Senate Probers Say Russians Could Alter Voter Files In 2016
This previously concealed information shows just how vulnerable the U.S. elections system is.
Lax Texas Gun Laws Enabled Sutherland Massacre
The mass shooting taking place just a month after the deadly Las Vegas shooting, where 58 were killed and 500 more injured, joining a long list of mass shootings in the United States each year. According to the Gun Violence Archive database, the Sutherland shooting marks the 307th mass shooting so far in 2017.
Will Texas Massacre Finally Get Military To Improve Its Criminal Reporting System?
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had an urgent question Monday about Devin Patrick Kelley, the former U.S. Air Force airman who is accused of killing 26 people worshipping at a church service yesterday: How was it that Kelley, convicted of domestic violence and discharged for bad conduct, was still able to get a gun?”
Hurricane Refugees In Florida Could Tip Electoral Balance
The exodus of tens of thousands of voting-age Puerto Ricans to the U.S. mainland following Hurricane Maria is likely to change the political complexion of several states, but nowhere more than Florida, where the refugees expected are equal to more than half of Donald Trump’s margin over Hillary Clinton last November.
FEMA Had A Plan For Responding To A Hurricane In Puerto Rico — But It Doesn’t Want You To See It
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, citing unspecified “potentially sensitive information,” is declining to release a document it drafted several years ago that details how it would respond to a major hurricane in Puerto Rico.
Contrary To Spin, Stronger Gun Laws Do Reduce Gun Violence
In an interview with Media Matters, Dr. Daniel Webster, who serves as the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, pointed to research showing significant reductions in gun violence associated with permit-to-purchase laws, and explained how the Post erred…
It Happens All The Time: Hollywood, Washington, The Old South
The free-fall from movie pharaoh to industry pariah brought a breeze of vindication. Weinstein’s life crumbled in such cinematic style that a plot point was born: a flood named #MeToo. The hashtag sprang up for legions of women who vividly reported sexual assault and harassment. They voiced their experiences online, breaking silences on social media.
The Trump Effect? 9 Eruptions Of White Nationalist Terror
Webster’s Dictionary defines terrorism as the “calculated use of violence (or threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature.” To hear neocons, Republicans, the Christian right and the so-called alt-right tell it, such violence is exercised primarily by Muslims and people of color.
Another Way To Banish The Bump Stock
The killer in the Las Vegas massacre did something no previous mass shooter is known to have done: He equipped semiautomatic rifles with a “bump stock,” which allowed them to fire roughly as fast as a machine gun. Even some Republicans in Congress are willing to consider banning the device.
Desperate Puerto Ricans Seeking Water At Toxic Sites
As Donald Trump waffles between cruelly threatening to pull aid from Puerto Rico and pathetically whining about criticism of his terrible relief efforts there, the island continues to deal with ongoing devastation. According to a FEMA report, nearly 40 percent of Puerto Ricans have no access to clean drinking water.
Why America Is Desperately Trying to Understand The Vegas Shooter’s Motives
In Las Vegas, the forensic postmortem on the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history stands at two out of three. Means? Check. Opportunity? Check. But unless new evidence turns up, the killer’s motive is a black box.
Conspiracy Theorists Struggle To Explain Vegas Horror
Hardly anybody today believes that once unsettling events like solar eclipses are caused by wolves or demons eating the sun. But when it comes to all-too-frequent eruptions of what Philip Roth calls “the indigenous American berserk,” many retreat into superstition, or worse. Worse because we don’t blame mythological creatures for increasingly common mass shooting events like Stephen Paddock’s murder of 58 concertgoers in Las Vegas. Instead, we blame each other.
It’s Not Just The Shooters Who Are Insane
Yet, here in the most powerful and wealthiest nation on Earth, here in the land of incredible technology, of Nobel laureates and first-rate universities, of a constitutional democracy revered the world over, we do nothing to combat this strange malady.
