simmering tensions between the police and poor neighborhoods in this majority-black city, culminating in rioting and looting on Monday. More peaceful demonstrations continued through the week after a curfew was put in place. And the swift action by the prosecutor seemed to some to mark a turning point after months of debate and demonstrations around the country over police violence.

The Baltimore chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police called the speed of the prosecutor politically motivated. “The actions taken today by the state’s attorney are an egregious rush to judgment,” said Michael E. Davey, the union’s lawyer. “We believe that these officers will be vindicated, as they have done nothing wrong.”

Ms. Mosby faulted the police conduct at every turn. The officers who arrested him “failed to establish probable cause for Mr. Gray’s arrest, as no crime had been committed,” she said, describing the arrest as illegal. Officers accused him of possession of a switchblade, but Ms. Mosby said, “The knife was not a switchblade and is lawful under Maryland law.”

Mr. Gray’s condition deteriorated, she said, as officers repeatedly ignored his pleas for medical attention and ignored obvious signs that he was in distress. At one point, she said, when officers tried to check on him, Mr. Gray was unresponsive, yet no action was taken. He died of his injuries a week later.

A. Dwight Pettit, a lawyer who handles police brutality cases in Baltimore — and worked to help elect Ms. Mosby — said her emphasis on the officers’ lack of probable cause in arresting Mr. Gray was significant. Rarely, he said, are police officers prosecuted for making false arrests — and too often, they do not worry about lacking probable cause.

He called the charges of false imprisonment “something new for police activity, which offends the constitutional rights of citizens.”

The Islamic State is Also Homophobic

the homophobia starts at around 7:25.

The reasons to oppose the self-style "Islamic State" or ISIS are many beginning first and foremost with the fact that it embraces a fundamentalist religious agenda that seeks to force its will and beliefs on others.  Its from this source of extreme Sharia law that all the rest of the horrors and atrocities flow: rape, murder, beheadings, mistreatment of women - and hatred of gays.  Like all fundamentalist strains of Abrahamic religions, gays are targets for hate and murder.  The Washington Post  follows up on the Washington Blade and reminds us that in the minds of the Islamic State - as with the "godly Christian" set in America - we gays are the lowest of the low and deserve death.  Fundamentalist religion truly is a perverse evil that needs to be eradicated from the earth. Here are article highlights:

The young men swarming across Syria and Iraq in black balaclavas commit genocide, chop off journalists’ heads, kidnap aid workers, rape women and seek to impose a theocracy on millions who don’t want it.

And one more thing: They’re homophobic.

In a video first reported by the Daily Mirror in April, a man it identified as a former professional soccer player describes the benefits of jihad. It’s the typical Islamic State recruitment video — an English-speaking adherent trying to bring fellow travelers to the cause.

On Tuesday, the Washington Blade took another look at the video, focusing on its anti-gay content. Toward the end of the video, an Islamic state fighter holds forth on children’s exposure to homosexuals in public schools.

“Who’s gonna teach your children?” the fighter says. “It’s gonna be maybe a gay, maybe a drug dealer, maybe a pedophile, you know? So it’s very important for you to protect your children from these animals, from these dirty people, Allah says that they are the worst of creatures.”

“The treatment of LGBT people by Islamic extremists is one of the most overlooked human rights issues there is,” Jimmy LaSalvia, co-founder of the gay conservative organization GoProud, told the Blade. “Many world leaders routinely site radical Islam’s treatment of woman and religious minorities, we have certainly heard a lot about how ISIS treats Christians, but rarely do political leaders or the media draw attention to the plight of LGBT people in that part of the world.”

Islam’s connection with homophobia is hard to shake. In a list of the “Top Twelve Most Homophobic Nations in the World” published in February, Newsweek included Saudi Arabia for its religious-based anti-gay position. “Basing its law, it says, on a strict interpretation of Islamic law, the current Saudi regime has made gay sex punishable by death by the lash,” the magazine wrote.

Meanwhile, others were critical of those putting the spotlight on the Islamic State’s homophobia. The self-described “right-leaning” Web site Downtrend published a piece critical of of the Blade report.

It's easy to understand why the American right wing doesn't like too much focus on Islamic homophobia - the right wing Christians are peddling a very similar message and some of them have even  argued for concentration camps and/or death for gays.  They don't want the public to connect the dots and realize that it  is fundamentalist religion of every stripe that is the real evil be it Islamic or Christian. Hate, mistreatment of others, the rejection of modern knowledge and the perpetration of evil are the principal fruits either way.

