Crime? What Me Worry?

As reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer

Three people were killed and 11 others wounded in a mass shooting late Saturday night on South Street amid chaos that erupted on legendary blocks that have long been among the region’s most popular gathering places....

Officials had not released the identities of the dead, saying only that one was a 25-year-old man and another a 22-year-old woman. The names and conditions of the wounded, seven of whom were taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, were unavailable. Other victims were taken to Pennsylvania Hospital and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Although a particularly horrific incident, it was not out of character for this part of Philadelphia and, to a lesser extent, the city itself as homicides are disturbingly common. The Inquirer notes

A shooting incident was reported earlier in the week at Fourth and South, but it was unclear whether it was in any way related to Saturday’s shooting.

Around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, police said, someone fired multiple shots at the intersection, striking homes on the 400 block of Gaskill Street, according to a report by WPHL-TV. Officers at the scene found nearly 50 pieces of ballistic evidence that spanned several blocks.

No arrests were made, but the station said police were searching for a female suspect.

As is not uncommon for Philadelphia, no one has been arrested for the massacre late Saturday night, either. And yet, the following morning, there was this:

In Philly we say gay! Congratulations to my LGBTQ+ friends on what looks like a beautiful day to celebrate Pride. pic.twitter.com/wAGMlUH5F3

— DA Larry Krasner (@DA_LarryKrasner) June 5, 2022

 

You may be forgiven for thinking that the Twitter account of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, avid law enforcement and criminal justice reformer, was hacked. The District Attorney is, after all, the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the City of Philadelphia. Yet, only a few hours after 14 people (three fatally) were shot, the District Attorney sends the message that it's business as usual.

For those acquainted with Larry Krasner, this was no effort to calm or reassure the populace. It was a clear expression of the values and priorities of this Democrat, and came as no surprise to anyone.

As the reform-minded District Attorney of San Francisco, California should- should- understand, voters are not amused by prosecutors seemingly unconcerned about violent crime. Democratic officeholders are justifiably enraged at mass shootings of completely innocent victims in schools and hospitals, but some appear too accepting of violent crimes which take place daily in communities nationwide. 

Republicans will exploit this, as they have since the days of Richard Nixon's "crime in the streets"/"law and order" campaign of 1968. The policies of major cities (and others) must balance the interests of community safety and of justice.

Justice is the guiding light for defense attorneys, including for public defender agencies. However, if justice- let alone the need of residents to feel (and be) safe and secure- is to be pursued, a district attorney's office must dedicate itself to pursuing convictions of violent offenders and assure the public of its commitment.

When a slaughter takes place, it's disastrous for people , but low-hanging fruit for a District Attorney. It's an opportunity to remind the public of the zeal he/she and the entire law enforcement establishment not to support the LGBYQIA+ community- nor the straight community- but everyone. Larry Krasner may survive a perceived preference for the offender over the offended, but the Democratic Party across the country may not afford the damage he and similar prosecutors do to the public's perception of its officials and candidates for office.

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Tweet Of The Day- The Right To Arm Bears

When expressing support for gun safety legislation, most Democrats, especially those in conservative states, usually state something like "I support the Second Amendment but....."  However, there is no need for the conjunction "but." They could as easily and accurately, albeit counter-intuitively, remark "I support gun safety measures because I support the Second Amendment."

The Second Amendment reads "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."  "A well regulated Militia" is therein a subordinate clause.

Writing eleven months ago in the Duke Center for Firearms Law, linguist Kari Sullivan examines "being-clauses with the basic structure of the Second Amendment, in which the being-clause precedes the main clause and has a different subject." Sullivan concludes "the history of being-clauses does suggest that the applicability of the Second Amendment’s main clause was temporally and potentially causally contingent on the necessity of the “well regulated Militia” to the 'security of the free State'"....

A right to keep and bear arms is thus dependent on the need of a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of the nation. 

For a constitutional definition of Well Regulated Militia refer to the Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15 and 16. It clearly states the militia shall be formed and equipped by Congress. Congress shall also provide the weapons.

— David M Pyman 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@David_M_Pyman) June 3, 2022

 

And here it is, as claimed:

Clause 15 To Call Militias

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

ArtI.S8.C15.1  Congress’s Power to Call Militias

Clause 16 Organization of Militias

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

Applicability of the Second Amendment depends wholly on the existence of a well-regulated militia, formed and equipped by Congress, to protect the USA.

