SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
Because things right about now can always get weirder, it turns out the Florida U.S. Attorney handling the case of the latest sick white guy inspired by hateful GOP lies about pet-eating Haitians to go hiding in the bushes to take down Trump with an AR-15 is one Markenzy Lapointe - the first Haitian-born American lawyer, and first black guy, to serve as a U.S. Attorney. We love the smell of irony and karma in the morning.
The alleged "assassination attempt," though the perp didn't fire any shots, took place at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course a couple of days after both lying authoritarian scumbags on the GOP presidential ticket re-iterated their claims that "illegal aliens" from Haiti are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, which is def speaking truth to power and house-pets except it's all racist fiction. The migrants are here legally, and no pets have been harmed or consumed in the making of this absurd campaign lie.
That hasn't stopped the two white boys with shit for brains from doubling down on what Vance already conceded on TV is a tall ugly tale, which has now seen Haitians being terrorized, schools receiving at least 33 bomb threats and Springfield officials having to evacuate schools, cancel "CultureFest" and close multiple city offices. After Vance admitted to "creating" his own furry lies, he tried also charging that immigrants are spreading HIV and TB too. Nope. More faux hillbilly lies - about his own constituents, yet.
#OHNoYouDont, said the Ohio-based Red, Wine, and Blue that's organized against the hate and fear. They've now been joined by Lapointe, Haitian-born U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida and lead prosecutor of Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, charged with possession of a firearm as a convicted felon after a Secret Service guy spotted his gun in the bushes where he'd waited 12 hours to claim his 15 minutes of tawdry fame, hopefully taking a moment to thank Trump for revoking gun restrictions for people with mental illness.
Lapointe, 55, was born in Port-au-Prince. He came to the U.S. as a 16-year-old who spoke no English with his mother, a street vendor with no formal education and four other kids; they all shared a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Liberty City. Lapointe worked through high school and skipped his graduation to begin boot camp after signing up for the Marines. A reservist, he was called up to serve in the Gulf War - "I felt a tremendous debt to America (as) an immigrant" - before earning finance and law degrees at Florida State.
Lapointe was nominated by Biden in 2022 and has worked with Jack Smith on the classified documents case; he calls his journey "surreal" and "blessed." Trump might not agree on the blessed part, but he's already fundraising on the latest alleged effort to get rid of him, charging, "There are people in this world who will do whatever it takes to stop us." We can relate. For now, we can also savor the fact of a Haitian immigrant whose job is both to protect and prosecute him. One sage: "Sweet like justice, Karma is a queen."
The same night a competent woman eviscerated a fear-mongering, angry old man yelling at clouds - most notably when he hollered "THEY'RE EATING THE DOGS!" - the admirable father of 11-year-old Aiden Clark, a "caring soul" killed last year in a car accident involving a Haitian immigrant, appeared before his city commission to demand the old man and his "reprehensible" cohorts stop using his son's name and death for racist political gain. On their "vomiting hate," he said, "This needs to stop now."
In the aftermath of the madness that was likely our only presidential debate, fact-checkers who should have been on site in real time for it to have any value whatsoever popped up, better late than never, to document the stunning lies spewing from a "vile, florid, stupid," "staggeringly dishonest" carnival barker who obviously - per the campaign sign "Harris For President, Obviously" - should never have been up there, or visible anywhere in the public domain ever, for us to suffer through. As usual, princely among the truth-tellers was the intrepid Daniel Dale, who while barely taking a breath reeled off a four-minute litany of at least 33 lies ranging from "massive exaggerations" to "total fictions"; Harris had one misrepresentation. Still and all, Trump claimed improbable victory while whining about unfair moderators: "Everything I said was debunked, but my stuff was right." Right.