Las Vegas "Revolution" Killers ID’d as Right-Wing Conspiracy Believers

As more facts become known, it has become increasingly clear that Jerad and Amanda Miller who killed two police officers execution style and then killed a bystander in a Las Vegas Walmart were right wing conspiracy nutcases encouraged no doubt by the inflammatory language of Tea Party leaders and shameless Republicans like Ted Cruz and others of that ilk.  GOP leaders continue to refuse to accept the reality that insanity is the norm of a good segment of the party base and that their inflammatory language can tragically be the match that lights the fuse for violence.  The Raw Story looks at what has become known about this deranged killers.  Here are highlights:

A man who gunned down two police officers and a man Sunday in Las Vegas left behind social media postings that show his concerns over Benghazi, chemtrails, gun control laws, and the government’s treatment of rancher Cliven Bundy.

Neighbors identified Jerad and Amanda Miller as the suspects who shot the officers execution-style as they ate lunch at a pizza restaurant, and then shot a man outside a Walmart in the same plaza.

The couple’s apartment was searched Monday morning, and authorities in Lafayette, Indiana, confirmed that Las Vegas police had contacted them about the case.

Witnesses said the couple announced the shootings were the start of a revolution and draped the victims’ bodies with American Revolution-era Gadsden flags — bearing the slogan “Don’t tread on me” — that have become symbols of the Tea Party movement.

The couple exchanged gunfire with police as they pursued them into the store, but Amanda Miller apparently shot her husband to death before turning the gun on herself.

Jerad Miller’s last Facebook post, made Saturday, hinted at the couple’s plans.  “The dawn of a new day. May all of our coming sacrifices be worth it,” he posted.

Another photo shows Amanda Miller holding a pair of books — “Shooter’s Bible” and “Extreme Survival” — she received last Christmas from her grandmother, and she posted a pair of photos of herself firing an AK-47 at a shooting range in December.

Jerad Miller outlined his political views, which were largely based on conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News and Alex Jones, in his social media postings, and he posted frequently about firearms and violent revolution.

“We can hope for peace,” he posted June 2. “We must, however, prepare for war. We face an enemy that is not only well funded, but who believe they fight for freedom and justice. Those of us who know the truth and dare speak it, know that the enemy we face are indeed our brothers. Even though they share the same masters as we all do. They fail to recognize the chains that bind them. To stop this oppression, I fear, can only be accomplished with bloodshed.”

Neighbors said the couple spoke frequently about their guns and anti-government views, and they also made racist statements.

“They were handing out white-power propaganda and were talking about doing the next Columbine,” said neighbor Brandon Moore.

Jerad Miller sketched out his interests with the groups and individuals he “liked” on Facebook, including Operation American Spring, Alliance Defending Freedom, the National Rifle Association, The Heritage Foundation, Rand Paul 2016, Three Percenter Nation, and Ron Paul.

Amanda Miller also “liked” Ron Paul, Freedom Works, and Three Percenter Nation, in addition to various paranormal groups, Stop Amnesty, and Drudge Report.

What is really frightening is that there could well be other Jerad and Amanda Millers out in the public who are likewise being subtly encouraged towards violence by Fox News and other inflammatory "news" outlets. 

The Continued Face of Hatred Based on Race and Religion

I noted yesterday the violent murder of three people in Kansas over the weekend at Jewish facilities.  As it turns out, none of these killed by the virulently anti-Semitic shooter were even Jewish.  All were Christians, thus underscoring the collateral damage that hate can cause.   Like so much of the hate in this country antisemitism ultimately stems from  religion.  For centuries the Catholic Church depicted Jews as Christ killers and all kinds of horrors resulted, including the pogroms mounted at the behest of the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious institutions.  Sadly, this mindset remains as a column in the New York Times notes.  As does hatred toward gays - and even toward blacks in some quarters - based on a few selected passages in the Bible.  More often then not, religion fuels evil rather than good.  Here are column highlights:

Most of the hate crimes in the United States don’t take the fatal form that the shootings in Kansas over the weekend did, and most aren’t perpetrated by villains as bloated with rage and blinded by conspiracy theories as the person accused in this case, Frazier Glenn Miller. He’s an extreme, not an emblem.

