Too Much Of Everything

News is being made faster than I can comment on it, and I am going to try - but not necessarily succeed - in summarizing it here.

Donald Trump must be running scared right now, as the shooter in the El Paso massacre turned out to be a white nationalist who wanted to do his part to rid America of Mexicans.  (Excuse me?  The city's name is "El Paso!")  He's suddenly in favor of background checks for gun purchases, and he's even suggesting that Mitch McConnell is on board with such legislation (in fact, he isn't).  And while this is going on, Jeffrey Epstein has committed suicide, meaning that the criminal case against him for sex trafficking can't continue, though the civil case can, and some of Epstein's victims are now much less afraid to come forward.  Given Epstein's past relationship with Trump, he's probably still concerned about what might come out.  Not that Trump was involved in what Epstein was doing (I'll assume he wasn't), just the fact that he did business with him. (I won't bother with Trump's own theory of Epstein's death, which he tweeted today.)

And meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Dan Coats and his top deputy Sue Gordon are both on their way out and DNI nominee John Ratliffe has withdrawn his nomination, leaving Trump with an acting DNI who's guaranteed not to offend the boss with any intelligence on Russia that he may come up with.  Trump may as well not decided to send Ratliffe's nomination to the Senate and made him the acting Director of National Intelligence.

And as if that weren't enough, Democratic presidential candidates may risk helping Trump by calling him a white supremacist because that will only get his base even more fired up to vote for him again.  Especially those who feel offended because they're not white supremacists, although, while not every Trump supporter is a white supremacist, most white supremacists are Trump supporters.  Joe Biden took a more cautious route, saying that Trump "encourages" white supremacists even as he's called Trump out for having more in common with George Wallace than with George Washington.  That's a pretty tough tightrope to walk, trying not to anger the Trump base and motivate them to vote while trying to get the Democratic base motivated.  And what a test to see if Biden's gambit works.

And finally . . . if you're going to arrest anyone for illegal immigration, don't arrest the immigrants, arrest the corporate officers that hired them for their companies!

249

Remember that number.

That's the number of mass shootings in the United States so far in 2019 . . . before the twin mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.  And you can expect the number to go higher still before December 31.  I would guess that the the numbers in Canada and Mexico will remain unchanged.  As will America's gun laws - there is no incentive under America's current governmental system to limit the sale of guns in this country.

Trump went on TV to decry the mist recent violence and he finally admitted what everyone already knew - that most of the mas shootings in this country are linked to right-wing extremism and anti-immigrant sentiment, which he had more than a small role in stirring up.  He made a few proposals of his own to deal with gun violence, such policing social media, discouraging violent video games, mental health reform, and keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people, but his remarks were so rote and pablum-laden that he sounded like a robot.  And he said nothing about reducing the number of available guns.  He says that hate has no place in America, something that doesn't ring true in light of his own rallies.  He has no problem with getting the most reactionary elements of his base activated, and he never tries to quell them until and unless he has no choice.  That's not leadership; that's cowardice.  

Frankly, I wasn't going to comment on El Paso or last week's Gilroy massacre - because what can say other than that they were very bad things? - until Dayton happened within 24 hours after El Paso. As the press has said, when you mention this past weekend's shooting, you have to specify which one.  

Mass shootings are just one of the many unbearable problems with this country that cannot and will not be solved.  Now they're talking about bringing tighter security to the big-box shopping complex where the El Paso shootings took place.  And there's another thing wrong with this country - we're so dehumanized that we build these scary big-box shopping complexes that further dehumanize the simple act of living one's life.  I'm not surprised that such shootings take place in nightmarish landscapes that dehumanize everyone and everything around it.  The architecture of Columbine High School and the Century multiplex movie theater - both in Colorado, both the scenes of mass shootings (and 1999 and 2012, respectively) - are prefect examples.  Columbine looks like a warehouse, as it if it were designed to merely store children in, and the Century theater has a a warehouse design as well - merely a place to store moviegoers while they take in some entertainment.

I'm ready to just quit the United States - leave this country and never come back.  The laundry list of everything wrong with America and reasons why nothing ever changes is too damn long.