All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Catlady in training]

Ukrainians who fled to Georgia reveal details of Russia’s ‘filtration camps’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ltration-camps


Meanwhile, an interesting twitter thread about how russia has been preparing their citizens for the war for years.

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/...C9qaPyvc8qAAAA

[Mister Mets]

Honestly, the most galling part of this whole affair was how quickly McConnell moved to introduce legislation to protect the Supreme Court Justices. Meanwhile kids have been getting gunned down in their schools for the past 20 years, and he's done jack.

The Senate announced a bipartisan deal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/u...fety-deal.html

WASHINGTON — Senate negotiators announced on Sunday they had agreed on a bipartisan outline for a narrow set of gun safety measures with sufficient support to move through the evenly divided chamber, a significant step toward ending a yearslong congressional impasse on the issue.

The plan, endorsed by 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, would include funding for mental health resources, boosting school safety and grants for states to implement so-called red flag laws that allow authorities to confiscate guns from people deemed to be dangerous. It would also expand the nation’s background check system to include juvenile records for any prospective gun buyer under the age of 21.

Most notably, it includes a provision to address what is known as the “boyfriend loophole,” which would prohibit dating partners — not just spouses — from owning guns if they had been convicted of domestic violence. The framework says that convicted domestic violence abusers and individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders would be included in criminal background checks.

[worstblogever]

Haven't seen this mentioned yet:

31 linked to white nationalist group arrested near Pride event in Idaho

Ah, the sound of cuffs getting slapped on Neo-Nazis BEFORE they can terrorize anyone...

*chef's kiss*

[Malvolio]

The Senate announced a bipartisan deal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/u...fety-deal.html

That last part, about closing the "boyfriend loophole" wouldn't do much to stop school shootings, but it's still a good idea that's been needed for quite some time.

[BeastieRunner]

Ah, the sound of cuffs getting slapped on Neo-Nazis BEFORE they can terrorize anyone...

*chef's kiss*

The signs that said "We ain't afraid of Vanilla ISIS" and "bye bye y'all qaeda" were pretty funny.

[BeastieRunner]

US deficit shrinks to $66B in May.

On track to be under $1T in fiscal 2022.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

This one makes my blood boil.

$1.5M to be paid to police chief who displayed Nazi insignia



Nazi f*** gets paid to resign.

I understand the anger, but that award was the lesser of two evils. Better that scumbag be paid to go away than reclaim his job had he been fired and resume spewing his hateful Nazi rhetoric. Still, his name is out there, so it’s unlikely he’ll ever get another job in law enforcement, or any other field for that matter, and, unless he’s a miser in the same vein as Ebenezer Scrooge (before the spirits came calling), that million bucks won’t stretch too terribly far in today’s economy.

[babyblob]

Ukrainians who fled to Georgia reveal details of Russia’s ‘filtration camps’

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ltration-camps


Meanwhile, an interesting twitter thread about how russia has been preparing their citizens for the war for years.

https://twitter.com/sumlenny/status/...C9qaPyvc8qAAAA

Sickening. And what is even worse is how many people defend Russia and buy into their lies.

[Tami]

Waiting for keys, unable to break down doors: Uvalde schools police chief defends delay in confronting gunman

Only a locked classroom door stood between Pete Arredondo and a chance to bring down the gunman. It was sturdily built with a steel jamb, impossible to kick in.

He wanted a key. One goddamn key and he could get through that door to the kids and the teachers. The killer was armed with an AR-15. Arredondo thought he could shoot the gunman himself or at least draw fire while another officer shot back. Without body armor, he assumed he might die.

“The only thing that was important to me at this time was to save as many teachers and children as possible,” Arredondo said.

The chief of police for the Uvalde school district spent more than an hour in the hallway of Robb Elementary School. He called for tactical gear, a sniper and keys to get inside, holding back from the doors for 40 minutes to avoid provoking sprays of gunfire. When keys arrived, he tried dozens of them, but one by one they failed to work.

“Each time I tried a key I was just praying,” Arredondo said. Finally, 77 minutes after the massacre began, officers were able to unlock the door and fatally shoot the gunman.

In his first extended comments since the May 24 massacre, the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, Arredondo gave The Texas Tribune an account of what he did inside the school during the attack. He answered questions via a phone interview and in statements provided through his lawyer, George E. Hyde.

Aside from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which did not respond to requests for comment for this article, Arredondo is the only other law enforcement official to publicly tell his account of the police response to the shooting.

Arredondo, 50, insists he took the steps he thought would best protect lives at his hometown school, one he had attended himself as a boy.

Arredondo’s explanations don’t fully address all the questions that have been raised. The Tribune spoke to seven law enforcement experts about Arredondo’s description of the police response. All but one said that serious lapses in judgment occurred.

Most strikingly, they said, by running into the school with no key and no radios and failing to take charge of the situation, the chief appears to have contributed to a chaotic approach in which officers deployed inappropriate tactics, adopted a defensive posture, failed to coordinate their actions, and wasted precious time as students and teachers remained trapped in two classrooms with a gunman who continued to fire his rifle.