This is someone who went on Howard Stern’s radio show four years ago (why, Howard, did you even hand him that megaphone?) and called Adolf Hitler “the greatest man who ever walked the earth.” When Stern asked Miller whether he had more intense antipathy for Jews or for blacks (why that question?), Miller chose the Jews, definitely the Jews, “a thousand times more,” he said.

“Compared to our Jewish problem, all other problems are mere distractions,” he declaimed, and he apparently wasn’t just spouting off. He was gearing up.

On Sunday, according to the police, he drove to a Jewish community center in Overland Park, Kan., and opened fire, then moved on to a nearby Jewish retirement home and did the same. Three people were killed.

They were Christian, as it happens. When hatred is loosed, we’re all in the crossfire.

On Monday, as law enforcement officials formally branded what happened in Kansas a hate crime, I looked at the spectrum of such offenses nationally: assault, intimidation, vandalism.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation keeps statistics, the most recent of which are for 2012. In the United States that year there were 6,573 hate-crime incidents reported to the bureau (a fraction, no doubt, of all that occurred). While most were motivated by race, about 20 percent were motivated by the victims’ perceived religion — roughly the same percentage as those motivated by the victims’ presumed sexual orientation. I didn’t expect a number that high.

Nor did I expect this: Of the religion-prompted hate crimes, 65 percent were aimed at Jews, a share relatively unchanged from five years earlier (69 percent) and another five before that (65 percent). In contrast, 11 percent of religious-bias crimes in 2012 were against Muslims.

[W]hile we don’t have the anti-Semitism in our politics that some European countries do, there’s still bigotry under the surface. There are still caricatures that won’t die.

One of them flared last month on the Christian televangelist Pat Robertson’s TV show. His guest was a rabbi who, shockingly, was himself trafficking in the notion that Jews excel at making money. The rabbi said that a Jew wouldn’t squander a weekend tinkering with his car when he could hire a mechanic and concentrate on something else.  “It’s polishing diamonds, not fixing cars,” Robertson interjected.  Polishing diamonds?

In a 2013 survey of 1,200 American adults for the Anti-Defamation League, 14 percent agreed with the statement that “Jews have too much power” in our country, while 15 percent said Jews are “more willing to use shady practices” and 30 percent said that American Jews are “more loyal to Israel” than to the United States.

A story in The Times last year focused on an upstate New York community in which three Jewish families filed suit against the school district, citing harassment of Jewish students by their peers. The abuse included Nazi salutes and swastikas drawn on desks, on lockers, on a playground slide.

When a parent complained in 2011, the district’s superintendent responded, in an email: “Your expectations for changing inbred prejudice may be a bit unrealistic.”

Well, the only way to breed that prejudice out of the generations to come is never to shrug our shoulders like that — and never to avert our eyes.

With so much hatred in this country ultimate deriving from religion and religious brainwashing, we need to never avert our eyes from the poison that is all too often spewing from the pulpits.

 

Deeds Family Tragedy - Virginia's Broken Mental Health Care System

Creigh Deeds and son Gus in happier times

The Virginia - and national - news media is awash with coverage of the horrific events that occurred this morning which have left Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds in fair condition after multiple stab wounds and his 24 year old son dead by apparent suicide.  As a parent myself, I cannot imagine the anguish that the entire Deeds family is experiencing at present.  The Daily Progress looks at the day's tragic events and provide this summary:

The horror unfolded at a secluded farmhouse at the end of a long gravel driveway in rural Bath County.

Repeatedly stabbed by his son in the head and torso, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, 55, made his way to a road, where his cousin picked him up, police said. His son Austin Creigh “Gus” Deeds, 24, killed himself with a gunshot, police said.

The senator was transported to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he was listed in fair condition Tuesday night.

Thirteen hours before the 911 call came in at 7:25 a.m. reporting an altercation at Deeds’ home tucked deep in the woods of Millboro Springs, Gus Deeds was released from Bath Community Hospital following a mental health evaluation. An effort to find a hospital where he could undergo further evaluation failed, said Dennis A. Cropper, executive director of Rockbridge Area Community Services.   State police are investigating the case as an attempted murder-suicide.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch learned that an emergency custody order had been issued for Deeds' son, Austin Creigh “Gus” Deeds, 24, on Monday, which allowed mental health officials to hold him for up to four hours to determine if he should be held under a temporary detention order. That order would have allowed him to be held for up to 72 hours.

