Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer , White House Bureau Chief | National Political Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan: You would think that any politician capable of rational thought would look at the data, look at the news, and see that America is unlike any other nation in the world -- in a very bad way. Guns, and recognize that something needed to be done to stop the endless murders. You might think that, but you would be wrong. The Republican Party long ago rented themselves out to the military-industrial complex, the makers of the weapons that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year. They did this in complete cynicism in return for large buckets of money. It is immoral, it is evil, it is the Republican reality. And no one represents this evil more clearly than Mitch McConnell. Here is his story. Thanks, Kentucky voters for inflicting this horrible person on the rest of us.
Mitch McConnell was just finishing up his first term as the junior senator from Kentucky when a mass shooting rocked his hometown of Louisville.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) walks onto the stage before speaking at the 2014 Conservative Political Action Committee in National Harbor. Credit: Susan Walsh/AP
On Sept. 14, 1989, a disgruntled employee entered the Standard Gravure printing plant in downtown Louisville and, armed with an AK-47 and other guns, killed eight and wounded 12 others before taking his own life — in what remains the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history.
At the time, mass shootings had not yet become the staple of American life that they are now, and McConnell said he was “deeply disturbed,” declaring, “We must take action to stop such vicious crimes.”
But he also added: “We need to be careful about legislating in the middle of a crisis.” And in the days and weeks after, he did not join others in calling for a ban on assault weapons like the AK-47 used by the shooter.
Stephan: This report from Pew Research was written in February, so all the recent murders and massacres like Buffalo and Uvalde had not yet occurred. However, even without that data this research spells out how deranged American society has become as a result of its obsessive gun psychosis, and how it is getting worse each year. Note the difference between 2000 and 2020 in the graph at the head of this report.
More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2020 than in any other year on record, according to recently published statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included a record number of gun murders, as well as a near-record number of gun suicides. Despite the increase in such fatalities, the rate of gun deaths – a statistic that accounts for the nation’s growing population – remains below the levels of earlier years.
Here’s a closer look at gun deaths in the United States, based on a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the CDC, the FBI and other sources. You can also read key public opinion findings about U.S. gun violence and gun policy in our recent roundup.
How many people die from gun-related injuries in the U.S. each year?
In 2020, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according […]
Stephan: It is hard to believe that anyone in the United States thinks of the 6 January event at the Capitol as anything but an insurrection. But as recently as this last weekend Trump publicly called the whole thing a hoax, and was applauded for saying this. I am publishing this report not because it has any new news about 6 January, but because it illustrates so strongly that to be a Trumper one has to live in a sick fantasy world disconnected from reality and millions do this with enthusiasm.
I think you have to see this as a form of mental illness, and I believe it is important to recognize that about a third of American adults, a cohort overwhelmingly White, are mentally ill. There were reports coming out of the NRA convention, where such people congregated, in which Trumpers claimed the Uvalde massacre of 19 children and 2 teachers, plus 18 more children who were wounded but have not died, was a staged hoax to make the police and Republicans look bad. If the rest of us do not get out and vote in November this sickness will become the defining consciousness of America.
Former president Donald Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday in support of Harriet Hageman, who is challenging congresswoman Liz Cheney in a Republican primary in midterm elections. Credit: Chet Strange/Getty
As the House committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump prepares to start public hearings next week, the former president called the insurrection on January 6, 2021, a hoax.
Trump spoke at a rally in Wyoming on Saturday night in support of the Republican primary challenger in the midterm elections to congresswoman Liz Cheney. Cheney sits on the committee and has been vilified by Trump since she voted in favor of his historic second impeachment over the insurrection.
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Addressing the sub-capacity crowd at a rally in Casper for Republican candidate Harriet Hageman, Trump slammed Cheney, saying: “As one of the nation’s leading proponents of the insurrection hoax, Liz Cheney has pushed a grotesquely false, fabricated, hysterical partisan narrative.”
He added: “Look at the so-called word insurrection, January 6 – what a lot of crap.”
Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives a week […]
Stephan: The United States, which for the last 75 years has led the world technologically in everything from airplanes to computers is no longer in the lead, as this report on the conversion out of petroleum vehicles to EVs demonstrates. President Biden had the right idea with his Build Back Better legislation, which would have created a nationwide network of charging stations, that would have encouraged the conversion, but the Republicans with Manchin and Sinema would have none of it. And so increasingly we lag behind, as the chart shows.
Consumer interest in electric vehicles has hit a global tipping point, with more than half of car buyers saying they want their next car to be an EV, new research from Ernst & Young shows.
Yes, but: Americans still aren’t as enthusiastic as consumers in Europe and Asia.
Why it matters: The world is in the midst of a global transition away from gasoline-powered vehicles, driven by environmental concerns and, in some countries, avoidance of stiff penalties on vehicles with internal combustion engines.
Driving the news: 52% of respondents to EY’s annual Mobility Consumer Index who are looking to buy a car want an EV, according to the survey of 13,000 people in 18 countries.
That’s a leap of 22 percentage points in two years, and the first time that EV interest exceeded 50%, the company said.
Buyers in Italy (73%), China (69%) and South Korea (63%) were the most interested.
Consumers in Australia (38%) and the U.S. (29%) showed less interest.
Between the lines: Government policies are probably driving consumer choices in many markets.
The European Union, for example, plans to ban sales of conventional gas-powered vehicles […]
David Gelles and Hiroko Tabuchi, Climate Correspondent | Investigative Climate Reporter - The New York Times
Stephan: Between guns, the anti-vaxxer movement, anti-choice, climate denial, public education dismantling, and on and on, I think it is objectively fair to describe the Republican Party as the party of death. and they are very active in doing damage.
Protesters at the Glasgow climate summit last year. A number of banks, investors and companies pledged at the talks to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Kieran Dodds / The New York Times
In West Virginia, the state treasurer has pulled money from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, because the Wall Street firm has flagged climate change as an economic risk.
In Texas, a new law bars the state’s retirement and investment funds from doing business with companies that the state comptroller says are boycotting fossil fuels. Conservative lawmakers in 15 other states are promoting similar legislation.
And officials in Utah and Idaho have assailed a major ratings agency for considering environmental risks and other factors, in addition to the balance sheet, when assessing states’ creditworthiness.
Across the country, Republican lawmakers and their allies have launched a campaign to try to rein in what they see as activist companies trying to reduce the greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet.
“We’re an energy state, and energy accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue for us,” said […]
