Heartbeats

Guns and Politics:  Last week there were mass shootings in Chicago, St. Louis, Paterson, Hot Springs National Park, Milwaukee, Houston, Orange County and Buffalo.  Each one was horrifying but the Buffalo shooting stands out because the shooter who killed 10 people while injuring an additional three didn’t hide his motivation, he  was upfront about why he selected and then traveled to Buffalo to engage in his killing spree.  A believer in Hitler’s Great Replacement Theory, he was out to kill Black people, to do his part to prevent the displacement of white Americans.  Advocates of replacement theory don’t just target Black people, their wide net also includes “undesirable” immigrants like those at the southern border and of course Jews which explains why the neo-Nazi marchers in Charlottesville chanted “Jews will not replace us” during their rally, the one that ended with the murder of Heather Heyer and that the Former Guy described as a festive both sides hoopla. Sadly, the Buffalo killer’s views are not unique, in fact these days they are increasingly mainstream, at least among a wide swath of Republicans. Fox pundit Tucker Carlson, an outspoken advocate, has done his best to make replacement theory seem acceptable and, perhaps even more disturbing, New York State Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who after Kevin McCarthy and the KKK friendly Steve Scalise, holds the third most senior position in the Republican’s House hierarchy, is a big fan, she’s even bought Facebook ads that assert that white people are intentionally being replaced by migrants. Ohio’s Republican candidate for the Senate, hillbilly guy JD Vance is a fan too. As to guns, the Buffalo murderer’s manifesto said that his killing spree “would involve the use of guns. Why? Because they work.  There are very few weapons that are easy to use, accessible, and effective at killing than firearms.  That’s right I used the dreaded military grade assault rifle-15.”   if you think things are bad now, it’s only a matter of time before more people are out there following his model.  The Supreme  Court, the same crowd about to throw reproductive rights to the curb will be issuing a ruling soon in the case of NYS Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen and expectations are that the SCOTUS majority will rule against NYS’s century old concealed weapons licensing law because we really need more guns on the street, don’t we? Lee Zeldin, the Republican Congressman running for NYS Governor had little to say about guns this weekend but did send out a message calling for reinstatement of the death penalty because apparently he unlike the majority of criminal law experts believes that it would deter murder sprees. One more thing on the SCOTUS front, Clarence Thomas, Insurrection Ginni’s husband, was out whining this weekend about the abortion ruling leak, calling it “tremendously bad” and wondering “how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them."  Am I the only one who feels like we’re being punked?

Primary Colors: Tomorrow is primary day in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Idaho, Kentucky and Oregon.  Over the weekend things got just a bit weirder on both sides of the aisle.  The Former Guy announced his endorsement of Republican Doug Mastriano, the far right insurrectionist running to become Governor of Pennsylvania.  The general view is that despite pushback from what’s left of the Republican’s mainstream, the FG endorsed Mastriano, who spent the weekend campaigning with the equally far right, hate spewing Senate candidate Kathy Barnette, because he wants to be associated with a primary winner and it looks like Mastriano will win the primary while the Senate race appears to be a toss-up meaning that Mehmet Oz, his pick, might not emerge victorious.  Now for the totally unexpected, on the Democratic side, Sunday afternoon 52 year old Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, the Democratic party’s leading Senate candidate, revealed that the reason he’d gone radio silent over the weekend was because in his words “I had a stroke that was caused by a clot from my heart being in an A-fib rhythm for too long.” Fetterman also reported the doctors were able to remove the clot, “reversing the stroke,” that his heart was under control and that he would be back on the campaign trail shortly.  And because strokes among the relatively younger Democratic Senatorial set appear to be a thing right now, you may recall that New Mexico’s 49 year old Senator Ben Ray Lujan was out for a while due to one earlier this year, 63 year old Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen revealed that he too suffered a “minor” stroke over the weekend, his was caused by a “small venous tear” at the back of his head.  The hospitalized Van Hollen who is up for reelection this year in solidly blue Maryland reports that doctors have told him that he’ll be fine too.  The Democratic majority hangs by a thread and one of those threads is Senator Diane Feinstein who many believe is suffering from dementia. Oy. Getting back to the primary races, with Senator Richard Burr retiring, North Carolina has a Senate seat to fill and there it looks like the FG’s candidate  who is also being supported by the right wing Club for Growth will likely win the Republican primary. Cheri Beasley will likely be the Democratic candidate.  Critical Senate races aside, the fun one to watch will involve Madison Cawthorn who just about everyone in Republican leadership has lined up against, not because he’s an insurrectionist or has been caught speeding without a license or trying to carry his gun on a plane but because of his orgy accusations and maybe also because of that icky sexually charged video.

🌻🌻🌻 A group of Republican Senators none of whom thought that the FG playing quid pro quo with President Zelenskyy over military assistance was a problem spent some time in Ukraine this weekend waving their flags.  The Republican squad included Leader Mitch McConnell, John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Cornyn of Texas, and Susan Collins of Maine. Presumably Kentucky’s other Senator Rand Paul was not invited and probably wouldn’t have attended even if he was.  As to the pearl clutching Susan, she probably felt safer in Ukraine than she would have back home because of all those peaceful pro-choice demonstrators who drew chalk pictures in front of both her Maine and Washington DC homes in protest of her vote against enacting reproductive rights legislation.  Apparently chalk is so much scarier than missiles.