Yes, this sad story is a horrible personal tragedy for the Deeds family and their friends.  But sadly, it is symptomatic of a larger tragedy: Virginia's utterly pathetic mental health system.  Had the Virginia General Assembly - controlled by the Virginia GOP - deemed mental health care even a minor priority, Gus Deeds might have been able to have been placed in a mental health unit of observation/treatment and the entire night mare avoided.  Unfortunately, the Virginia GOP (and its puppet masters among the Christofascists/Tea Party) deems the poor and the sick and the mentally troubled to be little better than disposable garbage to be thrown aside.  Funding for mental heath care has been slashed.  It's the same mindset that motivates the Virginia GOP's drive to block Medicaid expansion in Virginia.  A piece from two months ago in the Virginian Pilot looked at just how poor the mental health care system is in Virginia.  Here are excerpts:

Our country is once again in mourning over a devastating mass shooting, this time at the Navy Yard in Washington. As the founder and president of The Chas Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to help the mentally ill find appropriate treatment and immediate resources, I plead with my fellow citizens to consider the mental state of the young man who committed this atrocity.

His symptoms prior to the shooting - hearing threatening voices - clearly indicate he was disturbed. According to E. Fuller Torrey, one of our nation's top psychiatrists and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, he was most likely a paranoid schizophrenic.  Yet, even though this young man sought help for his mental condition, he received none, . . .

Virginia's mental health system is tragically broken, shattered into hundreds of unmanageable pieces.  This poor system results in many mentally ill persons needlessly losing their lives, or ending up in jails, or homeless, or in the care of families who do not know where to turn for resources.

Sadly, in a 2006 report, Virginia was given a "D" ranking for its mental health system by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

NAMI Virginia, the state chapter, reports that after the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech, when $42 million in new funding was allocated to the mental health system, the General Assembly took away $37.7 million of that funding within a two-year period.

Statewide, in the last decade, the number of inpatient hospital beds for the mentally ill has declined while the population has increased by 13 percent. According to NAMI Virginia, there are currently 1,136,000 Virginians with severe mental illness and 330,000 each year need urgent treatment.

Chas, my middle son, spent 10 years seeking treatment and diagnosis from various mental health professionals. He was prescribed lithium but, despite taking his medications, he became more paranoid and psychotic. In the fall of 2011, at age 34, he suffered a nervous breakdown.

His wife and I went with him to the emergency room at Senatara Norfolk General Hospital for voluntary commitment. We spent 32 hours before a psychiatric bed was found on the 8th floor.

Chas, who had private insurance, stayed at the hospital for three weeks and was released before his medication proved effective - while he was still psychotic. He attempted suicide. This time, we went to the emergency room at DePaul Hospital. After 12 hours, the staff at DePaul sent him to Virginia Beach Psychiatric Hospital.

He stayed at Virginia Beach Psych for two weeks. The staff worked very hard to find a long-term bed for him at Eastern State. There were no beds, so he was released.

He had gone through the revolving door of mental health services for the last time. On Nov. 14, 2011, he hanged himself in the home he shared with his young wife. His father found him.
[I]f mentally ill people are not on medication, they can be an extreme risk to themselves, like Chas, or to others, like Seung-Hui Cho, who committed the horrific crimes at Virginia Tech.

Unless there are more state and federal funds for hospital beds, long-term treatment and community programs and resources, I fear that Virginia's ranking as 39th in the country for mental health services will worsen.

Not to make light of the personal tragedies of the members of the Deeds family, but Gus Deeds' apparent mental health problems and inability to secure proper treatment/hospitalization are not unique in Virginia.  If the Virginia GOP put any sort of premium on mental health care  - or health care in general - instead of looking for ways to cut taxes and slash the social safety net, Gus Deeds and many others might be alive as I write this post.   As I have noted many times, I find it most damning that the political party that feigns fealty to Christian values is the party that  makes the Biblical Pharisees look like upstanding and compassionate people.  My thoughts are with the Deeds family and other families who have experienced horrors and loss because of the misplaced priorities of our legislators, especially the members of the Republican Party.

