Thoughts and Prayers

This was the 18th school shooting since the year began just 44 days ago. We, here in the good 'ol U.S. of A., have averaged one a week, more or less, since 2013.

Between June 2016 and November 5th of 2017 there were 511 days, with 555 mass shootings. Three months and 11 days have passed since that NYTimes piece. In that short time here have been 30 more mass shootings leaving 48 dead.

And all the Republican House, Senate and President do is tweet out thoughts and prayers.

The Open Secrets site has a list up of how much pay off, how much moolah each of their stooges, (AKA their bought and paid for Senators and Congresscritters) received in 2016. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the cold-hearted do-nothing who tweeted that “today is that terrible day that you hope will never come,” took $9,900 from the NRA in 2016 alone. Over the course of his career he’s raked in a whopping $3,303,355

Rubio was elected by the citizens of Florida. Is he seeing to the needs of the people? Not so you'd rightly notice.

 It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
~ Upton Sinclair

The Pew Research Center has a chart up (from June ’17) showing where Republicans and Democrats agree/disagree on gun control points such as:

• preventing the mentally ill from buying guns
• barring people from watch and no-fly lists from buying guns
• background checks for private sales at gun shows
• banning assault type weapons
• creating a federal database to track gun sales
• banning high capacity magazines
• allowing concealed carry in more places
• allowing teachers and official in K-12 schools to carry guns
• shortening gun buy waiting periods
• allowing concealed carry without a permit

There is, more or less, agreement on the first three but that’s where it ends. Republicans monolithically vote against ultra common sense measures. They won’t even allow attorneys general the right to deny firearms and explosives to suspected terrorists.

I’m tired of writing about this shit. Nothing changes and nothing ever WILL change as long as the Thoughts and Prayers/No Action Gang controls this sad, pathetic, violent country. They’re deeply on the take to the industries who give nothing more than lip service to life – human life, wildlife, planet life.

John Scalzi has a brill column up, written back in June of 2016.  Read, read.

Also too, check out Jim Wright 's Facebook post on this. Here's a snippet:

Every single politician that offers "thoughts and prayers" for the slain kids, every single one, left, right, or Bernie Fucking Sanders, I don't care, that offers empty useless prayers WITHOUT ACCOMPANYING LEGISLATION should be voted out of office at the earliest opportunity. If these rotten faithless shitty, unpatriotic, cowardly sons of bitches don't care enough to actually DO something, then they all need to go. Every single one.
~ Jim Wright

What he said.

Reality denied comes back to haunt.
~ Philip K. Dick, Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said