Another Sad Story About Gun Rights

“It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away, but that’s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semiautomatic handguns.” ~Christy Sheats, Texas gun advocate who murdered her two daughters with a gun over the weekend.

Here is the story in TIME.

Here's the story in the Houston Chronicle.

A lot is unclear about this family birthday party that turned violent. The one thing that's clear is Ms. Sheats' handgun killed the family it was supposed to protect. Having a gun in the home increases the risk that the people living in that home will die from gun violence. In other words, guns don't tend to protect the people who own them, they tend to kill them.

This article by Susan Perry, the health reporter at MinnPost, is worth reading for a better understanding of the lethal effect of guns on their owners.

Your Daily Trump

I realize I'm not posting these every day, but the news items come out every day, several each day, and the title is catchy. Will it keep him from being nominated at the convention? Maybe. If it does there will be mayhem. The mob doesn't care if he's a swindler or a liar or a thief or a rapist (that's the newest story).

The Gothamist, out of NY, reports that Trump is being sued for the alleged violent rape of a 13 year-old girl in 1994. He also allegedly threatened to kill her and her family if she ever spoke about it.

Trump’s bankruptcies: his companies tanked but he pocketed lots of money. Is this true? Politifact says yes it is.

Trump’s campaign seems to be paying a lot of its money to Trump himself. What a con trick. WinningDemocrats has the details.

Trump’s mob connections? Well known.

Reported by CNN.

Verified by Politifact.

Trump’s “christian” backers are from that wing of Christianity that says Jesus favored the rich.

The Daily Beast has the story on this, but there are other reports readily available. Trump will roll Christians as readily as he will roll gamblers at his casinos. And the Christians he rolls with are con men of a similar type.

Minnesota Public Radio is reporting that one of Trump's top “christian” advisors is Michele Bachmann. You kind of wonder. Does she support Trump because she thinks he’ll bring the end of the world? Possibly, because when the world ends, Jesus will come, or so she believes. Which may explain how bizarre and deranged her ideas are. Planned catastrophe in the name of her savior. Like throwing your children in front of a car or off a bridge so Jesus will save them. A dangerous kind of psychopath.

This bizarre idea of Bachmann's is may represent another plan to fulfill one of her favorite biblical prophesies. Place America in such imminent danger that wiser heads will step in, allowing her to point and say “See? The Antichrist. Just like the Bible says.” Bushwa. LeftWingNation has the audio of Michele discussing Obama's evil plan in a radio interview.

CBSNews is quoting former first lady Barbara Bush: “I don’t know how women can vote for Trump.”

To balance all of the white haired Republican ladies in their pumps and pearls, we have the millions of Trump’s other more unpleasant followers. From the New Republic.

Your Daily Trump, Third Week of June, 2016

A political reporter live-tweeted from inside a Trump rally in the South. What he saw and heard and felt disgusted and frightened him. This is what the Republican Party has devolved into.

There have been several stories about the lawsuit charging Trump University with fraud, and how Trump paid Republican attorney generals to block the lawsuit, which they did.

CNN reports on his purchase of the Florida AG.

Trump has shown a pattern of strong-arming the legal system.

Trump has a history of using his wealth advantage to intimidate. He’s also used it to avoid paying his bills.

From USAToday.

If America has the brain of an impulsive, gullible, dishonest adolescent do we deserve to have an impulsive, gullible, dishonest adolescent as president? Reported in the Atlantic.

Trump has a habit of treating his most trusted friends like dirt. In this report he sends Chris Christie to get him lunch at McDonald's.

Trump’s dishonesty problem. Is a journalist biased if he or she calls Trump a liar? Bill Moyers' blog discusses the problem.

Trump’s hate riff.

Obama discusses Trump and what he represents. Reported in the New Yorker.

Some history. First, from Politico, a case where an outsider destroyed a major political party.

We use Nixon as a yardstick when we discuss corruption and dirty politics. We have a new yardstick. Bob Woodward comments.

I can remember when Republicans were the moderate, pragmatic and common-sense party. I voted for this Republican governor and never regretted it... but that was then. That GOP is long dead.

Your Daily Trump

Dana Milbank repeats what he wrote six months ago: Trump is a bigot and a racist. He is, always has been, and will be a racist and a bigot if elected. Worth reading.

Josh Marshall explains the Trump grift, which is the aggressive use of his bigger wealth against those with less. He uses his wealth to intimidate those he has cheated and to hypnotize those he looks forward to cheating. The art of the deal is breaking it and threatening anyone who thinks there was a contract. Trump’s counterparties are expected to abide by contracts but Trump, never.

I also read George Will’s Olympian sneer at Trump and at Paul Ryan for having endorsed him. George Will helped create the party that vomited up this nominee. He’s one of Trump’s many creators in the GOP brain trust. Trump is the natural result of what George Will has spent the past decades selling. If you demand a government that can’t and won’t do what the people expect it to do you naturally will nominate a vandal-in-chief to supervise the implosion. I won’t link to Will until he apologizes.

Being Drunk Makes People Lean Conservative

The GOP’s chief tool is learned helplessness, carefully trained helplessness, leading to hopelessness. Once they have you there they can play on your anger and humiliation like a violin. They’ve been using this tool for several decades, while they’ve gradually stolen the incomes and security of the working classes. They’ve gotten us where they want us.

Here's an article about that from Salon.

From the New Yorker, another interesting psychological study demonstrates that the more drunk people are the more they will bow down to an authoritarian master, more likely to choose conservative over liberal ideas and choices.

Is America drunk––or punch drunk? And who has delivered the beating? We’ve lived through three decades dominated by Big Money and Reaganomics, which were a gift from the GOP. That's what has beaten us down. It's bludgeoned millions of Americans into this submissive mindset. And the irony is they talk and think this way while parroting the lines they've been taught by their masters. Lines like "freedom" when they're not free, and "independence" when their independence has been taken from them.

I've written before about the addled thinking of Trump supporters.

They pray for a leader who will hurt people, because they have been hurt, but they assume this leader will not hurt them.

They pray for a dictator who will do "what needs to be done" but they assume those things that will be done will be things they want done––they assume this dictator will take dictation from them personally. This isn't magical thinking. This is drunk thinking. This is fear talking, too. Scientists have also shown how making people fearful makes them choose conservative options.

There is a psychological difference between conservatives and liberals.

From Scientific American.

From Mother Jones.

Ever wondered who this Mother Jones was that they named a magazine after her? She was a tough old woman who inspired mineworkers to stand up to their bosses and throw off the burden of poor pay, unsafe working conditions, awful living conditions and a predatory pay and credit system that ruled company owned towns. They achieved this by organizing. A good place to learn about this story is on PBS, where you can watch this excellent documentary about that battle from a century ago.