The White House on Sunday night announced backing for a new Justice Department program that would aid states that seek to train teachers and other school personnel to carry firearms, as part of a package of steps to curb school violence.
In addition, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will chair a government commission exploring steps to prevent school violence, following the Parkland, Fla., shooting last month that left 17 dead, the Trump administration said.
“We are committed to working quickly because there’s no time to waste,” DeVos said on a conference call with reporters. “No student, no family, no teacher and no school should have to live the horror of Parkland or Sandy Hook or Columbine again.”
DeVos said the commission would include teachers. A senior administration official on the call said that it was expected the work would be completed within a year. The official said existing Justice Department funds would be used to assist states and local law enforcement groups that want to bolster their armed school personnel programs.
Trump also backtracked on his call to raise the age limit to buy certain firearms after his meeting with the NRA. (Remember how Trump mocked the Republican politicians for being scared of the NRA? Yeah well he better check the mirror.)
Let me save you all the trouble of waiting and tell you exactly what this commission will decide to do to effe3ctrively combat school shootings. Not a goddamn thing.
Sure they will have a few metal detectors installed, put in some safety glass, and of course suggest that several teachers start packing heat, but it will not protect a single child from gun violence.
And of course this will do NOTHING to address the shootings in shopping malls, movie theaters, or churches.
Putting DeVos in charge of this commission is essentially a giant "fuck you" to the Parkland students who are the driving force behind gun control legislation, and they certainly recognize it as such.
"Betsey DeVos basically paid for her position...I think she's not the right person for this," says Florida shooting survivor David Hogg after WH unveils plan to establish a school safety commission chaired by the US Education Secretary https://t.co/eTBqSkJnS0 pic.twitter.com/e4btWpov5Y— CNN International (@cnni) March 12, 2018
Clearly these kids see through the bullshit, which means they are only going to become more determined to advocate for real change in this country's gun laws.
The next school shooting, and yes we know there will be one, is going to be a public relations nightmare for the Trump Administration and only empower these students even more than they have been already.
This is far from over.
$HAME! FB>"..and there you have it. The Trump gun "control" proposals are unveiled, and they're about as weak as a twice-used teabag. President Backtrack has done his usual dance. Promise big. Talk tough. And then do the bidding of those who have underwritten and normalized his path to power.
ReplyDelete$HAME. Shame on the President who refuses once again to lead. Shame on all those who act like this is acceptable. Shame on the elected officials who will not listen to the vast majority of the American people who believe that we can have a Second Amendment and not have weapons of war sold with less oversight than cold medicine.
There are no easy answers to mass shootings or gun violence. But there are no easy answers to terrorism either. Do we throw up our hands and say we can't do anything? Is that the American way?
This is cynicism being stoked for partisan political gain. But I think those who are following the playbook from the past are in for a surprise. Our children are watching. And so are many of their parents and grandparents. They don't buy the peddling of false equivalence.
At some point, rationality must break through. And it will be heard... in the streets and at the ballot box."
Dan the Man Rather^
I like president backtrack! Add that to cadet bonespurs.
DeleteVeteran CIA agent on Trump: “Corruption like we’ve never seen before”
ReplyDeletehttps://www.salon.com/2018/03/12/veteran-cia-agent-on-trump-corruption-like-weve-never-seen-before/
"The following excerpts are from some brilliant tweets I read earlier from Vox writer, David Roberts. "
ReplyDeletehttp://field-negro.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-death-of-right-wing-intellectualism.html
'whataboutism'
https://twitter.com/drvox
A Dozen Democrats Want To Help Banks Hide Racial Discrimination In Mortgages
ReplyDeletehttps://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-banks-racial-discrimination_us_5a96e489e4b0e6a523042fc8
i hate democrats almost as much as i hate repubs.
With, of course, Blackwater to train them.
ReplyDelete6th Grader Writes Heartbreaking Will In Case Of School Shooting
ReplyDeleteJavon Davies said he wrote the letter giving away his cat and video games “just in case something happened.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/6th-grader-writes-heartbreaking-will-to-family-in-case-of-school-shooting_us_5aa687d1e4b086698a9fc359
The school shootings don't "inherently appear from a wall."
ReplyDeleteTry starting with looking at diet, which is mostly processed poison. But first, the cycle has to be broken, meaning removing all guns, disbanding the NRA, and changing the constitution - as there is no longer any "founding-fathers" years of forcing out Indians and Mexicans.
And of course, none of this can happen in the first place as long as people believe they are the chosen ones who have been saved, which is a massive ignorant error in all of human history - The Promised Land has nothing to do with real estaste, in as much as the Virgin Birth has nothing to do with biology: the meanings of these myths are lost as entire peoples have concretized the symbols, losing the transcendence which the symbols are describing of our own selves, and turning the self into an object to be defended. They don't exactly talk about this at the alter on Sunday, they have erroneous control. So let's stop eating poison, as a start!
Its no small feat.
So many in America are too stupid to even cook a basic meal, plus a lot of the super poor have been convinced that prepared foods cost less than home cooked meals.
DeleteAdd to that the fact that many inner city people live in what are called "food deserts" where the corner bodega is your only option for culinary supplies, none of them healthy except for the odd head of lettuce or random "fresh" fruit.