With no audience and few scrambled brain cells left, the clear consensus was that Trump sounded like a loser and jester who thinks the Taliban leader is some dude named Abdul (not). Responses ranged from a faux report on post-birth abortion - "Woman right now killing a baby in his 78th year" - to Four Seasons Total Landscaping mock announcing, "While we are not a hotel, we are a concept of a hotel" - to variations on, "If someone said this stuff interviewing for a job at Applebee's, they'd call police." After he saw a racist AI image posted by ImmigrantSlaughter1488, many cited what became an inadvertent riff on Bill Hader's famous Stefon: "This debate has everything - dog eating, baby killing, transgender operations on illegal aliens in prisons." Trump's imagined Day in the Life of an immigrant: "Wake up in jail, get your transgender operation, for breakfast, dog, take over Seattle, for dinner, cat."
The night of the debate, in sober, searing contrast, one victim of his racist rhetoric stepped up to reject it. On the morning of Aug. 22, 2023, the first day of school in Springfield, Ohio, 11-year-old Aiden Clark was killed when a min-van driven by Haitian immigrant Hermanio Joseph struck the school bus Aiden was riding in. Both vehicles went off the road, and the bus rolled over. Nearly half the 52 students on the bus were sent to hospitals; Aiden was the only fatality. On Tuesday night, almost exactly a year later, Aiden's father Nathan appeared before the Springfield City Commission to urge GOP ghouls to stop using his family tragedy to score political points against immigrants. "I wish my son Aiden (was) killed by a 60-year-old white man," he began. "I bet you never thought anyone would ever say something so blunt. But (then) the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone."
Standing with Aiden's often-tearful mom Danielle - both parents are schoolteachers - Clark zeroed in on the "reprehensible" racists "using Aiden as a political tool." Leading off with, "Speaking of morally bankrupt," he specifically name-checked Trump, Vance, Texas Rep. Chip Roy and Ohio Senate GOP nominee Bernie Moreno. "The last thing that we need is to have the worst day of our lives violently and constantly shoved in our faces," he said. "And that’s not good enough for them. They take it one step further. They make it seem as though our wonderful Aiden appreciates your hate. That we should follow their hate. And look what you’ve done to us. We have to get up here and beg them to stop." Last year, Clark had said "one of the worst feelings in the world" was not being able to protect his son. Now, he said, "Even worse, we can’t even protect his memory when he’s gone.""
- YouTube www.youtube.com
Unsurprisingly, it was vile Vance who kicked off this racist madness, part of a GOP anti-immigrant assault that, thanks to their lack of any actual policies, has become an ugly mainstay of the campaign. Weeks ago, Vance cited "reports"- see bonkers post from random troll ImmigrantSlaughter1488 - that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, most of them legal, were abducting and eating people's pets. Vance also threw in the claim they were causing a rise in TB and HIV cases, because, you know, black people. When the claims were mocked by observers and denied by city officials, he doubled down, then conceded the rumors "may or may not be true," then mindlessly fought back, snarling, "Do you know what is confirmed? That a child was murdered by a Haitian migrant who had no right to be here." (The father of said child, pointedly: "My son, Aiden Clark, was not murdered. He was accidentally killed."
Trump, who's never met a racist trope he didn't like, has naturally latched onto the lies. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs!” he screeched at the debate out of nowhere, as Harris smirked and rolled her eyes. "The people that came in, they’re eating the cats! They’re eating the pets of the people that live there! And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame." In truth, there are many things that are a shame: That this bozo is up there spouting racist gobbledegook, that he unfathomably keeps going lower and weirder, that what he's attempting to use for his own loathsome purposes is a human tragedy affecting and possibly endangering already vulnerable, traumatized and marginalized people. Hermanio Joseph had an Ohio ID and temporary protected legal status; he was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and vehicular homicide, and will serve up to 13 years in prison.
