Death Count 🌻 🌻 🌻

Guns and More: There have been far more mass shootings than days so far in 2023 so it’s not surprising, though totally disheartening and tragic, that on Saturday, the 126^th day of the year the 190^th mass shooting took place with 8 people killed and 7 more injured at an outdoor mall in Allen Texas by a shooter using an AR 15 style gun. Not to worry though, Texas Governor Abbott who won reelection last year in part because of his fealty to the NRA, sent his thoughts and prayers to the victims and their families.  He also asserted once again that the real problem is mental illness, not guns, which must be why he cut $211 million from the budget for mental health services in Texas last year. He’s callously delusional, Americans, even Texans, aren’t nuttier than people across the globe but we’ve got more guns than they do, and we use them so more of us die daily. And so it goes, another day in the USA. In 2021, the last year for which data is available, around 50,000 died from gun related injuries with about 54% of those deaths, suicides because gun owners also kill themselves.  Gun deaths are just part of our problem, another 17,000 of us die annually as the result of DUIs.  I mention that now in honor of the memory of two fourteen-year-old boys, classmates of one of my nieces.  Much loved with promising lives ahead of them, they were killed on Thursday at the hands of a drunk driver whose car barreled into the one they were in.  It wasn’t the DUI driver’s first offense; he has now devastated two families and all the people around them and their sons and has also ruined the lives of his own family.  Just a reminder, don’t be that person, ever.  

Polls Say What?  Sticking with the delusional theme, over the weekend just about every media outlet reported on the results of a recent Washington Post/ABC poll.  That poll,  despite being an outlier, got enormous coverage; it shows President Biden’s approval slipping now down to 36% from 42%, that Americans believe that Trump did a better job with the economy and that Trump would trounce him were the election held today.  The poll also showed a high number of undecideds so the trouncing part, though alarming, should be taken with a grain of salt since it really is early, and Trump’s base has always been more enthusiastic about their guy.  Additionally, despite years of statistics proving otherwise, Americans always insist that Republicans are better for the economy and pollsters keep underestimating the impact that taking away reproductive rights has on voters. Still the poll results are #WTF disturbing because: Trump.  Things are likely to get worse before they get better, assuming that they do eventually get better because we’re about to crash into the debt ceiling, at least that’s what 43 Republicans in the Senate, including Mitch McConnell but not including Senators Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley and John Kennedy, appear to want to see happen.  They’ve all signed onto a letter saying that they won’t support the “clean” debt ceiling lift that Biden and the Democrats are seeking.  In other words, at least for now, they are supporting Speaker McCarthy’s plan, the one which requires Biden to slash and burn the budget in exchange for national solvency.  By the way, recently released Tucker Carlson emails/texts reveal that he’s the one who got McCarthy to make all those concessions that got him his speakership on the 15th vote.   The debt ceiling insanity is all a kabuki dance but given the players, who knows?  We really could end up with a trashed economy, particularly if the always calculating McConnell truly believes that would be good for his party’s 2024 prospects.  One of those that Mitch may be seeking to help is Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Cruz who fled to Cancun during a Texas blackout, thinks that all Black men look alike, how else to explain how his campaign sent out an ad attacking his likely Democratic opponent Colin Allred that included a photo of the far chubbier and distinctly different looking Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. Who knows? Maybe that plays in Texas.  And maybe it doesn’t even matter as the Texas legislature has passed a bill that would allow the Texas Secretary of State who is appointed by the Governor to order new elections under “certain circumstances” in counties with at least 2.7 million people.  Only Harris County, a Democratic stronghold with 4.7 million people, that includes Houston, would be affected by the legislation.  

Legal Machinations:  Contrary to his representation to those Irish golfers, Trump will not be testifying in front of the E Jean Carroll defamation and assault jury so today both sides will present their closing remarks. Additional snippets of Trump’s deposition which was shared with jurors aired over the weekend.  In addition to mistaking E Jean for wife Marla, an indication that she probably was his “type,” he also claimed that she enjoyed the attack, that’s the attack that he said never happened.  It’s expected that the case will go to the jury tomorrow.  We now know a little more about why it’s been taking so long for Fulton County’s Fani Willis to come forward with her indictments. Eight of the sixteen “fake” electors who she’s targeted have accepted immunity deals, meaning that they are now spilling their guts. There are suggestions that Willis is working up a RICO case, something she’s done before.  If so, that could account for her timing extending through to July.