Massacre at Navy Yard Again Shows Need for Strict Gun Control

 

One of the biggest error made by the Founding Fathers was including the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the U. S. Constitution or at least not adding very limiting language.  Despite America's transformation from a rural semi-wilderness nation where guns were needed for hunting food and protection against raiding native America attacks to a modern developed nation where few need a gun for any reason other than to compensate for fears of inadequate penis size or out of racist fears about "dangerous black men," the Second Amendment continues to be applied in a manner that allows an ongoing slaughter in America.  Yes, I am virulently anti-gun and in my view anyone who claims they need a gun for "protection" is either a cretin or a lunatic.  The presence of guns in homes and society increases danger rather than lessens it. Yesterday's shooting spree in the Washington Naval Yard underscores that severe limits on gun ownership are needed.  Here are highlights from the Washington Post editorial on the issue:

FOR ALL the unknowns about Monday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard, there was a nauseating familiarity to the unfolding events: the witness accounts of chaos and fear; the plea from officials for the public’s help; the number of dead revised upward and then revised upward again.

we are confronting another mass shooting, and today it happened on a military installation in our nation’s capital,” said President Obama. Another mass shooting. Again, again, again.

This time, at least 12 people were killed when, for unknown reasons — as if there ever could be reason — a gunman opened fire on workers hurrying to start a new week at the venerable military complex in Southeast Washington. About eight other people, including at least one police officer, were injured in the 8:15 a.m. incident in Building 197, which houses the Naval Sea Systems Command. Once again, Americans silently extended sympathy to the families of those so senselessly killed. 

How did he acquire his weapons (an AR-15 assault rifle, a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol were reportedly found on him), and how did he bring them onto a gated facility?

Life does go on, through Columbine in 1999, through Virginia Tech in 2007, through Sandy Hook in 2012. Each atrocity provides a jolt to the nation and then recedes with little effect, until the next unimaginable event occurs, except each time a little more imaginable. Everything was supposed to change after a man with a semiautomatic weapon mowed down 20 elementary school children in their classrooms last December. But for the politicians, nothing changed. Now, another massacre, another roster of funerals. Again, again, again.

Guns only cause death and mayhem.  No one needs one despite the NRA/gun manufacturer propaganda to the contrary.  I'm sorry, but I have zero respect for gun owners. Absolutely none.

Inside the Nazi Mind - Parallels With the Christofascist Mind?

This blog has frequently noted that many of the anti-gay Christofascist organizations have modeled their anti-gay propaganda on that of the Nazi propaganda campaign against Europe's Jews.  Among the common threads are that gays/Jews are diseased, the gays/Jews are a threat to children, and that gays/Jews seek to undermine Christian society.  Likewise, gays are depicted as a small, powerful minority that weld undue influence - e.g., "the powerful homosexual lobby."  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at some of the findings of American psychologists and psychiatrists who interviewed the 24 of the highest-ranking Nazis then in captivity at Nuremberg.   Among the most chilling findings was the complete lack of any sense of personal responsibility for the mass murder and denigration of other humans.   What strikes me is the parallels with today's Chritofascists - e.g., Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, Bryan Fischer, the list goes on - and the Russian regime that seemingly feel that they are "doing the right thing" and/or "following orders" be they from the Bible or the Russian legislature.  Here are highlights from the piece:

Why do men commit evil? Were the kommandants who ran the Nazi death camps psychopaths? Did they have subnormal intelligence? Were they just ordinary men who made appalling decisions?

These were also the questions that a team of American psychologists and psychiatrists were directed to answer during the Nuremberg Trials that opened on November 20, 1945, six months after the war’s end.

Charges of crimes against humanity were read out against 24 of the highest-ranking Nazis then in captivity, including Ernst Kaltenbrunner, chief of the Reich Security Main Office and the highest-ranking SS officer after Himmler’s death.

With so many senior Nazis held in one place at the same time, the Americans instructed a panel of psychologists to conduct exten­sive interviews and tests with the defendants. Such horrific crimes were committed surely by damaged men, men different in some fundamental way from the rest of humanity.

Among the defendants examined was Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz. Unlike the others held in Nuremberg, Höss had been intimately involved in the design and day-to-day operations of the extermination camps. 

The American asked how it was possible to kill so many people. “Technically,” answered Höss, “that wasn’t so hard—it would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers.” Gilbert then pressed him for an emotional response, but Höss continued in a similar tone: “At the time there were no consequences to consider. It didn’t occur to me that I would be held responsible. You see, in Germany it was understood that if something went wrong, then the man who gave the orders was responsible.” Gilbert started to ask, “But what about the human—” before Höss interrupted, “That just didn’t enter into it.” After a few more questions, Höss said, “I suppose you want to know in this way if my thought and habits are normal.” “Well, what do you think?” Gilbert asked. “I am entirely normal,” said Höss. “Even while I was doing the extermination work, I led a normal family life.”