Most devastatingly are the other victims: An inquisitive boy who loved growing vegetables with his father, studying other countries and cultures, playing "old-school” board games, doing word searches by flashlight in bed, playing outdoor sports inside, chasing his dog Daisy Mae, and snuggling "with anyone." Of the tragedy, said a father with more heart, wisdom and humanity than an entire political party, "Don't spin this towards hate. In order to live like Aiden, you need (to) accept everyone, choose to shine (and) be the inspiration." "They have spoken in my son’s name and used his death for political gain," he said. "This needs to stop now. They can vomit all the hate they want (about immigrants, the border, eating "fluffy" pets). However, they are not allowed nor have they ever been allowed to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio. I will listen to them one more time, to hear their apologies."
Sheesh. The Crazy Train just keeps clattering on. After a week of the mad Blowhard-In-Chief blithering he'll put everyone he doesn't like in jail forever and there will be conquest of the "aliens" and child care is child care plus tariffs and Leon aka Elmo aka Elon will solve it, we've evidently reached the demented part of the campaign where we accuse dark-skinned immigrants of killing and eating our pets. Mary mother of God, save us (and our pets).
It should have been clear how daft things were getting when Dick Darth Cheney, long the greatest threat to our republic, declared Trump the greatest threat to our republic, though Sarah Palin is still voting for him. Still, he seems ever more untethered from reality, with his supporters going right down the rabbit hole with him. See Sen. Ron Johnson rave about a Depression "well-planned" by the fat cats of the world - "It's just in my bones" - and who knows how many coups from Nixon on orchestrated by the feds: "There's a reason you call it the deep state. It's very deep." Trump, having lost what was left of his mind, spent last week threatening to punish Dems who did all that "rampant cheating and skullduggery" in the election with "long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again," also - again! - "at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country."
He also told economists he'd get NATO countries to pay for our child care - "child care is child care" - which isn't really as expensive as everyone who needs it says it is "compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in...Well, I would do that, and we're sitting down. You know, I was somebody - we had Sen. Marco Rubio - and my daughter Ivanka"......And besides don't forget about "illegal allll...iens pouring in from countries that nobody ever heard the name of that country, those countries....numbers (again!) that we've never seen before, and they're giving them chairs." Then he went to a hearing about his $90 million rape of Jean Carroll who he's never met, and spent an hour raging against the over two dozen women who've also accused him of sexual assault, especially the one on the plane he was making out with but c'mon, for Mr. Art of the Deal she definitely "would not have been the chosen one."
Moving on to his beloved "American carnage," the small man who often imagined siccing death squads on his enemies vowed swift vengeance on them all, especially the swarthy ones. Foreseeing "a bloody story," he promised, "As soon as I'm back in the White House, the conquest will and the great liberation of America will begin...We will take back every single square inch of territory that has been invaded by these migrant gangs." Especially in Springfield, Ohio, population 58,000, which has become a "giant cesspool of voodoo and animal carcasses" being devoured by some - good people on both sides - of up to 20,000 Haitian immigrants who've surged there to work, pay taxes and eat people's cats and other pets. Howls Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, too upset to tend to the school shooting in his district, "They're in the park. Grabbing up ducks. By they (sic) neck. And eatin 'em."
To backtrack: The story of Springfield residents "left in terror as migrants overtake the once-quiet city," kill their cats, cook 'em with fava beans, go into parks and kill ducks, "eating them right in front of people" came from....Homer Simpson? And, just as reliably, a Facebook post by someone who claimed "their neighbor's daughter's friend" lost her cat and found it hanging from a tree branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home being prepped to be carved up to be eaten. (Echoes of The Crucible.) In response to this spreading-like-rabid-wildfire tale, the Springfield Police issued a statement that plainly said they have "received no reports related to pets being stolen and eaten." The now-viral post, they added, "did not cite any first-hand knowledge of any incident." Still, who needs facts? Not the dotty bigots inhaling an alternative reality obsessed with guns, commies, dark skin, women's reproductive organs and cats.
