Showing posts with label don lemon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label don lemon. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Don Lemon Tells Rape Victims to Just Bite and Run Away

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Previous Related Posts:
Don Lemon Gets Shoved By Cop in #Ferguson
Don Lemon Enters Black Hole of Missing Plane Coverage
Don Lemon: Shoe Shines, Litterbugs, and Belts
Don Lemon Blames Black Community for Trayvon Martin Shooting

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Don Lemon of CNN a woman who says actor Bill Cosby forced her to have oral sex. And Lemon, as only Lemon can, decided to go all "Blame the Victim" on her, suggesting she should have just "used her teeth" to escape. Once again he is in the Vortex of the Twilight Zone.

This is the real interview transcript via Media Matters


LEMON: Can I ask you this, because -- and please, I don't mean to be crude, OK?

TARSHIS: Yeah.

LEMON: Because I know some of you -- and you said this last night, that he -- you lied to him and said "I have an infection, and if you rape me, or if you do -- if you have intercourse with me, then you will probably get it and give it to your wife."

TARSHIS: Right.

LEMON: And you said he made you perform oral sex.

TARSHIS: Right.

LEMON: You -- you know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn't want to do it.

TARSHIS: Oh. Um, I was kind of stoned at the time, and quite honestly, that didn't even enter my mind. Now I wish it would have.

LEMON: Right. Meaning the using of the teeth, right?

TARSHIS: Yes, that's what I'm thinking you're --

LEMON: As a weapon.

TARSHIS: Yeah, I didn't even think of it.

LEMON: Biting. So, um --

TARSHIS: Ouch.

LEMON: Yes. I had to ask. I mean, it is, yeah.

TARSHIS: Yes. No, it didn't cross my mind.

And thus the hashtag #DonLemonReporting came to Twitter:

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Monday, August 25, 2014

St. Louis Area Cops Out of Control ~ With Updates

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Previous Related Posts:
Lies of Darren Wilson - No Broken Eye, No Police Report
Ferguson: The Shocking Death of Kajieme Powell
Monday Night Mayhem in Ferguson
Journalists Attacked and Arrested in Ferguson

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From the beginning, it's been obvious that Ferguson area police have anger problems and aren't properly trained in the use of firearms, not to mention the inherent racism in the targeting of African Americans. What is shocking to the world is that these guys seem totally fine with their violent threats and impulses.

UPDATE: Sergeant Mike Weston

Via The New Civil Rights Movement:
Sergeant Mike Weston took to Twitter this week, complaining about "libs", giving out false information, insulting Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson's approach to community policing and threatening to seek out visiting U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, in order to "punch him in the nose."

Note: He has since deleted his twitter account:

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Weston also attacked State Patrolman Ron Johnson who was brought in to calm down the crowds, calling his method "Hug-A-Thug."

Tweet pic via Crooks and Liars

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UPDATE: Officer Matthew Pappert

From the Telegraph
The police department in Glendale, another St Louis suburb, said Friday it had suspended one of its officers who expressed contempt for the Ferguson protesters on his Facebook account.
. . . "I'm sick of these protesters. You are a burden on society and a blight on the community," wrote Pappert in one of at least five posts that went up since Sunday.
"These protesters should have been put down like a rabid dog the first night," he added.
In a reference to the Boston Marathon bombing, he also wrote: "Where is a Muslim with a backpack when you need them."
The Glendale Police Department, in a statement, said it suspended Pappert upon learning about the posts on Friday. It also cancelled a neighborhood block party for fear it might be disrupted by protesters.

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Here is Detective Corporal Ray Albers pointing a large weapon at journalists while threatening to "F***in Kill" them. Albers was put on leave after this video surfaced.



UPDATE: Ray Albers has resigned.

From Huffington Post
Lt. Ray Albers, 46, stepped down from the St. Ann police department on Thursday, the St. Louis Dispatch reported. The resignation comes just a little over a week after The Huffington Post and other outlets confirmed Albers' identity in footage of the officer threatening civilians protesting the death of Michael Brown.

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Next we have Sargent Major Dan Page, who made an openly racist speech back in April, and who has also been relieved of duty.


This is the same policeman who unnecessarily pushed CNN's Don Lemon on the air.