Las Vegas Mass Killer Acted Out Violent Rape Fantasies, According To Sex Worker
The Las Vegas gunman who committed the worst mass murder in modern U.S. history repeatedly paid a sex worker to indulge his fetish for violent sex and rape fantasies. That’s according to an escort who spoke with the Sun newspaper.
Stop Saying Columbus ‘Discovered’ The Americas—It Erases Indigenous History
Just over a hundred years ago in Peru, a tall history professor from Yale University left his camp in a valley northwest of Cusco, and walked through cloud forest to a mountain ridge more than 7,500 feet above sea level. There, high above the roaring Urubamba river, he found an ancient stone citadel; sculpted terraces of temples and tombs, granite buildings and polished walls that were covered in centuries of vines and vegetation.
Such Empty Thoughts And Prayers
We’re living and grieving this essential truth, no matter how many times we try to tell ourselves and anyone who will listen that with God, all things are possible. The older I get the more that sounds like blame, not credit. I’ve always thought of God as a partner who expects us to do our part, which involves a whole lot more than singing, chanting or fingering the rosary and then thanking him for listening.
In The Gun Debate, Bipartisan Hypocrisy
Chris Christie blamed Barack Obama for failing to grasp “that the most basic responsibility of an administration is to protect the safety and security of the American people.” Marco Rubio defended mass electronic surveillance, arguing that after the next attack, “the first thing people are going to want to know is, why didn’t we know about it and why didn’t we stop it?”
America Creates Industry To Clean Up Massacres
But something made this story stand out. It was the professionalism of those hired to deal with such calamities. The police who went after the gunman while managing the chaos below. The emergency medical workers removing the wounded from the carnage, not knowing whether the shooting had stopped. The hospital workers putting in multiple shifts while deftly handling the crush of causalities.
7 Most Unhinged Moments From Trump’s Puerto Rico Trip
“The job that’s been done here is really nothing short of a miracle,” Donald Trump said early Tuesday during his trip to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. Coming from someone else, those words might have meant something. But from this president, it was just more empty babble meant to distract the world from noticing how poorly his administration has handled a crisis.
We Need More Than ‘Thoughts And Prayers’
Whenever someone commits a heinous gun crime like the massacre in Las Vegas, politicians swiftly assure us that the victims and their families are “in our thoughts and prayers.” What these mush-mouthed messages mean, in plain English, is that government, as embodied in those politicians, will do nothing to make the country safer from gun violence.
Far Right Outlets Pushed Vegas Shooting Hoax
Late on October 1, Stephen Craig Paddock reportedly opened fire at a concert in Las Vegas, killing at least 50 people and injuring more than 400. Police have located the alleged gunman’s roommate, who they believe “at this time not to be involved.”
Sunday Talk Shows Ignore Catastrophe In Puerto Rico
On September 20, Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, and knocked out power to the entire island of 3.5 million people. Puerto Rican officials have described “apocalyptic” destruction, and a dam is in danger of bursting, threatening to flood already devastated areas.
All Rise, Or Not, For The United States Of Football
This column isn’t about baseball. It’s about Cleveland Browns football players, the national anthem and a police union president who has a habit of making us sound like a town of time travelers who just arrived with a thud from somewhere in the 1950s.
Trump Won’t Shut Up About The Size Of His Hands At Disaster Relief Events
President Trump, who was called a “short-fingered vulgarian” in the 1980s, is still feeling insecure about his hands. He brought up the size of his hands at a Hurricane Irma relief location run by the Red Cross in Florida, as he was handing out food. Trump claimed his hands were “too big” for the gloves.
The Price Rises On Houston’s ‘Cheap’ Housing
The disaster in Houston has put many conservatives on the defensive. Houston was their urban model. Developers could put almost anything anywhere, which lowered the cost of living. By unfavorable comparison, “elite” coastal cities that regulate development have relatively high housing costs. But it’s an extreme creed that portrays regulation as the enemy of investment. In the real world, smart regulation can protect investments.