And not "racist piece of shit" J.D. Vance. Having unearthed the big scandal of Tim Walz' life - his brothers say as a kid he got car sick - he picked up the tawdry tale and ran with it. He'd already warned about "Haitian illegal immigrants causing chaos," though many are legal, and now here come "these types of crimes where people can't even live a normal life." Citing "pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country, he listed the cat, "dogs, ducks, geese" and urged, "Please keep a close eye on these animals." Four-footed, presumably, but shady bipeds like Elon, Leon to Trump, chimed in. Charlie Kirk mourned a duck pond "picked clean" as another "Biden gift." When Trump was president, blared Gym Jordan, "The border was secure (and) illegal aliens weren't eating your pets." Klan Mom whined there's no "government show of force" against cat-eaters, who are "more dangerous" than J6 rioters.
Then of course the grifter, smelling screamingly racist grift, stepped in. With the value of his media company plummeting almost 75%, an apocalyptic, cat-kabob-themed fundraising letter quickly went out from the narcissistic loser who - wanna bet? - never had a pet in his life. "Kamala Migrants Ravage Ohio City - And It's Coming to Your City Next," it screeched. The influx of 20,000 migrants "dumped in the city unvetted via one of the Harris-Biden administration’s unilateral mass relocation schemes" drained social services and sparked a housing crisis, it said. "Residents have become guests in their own homes. A 45-year resident and her elderly husband have been driven from their home by migrants squatting on their property: “I have men that cannot speak English in my front yard screaming at me, throwing mattresses … I weigh 95 pounds. I couldn’t defend myself if I had to."
"Now, Migrants have reportedly been caught 'decapitating ducks' and hunting geese and other livestock in public parks - and even kidnapping residents’ pets — then eating them," it raved. "It's all coming to your city if Kamala Harris is elected in November." Fear, hate, division, lunatic dreams of carnage - it's so relentlessly, risibly-except-for-the-racism all they've got. And it keeps getting weirder, moving from Hannibal Lecter, sinister cannibal eating white people, to (presumably brown) migrants eating (white?) pets. Savagery on all sides. Ron Filipkowski suggests a sensible way forward these next few fraught weeks, democracy in the balance. "If you had a migrant eat your pet, vote for Trump," he wrote. "Everyone else vote for Harris." Also hide your goldfish.
Again. Four people were murdered in a Georgia school shooting in a blood-soaked country that fixates on the unborn, spends $840 billion on defense, bans books despite zero mass reading deaths yet somehow can't protect their children from routine, rampant slaughter. It was the 8th school shooting of a shiny new school year; it happened on the 2nd day of school; the killer was 14 years old. Fucking unreal. Cue witless thoughts and prayers. From the deceased: "Thanks."
Wednesday's rampage at Apalachee High school, in the small city of Winder northeast of Atlanta, killed two 14-year-old students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two math teachers, Christina Irimie, and Richard Aspinwall; at least nine others were wounded and taken to the hospital. Less than shockingly, authorities said the baby-faced killer, 14-year-old Colt Gray, was armed with a “black semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle,” which his father had bought him for Christmas; given Colt's tender age, some bitterly wondered how he even managed to get the bulky weapon into the school: "Surely, his Spiderman backpack must have sagged a little?" Colt surrendered to police, including two resource officers, minutes after the shootings. He has been charged as an adult with four counts of felony murder, and authorities say more charges will be coming. At the scene, Sheriff Jud Smith offered "our sympathies" to the community, adding, "Obviously, what you see behind us is an evil thing today."
Evil, yes. Rare, no. The killing fields that are now America's schools have seen so many shootings and gun deaths in the past two decades the awful data can't keep up with them. According to the Gun Violence Archive, this is the 385th mass shooting in the US this year with over 11,500 people killed by guns, excluding suicide. It was the 45th shooting on school grounds in 2024 - though the number soars to 218 including more varied situations - causing at least 38 deaths and 81 injuries in a country where, said Joe Biden, students now learn "how to duck and cover instead of how to read and write." It's also a country of barricaded schools and bulletproof backpacks where four people gunned down barely made the news, shooting drills are universal, firemen and first responders wear body armor, classrooms can boast sawdust-filled buckets in case of an extended lockdown, and surreal debates rage about the wisdom of arming underpaid, over-worked teachers who never signed up for this.