Chief John Belmar told Don Lemon that he was "embarrassed" by Dan Page's remarks, and he made an apology to anyone offended by it.

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UPDATE Dan Page has retired with Full Pension!!!

From MSNBC
Officer Dan Page, a 35-year veteran of the force, had his last day on August 25th. Sergeant Colby Dolly, aid to the St. Louis County Police Chief, told msnbc by phone that Page is expected to receive his full pension.

I doubt anyone is happy that he is getting his full pension. Stay tuned because I expect we will hear more about that.

Also, Page made even more weird comments earlier this year - conspiracy stuff. He must be watching Alex Jones.

Via Slate
In a handful of interviews unearthed by Rachel Tabachnick of Political Research Associates, Pages further opines that there is a military plot to overthrow the United States and establish a one-world government, that sexual assault in the military is “99.9 percent” fictitious, and that “through our government education system your Caucasian females are telling young black males that the white male is the enemy.”

Okey-Dokey. *eyeroll*

From the man in charge of Dan Page:

"I joined this police department 28 years ago because
it was a professional agency and it remains so today.
We cannot have these kinds of comments and behavior."



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UPDATE: As of 8-30-14, Darren Wilson still has not shown his face or made a statement through an attorney



The Washington Post has a story this Monday morning about the fact that Mike Brown's killer, officer Darren Wilson, originally served on another police force so corrupt they disbanded it!

From Washington Post
After going through the police academy, Wilson landed a job in 2009 as a rookie officer in Jennings, a small, struggling city of 14,000 where 89 percent of the residents were African American and poverty rates were high. At the time, the 45-employee police unit had one or two black members on the force, said Allan Stichnote, a white Jennings City Council member.
Racial tension was endemic in Jennings, said Rodney Epps, an African American city council member.
“You’re dealing with white cops, and they don’t know how to address black people,” Epps said. “The straw that broke the camel’s back, an officer shot at a female. She was stopped for a traffic violation. She had a child in the back [of the] car and was probably worried about getting locked up. And this officer chased her down Highway 70, past city limits, and took a shot at her. Just ridiculous.”
Police faced a series of lawsuits for using unnecessary force, Stichnote said. One black resident, Cassandra Fuller, sued the department claiming a white Jennings police officer beat her in June 2009 on her own porch after she made a joke. A car had smashed into her van, which was parked in front of her home, and she called police. The responding officer asked her to move the van. “It don’t run. You can take it home with you if you want,” she answered. She said the officer became enraged, threw her off the porch, knocked her to the ground and kicked her in the stomach.

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UPDATE: Justin Cosma

Cosma was seen guarding the Ferguson Police station during a protest on Saturday Aug. 30, 2014:





Huff Post has the story of Officer Justin Cosma, the Ferguson cop who detained journalists Wesley Lowrey and Ryan J. Reilly of Huffington Post when they were charging up their phones at a local McDonald's. On that night, Cosma refused to give his name or his badge number, and chose to arrest the two writers instead of simply telling them how to return to their cars. They were later released without charges, but there's no doubt they have been trying to find out more about Cosma ever since.

Surprise! Cosma didn't turn into a sociopath just for the protest, but was already embroiled in a Civil Rights Lawsuit over hog-tying a 12-year-old child - that's right, hog-tying! - when the kid was merely checking his own mailbox in front of his own house. Hello, Lord Voldemort - we didn't know you worked for the Ferguson Police Department.



From Huffington Post:
"The lawsuit alleges that Justin Cosma and Richard Carter, two deputies with the Jefferson County, Missouri sheriff's department in 2010, assaulted my client during an encounter on my client's driveway while his mother was inside their house.
My client was 12 years old at the time, shirtless and was not suspected of any criminal behavior. He was checking the mail. The deputies approached my client and the encounter quickly escalated. My client was restrained, choked, thrown to the ground and hogtied by the two deputies. He suffered scrapes and choke marks to his neck. No charges were ever brought against my client. It is my understanding that Justin Cosma is currently an officer with the City of Ferguson."...