One of Arredondo’s most consequential decisions was immediate. Within seconds of arriving at the northeast entrance of Robb Elementary around 11:35 a.m., he left his police and campus radios outside the school.

Thinking he was the first officer to arrive and wanting to waste no time, Arredondo believed that carrying the radios would slow him down. One had a whiplike antenna that would hit him as he ran. The other had a clip that Arredondo knew would cause it to fall off his tactical belt during a long run.

Arredondo said he knew from experience that the radios did not work in some school buildings.

But that decision also meant that for the rest of the ordeal, he was not in radio contact with the scores of other officers from at least five agencies that swarmed the scene.

Almost immediately, Arredondo teamed up with a Uvalde police officer and began checking classrooms, looking for the gunman.

As they moved to the west side of the campus, a teacher pointed them to the wing the gunman had entered. As Arredondo and the Uvalde police officer ran toward it, they heard a “great deal of rounds” fired off inside. Arredondo believes that was the moment the gunman first entered adjoining classrooms 111 and 112 and started firing on the children with an AR-15 rifle.

Arredondo said he was not aware of the 911 calls because he did not have his radio and no one in the hallway relayed that information to him. Arredondo and the other officers in the hallway took great pains to remain quiet. Arredondo said they had no radio communications — and even if they’d had radios, his lawyer said, they would have turned them off in the hallway to avoid giving away their location. Instead, they passed information in whispers for fear of drawing another round of gunfire if the shooter heard them.

Finding no way to enter the room, Arredondo called police dispatch from his cellphone and asked for a SWAT team, snipers and extrication tools, like a fire hook, to open the door.

Arredondo remained in the hallway for the rest of the ordeal, waiting for a way to get into the room, and prepared to shoot the gunman if he tried to exit the classroom.

Arredondo assumed that some other officer or official had taken control of the larger response. He took on the role of a front-line responder.

He said he never considered himself the scene’s incident commander and did not give any instruction that police should not attempt to breach the building. DPS officials have described Arredondo as the incident commander and said Arredondo made the call to stand down and treat the incident as a “barricaded suspect,” which halted the attempt to enter the room and take down the shooter. “I didn’t issue any orders,” Arredondo said. “I called for assistance and asked for an extraction tool to open the door.”

Later, another key ring with between 20 and 30 keys was brought to Arredondo.

“I was praying one of them was going to open up the door each time I tried a key,” Arredondo said in an interview.

None did.

[Malvolio]

US deficit shrinks to $66B in May.

On track to be under $1T in fiscal 2022.

But the same loudmouths who blame Biden for every bit of inflation won't give him an ounce of credit for this.

[babyblob]

Since President Biden won the election, Fox has been going nonstop about the danger of undocumented migrants entering the US. Meanwhile, in Idaho, police arrest 31 Nazis in combat gear near a pride event.

I wonder if this was going to be another GOP peaceful protest? Like the Peaceful protest on the 6th?

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I wonder if this was going to be another GOP peaceful protest? Like the Peaceful protest on the 6th?

Well, of course that was gonna be a peaceful protest! I mean, what else could it have been?

[AnakinFlair]

I understand the anger, but that award was the lesser of two evils. Better that scumbag be paid to go away than reclaim his job had he been fired and resume spewing his hateful Nazi rhetoric. Still, his name is out there, so it’s unlikely he’ll ever get another job in law enforcement, or any other field for that matter, and, unless he’s a miser in the same vein as Ebenezer Scrooge (before the spirits came calling), that million bucks won’t stretch too terribly far in today’s economy.

Yeah, that's what- 3 tanks of gas?

I know it was the less of two evils, and I'm glad he's still gone. It still galls me that he got anything, though. I mean, if we were supposed to get paid for being an *******, I'd be a billionaire.

[CSTowle]

Honestly, the most galling part of this whole affair was how quickly McConnell moved to introduce legislation to protect the Supreme Court Justices. Meanwhile kids have been getting gunned down in their schools for the past 20 years, and he's done jack.

Whatever you feel about Trump's Justices and Roe, if we have some Handmaid's Tale-like killing of Justices like they tried with Pelosi and Pence on Jan. 6th (only actually succeeding) that's going to be the tipping point/boiling point that could put us on the path to another Civil War or a fascist takeover.

[Kirby101]

Whatever you feel about Trump's Justices and Roe, if we have some Handmaid's Tale-like killing of Justices like they tried with Pelosi and Pence on Jan. 6th (only actually succeeding) that's going to be the tipping point/boiling point that could put us on the path to another Civil War or a fascist takeover.

Sure. Who said they should be assassinated. But why do they have to pass a law. Doesn't law enforcement already protect them? Isn't it already a crime to threaten them? This is the GOP trying to make the left terrorist to deflect from most terrorist in this country are on the Right.
Sotomayor was threatened, where was Mitch then.