BY RAUL HERNANDEZ
Sunday morning, three more police officers are gunned down. This time the shootings were in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
It’s sad.
Another shootings, another city. The same results — families lose loved ones, police hold press conferences, finger pointing begins and funerals are held.
More hate and it’s getting thicker.
Everybody breaks out with the America’s well-worn catchphrase “our thoughts and prayers” go out to (fill-in the blanks). But after one shooting after another after another after another, the country’s heart seems to be growing cold and slowly becoming numb. America shakes its head and shrugs its cynical shoulders.
The details trickle down: The latest shooter was dressed in black and toting a rifle. He was fatally shot by officers who arrived at the scene just before 9 a.m., East Baton Rouge Sheriff Sid Gautreaux said in a press conference.
According to published reports, this mental defect with a rifle was identified as Gavin Eugene Long of Kansas City, Missouri. Long, a U.S. Marine who was honorably discharged, called himself “Cosmo” and had his own Youtube show where he rambled about different topics.
Long also was critical of the fatal shootings of blacks by police.
Gavin Eugene Long: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know, according to Heavy
Louisiana is an open-carry state. So Long was allowed to walk on the streets with a loaded, semi-automatic weapon that he used to shoot his victims.
A thousand miles away, Reuters reported that the head of the Cleveland police union on Sunday urged Ohio’s governor to declare a state of emergency and suspend laws allowing the open carry of firearms during the Republican National Convention.
“I don’t care what the legal precedent is, I feel strongly that leadership needs to stand up and defend these police officers,” Steve Loomis, the head of the police union, told Reuters in an interview at the union’s headquarters on Sunday.
The four-day convention is due to begin on Monday.
However, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) quickly rejected the request, saying that he does not have the authority to suspend the open carry law.
“Ohio governors do not have the power to arbitrarily suspend federal and state constitutional rights or state laws as suggested,” his spokesperson said in a statement. “The bonds between our communities and police must be reset and rebuilt ― as we’re doing in Ohio ― so our communities and officers can both be safe. Everyone has an important role to play in that renewal.”
Last week, Reuters reported that the Black Panthers, “a couple of hundred,” will be attending the Republic convention this week.
Under Ohio law, the Panthers said they will carry firearms because there will be other groups that have threatened to harm them.
The Nazis, white supremacists and an assortment of right-wing and left-wing groups said they alo planned to attend the convention.
Hashim Nzinga, chairman of the New Black Panther Party, told Reuters in an interview that he expected “a couple hundred” members of the New Black Panther Party to join a black unity protest that is scheduled to be held on Thursday in Cleveland.
In Dallas, where five police officers were ambushed and gunned down, published reports state that as many as 30 people attended the Black Lives Matter Rally wearing gas masks, bullet-proof vests, camouflaged garb and carrying assault rifles, according to officials.
It was a miracle that more people weren’t shot as the protestors with the assault rifles scattered in panic.
Can you imagine a cop getting shot at and watching armed men running by? What is a police officer supposed to do?
In Ferguson, Missouri, armed members of the militia-like group Oath Keepers showed up during protests one year after the death of Michael Brown.
So what could go wrong in Cleveland?
Hate speech will fill the air, protestors will wave incendiary messages, angry words and racial slurs will be shouted, there will be name calling, taunting and teasing, middle fingers will go up, and of course, inside the building Donald Trump will be on the mike spewing racist rants and promising the nation that only he has the cure to whatever ails America.
Trump has the self-control of a petulant child even during a tragedy.
The bodies in Baton Rouge weren’t even cold when Trump decided to cast out his social media net to exploit this tragedy to score political points and stroke his own ego. He can’t help it. While most were in quiet reflection and prayer, Trump wanted the spotlight back on him. It doesn’t matter if the victims were three dead officers.
He stated on Facebook: “Our country is totally divided and our enemies are watching. We are not looking good, we are not looking smart, we are not looking tough!” and minutes later, “President Obama just had a news conference, but he doesn’t have a clue. Our country is a divided crime scene, and it will only get worse!”
Gun Reform is About Economics — Plain and Simple
America is one big profit and loss statement.
So the best way to get gun reform in this country is have the Black Panthers or White-Citizens-R-Us racists stroll around America’s downtowns or malls with AKs and sidearms in open-carry states.
It’s American economics 101 — plain and simple, and this is how it works.