Rudolf Höss replied: “I feel less nervous now than I did.” He was then asked if he felt upset over what he had done in Auschwitz. “I thought I was doing the right thing,” said Höss. “I was obeying orders, and now, of course, I see that it was unnecessary and wrong. But I don’t know what you mean by being upset about these things because I didn’t personally murder anybody. I was just the director of the extermination program at Auschwitz. It was Hitler who ordered it through Himmler and it was Eichmann who gave me the orders regarding transports.”

When Goldensohn asked if he was haunted by nightmares—by images of the executions, gas chambers, or burning corpses—Höss replied: “No, I have no such fantasies.”

The conclusion of the psychologists and psychiatrists at Nuremberg was clear: they both decided that though Rudolf Höss was intelligent, he was mentally ill: a psychopath, psychotic, amoral, lacking empathy.

But Rudolf flatly denied this to be the case. He declared himself to be normal.  He regretted, at most, doing something unnecessary.  Overseeing the murder of over a million people had left him unhaunted by “fantasies.”

The impression of the mental health professionals was also contradicted by two of the intelligence officers who interrogated Rudolf Höss.

To paraphrase Hannah Arendt—as portrayed in the recently released movie of the same name—the Nazi war criminal’s actions stemmed from her well-known phrase “banality of evil,” not as a result of mental illness but as a result of a lack of thinking. Their greatest error was delegating the process of thinking and decision-making to their higher ups. In Rudolf Höss’s case, this would have been his superiors, particularly Heinrich Himmler.

To many this conclusion is troubling, for it suggests that if everyday, “normal,” sane men and women are capable of evil, then the atrocities perpetrated during the Holocaust and other genocides could be repeated today and into the future.

Yet, this is exactly the lesson we must learn from the war criminals at Nuremberg. We must be ever wary of those who do not take responsibility for their actions.

Note the reference to "not thinking."  Nothing is more disturbing to the Christofascist than having to think or rebut objective reality which demonstrates that their "deeply held beliefs" are false and which would require them to accept responsibility for the harm done to others.  Are the Christofascists as bad as the Nazi regime?  No - or at least most are not.  But the same frightening refusal to think and mindless inclination to "follow orders" are certainly a part of the Christofascist make up.  Or, so I believe.

 

Juror B29: George Zimmerman Got Away With Murder

After 36 years in the legal profession, my opinion of the American judicial system and its criminal justice system frankly sinks lower with almost every passing day.  Be it incompetent and/or shockingly biased police officers and judges, juries that seem comprised of the dumbest of the dumb,  selective prosecution that disproportionately targets minorities, and/or laws that aid the murderer, things are rotten and not trending for the better.  Now, after allowing George Zimmerman to get away with murder, another member of the jury apparently has a guilty conscience.  The Virginian Pilot looks at this case of too little remorse too late.  Here are excerpts:

The second juror to speak publicly told ABC News in an interview made available Thursday that she feels George Zimmerman got away with murder for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, but that there wasn't enough evidence at trial to convict him under Florida law.

Juror B29 told Robin Roberts that she favored convicting Zimmerman of second-degree murder when deliberations began by the six-member, all-women jury.  "I was the juror that was going to give them a hung jury," she said. "I fought to the end."

"George Zimmerman got away with murder, but you can't get away from God," she said. "And at the end of the day, he's going to have a lot of questions and answers he has to deal with."

Juror B29 is the second panelist to go public with what went on during deliberations earlier this month. She allowed her face to be shown and used her first name, Maddy, unlike Juror B37, who was interviewed on CNN last week with her face obscured.

As noted in previous posts, "stand your ground" laws literally allow murderers to get away with killing people because of the way in which the burden of proof is shifted against the victim and the prosecution.

Zimmerman Acquitted on All Charges

Incredibly, George Zimmerman was acquitted on all charges, even the lesser manslaughter charge, confirming once again that minorities in this country all too often do not get justice.  Yes, the prosecution did a poor job with the case in my opinion, but Zimmerman's story line never, ever made sense, especially when he had been told by the authorities to get in his vehicle and leave.  The clear message to blacks, Hispanics and others (including gays based on my experience with homophobic judges) is that they/we are second class citizens and our lives are given less value that those of white heterosexuals.   Huffington Post looks at this travesty.  Here are highlights:

After deliberating for more than 16 hours, a jury of six women on Saturday evening found George Zimmerman not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old in Sanford, Florida.