Banning firearms altogether for civilian use very likely would be bad policy, but one not precluded by the US Constitution.  All should believe in the Second Amendment- but only as it is written.  If right-wing jurists were the strict constructionists some of them claim to be, they also would recognize there is no constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Well, except maybe for muskets.

 

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That's Not It, Mr. President

Surprisingly- if one attributes any credibility to Mitch McConnell- Uvalde, Texas was an outlier.

On Monday, President Joe

Biden, speaking to reporters after his return to the White House, was asked if he believes talks between Republicans and Democrats could produce bipartisan gun legislation after the latest tragedy. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tapped Texas Sen. John Cornyn to work with Democrats on the legislation.

“I don’t know, but I think there’s a realization on the part of rational Republicans — and I consider Sen. McConnell a rational Republican, and Cornyn is as well,” Biden said. “I think there’s a recognition on their part … that we can’t continue like this. We can’t do this.”

Two days later, responding to a question (video below) from a local television reporter in Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

We have, uh, led by Senator Cornyn, and Senator Murphy on the Democratic side, discussing how we might come together- target the problem, mental illness and school safety.

We've found the problem- but it's not that too few Republicans are rational, as seemingly understood by the second tweeter of the two  below.

And… They're going to vote GOP regardless of whether the GOP supports these policies or not.

— Pé🌻 (@4everNeverTrump) June 2, 2022

 

Republican leadership, centered on the Senate Minority Leader, is rational. McConnell understands that ultimately, Republicans and conservative independents are going to vote for GOP candidates because Democrats are perceived as unpatriotic, weak, or excessively favorable toward blacks, immigrants, or elections.

Following the horrific event in Uvalde, McConnell needed only to project the message "we care." That could do with the magic phrases "mental health" or "school safety," the latter popular with conservatives because it conjures up the image of a police state (black lives matter, indeed). And so, mental health and school safety.

There is no standard definition of mass shooting. According to this chart, however, in 2022 there have been in the USA 13 instances in which ten individuals, not including the perpetrator, have been shot and ten instances in which four or more individuals (again excluding the perpetrator) have been killed.

"School safety," emphasizes the Minority Leader, and the massacre in Uvalde did in fact take place inside a school. However, in no other of those ten cases was a school involved in any way.. For those keeping score at home, that makes 9 out of 10, or 90%, which could not have been prevented or mitigated by anything related to school safety.

Of the 17,813 murder victims in the USA in 2020, 13,663 occurred by rifle, handgun, or some sort of firearm. There were 3,167 victims of murder by all other identifiable causes, with 983 not clearly identified. Thus, at least 76.7% of the deceased succumbed to someone wielding a firearm, with those outnumbering persons killed by other means by a factor greater than four.

It's difficult to outlaw hands used in strangling (58) or suffocating (71) people, and law enforcement already aggressively addresses narcotics (113). But we can do something about people getting blown away. Mitch McConnell knows that, and his unwillingness to engage effectively is not irrational but a conscious, rational decision made to enhance the chance that "Minority" in his title will be replaced after November by "Majority."

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Quandary Unnecessary

In the video attached to the tweet below, Marjorie Greene is seen remarking

You have to accept the fact that the government totally wants to provide surveillance on every part of your life.  They want to know when you're eating. They want to know if you're eating a cheeseburger, which is very bad because Bill Gates wants you to eat his fake meat that grows in a peach tree (sic) dish.

So you'll probably get a little zap inside your body and then say "no, no." Don't eat a real cheeseburger. You need to eat the fake burger, the fake meat from Bill Gates.

Um, they probably also want to know when you go to the bathroom and if your bowel movements are on time. I mean, what else do these people want to know?

 Sounds pretty crazy, huh? This person would agree:

I’m in such a quandary. I can’t decide if crazy or stupid is the more dominant trait here. https://t.co/hDaEIuUcNE

— Mattie Timmer (@MattieTimmer) May 30, 2022

 

Recall when on April 23, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia testified in an administrative lawsuit brought by five voters who charged that she "voluntarily aided and engaged" in the 1/6/20 insurrection and thus is ineligible to run for federal office.

Greene put on a spectacular performance and thus defeated the bid to disqualify her.  She admitted to nothing other than forgetting everything but oh, no, she couldn't possibly have believed whatever she was accused of. Approximately ten days after her testimony, an unavoidably cynical columnist from the Holland (MI) Sentinel would post this snippet:

Questioner: “Did you like a (social media) post that said it’s quicker, that a bullet to the head would be a quicker way to remove Nancy Pelosi from the role of speaker?