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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Monday Night Mayhem in Ferguson

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Cover Photo by David Carson @PDPJ

Previous Related Posts:
Heading to #Fergustan ~ Gov. Calls Out National Guard
Ferguson Update: Shooter Identified, Tanks Return
Journalists Attacked and Arrested in Ferguson
Ferguson Missouri Uses Militarized Police on Protestors

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Another bad night in Ferguson, Missouri. The Governor announced yesterday that the official curfew was lifted. But just before midnight the tanks and heavily armed police rolled onto the scene out of nowhere. Suddenly shots were being fired, rocks were thrown, and tear gas filled the air. A few more journalists were roughed up or arrested, but hey - they are keeping the peace, right? Are we Russia now? No - eventually this mayhem has to end. The President is sending Eric Holder to Ferguson today, and hopefully the murderer of Michael Brown will be arrested, or they will at least explain WHY he hasn't been arrested yet. Is Darren Wilson even in Missouri at this time?

Stunning Scenes from Yesterday:














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President Obama Made a Statement Yesterday









This morning Tamron Hall Grilled the Mayor of Ferguson
on his BS statement "There's no Racial Divide Here"



The Press had another Hard Day's Night








Jake Tapper of CNN Denounced the Police Overkill

Via Mediaite
“I want to show you this, okay? To give you an idea of what’s going on. The protesters have moved all the way down there… they’re all the way down there. Nobody is threatening anything. Nobody is doing anything. None of the stores here that I can see are being looted. There is no violence.
Now I want you to look at what is going on in Ferguson, Missouri, in downtown America, okay? These are armed police, with — not machine guns — semi-automatic rifles, with batons, with shields, many of them dressed for combat. Now why they’re doing this? I don’t know. Because there is no threat going on here. None that merits this. There is none, okay? Absolutely there have been looters, absolutely over the last nine days there’s been violence, but there is nothing going on on this street right now that merits this scene out of Bagram. Nothing.
So if people wonder why the people of Ferguson, Missouri are so upset, this is part of the reason. What is this? This doesn’t make any sense.”


CNN's Jake Tapper Going In by 3030fm

And There Was Don Lemon




Don Lemon getting pushed around which caused some levity on Twitter. Not because the situation with police in Ferguson is funny, but because in the past Lemon made speeches that seemed to blame innocent kids like Trayvon Martin for attracting the ire of white people by wearing baggy pants and using Black slang. He had even mocked the protesters the night before as "these people." It somehow seemed poetic justice that the clueless Lemon got a taste of police brutality.

















Meanwhile on MSNBC - Rocks Were Thrown



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Great reporting by Yamiche Alcindor:

















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Thursday, March 20, 2014

Don Lemon Enters Black Hole of CNN Missing Plane Coverage

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Previous Related Posts:
Don Lemon: Shoe Shines, Litterbugs and Belts
CNN's Don Lemon Blames Black Community for Trayvon Martin Incident

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A lot of people have been asking about Black Holes and on and on and on and all of these conspiracy theories....Bermuda Triangle ...What about the movie "Lost"? Also referencing the Twilight Zone which has a very similar plot. That's what people are saying. I know it's preposterous but is it preposterous, you think...?
~ Don Lemon on CNN with panel discussing Malaysian Flight 370





















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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Don Lemon Logic ~ Shoe Shines, Litterbugs and Belts

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Previous Post:
CNN's Don Lemon Blames the Black Community for Trayvon Martin Racism

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CNN Transcripts Saturday July 27, 2013
DON LEMON: Michael Skolnik, I talked in that segment about the so-called thug culture that the hip-hop and rap community promotes, and you are a -- you are a proponent for hip-hop and rap. You don't believe that we should stop saying the n-word.

MICHAEL SKOLNIK, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GLOBALGRIND.COM: Don, I think your comments sounded like a conservative preacher on a Sunday and certainly Bill O'Reilly should welcome you on his show. I'm disappointed in you --

LEMON: Yes, but -- go ahead, I'll let you finish.

SKOLNIK: Here's the thing. You are talking about sagging pants. I've heard the rap for years. Let's not talk about sagging pants and let us talk about why we incarcerate 2.2 million people in this country and why young kids look up to guys who come out of jail. We waged a war against black and brown people 40 years ago, the war on drugs and it failed miserably and now we are reaping the repercussions.