All these factors combined lead many to eat the high sodium prepared boxed foods, and even to rely on things such as hamburger or tuna helper or tacos made with pouches of "spices".
I've always been amazed at how culinarily ignorant most Americans are as I grew up with grandmothers and a mother who were all "scratch" cooks, with many of the ingredients harvested from our own gardens and my maternal grandmothers' chickens and hogs.
It's a sad state of affairs. Home economics was such an important class when I was in middle school and it taught us all, boys and girls, how to properly prepare meals and even to preserve meats and harvests. I don't think that program exists any longer in most schools.
The vast majority of teachers do not want to come to school armed and ready to shoot to kill. That's not what teaching is all about. Obviously neither trump nor DeVos has any clue about the teaching profession.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
Maybe I am getting senile here, but weren't at least a few of the school shootings at schools that DID have armed security guards on campus?
ReplyDeleteYou're not getting senile, that is correct.
DeleteThere were also two armed police officers stationed in Columbine during that shooting.
So, highly trained law enforcement officers, whose sole responsibility was to provide security to a school, couldn't stop a mass shooting.
DeleteBUT the kindergarten and PE teachers, who spend a few hours practicing on a shooting range after they finish writing lesson plans and filling out report cards, will be able to whip out their handy pistols from the holsters on their hips and heroically take down the bad guys (who happen to be former students of theirs), while simultaneously getting their students to safety and keeping them organized and calm.
Yeah, right.
Betsy wouldn't know what a school looks like let alone how to protect one.
ReplyDeleteAnd it will take a year to come up with a plan!
Interesting they can find money to arm teachers but nothing for school supplies.
I hope the students continue their battle against the NRA ,Congress and trump.
No money for school supplies, better food for lunch programs or pay and benefits.
ReplyDeleteBut plenty of money for guns.
With so many brilliant women and intelligent Republican women in the USA, why choose this?
ReplyDeletePerhaps the dumbest woman to be interviewed since Sarah Palin.
Devos has boat loads of money, so she needed to get something in return for her support/investment in the Republican Party.
DeleteHer brother is also one of the largest military contractors in the country.
DeleteElections MATTER, people.
ReplyDeleteVOTES matter...
True. I hope those who didn't vote or voted for their principles are just as miserable and disgusted as the rest of us.
DeleteHag.
ReplyDelete'O'
ReplyDeletehttps://www.politicususa.com/2018/03/12/sarah-huckabee-sanders-blames-obama-for-trumps-nra-cave.html
https://zinnedproject.org/2018/03/koch-brothers-want-students-learn-slavery/
ReplyDelete"She concludes that the history presented is “superficial, drained of humanity, and neglects to reckon with the economic and social reality of what opponents called ‘the slave power.’”
A dive into their “Documents of Freedom” readings reveals an even more disturbing agenda. The BRI bills the “Documents of Freedom” as a “modern take on the traditional textbook” — a “completely free digital course on history, government, and economics” authored by unnamed “teachers.” It’s essentially an online textbook that aims to promote a particular version of history, government, and economics that aligns with the interests of the Kochs."
" with phrases like “the number of slaves steadily grew through natural increase.” Natural? There was nothing natural about the expansion of slavery. Slavery expanded because it was profitable. The authors seek to divorce the expansion of slavery from the economic design of the capitalist cotton empire and from the horrific practice of breeding, which became a large source of revenue, especially for Virginia slaveholders."
"today’s elites like the Kochs have no interest in students learning this radical history. In the Kochs’ history, the only mention of Black people’s actions comes in one sentence at the end of the reading that papers over the massive accomplishments of the era: “Although African Americans soon made up the majority of voters in some southern states and even elected some black representatives to Congress, the right to vote was curtailed by southern states through several legal devices. . .”
BLM!
666penceOT?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/scientists-established-link-brain-damage-religious-fundamentalism/
"he findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.
Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. "
"hey are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview." "Since religious beliefs play a massive role in driving and influencing human behavior throughout the world, it is important to understand the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism from a psychological and neurological perspective."
"These findings are important because they suggest that impaired functioning in the prefrontal cortex—whether from brain trauma, a psychological disorder, a drug or alcohol addiction, or simply a particular genetic profile—can make an individual susceptible to religious fundamentalism. And perhaps in other cases, extreme religious indoctrination harms the development or proper functioning of the prefrontal regions in a way that hinders cognitive flexibility and openness."
"In fact, their analyses showed that these factors only accounted for a fifth of the variation in fundamentalism "
are they going to arm the lunch ladies? this is so stupid!
ReplyDeleteI guess a hairnet and a mustache isn't enough of a deterrent?
DeleteOT?'The "March For Our Lives" rally, organized by the survivors of the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida, is scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., on March 24.'
ReplyDeletehttps://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/man-facebook-charged-threatening-shoot-anti-gun-rally-machine-gun/
Betsy Devos looks like a character straight out of Dr. Seuss Whoville.
ReplyDeleteBut one more mile in the road to the US becoming a militarized country run by a crazed dictator. Kind of interesting how little time it took for it to get here.
ReplyDeleteSuffice it to say, it was an interesting experiment in Democracy, yet now it is nothing but a cautionary tale for other countries.