Yep, those bullets just threw themselves into those kids and exploded

And the contest continues between the Orange Loser and Governor I Got Mine Fuck You for who can present the biggest "Moron or Motherfucking Liar?" question.

From TPM:

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin (R) on Monday told President Donald Trump that a “culture of death,” “psychiatric drugs” and a lapse in morality are contributing to the increase in mass shootings in America.

He also said guns are not to blame because “there have always been guns.”

SNIP

Monday was not the first time Bevin, a National Rifle Association-backed supporter of gun owners’ rights, has blamed mass shootings on cultural and moral issues, or on “psychiatric drugs.”

Last month, after an armed student attacked a school in his state and killed two and injured 18, Bevin blamed violence in movies, video games and music lyrics for desensitizing young people to violence. During an interview on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” last week, Bevin made similar claims and said that since guns have been around for decades, blame shouldn’t be cast on weapons.

SNIP

Kentucky is one of the top 10 states with the least restrictive gun laws, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The state does not require background checks for purchases, doesn’t license firearms owners and doesn’t regulate assault weapons.  

 Oh, yes, America:  This is your post-trump future.  If you're wondering what could possibly be worse than the Orange Loser, watch Kentucky.  That motherfucker is running for president, and we're fucking doomed.

Oh, no you don't. Not the top student at MY alma mater.

At 22, Omar Salinas Chacon has already accomplished more and overcome more racist, unAmerican obstacles than every fascist, torturing, Constitution-fucking ICE agent in the country put together.

That the trumpie stormtroopers would even think about deporting Salinas Chacon is a mountain of shame on us, the American citizens who are letting it happen.

From the Herald:

By any measure, Eastern Kentucky University senior Omar Salinas Chacon is a model student.

With a double major in political science and Spanish, a longtime member of student government and a captain of the mock trial team, Salinas Chacon recently was named “Student of the Year” by the National Collegiate Honors Council, the top prize in the nation for honors students. After graduation, he plans to go to law school to help those less fortunate than himself.

But right now, Salinas Chacon, 22, can’t see a future beyond October 2019. That’s when his status as a legal resident ends under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which gives legal status to children brought to this country by their parents. The program is at the center of a protracted political argument in Washington. Unless Congress reaches a compromise, Salinas Chacon and hundreds of thousands of others who were born elsewhere but grew up in the United States could be targeted for deportation in coming months and years.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article201739959.html#storylink=cpy

“We work hard for this country, and this is our home. We don’t know any other,” said Salinas Chacon, who came from El Salvador at age 5 after his father and grandfather were kidnapped by gangs. He and his brother grew up in Nashville and Louisville. “But now the rug is being pulled out from under us and we’re being played as chess pieces in a bigger political game.”

 

SNIP

 

The U.S. Supreme Court could decide Friday if it will review the lower court’s ban on DACA deportations.

Despite the turmoil and uncertainty, Salinas Chacon has stayed busy. He’s a peer mentor to other Latino students and works as the student assistant to the director of the EKU Latino Retention program. (Because of his immigration status, he cannot receive federal financial aid to help pay for college.)

“Omar stands as a paragon example of exactly what is at stake in this policy debate,” said Dr. David Coleman, director of EKU’s Honors Program. “Although always a stellar student, he has because of his immigration status been ineligible to apply for many of the nationally competitive fellowships for which he otherwise would have been extremely competitive.”

Dreamers are fighting.  We have to get their backs. 

Boy, 11, shoots sister, 6, in head. But it's got nothing to do with the gun.

Because if there hadn't been a gun in the house the boy would have accidentally gouged a hole in his sister's head with a claw hammer I guess?

The magical thinking of gun nuts is just fucking amazing.

From the Herald:

An 11-year-old boy in Bell County accidentally shot his 6-year-old sister in the head with a pistol while the two were unsupervised, according to Kentucky State Police.

The shooting left the girl in critical condition, according to a news release.

The shooting happened Tuesday about 8:30 p.m. in the Blackmont community.

Trooper Shane Jacobs, a state police spokesman, said he was told the parents of the boy and girl had gone to a nearby store. Police did not release the names of the parents or children.

SNIP

 The Herald-Leader reported last year that it’s rare in Kentucky for parents to be prosecuted after an accidental child shooting involving an unsecured firearm, despite at least 36 children being shot — 15 fatally — in the preceding five years in accidental child shootings.

Yes, the parents acted negligently and stupidly. But again, that's not the problem here. Kids left alone in a house with no guns rarely accidentally shoot their siblings.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article201612144.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article201612144.html#storylink=cpy

Walk Out And Protest, KY Students; They Can't Stop You

Don't wait for the superintendent; don't wait for the principal; DON'T WAIT.  You know the right thing to do; you know you have right on your side, and you know you've got the country on your side.