LEMON: But Michael, -- Michael --

SKOLNIK: Yes.

LEMON: Not every black kid is in jail and there are rules and people should know where that style comes from whether it's a black kid or a white kid whether it's Justin Bieber or any -- that is glorifying prison culture. Who wants to see someone's butt crack?

SKOLNIK: No. The community has been destroyed. Black men went to jail as diseased drug addicts and they came out as criminals because they taught them criminal behavior in prison. We destroyed the black community.

LEMON: Then why do you have to glorify that through rap and hip hop culture?

SKOLNIK: It's not glorifying it, it's a reflection of our society. Our society incarcerates 2.2 million people more than anyone else in the world. It's a reflection, it's a mirror. Don't break the mirror. Look at yourself.

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I have likened privilege to an intoxicant, one that will have you tripping so hard that you will think you don’t have it. Privilege, I have said, is one “helluva” drug. Inhale enough and you will start believing that you are among the oppressed. At its essence, however, privilege is simply the liberty not to know. I watched in horror this week as a colleague suffered a “contact high”.
A swift kick to the backside, or “tough love” as CNN anchor Don Lemon calls it, will not tear down the strictures of race, class and gender in this country. To say so gives rise to the aspersion that distressed communities are simply the manifestation of a collective moral failing.
. . . Despite his self-professed humble upbringing, Lemon betrayed a nascent understanding of the societal and political pathologies that left generations of devastation in their wake.
~ Goldie Taylor on The Grio

Whether you know it or not Don, when you jump on O’Reilly’s racist bandwagon, you come across as a clueless sock puppet…a sell-out, who has lost touch not only with the black community, but with your own soul, as well.
When you raised those five points you broad-brushed the entirety of my community just like O’Reilly does with his “fire-ready-aim” approach to ranting about how terrible and deserving of scorn black people are.
~ Kwik on Daily Kos

Don Lemon is a friend of mine, but on then score I think that Mr. Lemon has missed the boat. The reality is we can’t blame the victims. We can’t blame people who are victimized by a vicious attitude that profiles them.
Bill O’Reilly has advanced no profound commitment to or sympathy for African-American people. He’s constantly lecturing us from his bastardized podium where he condescendingly throws out nuggets of wisdom to us without understanding the existential and moral crisis that attend the kind of victimization of black people.
Are we going to say white culture is pathologized because it refuses to take care of its children? Its kids are going to hell in a hand basket because they are on meth and they don’t care about the fundamental structure of the family?
We can indict the white family. There’s a lot of negativity, there’s a lot of dismissiveness, there’s a lot of crass materialism that refuses to care for the other.
~ Michael Eric Dyson on MSNBC's Martin Bashir











































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Sunday, July 28, 2013

CNN's Don Lemon Blames Black Community for Trayvon Martin Incident



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DON LEMON, HOST: We're going to take a break from the headlines to talk about something I've had on my mind for quite some time now. So much so that I felt compelled to bring back our segment where we hold politicians, leaders, and pundits accountable for what comes out of their mouths. It's time now, again, for “No Talking Points."

The Trayvon Martin murder case got just about everybody talking about race, and not just specifically how it related to the case. It got some, many on the political right, wondering why the so-called liberal media wasn't talking about other problems in the black community.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
JUDITH MILLER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: Let's talk about race. Let's talk about black-on-black violence.

DAVID WEBB, TALK RADIO HOST: The outrage that I have is in the lack of really the national attention to what is an epidemic of crime in the black community committed largely by blacks.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)

LEMON: Why aren't we talking about it? Good question. Actually, that's not a good question. We talked about it many times on this show and on CNN. It's actually a good deflection as I've said a number of times to a number of guests here on CNN and also on the radio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: David, do not that false equivalent. That is not…

WEBB: No, I'm not trying to equivocate

LEMON: But, listen, crime happens all the time and because a crime happens, it does not mean that you should shift the focus from what happened here. Let's stick to this particular point so continue and let's talk about this case.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: So, that's the reason I didn't want to discuss at length crime in the African-American community or how to fix other ills that seem to be plaguing the community in general. But now that the jury has reached its verdict, one that everyone must accept, it's time now for some tough love on the subject. Someone on another network got the chance to go first because I couldn't go during the week. I'm only here on the weekend, so listen to this.