That's especially true of Georgia, ranked 46th with some of the country's weakest gun laws. Gun-control advocates give the state an "F" and its gun violence - at least 1,927 people killed each year - is well over the national average thanks to Gov. Brian Kemp, who loves guns so much he once ran an ad where he held a shotgun on a kid. Kemp and God-fearing GOP pols oppose red flag laws but passed a law requiring colleges to allow guns on campus; you can buy an assault rifle without a permit or background check, carry a concealed weapon without a license, leave guns out for your kids to find, shoot and kill someone even if you can walk away instead. Kemp has bragged he wears his "F" gun-safety rating ''as a badge of honor" and touted a $103.9 million plan to "harden" schools, with a $10,000 bonus to teachers willing to carry. On Wednesday, he said he was "heartbroken" by the shooting, urged thoughts and prayers, and called it "a day every parent dreads" by dint of his murderous actions.
Also, of course, Colt Gray's, though as a sick kid he's far less culpable. It turns out he'd been on the FBI's radar since last year, after they got several anonymous tips he was making online threats about shooting up a school. They interviewed him and his father, who said he had guns in the home for hunting but his son didn't have access to them; Colt, then 13, denied making the threats, and the FBI determined there was "no probable cause for arrest" or other action. This week, fellow students said Colt was quiet and reserved - "he never really talked" - and he often skipped classes. On Tuesday, the first day of school, he reportedly left classes early to go to a counselor's office because he was anxious. Wednesday, he left math class still going; when he tried to re-enter - killing fields/school doors lock automatically - a classmate started to let him in, saw his gun, and backed away. As she and other kids dropped to the floor, crawled to the back and huddled together, she heard him open fire in the hallway.
Later, dazed students described the bedlam: The screams, blood, terror, crying, teachers frantically yelling to get down, hands shaking as they tried to text family, 10 or 15 thunderous rounds of gunshots. Harrowing details emerged. His family thought and hoped Mason Schermerhorn, who had mild autism, "had just run away to get away from everything." Christian Angulo's father said they'd moved there from California "in search of peace.” Teacher Christina Irimie, a joyful, beloved member of the Romanian community, had baked a cake and brought pizza to school to celebrate her birthday with "her kids." Richard Aspinwall, also a football coach, was "as great as they come. Would do anything for anyone." He was teaching math when he heard the turmoil; he told his kids to stay put and went into the hallway to try to protect them. A few minutes later, they found him lying prone and bloody at the door of the classroom. Said one student, "He was trying to crawl back to us."
Christmas cards sent out by gun-fetishist GOP lawmakers and their families. Photos from Twitter
There's been so much carnage - so much bloodshed, anguish, rage, grief - it's unfathomable that nothing has changed, that no substantive gun control measures have passed, that none of the morons and sociopaths who send out Christmas cards of their smirking kids cradling fucking assault weapons have stopped doing it, that none of these witless gun freaks have seen slaughter follow slaughter and not come even this excruciatingly slowly to the realization that, in the words of one gun-control advocate, "There is no world in which this is acceptable." Hell, even a Fox News host, in an interview after the Georgia shooting, exclaimed to his guest, "To be honest, this is so frequent it's almost surreal." Almost? In truth, many Americans have come to the sorrowful conclusion that if Sandy Hook didn't change any hearts and minds - those 20, small, shredded, shattered bodies - then nothing would. Which is why, even now, the inane thoughts and prayers and platitudes are still flowing.