The prosecution argued that Zimmerman had profiled Martin, deeming him "suspicious," as indicated by Zimmerman's description of the teen to the non-emergency hotline he called for police assistance. The prosecution said that he then stalked Martin, initiating an unnecessary confrontation that led to his shooting the 17-year-old in the chest at point-blank range.

As Think Progress notes, ultimately Florida's ridiculous "Stand Your Ground Law" - a law championed by the NRA and far right gun owners - and the mentality behind it set the stage for allowing Zimmerman to literally get away with murder.  Is suspect that Trayvon Martin will not be the last person to be murdered and have his killer walk away free:

On the night of the killing, Zimmerman walked free thanks to a law called ‘Stand Your Ground,’ based on model legislation peddled around the country by the conservative legislation-crafting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). While Zimmerman ultimately did not use that defense in court, it’s instructive to know that, in Florida, 70 percent of people who invoke ‘Stand Your Ground’ walk away without charges.

Justly Deserved Criticism of the Catholic Church and Francis I

One blogger is unhappy that this blog has been critical of the election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I, as the new leader of the Roman Catholic Church:

Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis I hadn't been the newly elected Pope an hour when LGBT bloggers, groups and other self-appointed important voices were attacking him.

This continuing attack against the Roman Catholic Church, of which this writer is not a member, is getting almost as old as the Church itself . . . There is a very simple solution for the detractors to follow.  Leave the Church if you can't abide by its rules of Faith.  No one presuming you're an adult forces you to be Roman Catholic. Find another Faith, more progressive to you're liking.

Those not of the Faith, particularly the Atheist faggots just need to stifle.

Easy words for a blogger who lives in a progressive state like Connecticut where it is a different world from Virginia where the Catholic Church teams up with the Christofascists at The Family Foundation almost daily to deny LGBT Virginians such things as basic employment non-discrimination protections.  Easy words for a blogger who perhaps doesn't know victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests who suffered threats and intimidation in the Church's efforts to keep them silent.   Easy words for a blogger who may not have personally known talented young men who ended their lives because of their inability to deal with the religious based hate and stigma the Catholic Church hierarchy works to perpetuate daily.   And easy words for a blogger who admittedly wasn't raised Catholic and who never experienced the psychological abuse that such an upbringing entailed, especially if one is gay.  And lastly, easy words for a blogger who may not have look at reports on Bergoglio's failings during Argentina's "Dirty War."

Meanwhile, events continue to demonstrate the true face of the Catholic hierarchy and its moral bankruptcy - including one of the electors of Francis I.  Yes, the Los Angeles archdiocese is paying out another $10 million to victims of sexual abuse - on top of the $600 million previously paid out.  Here are highlights from USA Today:

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay four men almost $10 million to settle allegations of sexual abuse by a former priest who more than a quarter century ago had confessed to molesting children, attorneys said Tuesday.  Two brothers will receive $4 million each, and the other two men will get nearly $1 million apiece, said John Manly, a plaintiff's attorney.

The settlement is the first since the Catholic Church released thousands of internal records detailing the actions of the defrocked priest, Michael Baker, and how church officials responded. Baker was convicted in 2007 of child molestation and paroled in 2011.

In January, as the files were about to be made public, a California judge ordered the archdiocese to identify all priests and church officials named in the documents.

Mahony retired as Los Angeles archbishop in 2011. Last month, his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, stripped him of his official duties.  Mahony is in Rome participating in the conclave selecting the next pope. He was aware of the settlement, J. Michael Hennigan, an archdiocese attorney, told the Associated Press.

Another plaintiff attorney, Vince Finaldi, told the Los Angeles Times that he believed that the release of the files was a major factor in the settlement.  "Once we got the files it confirmed everything we had argued for years and years," Finaldi said. "Cardinal Mahony's fingerprints were all over the case."

If Francis I cleans house and strips men like Mahony and Cardinal Bernard Law and many others of their titles and plush retirements and stops inciting hatred towards gays now that he's pope, I may reconsider my criticisms.  Frankly, I do not expect any meaningful change to occur, so my criticism will stand.  The days of special rights, deference and respect for the Catholic Church need to end.