Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
One of Dallas' top leaders has urged the National Rifle Association on Monday to find another city to host its annual convention, taking a stand against gun violence in the wake of last week's deadly mass shooting in Florida.
Dwaine Caraway, mayor pro tem of Dallas, said that the NRA, the nation's largest gun lobby, would be met with "marches and demonstrations" if it went ahead with plans to host the three-day meeting scheduled for May 4-6.
"It is a tough call when you ask the NRA to reconsider coming to Dallas, but it is putting all citizens first, and getting them to come to the table and elected officials to come to the table and to address this madness now," Caraway told reporters on Monday. "At the end of the day, we need to connect the dots. The NRA needs to step up to the plate, and they need to show leadership."
"I am saddened the fact that every time that we turn around is some type of gun violence," he added.
If the NRA moved its event, that could cost Dallas as much as $40 million, according to some estimates.
Caraway, a self-proclaimed strong "believer" in the second amendment, said the NRA has a national responsibility "to address this madness now" as he called on the group to help establish better gun laws.
"We should not allow people to possess assault rifles and weapons," he said. "While we are worrying about terrorists, we're living in a terrorist society amongst us Americans today."
A city in Texas asking the NRA to stay the hell away from them?
I am not a Biblical scholar but I am pretty sure that is a sign of the End of Days.
Well for gun owners at least.
Go ahead, somebody tell me again that these students in Florida are just kids, and that they will never have a real impact on the gun debate.
President Donald Trump's first six months have been defined by his often angry and tasteless tweets, his ham-handed efforts to denigrate and undercut the multiple investigations into Russian influence in the 2016 election and the stalemated legislative battle to repeal and replace Obamacare.
The News then goes on to list a number of things that Trump has achieved.
Here is a sampling:
FOREIGN POLICY
-Embraced autocrats in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Egypt and abandoned longtime U.S leadership in seeking to enhance democracy and human rights.
-Insulted U.S. allies in Europe, especially Germany, and undercut longstanding U.S. treaty commitments.
-Compromised Israel's intelligence sources.
-Spurred more divisiveness in an already divided Middle East by setting off a squabble between Saudi Arabia, a major U.S. ally, and Qatar, home of the region's biggest U.S. military base.
(Trust me there's more.)
DOMESTIC POLICY
-Proposed a budget with massive cuts that would shred the social safety net and cripple longstanding governmental functions.
-Created uncertainty in the nation's health care system by sending inconsistent administrative signals and supporting legislation that could deprive millions of people health insurance coverage, undermine Medicaid health support for lower income Americans and give wealthy taxpayers a massive tax cut.
-Mismanaged the federal government by failing to fill many top spots and installing an inexperienced, dysfunctional White House staff.
(Yep, there's more.)
INSTITUTIONAL DAMAGE:
-Committed potentially impeachable offenses of obstructing justice that prompted appointment of a Special Counsel by firing FBI Director James Comey, because of his probe into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia, and urging other intelligence officials to pressure Comey to halt the probe.
-Undermined the courts with denunciations of judges and their decisions affecting his administration's policies, especially those curbing his hastily issued ban on Muslim travel from certain countries.
-Without evidence, accused former President Barack Obama of illegally wiretapping his phones.
-Repeatedly misrepresented his administration's policies and trashed officials with whom he has disagreements, calling the ousted Comey "a nut job," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer the "head clown" and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi an "incompetent."
(And yes there is more. So much more.)
But that gives a fairly accurate overview of Trump's accomplishments thus far.
Hell if he accomplishes any more America will soon be a smoldering crater in the ground.
I guess this is what the Trumpsters meant by the term MAGA.
Those were the three words that blared across the Drudge Report early Friday morning after five Dallas police officers were killed in a horrific ambush attack.
And immediately upon seeing the race-baiting headline, conservatives rebelled against a once-reliable ally who has become more and more divisive to them over the course of the 2016 campaign.
“In moments like these, we should do the opposite of what Drudge is doing,” Commentary Magazine Editor Noah Rothman wrote on Twitter.
“Responsible reporting as always,” sarcastically tweeted Jeff Blehar, from the popular Ace of Spades blog.