(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL O’REILLY, FOX NEWS: The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is the disintegration of the African-American family.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He's got a point. In fact, he's got more than a point. Bill?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
O’REILLY: Raised without much structure, young black men often reject education and gravitate towards the street culture, drugs, hustling, gangs. Nobody forces them to do that, again, it is a personal decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: He is right about that, too. But in my estimation, he doesn't go far enough. Because black people, if you really want to fix the problem, here's just five things that you should think about doing. Here's number five, and if this doesn't apply to you, if you're not doing this, then it doesn't apply to you, I'm not talking to you. Here's number five. Pull up your pants. Some people, a lot of them black, gave me flak for saying that recently on the “Wendy Williams Show."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: If you're sagging, it means I think your self-esteem is sagging and who you are as a person it's sagging. Young people need to be taught respect and there are rules.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: Sagging pants, whether it's Justin Bieber or no-name Derek around the way, walking around with your ass and your underwear showing is not okay. In fact, it comes from prison when they take away belts from the prisoners so that they can't make a weapon. And then it evolved into which role a prisoner would have during male-on-male prison sex. The one with the really low pants is the submissive one. You get my point?

Number four now is the N-word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
RAPPER JAY Z: For our generation, what we did was we took the word and we took the power out of that word.

ACTOR/COMEDIAN CHRIS ROCK: We took this word, and we made it into poetry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)


 LEMON: I understand poetic license, but consider this: I hosted a special on the N-word, suggesting that black people stop using it and that entertainers stop deluding yourselves or themselves and others that you're somehow taking the word back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: By promoting the use of that word when it's not germane to the conversation, have you ever considered that you may be just perpetuating the stereotype the massa intended acting like a nigger?
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: A lot of African-Americans took offense to that, too. And I wondered if I gave the right advice, I really did. But confirmation came the very next day on my way home when I exited the subway on 125th Street in Harlem. This little kid in a school uniform, no older than 7 years old, he was crying his eyes out as he walked down the sidewalk with his mother. I'm going to be honest here, she turned to him and she said, “I'm sick of you. You act like an old ass man. Stop all that crying, nigger.” Is that taking the word back? Think about that.

Now number three: respect where you live. Start small by not dropping trash, littering in your own communities. I've lived in several predominantly white neighborhoods in my life. I rarely, if ever, witnessed people littering. I live in Harlem now, it's an historically black neighborhood. Every single day I see adults and children dropping their trash on the ground when a garbage can is just feet away. Just being honest here.

Number two: finish school. You want to break the cycle of poverty? Stop telling kids they're acting white because they go to school or they speak proper English. A high school dropout makes on average $19,000 a year. A high school graduate makes $28,000 a year. A college graduate makes $51,000 a year. Over the course of a career, a college grad will make nearly $1 million more than a high school graduate. That's a lot of money.

And number one, and probably the most important: just because you can have a baby, it doesn't mean you should. Especially without planning for one or getting married first. More than 72 percent pf children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock. That means absent fathers. And the studies show that lack of a male role model is an express train right to prison and the cycle continues.

So, please, black folks, as I said if this doesn't apply to you, I'm not talking to you. Pay attention to and think about what has been presented in recent history as acceptable behavior. Pay close attention to the hip-hop and rap culture that many of you embrace, a culture that glorifies everything I just mentioned, thug and reprehensible behavior. A culture that is making a lot of people rich, just not you. And it's not going to. That said, though, the political right is not off the hook.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIRSTEN POWERS, FOX NEWS: If conservatives are so concerned about black-on-black crime, it's a little concerning the only time I hear them talking about it is when they want to stick it to the black community.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEMON: And that's today's "No Talking Points."













































































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Monday, December 17, 2012

Who Needs Assault Weapons? (Updated)

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On Dec. 14, the day an armed citizen killed 26 unarmed women and children at a Connecticut elementary school, the NRA's Twitter account went silent. It has not tweeted since. Meanwhile, its Facebook page has disappeared, along with those 1.7 million "likes." Navigating to www.facebook.com/nationalrifleassociation now redirects to the Facebook homepage.
~ Slate