Guns, especially assault rifles in black hands, will keep people from shopping at malls or the downtown areas. Outraged, business owners who will suffer financial losses and will rush to City Hall and state legislators offices to demand reasonable gun control measures, and the abrupt end of open-carry gun laws.
The quickest way to get the attention of people in this country is through the pocketbook.
After Cleveland, I also believe many states that have open-carry laws will begin to lose money when businesses and organizations move to hold conventions in states like California where there are strict gun control laws, and anybody caught walking down the sidewalk with an AK will be arrested.
Who wants to attend a convention and walk outside the convention hall to see protest groups and the right-wing fringe elements carrying assault weapons, or other weapons. Or, go on vacation and watch armed men walking around in the city.
Maher: On the Bottom Line for Many Racists on Obama
Comedian Bill Maher can be a pompous and arrogant ass, especially when he is ranting about religion. But I love his quick wit and brutal frankness.
Maher recently summarized the BS that many white right-wing racists sling to justify their hatred and racism against Obama and support for Trump:
Maher told Matthew: “They just don’t like the idea of a black family eating off the White House china,” he told Matthews.
Maher had a during an interview with Chris Matthews of Hardball last week. Click here to watch it: Hardball
Fox’s Roger Ailes’ Alleged Interviewing Techniques
Former host Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against her former boss, Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes, and since then, other women have come forth and accused Ailes of sexually harassing them.
“We thought it would happen after she was taken off of ‘Fox & Friends,’” said one Fox News source who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “She kept quiet because Roger gave her the afternoon show, but everyone at Fox knew it was eventually coming. He hated her and would tell people that she was ‘a crazy, vindictive bitch.’”
Another said in a Huffington Post story: “He always brags to people about how he doesn’t do polling or testing when he chooses his on-air talent. He told me that if he was thinking of hiring a woman, he’d ask himself if he would fuck her, and if he would, then he’d hire her to be on-camera,” the employee said. “He then said if it was a man he’d think about whether he could sit down for a baseball game with him and not get annoyed of him. If he could, then he’d hire him.”
So employment interviews at Fox weren’t based on the strength of a resume, according to one employee.
It was going into Ailes office on the pretense of an interview. There, he’d mental undressed prospective on-air Fox “talent” while running an erotic sexual fantasy through his mind during the “interview.” For prospective male employees, it’s whether they can chat him up at a baseball game and probably, what they’d put on a hotdog.
That explains a lot of things, especially when some these Fox hosts open their mouths.
Fox’s “Terrorist Analyst” Going to prison
WASHINGTON
(Reuters Report Published July 15, 2016)
A man who has appeared on Fox News as a guest “terrorism analyst” was sentenced to 33 months in prison on Friday on charges that he fraudulently claimed to have been a CIA agent for decades, U.S. prosecutors said.
Wayne Simmons, 62, of Annapolis, Maryland, was sentenced in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
“Wayne Simmons is a fraud. Simmons has no military or intelligence background, or any skills relevant to the positions he attained through his fraud,” said Dana Boente, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III also sentenced Simmons to serve three years of supervised release, to forfeit two firearms and $176,000 in criminal proceeds, and to pay restitution.
Simmons had appeared on Fox News, a unit of 21st Century Fox and the top-ranked U.S. cable television news network, as an unpaid guest analyst on terrorism since 2002.
A grand jury indicted him in October for portraying himself as an “Outside Paramilitary Special Operations Officer” for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1973 to 2000.
Instead of working for the CIA, Simmons’ jobs during that period included nightclub doorman, bookie, manager of a rent-by-the-hour hot tub business, mortgage broker and defensive back for the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints, the statement said.
Fox News declined to comment. Simmons’ lawyer, William Cummings, said he and his client had hoped for a lighter sentence.
Simmons pleaded guilty in April to charges of major fraud against the U.S. government, wire fraud and a firearms offense.
Simmons admitted that he defrauded the government in 2008 when he got work as a team leader in an Army program, and again in 2010 when he was deployed to Afghanistan as an intelligence adviser.
He said he made similar false statements in a 2009 bid to get work with the State Department’s Worldwide Protective Service.
Simmons also admitted to defrauding an unidentified woman out of $125,000 in a bogus real estate investment. When he was arrested, Simmons illegally possessed two firearms, which he was barred from having because of prior felonies, including a state conviction and two federal firearms violations.