Here, have every one of Evan Hurst's perfect words from Wonkette:

Smart American kids who don’t really feel like being shot at today are planning national school walk-outs and huge anti-gun rallies all over the country in the coming months, to push the adults in charge to finallyfuckingfinally do something about our uniquely American gun terrorism problem. So of course, predictably and like clockwork, some of those adults in positions of authority have decided to threaten to punish those kids, for so disrespectfully exercising their Constitutional rights.

Such is happening in the Needville school district in Texas, near Houston, where Superintendent Curtis Rhodes is threatening to punish his kids for doing what’s right:

In a letter sent to families and published on schools’ social media sites, Rhodes said students would face a three-day, out-of-school suspension if they joined in growing protests nationwide over the shooting at a Florida high school last week.

“Life is all about choices and every choice has a consequence whether it be positive or negative. We will discipline no matter if it is one, fifty, or five hundred students involved,” Rhodes wrote. “All will be suspended for 3 days and parent notes will not alleviate the discipline.” […]

Rhodes said the school district is sensitive to violence in schools, but said his schools’ are focused on education, not political protests.

“A school is a place to learn and grow educationally, emotionally and morally,” Rhodes wrote.
“A disruption of the school will not be tolerated.”

High school students of America, does that sound like a dare to you? Because it sounds a lot like a dare to us. TAKE THE DARE. And if they threaten even harsher consequences, take the DOUBLE DOG DARE. You’ve got this.

Kids, it is your right to protest in the United States of America. (Seriously, click that link to learn about your rights if you need to brush up.) Also, a little civil disobedience is called for sometimes. Just ask Congressman John Lewis, who was beaten on the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, because black folks wanted to register to vote.

 

And you’re gonna be worried about some superintendent threatening to mark up your permanent record with his stupid red pen because you spoke out about not wanting to get mowed down by bullets at school? LOL, like hell you are.

If superintendents, principals, teachers, or anyone else threatens to punish you for exercising your Constitutional right to protest for the cause of “I do not wish to be gunned down at school or anywhere else with semi-auto weapons,” if they say they’re going to suspend you, if they lie and try to convince you colleges won’t look at you if you are so disobedient, call their motherfucking bluff. Walk out of that school, locking arms with all your friends as you go.

And if they make good on their threats? Take the three-day suspension, and while you’re sitting at home thinking about how naughty you’ve been, call the ACLU. Those civil rights lawyers love shit like this! And if you’re worried about getting into college, write your college entrance essay about why you walked out and what it taught you. Godless liberal academia loves shit like that!

REMINDER TO SENIORS: It’s February. If you are college-bound, your admissions stuff is probably already finished. Even more reason to tell Principal DoucheRocket to get bent!

Also? You all probably have serious senior-itis right now anyway, so just do whatever you feel the Lord is leading you to do.

This has been a Wonkette public service announcement, for the badass high school kids of America, who will lead us out of the hell in which Donald Trump, the GOP and the NRA have placed us.

Onward, kids!

They Know, They Just Don't Care

Kentucky repugs have solved the problem of school shootings:  MOAR GUNS IN SCHOOLS.

Of course they know it will only make things worse.  They don't care.  The lives of Kentucky kids are irrelevant next to the danger of gun manufacturers losing a single sale to a guy wearing a T-shirt that reads "I needs gunz to massacre kindergartners."

Oh, and also babby jeebus.

However, almost all the gun legislation filed so far this session would expand access to guns in schools, including one bill that would allow guns on university campuses, and another that would allow unlicensed guns in public.

 Meanwhile, the Kentucky leader of an anti-gun violence movement said the Florida school shooting — just a few weeks after two students were killed at Marshall County High School in Western Kentucky— is another example of why such legislation should be tanked.

And Governor "No money for public schools, except assault weapons" is still parroting the NRA line.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article200319349.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article200319349.html#storylink=cpyMeanwhile, the Kentucky leader of an anti-gun violence movement said the Florida school shooting — just a few weeks after two students were killed at Marshall County High School in Western Kentucky— is another example of why such legislation should be tanked.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article200319349.html#storylink=cpy

 Meanwhile, the Kentucky leader of an anti-gun violence movement said the Florida school shooting — just a few weeks after two students were killed at Marshall County High School in Western Kentucky— is another example of why such legislation should be tanked.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article200319349.html#storylink=cpy

Shut Down the Gun Pump

Digby's had it right for years:  gun massacres won't end until we shut down the source.