Greene: (Smiles and hesitates) I’m not answering that question. It’s speculation.

Questioner: You have said, Ms. Greene, that she’s a traitor to this country.

Greene: No, I haven’t said that.

Questioner: OK. (Then speaking to a clerk) Show Exhibit 5, please.

Greene (immediately): Oh no, wait. Hold on, now. (Pause) I believed that by not securing the border, that that violates her oath of office. (Apparently Greene remembers better just before exhibits are about to display evidence contradicting her statements.)

Later in the hearing …

Questioner: Had you ever advocated for martial law to be imposed in a conversation with the chief of staff …

Greene: I don’t recall.

Again, I’m pretty sure I would remember advocating, or not advocating, for something so notable, so horrific, as declaring martial law in America. Wouldn’t you?

The congresswoman demonstrated that she could teach a law school class entitled "How to Avoid Admission of Guilt When Your Hand is Caught in the Cookie Jar" by deftly avoiding responsibility for any actions taken or words spoken.

And she could. Greene may be trolling the left, hoping the antagonism and ridicule she incurs will stir up would-be donors among extreme conservatives. Or she may be seeking publicity, to gin up those donations, raise her national profile among GOP voters, or simply for the benefit of publicity. She may be having a ton of fun.

The exhortation to eat a "real cheeseburger" instead of a "fake burger" brings to mind the adage "real men don't eat quiche" of the 1980s, which was meant as satire but widely interpreted as a demonstration of masculinity. Additionally, the substitution of "peach tree" for "petri" may have been a nod to the voters in the Peach Tree state of Georgia. It's speculation- but we sell the Georgia congresswoman short at our peril.

Greene's intent is not clear, yet it's likely she is fully aware of why she is doing what she is doing.   Asked whether she considered Speaker Pelosi a traitor,  tried to claim that she never said that Nancy Pelosi is a traitor. Confronted with proof to the contrary, the congresswoman skillfully pivoted, her memory restored by the possibility she otherwise would be charged with perjury.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is characterized by extremism, bigotry, and deceit.  But only at our peril do we mistake that for craziness or stupidity.

 

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The Right To Be Vile In Church

For some really serious right-wing hatred, you can travel to something called the Global Vision Bible Church in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. Or maybe you can't listen there to pastor Greg Locke, present at the Capitol on January 6, 2020,  who has said "said that those who wore masks to his church would be asked to leave and discouraged his congregation from getting vaccinated.."

On May 15, Locke stated

You cannot be a Christian and vote Democrat in this nation. I don't care how mad that makes you.... They are God-denying demons, butcher babies, and hate this nation.....

 You cannot be a Democrat and be a Christian. You cannot. Somebody say "amen." The rest of you get out. Get out. Get out in the name of Jesus. I ain't playing your stupid games. ...

They want to talk about this insurrection. I'll tell you something. You ain't seen an insurrection yet. You keep pushing our buttons. You go down, sorry compromisers, you God-hating Communists. You'll find out what an insurrection is.

Now, however:

UPDATE: Greg Locke said today that he "dissolved" his church's 501(c)(3) status. “IRS, we don’t need your stupid tax exempt status! You can put it in a bag and burn it your front yard for all we care! I renounce 501(c)(3) communism in this church!” https://t.co/4FZBHbClHG

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) May 23, 2022

I doubt that a fellow who calls all Democrats "God-hating demons," urges members of his congregation to get themselves killed, and tells people who don't say "amen" to leave his church will voluntarily surrender tax-free status. And contrary to the implication of the tweeter above, it's very unlikely that, in the absence of specifically asking for a vote for or against a specific candidate, it would be yanked from his church. As NPR explained in 2017

The Johnson Amendment regulates what tax-exempt organizations such as churches can do in the political arena.

Under terms of the 1954 legislation (named for its principal sponsor, then-Sen. Lyndon Johnson), churches and other nonprofit organizations that are exempt from taxation "are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office," according to the IRS website.

Organizations claiming tax-exempt status cannot collect contributions on behalf of political campaigns or make any statement for or against a particular candidate. Clergy are not allowed to endorse candidates from the pulpit.