I wish to God she had an M-4 in her office locked up so when she heard gunfire she pulls it out and she didn’t have to lunge heroically with nothing in her hands but she takes him out, takes his head off before he can kill those precious kids.
~ Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-TX, on Fox News

If school teachers are now to be armed, wouldn’t the teachers have to carry around their assault rifles at all time since they would not know when an attack would occur? Indeed, given the low likelihood of such an attack, should they also be equipped with ebola-medical kits, rabies treatment packs, floatation devices, and other equipment for more likely threats. The average soldier, after all, carries as much as 135 pounds depending on their unit. Should our teachers carry less to protect our children?
~ Law Professor Jonathan Turley

. . . teachers are not soldiers, nor do the vast majority of us want to be soldiers. Could we ever train teachers and other school personnel as well as we would need to? Realistically, can we create an armed line of defense between these peculiar Rambos who want to kill us for reasons none of us truly understand? I don’t think so.
However, the ethical and moral question is: do we want to give over every safe space we have — even our homes, churches and schools — to violence? Do we want to make every caretaker — every parent, minister, teacher, coach, nurse, Scout leader — into a potential soldier? I say no. And it’s time to tell the NRA, the multi-billion dollar arms business and the government that we refuse the escalation of violence.
Teachers: we are not soldiers.
~ Claire B. Potter, Professor of History at The New School for Public Engagement, New York,

Who needs an assault rifle to go hunting? You can't even use the prey that you kill with an assault rifle if you indeed do it. No one needs an assault rifle to go out and shoot a deer. No one needs an assault rifle that's capable of shooting 10, 20, 30 rounds off at the same time to shoot a duck or to shoot quail. It does not make sense.
~ Don Lemon on CNN


In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.
Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?
Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?
. . . We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.
~ President Obama speaking at the Newtown, CT, Prayer Vigil

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After mass shootings, it’s always said we must improve our mental-health system and the treatment of those who may be prone to violence. Of course we should. But this noble sentiment is too often part of a strategy to evade any action on guns themselves.
Not this time. Americans are not the only people in the world who confront mental-health problems. We are the only country that regularly experiences horrors of this sort. The difference, as the writer Garry Wills has said, is that the United States treats the gun as a secular god, immune to rational analysis and human intervention.
We must depose the false deity. We must act now to curb gun violence, or we never will.
~ E.J. Dionne on National Memo

It's time to move beyond rhetoric. We need to sit down and have a common-sense discussion and move in a reasonable way.
. . . Everything has to be on the table.
~ Senator Joe Manchin D-WV, and member of the NRA

We cannot simply accept this as a routine product of modern American life. If now is not the time to have a serious discussion about gun control and the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our society, I don’t know when is. How many more Columbines and Newtowns must we live through? I am challenging President Obama, the Congress, and the American public to act on our outrage and, finally, do something about this.
~ Congressman Gerald Nadler, D-NY

Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's Morning Joe, via Blue Virginia
You know me. I am a conservative Republican who received the NRA's highest rating over four terms in Congress...There's no easy ideological way forward...I come to you this morning with a heavy heart and no easy answers. Still, I've spent the past few days grasping for solutions and struggling for answers, while daring to question my own long-held belief on these subjects. I've always taken the libertarian's approach to Hollywood's 1st amendment rights and gun collector's 2nd amendment rights, and I stood by those libertarian beliefs after Columbine, after Aurora, and after Arizona..."
I knew the ending of this story because we've all seen it too often. I knew that day that the ideologies of my past career were no longer relevant to the future that I want, that I demand for my children. Friday changed everything, it must change everything, we all must begin anew and demand that Washington's old way of doing business is no longer acceptable.
...our Bill of Rights does not guarantee gun manufacturers the absolute right to sell military-styled, high-caliber, semiautomatic, combat assault rifles with high-capacity magazines to whoever the hell they want. It is time for Congress to put children before deadly dogmas...
We've already given up too much ground across America. We've already ceded too many schoolyards, too many shopping malls, too many movie theaters, and too many college campuses. We must give no more ground.
For the sake of my four children, and yours, I choose life and I choose change. It's time to turn over the tables inside the temple, and for the sake of our children, we must do what's right. And for the sake of this great nation that we love, let's pray to god that we do.


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