"Let us join together in prayer for the victims," nattered Marjorie I'll-Take-Whatever-Publicity-I-Can-Get Greene, who's opposed a federal program to help states pass "red flag” laws, filmed herself accosting Parkland survivor David Hogg, pushed bonkers conspiracy theories about Sandy Hook and other tragedies, and made campaign ads featuring her shooting or giving away massive assault weapons. "This you?" asked multiple people re-posting those horrors. "Hey MTG," wrote John Pavlovitz. "How do you type with so much blood on your hands?" "And the guns?" asked another critic. "Or is this a bad time to mention them?" As always, probably. On Fox, a Blue Lives Matter spokesman argued it's all the fault of violent video games: "Human life has less value because many of the social mores have changed...It hardens the heart, if you will." Actually, experts say they won't, citing studies finding "absolutely no causal evidence" of a link between video games and "gun violence in real life.”
As mainstream news did a quick, deep, thoughts-and-prayers dive into the Georgia killings, they naturally entirely ignored those in Gaza City, where an Israeli air strike killed more children, including Tala Abu Ajwa, 10, hit minutes after her mother gave in to her pleas to let her go outside to roller blade. Seeking her body after the blast, her father recognized the pink skate on her foot. In this country, we have technology to aid in that search: Officials praised school faculty as "heroes" who likely saved lives by using a new panic button alarm that notifies police of an "active situation." Still, students were spooked and angry about being left to fend for themselves in a hapless, bloodied country, echoing a 10-year-old Onion headline: "No Way To Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens." "I really don't want to go back," said one girl. "I want to go to school worrying about my GPA (and) my career. I feel like I shouldn’t have to go back to school worrying about dying.”
Of course teachers also were and will remain traumatized in a mix of grief, guilt, rage. Writing online about "planning no teacher should ever have to plan for and fear no one (teacher, child, parent, or anyone else) should ever have to experience," Jennifer Carter wrote, "I lied to my kids today in second period. I told them it was just a drill. I told them to get behind my couches (thank GOD I ditched desks and have bulky furniture!) and be quiet...The more quiet we are, the faster the drill will end." Trauma on trauma, victim after victim. In back-to-back hearings Friday, Colt Gray appeared in court - small, blank, bleach blond - followed shortly after by his father Colin Gray, 54, who wept and rocked in his seat as the judge calmly spoke. Colin is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of second degree murder and eight counts of cruelty to children. Behind them sat victims' families and other supporters; court workers had set out tissue boxes at intervals.
Away from court, the story of Colt Gray's broken, "hostile," gun-obsessed home, where a Stars and Stripes flies and child services often visited, emerged. His mother Marcee has a long rap sheet spanning 17 years for buying/selling drugs, mostly meth and fentanyl, with arrests for domestic violence, bad checks, vehicle misdemeanors. With the parents locked in an ugly separation and custody battle - she has the two younger kids, he had Colt - Marcee charges Colin with abuse, and they were evicted. Neighbors describe "devastating," "constant" abuse: no food or clean clothes, Marcee driving drunk to take the youngest to day care, passing out in the driveway, locking the kids out of the house in winter, them banging on the door, crying, screaming, "Mom!" A former landlord said Colin was "trying (to) be a stand-up guy - I think the man really went through it." As to Colt, "This child has fallen between the cracks." Colt's aunt said he'd been "begging for help for months, but the adults around him failed him."
In response to Georgia's shootings, Dems offered empathy and cogent calls for gun control measures most Americans support. The GOP, short on empathy or cogent calls for anything and not up to domestic tragedies, stall in their thoughts-and-prayers shtick. In another dreadful speech, Vance, who took $493,000 from the NRA to declare school shootings "a fake problem," said it 's too bad about kids and teachers being gunned down, but with schools "soft targets, we’ve got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and kill a bunch of children, they’re not able to." He doesn't like school shootings but they're "a fact of life," says "the coward ass bitch guy standing behind bulletproof glass" who doesn't seem to get that "lots of horrible things were once facts of life until the government did something about them." So: women should both have kids and accept they might be shot dead at school. Give this guy a bulletproof Spiderman backpack, pray for the dead, fight for the living.
"Here's the smell of the blood still. What, will these hands ne’er be clean?" - Lady Macbeth
- YouTube www.youtube.com