Others piled on.
Allahpundit, an influential anonymous conservative blogger, skewered the site for a subsequent banner headline claiming a “black power group” had claimed responsibility for the attack.
“Dallas chief says suspect told them before he died that he wasn’t part of a group,” the blogger wrote.
Even the husband of the Palin family's favorite ghostwriter chimed in.
Apparently there was already distrust brewing among conservatives when it came to Drudge due to is over the top support for Trump. Which of course included making excuses for, or defending, his racist comments.
It seems to me that the nomination of Donald Trump has really forced the Republican party to face some rather unsavory truths about themselves.
So either they have to accept the fact that much of their base is driven by racism, or they have to work to change that rather inconvenient truth.
Or, I guess the third option would be to carry on like Dakota Meyer and the rest of the Palin family and simply refuse to believe that the fault lies with them, and instead turn it around and blame it on those who are subjected to the racism, the party that works to end that racism, or the President whose very existence brought all of out into the open.
Five police officers were fatally shot and six others wounded Thursday when snipers opened fire in downtown Dallas during a protest over recent police shootings in Minnesota and Louisiana, police said. Three possible suspects were in custody, and police were locked for several hours in a standoff with a gunman in a parking garage who had fired at officers, Dallas Police Chief David Brown said. The suspect told officials there were “bombs all over the place in this garage and downtown,” and “told our negotiators that the end is coming, and he’s going to hurt and kill more of us,” Brown said. The standoff ended at about 2:30 a.m., according to Dallas city spokeswoman Sana Syed, but she would not confirm reports that the gunman was dead. Two hours later, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said the suspect in the standoff had died.
According to the mayor, who just spoke this morning, the one suspect was killed with a robot armed with a bomb.
It is also reported that the one, now deceased, suspect claimed that he was working alone, that he wanted to kill white people, he stated he was "angry FOR Black Lives Matter," and that he was not affiliated with any group.
He also made the statement that "The end is coming," and claimed to have planted bombs all over downtown.
We are told the other suspects are not talking.
Currently there is a lot of speculation that the individual was angered by the recent shootings of black men by police officers.
However we literally do not know what this individual's motives were for certain.
If he was angered by the police shootings then his actions completely undermined the effort to draw attention to the shootings and garner public support to do something about them.
By using a sniper rifle to kill these officers, the man has instead simply caused more senseless death.
Similar words were posted here last night accusing myself and "liberals" of being somehow complicit in this shooting because we talked about the shootings in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis yesterday.
I have no idea how somebody jumps from demonstrating concern and sympathy for individuals shot for no reason by the police, to condoning the murder of police officers.
Obviously I condemn the shootings in Dallas, and have never encouraged violence against the police. That is a ridiculous and ignorant claim to make.
Just like Congressman Walsh's claim that this is the fault of the President or BLM.
Speaking of the President he had this to say about the shootings this morning: President Barack Obama has described the Dallas shootings as a "vicious, calculated, despicable attack." He made the comments while speaking to reporters Friday morning in Warsaw, Poland. He described the killings as a "tremendous tragedy" and as "senseless murders." Obama said of the suspects, "We will learn more about their twisted motivations. Let's be clear: There is no possible justification" for the attacks.
I will update this post as new information becomes available.
He had no criminal history, and no ties to terrorist groups or the group BLM.
Here is what Police Chief David Brown had to say:
“We tried to negotiate for several hours, negotiations broke down, we had an exchange of gunfire with the suspect,” Brown said. “We saw no other option but to use our bomb-robot and place a device on its extension for it to detonate where the suspect was. Other options would have exposed our officers to grave danger. The suspect is dead a result of detonating the bomb.”
The suspect did not shoot himself, despite reports, Brown said.
“He wanted to kill officers, and he expressed killing white people, he expressed killing white officers,” Brown said. “He expressed anger for Black Lives Matter. None of that makes sense, none of that is a legitimate reason to do harm to anyone, so the rest of it would just be speculating on what his motivations were. We just know what he said to our negotiators.”
Seems to me that the guy had no intention of surviving this encounter.