As this document from the Internal Revenue Service suggests, the IRS grants wide latitude to 501(c)(3) organizations without yanking their tax-free status. (See especially situation #5.) Good thing, too, because

A 2016 survey by the Pew Research Center found that black Protestants have been more likely than other Christian groups to report having heard their clergy speak out clearly on the merits or faults of a particular candidate. The study found that 28 percent of black Protestants heard their clergy speak in support of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign, while about 1 in 5 black Protestants, about 20 percent, said they had heard their ministers denounce Donald Trump.

By comparison, just 4 percent of white evangelicals reported having heard their clergy speak in favor of a presidential candidate (2 percent each for Trump and Clinton), while 7 percent heard their clergy speak against a candidate (mostly Clinton).

Many churches, from the right or the left, get involved in political advocacy.  It appears that short of recommending a vote for or against a candidate, a church can be nearly as involved in political causes as it wishes without seriously endangering its tax-exempt status. So we may have a great deal more of ostensibly religious figures like Greg Locke in a dystopian future.

 

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A Strategy Without Guns

There are dirty little secrets and dirty big secrets, and this is in the latter category.

Igor Volsky, Executive Director of Guns Down America, has been justifiably angry at the passive response of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and President Joe Biden to the massacre in Uvalde. He told (beginning at 2:32 of the video below) Zerlina Maxwell of MSNBC

Don't let him tell you the choice is either to have those negotiations or to have a quick vote that will fail. No, what the President can do is bring Senators, key stakeholders, survivors to the White House and begin the process while they're all in D.C. now while this tragedy is fresh in everybody's mind of having negotiations to get us to some kind of solution.

The fact that they are unwilling to do so and are talking- listen to the way they tweet about this issue. "We should do something. Congress should take action." You are the President of the United States of America. You are elected because you promised us that your thirty years of Senate experience, of bringing lawmakers together to get tough things done. Where is that experience now? Put it to the test, Mr. President.

In contrast to Volsky, I believe that having a quick vote that will fail would have the salutary effect of putting Democratic senators and Republican senators on record at a time of maximum impact of the massacre upon public opinion.

Democrats like to like their Democratic president and, notwithstanding the state of the world, generally like this one. Volsky's strategy is a sound one, and calling the President out is both necessary and courageous.

However, Joe Biden's strategy does not require him to bring together these varied stakeholders, nor to take action directly on gun safety. As Maxwell noted, Volsky has said that the President must "get caught trying to do something"- and that's exactly what he has done.  The Guardian reported

Joe Biden signed an executive order he promised would usher in the “most significant police reform in decades” on Wednesday, the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd.

With Congress deadlocked, Biden said he was using the powers of the presidency to advance his campaign promises and deliver police accountability and reform “that is real and lasting”.

As to whether the President was caught trying to do something

Biden was joined at the White House for a signing ceremony by Floyd’s family as well as relatives of Breonna Taylor, who was killed when police executed a no-knock warrant at her apartment in 2020. In remarks preceding the signing, Biden praised them for their efforts to push for change even as they grieve.

“It’s not about their death but what we do in their memory that matters,” he said.

The measure, signed in response to congressional (read: Republican) inaction in responding to blacks being killed by police officers, is the racial justice analogue to the "sensible" gun safety legislation urged by liberals and progressives, who recognize more meaningful legislation is unrealizable. Biden's

executive order signed on Wednesday directs federal agencies to revise use-of-force policies, banning tactics such as chokeholds, restricting practices like no-knock warrants and promoting de-escalation techniques.

It also calls for the creation of a new national standard for accrediting police departments; establishes a national database to track police misconduct; further restricts the transfer of military equipment to police departments; and requires agencies to implement new tools to screen for inherent bias among officers as well as recruits, including those who promote unlawful violence or harbor white supremacist views.

It is not law but merely an executive order, and thus likely to be rescinded if a GOP president is elected in 2024. Moreover, it applies only to federal law enforcement officers, who rarely are the individuals most likely (justifiably, sometimes unjustifiably) to shoot black, brown, and white citizens.  Nonetheless, Biden's was "caught trying to do something" because his intent, though with limited consequences, is clear and proper. 

And if it is still not clear that the President's intent was to appear to be "trying to do something," he said the order

was “a measure of what we can do together to heal the very soul of this nation, to address profound fear and trauma, exhaustion that particularly Black Americans have experienced for generations”.

