Welcome to Thursday, everyone. And I guarantee you that it's Thursday. I double-checked. That's the quality you get around here. We're not like some major news organization just throwing out facts all willy-nilly.
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A Senate in the Gun Lobby's Grip - By GABRIELLE GIFFORDS
Here's another good thing the NRA has blocked:
"Identification taggants are microscopically color-coded particles that, if added to explosives or gun powders during their manufacturing, might facilitate tracing those products after a bombing back to the manufacturer," reads the 1999 post "Taggants and Gun Powers" by the NRA's Institute of Legislative Action. "Then, through the use of mandatory distribution records, tracing would continue through wholesaler and dealer levels to an original purchaser or point of theft."
The same NRA, however, has twice deployed its lobbyists to block the mandated use of identification taggants by gunpowder manufacturers.
The Boston bomb used gunpowder, with no taggants, thanks to the NRA, because Second Amendment and/or Jesus.
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John Cole: Apparently a fertilizer plant blew up in Texas, and CNN says 2 dead while a Texas source has 70 dead. Given CNN's performace today, I'm going to go with the Texas source.
In other news, I read that the 17 year cicada returns around here this year, so I've basically decided that as a first-born son, despite being an atheist, I am running for the god damned hills. I'm not even going to wait for the rivers of blood or darkness or whatever the hell is supposed to happen.
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Mostly people care whether the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief uses the word 'terror' because Patriot Act. We can torture terrorists, lock them up forever and really do anything we want. Except don't call it torture. We don't torture. Shut up, we don't.
Nobody cared about the word 'terror' when Bush stood in front of smoking towers because back then there was nothing special about terrorists or terrorism. When people attacked us, we brought them to justice using the regular legal system or we used some combination of international relations and war to discourage them from attacking us again. Those approaches are time-consuming, uncertain and only give so much catharsis to bloody-minded people who want vengeance, including and especially the pre-emptive kind. At the same time the moral authority that such an approach confers (and the small question of whether the cowboy strategy accomplishes a damn thing) only has value in retrospect, when emotions have cooled and when you want to help cool someone else's hot violent passions. Now all the president has to do is say the magic 't' word and the world is our sandbox. It's no wonder that people who get a hard on with every fiery death get so hung up about it.
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Angry President Obama Calls NRA Out For Lies After Gun Measure Defeat
Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert (R) on Wednesday connected the Monday bombings in Boston to the immigration debate and warned that "radical Islamists" were "being trained to come in and act like Hispanics."
During an interview on C-SPAN, host Greta Wodele Brawner asked the Texas Republican about a bipartisan "Gang of Eight" proposal in the Senate that would increase funding for border security by $5.5 billion over ten years and establish a 13-year pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
"What I first thought after my prayers went for the victims and the families in Boston is, 'My gosh, we've seen this in Israel,'" Gohmert recalled. "And after Israel had to suffer the slings and arrows and the deaths and the maimings... Finally the Israeli people said, 'You know what? Enough.' They built, over 70 percent of it is just a fence, and the rest is a wall, prevents snipers from knocking off their kids. And they finally stopped the domestic violence from people that wanted to destroy them."
"And I'm concerned we need to do that as well," he insisted.
Pressing Gohmert, the C-SPAN host noted that Rep. Steve King (-R-IA) had speculated that the Boston bombings were perpetrated by a "foreign national" and that Congress should proceed with caution on immigration reform.
"We know that al Qaeda has camps with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border," Gohmert agreed. "We know that people are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanics when they're radical Islamists. We know these things are happening, and it's just insane to not protect ourselves and make sure that people come in -- as most people do, they want the freedoms we have."
(h/t: Think Progress)
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Teacher claims she couldn't have fondled black student because she's racist
Oklahoma Congressman: ExxonMobil 'Should Be Patted On The Back' For Arkansas Oil Spill
High Court Squelches Ability To Hold Anyone Accountable For Human Rights Violations Abroad
New Zealand Passes Marriage Equality, Bringing Country Count To 14
Big surprise here: U.S. Engaged in Torture After 9/11, Review Concludes
Your Daily Pierce.
It is an odd day to be looking out at Our Nation's Capital, cherry blossoms lost in the murk and the gloom, from the steps of the Senate side of the Capitol building. It has been an odd week in Our Nation's Capital. It has been a week in which the national government, responding to the will of practically nobody, has determined on its own that our society will tolerate a level of violence in it that is beyond the reach of the national government to do very much about. Moreover, it has been a week in which, by means subtle and overt, the national government has determined which types of violence our society must tolerate in order to remain the freest country in the world. It has done so quite on its own. It has done so against the expressed will of the vast majority of the people out in a country as expressed in the only way they can, now that elections have been determined to have very few real consequences in regard to the levels and types of violence that our society must tolerate in order to remain free. They have told the pollsters, over and over again, because, as far as the violence in America is concerned, the pollsters are the only people listening.
Read the rest here.
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Science! - Xristian Xrazy Judith Reisman, a professor at Liberty University (Motto: we'll tell you what to think), has proposed that erototoxins emanating from pornography make people gay. No duh. (Right Wing Watch)
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The Gun Show Loophole Remains -- And You Should be Angry About That
It's a guy from Mississippi, and I predict we'll discover that he's a pro-gun zealot who was pissed that Senator Wicker, a Republican, supported and voted for the failed background checks amendment.
Federal agents on Wednesday arrested a suspect in the mailing of letters to President Barack Obama and a U.S. senator that initially tested positive for the poison ricin.
The suspect was identified as Paul Kevin Curtis of Tupelo, Miss., federal officials told NBC News. They said he may appear in court as early as Wednesday night.
Both letters carried an identical closing statement, according to an FBI bulletin obtained by NBC News on Wednesday.
According to the FBI bulletin, both letters, postmarked April 8, 2013 out of Memphis, Tenn., included an identical phrase, "to see a wrong and not expose it, is to become a silent partner to its continuance."
In addition, both letters are signed: "I am KC and I approve this message."
I wonder whether the news media will refer to Curtis or other suspects as "accused terrorists." Because that's what they are.
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