 Here is an interesting story for you to read today:

British doctor John Snow couldn’t convince other doctors and scientists that cholera, a deadly disease, was spread when people drank contaminated water until a mother washed her baby’s diaper in a town well in 1854 and touched off an epidemic that killed 616 people.
[...]
Dr. Snow believed sewage dumped into the river or into cesspools near town wells could contaminate the water supply, leading to a rapid spread of disease.
In August of 1854 Soho, a suburb of London, was hit hard by a terrible outbreak of cholera. Dr. Snows himself lived near Soho, and immediately went to work to prove his theory that contaminated water was the cause of the outbreak.
“Within 250 yards of the spot where Cambridge Street joins Broad Street there were upwards of 500 fatal attacks of cholera in 10 days,” Dr. Snow wrote “As soon as I became acquainted with the situation and extent of this irruption (sic) of cholera, I suspected some contamination of the water of the much-frequented street-pump in Broad Street.”
Dr. Snow worked around the clock to track down information from hospital and public records on when the outbreak began and whether the victims drank water from the Broad Street pump. Snow suspected that those who lived or worked near the pump were the most likely to use the pump and thus, contract cholera. His pioneering medical research paid off. By using a geographical grid to chart deaths from the outbreak and investigating each case to determine access to the pump water, Snow developed what he considered positive proof the pump was the source of the epidemic... Snow was able to prove that the cholera was not a problem in Soho except among people who were in the habit of drinking water from the Broad Street pump. He also studied samples of water from the pump and found white flecks floating in it, which he believed were the source of contamination.
On 7 September 1854, Snow took his research to the town officials and convinced them to take the handle off the pump, making it impossible to draw water. The officials were reluctant to believe him, but took the handle off as a trial only to find the outbreak of cholera almost immediately trickled to a stop. Little by little, people who had left their homes and businesses in the Broad Street area out of fear of getting cholera began to return.

It took many more years before it was widely accepted that cholera came from the water. (In fact, it took a priest trying to prove that it was God's will to finally do it!)

But here's the relevant takeaway: they didn't need to cure the disease to end the epidemic. What ended it was shutting down the pump.

Here's another story for you to think about today:

From 1984 to 1996, multiple killings aroused public concern. The 1984 Milperra massacre was a major incident in a series of conflicts between various 'outlaw motorcycle gangs'. In 1987, the Hoddle Street massacre and the Queen Street massacre took place in Melbourne. In response, several states required the registration of all guns, and restricted the availability of self-loading rifles and shotguns. In the Strathfield massacre in New South Wales, 1991, two were killed with a knife, and five more with a firearm. Tasmania passed a law in 1991 for firearm purchasers to obtain a licence, though enforcement was light. Firearm laws in Tasmania and Queensland remained relatively relaxed for longarms. In 1995, Tasmania had the second lowest rate of homicides per head of population.
The Port Arthur massacre in 1996 transformed gun control legislation in Australia. Thirty five people were killed and 21 wounded when a man with a history of violent and erratic behaviour beginning in early childhood opened fire on shop owners and tourists with two military style semi-automatic rifles. Six weeks after the Dunblane massacre in Scotland, this mass killing at the notorious former convict prison at Port Arthur horrified the Australian public and had powerful political consequences.
The Port Arthur perpetrator said he bought his firearms from a gun dealer without holding the required firearms licence.
Prime Minister John Howard, then newly elected, immediately took the gun law proposals developed from the report of the 1988 National Committee on Violence and forced the states to adopt them under a National Firearms Agreement. This was necessary because the Australian Constitution does not give the Commonwealth power to enact gun laws. The proposals included a ban on all semi-automatic rifles and all semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns, and a tightly restrictive system of licensing and ownership controls.
Some discussion of measures to allow owners to undertake modifications to reduce the capacity of magazine-fed shotguns ("crimping") occurred, but the government refused to permit this.
Surveys showed up to 85% of Australians supported gun control,but some farmers and sporting shooters strongly opposed the new laws.

This did not solve the problem of mental illness or end the primitive capacity of human beings to commit murder and mayhem. Those are huge problems that their society, like all societies, is still grappling with every day. But it did end the epidemic of mass shootings. They have not had even one since then.

The lesson is this: End the epidemic and then we can --- and must --- talk about root causes, extremist ideology, mental health facilities and our violent culture. But first things first --- shut down the damned pump.

Only Gun Profits Matter

Tristero at Hullabaloo:

Rejecting Tax Plan Proves KY Repugs Want to Kill Pensions, Not Save Them

Oh, look, guys:  an actual tax reform plan that raises $600 million to save employee pensions while preserving essential programs and making the greedhead rich start paying their fair share.

But no.  That's not what the repugs who own KY state government want.  They want an excuse to to the state economy into Haiti. Destroying the lives of 35,000 state employees is just gravy.

From the Herald:

State Rep. James Kay, D-Versailles, last week filed a package of five bills that could collect more than $600 million a year in fresh revenue for Kentucky’s ailing public pension systems with taxes on tobacco, prescription opiates and outsourced labor and potentially raise even more money by scrutinizing the state’s long-unexamined tax breaks.