Order signed; country healed; paradise looms. In light of the history which racial justice advocates are determined Americans learn, it is unclear- if not concerning- what the "very soul" of this nation is. Nonetheless

When the ceremony concluded, Biden invited Floyd’s young daughter, Gianna, to sit in his chair and handed her the pen he had used to sign the order. Remarking how tall she’d grown since the last time he saw her, Biden turned to the audience and recalled that Gianna told him the first time they met: “My daddy is gonna change the world.”

It doesn't appear to have happened. But not to worry. Biden signed an order, with family of George Floyd and of Breonna Taylor, to enhance accountability of law enforcement in light of its racial bias. Biden strained to link it to the massacre of the previous day.  The Guardian noted

Biden began his remarks by addressing the massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas on Tuesday. “We’re here today for the same purpose – to come together and say, ‘Enough,’ ” he said.

As everyone understood, that was not the purpose of the Executive Order. 

Joe Biden very likely wants to be re-elected, and to do that he must be re-nominated which, if things don't turn around in the next 18 months, will not be a slam dunk. He is a Democratic President. It is helpful to be is caught responding in some way or another to the events in Texas.

But it is necessary to be caught doing something, anything, to respond to racially disparate treatment. He gets extra credit for doing so in the presence of family and/or relatives of victims of that injustice.

Whatever Biden's long-ago record of promoting gun safety legislation, it is not the reason he was endorsed for his party's nomination by Jim Clyburn, given a standing ovation by the largely African-American primary electorate in South Carolina, and driven to victory in the campaign. Sad, but true: he need not do anything about gun safety to be the party's standard-bearer in 2024.

President Biden was caught trying to do something. If interest in gun safety fizzles after a while, his disinterest now will hurt him little while seeking re-nomination. If instead the March for Our Lives demonstrations nationwide on June 11 reinvigorates the movement, there will be plenty of time for him to be caught again trying to do something.

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Now, It's Lockdowns?

For conservatives, there are many boogeymen, whether in the field of entertainment, media, or politics, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi being the most obvious in the latter. For liberals and progressives, too, there is a range of highly-disliked individuals, including Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Meghan McCain, Marjorie Taylor Green, and hundreds of others.

In the vast majority of instances, it's impossible to confirm their sincerity because there are so many reasons, which may include a lust for financial well-being, attention, or political ambition, Elise Stefanik being the most obvious of the last. Typically, a right-winger does not say or do something reprehensible primarily out of stupidity.

Nonetheless, some individuals are well-meaning, which should lead one to ask: are you actually serious? That's a reasonable question to pose upon reading a tweet from a serious, otherwise thoughtful writer at The Intercept:

The fact the last two mass shooters were 18 years old exactly makes me concerned about the psychological impact of the years of lockdown on many who were children at the time. At least one of them spent two teenage years getting completely radicalized at home online.

— Murtaza Hussain (@MazMHussain) May 27, 2022

The fact the last two mass shooters were 18 years old exactly makes me concerned about the psychological impact of the years of lockdown on many who were children at the time. At least one of them spent two teenage years getting completely radicalized at home online.

Print journalist turned MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan responded "the dark irony: the lockdowns were the only time we didn't really have any mass shootings in schools in this country!"

Severe restrictions would have been more accurate. American citizens never experienced a lockdown- confinement to a particular place- during the pandemic.  In no state was there a lockdown and in Texas, headed by a right-wing governor and state legislature, restrictions were less than in most. People would howl- beyond anything we heard- if officials in any state had imposed anything even approaching a lockdown. That would be mainland China.

Calling restrictions, even significant one, a "lockdown" has been stretching the meaning of the word well beyond its original meaning.  If conservatives- as is quite plausible- intentionally had decided to invoke the term "lockdown" and propagate its use, they couldn't have chosen a more effective messaging strategy.

Hussain fell into the trap of using the word, as did Hasan, neither of whom anyone would consider a conservative.  Additionally, Hussain didn't consider that Salvador Ramos appears to have been a loner and high school dropout.

The proposition that closing schools even helped create mass murderers is a very dubious notion. Ramos bought on his 18th birthday two AR-15 firearms, military-grade weapons which likely gave police pause to confront him.  It appears he did so without a permit because in September 2021 Governor Abbot signed a bill rescinding a permit requirement. And shortly before that the governor had signed into law a measure allowing carrying without a permit.

There are many possible reasons for mass slaughter in the USA. Here are three: guns, guns, guns. Also, this:

 

  

 

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