But Kay’s plan appears dead on arrival.

House Speaker Pro Tem David Osborne, R-Prospect, on Friday said the Republican-led House of Representatives won’t consider any bills during this legislative session that simply raise additional revenue — not even for the state’s $40 billion in unfunded pension liabilities.

SNIP

In an interview outside Osborne’s Capitol office, Kay said he isn’t surprised that his bills are doomed. For all of the talk of a “pension crisis” in Frankfort, Republican leaders in the General Assembly won’t consider anyone’s ideas but their own, which focus on cutting retirement benefits for teachers and other public workers, he said.
 

“I’ve worked on this comprehensive plan for three years,” said Kay, who is a member of the Public Pension Oversight Board.

“I presented this plan in its raw form to the pension oversight board, and it got no response,” Kay said. “I presented this plan to House leadership; same reaction. The current approach is to cut benefits and not to raise revenue. They don’t want to look at anything that’s outside of that box. They want to solve this problem on the backs of state employees and teachers.”

James Kay for Governor, goddammit.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article199676599.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article199676599.html#storylink=cpy

Our Own Efforts

Divine Irony:

Repugs Are Forcing Kentuckians to Freeze in the Dark

If you wonder where all the market uber alles worship of private corporations went, repugs never really meant it.

Now, they know damn well coal is a stinking corpse and natural gas is going down, too.  But they still can't shake that fossil fuel monkey off their backs.

If Kentucky can't have coal, it can't have any energy at all.

From the Herald:

A controversial bill that would make it less financially attractive to install solar energy panels in Kentucky is going to the full House after it overwhelmingly was approved Thursday by the House Natural Resources Committee.

House Bill 227 would dramatically roll back the reimbursements paid to future homeowners with solar panels on their roofs when they sell surplus energy to utility companies, a practice known as “net metering.” Instead of getting the retail rate, homeowners would get the much lower wholesale rate.

Solar panel installers say the smaller payments could mean that homeowners would need 20 years to recoup the cost of putting panels on their roofs — an average of $20,000 — instead of the current nine years.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article199091289.html#storylink=cpy

KY State Police Threaten Drunk Drives With Rape

Lunkhead, mouth-breathing morons.

Rape, even in prison, is a crime.  And using it to try to intimidate people who have committed no crime but may possibly do so is also a crime.

From the Herald:

As advertisers tried to grab attention during Super Bowl Sunday, Kentucky State Police made a tweet that made a reference to rape in prison in attempts to discourage people from drinking and driving.

Throughout the night, the official state police account tweeted with references to the game to discourage people from drinking and driving. After Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski made a catch during the game, the official Kentucky State Police account tweeted out a gif of a bar of soap on a rope. 

“#SB52 Enjoy watching @Robgronkowski (TE) play but if you drink & drive...your tight-end may end up in jail! #designateddriver #Super Bowl,” the caption on the tweet said.

Kentucky State Police later deleted the tweet and apologized. It was up for a little under two hours.

Public Affairs Commander Mike Webb should be fired. Everybody who approved that tweet or thought it was a good idea or funny should be fired.  Every single employee of KSP should have to undergo Guardian training until they understand that their job is to protect and serve, not threaten and intimidate.

I'm sure Governor Conservative Snowflake thought that tweet was hilarious.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article198389184.html#storylink=cpy

Deporting Our Best, Keeping Our Worst

And the representation in the population of privileged white conservatard men rises every day that working, patriotic Americans are railroaded out of the country.

With every lost immigrant, America gains more gun-crazed, racist and misogynistic assholes just panting for the chance to kill more ni**ers and cunts.

We are eating our seed corn.

From Wonkette:

Another turn of the New Cruelty screw: Miguel Perez, Jr., 39, a green card holder who has been in the USA since he was eight years old, is facing deportation because he’s one of those criminal aliens we’re all supposed to be terrified of. Perez joined the Army in 2001 and served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, and he mistakenly thought taking his oath to defend the nation made him a citizen, but it didn’t. He could have applied for expedited citizenship, but didn’t since he didn’t look into the details. He also says his superiors in the military never offered him any help with becoming a citizen.

After three judges from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turned down his request to stay in the US last week, he announced Wednesday that he would begin a hunger strike. He believes that if he were sent back to Mexico, he’d be targeted by drug cartels, who seek out combat veterans to join them. If he were to refuse, he believes he’d be killed. That argument didn’t convince the three-judge appeals panel, which decided he needs to be deported.

“If it comes down to me being deported, I would rather leave this world in the country I gave my heart for,” Perez said in an interview from the detention center where he has been in custody for the last year.

Shame on those judges.  Shame on the U.S.Army for not defending one of their own.  Shame on the fucking fascists of ICE.   Shame on every piece-of-shit trump voter.