In Their Own Private Playground

The men at Club Q were slaughtered like fresh meat because they were doing the very same thing that toddlers do.

They were playing dress up. 

 In their own private playground.  

They were all young people with futures as colorful as their beloved flag.

The word they used to define themselves was gay which used to mean lighthearted and carefree. Now it means targets for brutal murder.

Do not forget for a second that all of them were someone's babies whose through-the-years highlight photos are arranged on walls, lined up strategically on top of pianos, and stuck to refrigerator doors with colorful magnets which, at the speed of madness, have all become standing memorials to men who preferred mascara to massacres.

Last night in a Virginia Walmart Supercenter a shooter assassinated six people in a break room and wounded four others.

Gone this time are mommies and daddies, aunts and uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters whose empty chairs at the Thanksgiving table are now standing memorials.

And somewhere in Ukraine, a newborn baby was murdered by a Putin-owned Russian missile whose only crime was being born.  

This is what unrestrained hate does anywhere on the planet. It creates its own doctrine to suit its own needs and then destroys anyone, man, woman, or child that stands in its way.

The GOP is hoping to defund our support for Ukraine.  

They have a long list of corporate billionaire donors who could really use that money.

Tomorrow the likes of Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor-Greene, Jim Jordan, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz,  Lauren Boebert, Ted Cruz, Kari Lake, Ron DeSantis, and Greg Abbott will slobber on the entrails of all those warm dead bodies which are still slathered in blood like tabletop gravy.

The only Republican who has spoken publicly since all this has been Kevin McCarthy, who spoke exclusively about going after the head of the immigration department, threatening him with impeachment.

Trumpism is alive and well, so get ready for its splashy return.

The next two years will not be about stricter common-sense gun laws or anything else for that matter.

It will be about obstruction, diversion, and blame.  That's it.  

They will cater exclusively to The Gullibles,  the easily manipulated, severely paranoid, poorly educated, low-income Trump followers who have poured all their faith and dollars into the hot new brand of Christianity which preaches hate and prejudice from its electronic pulpits. 

Today aversion is all the light we cannot see...until the next mass killing.

According to James Fox, an expert on mass shootings,  there have been 35 mass shootings in 2022,. 

The escalation has been driven by what Fox calls “an unprecedented surge” of 13 mass shootings resulting in four or more deaths since Oct. 3.

“That’s an average of about two mass shootings per week,” Fox says, “compared with the usual average of two per month.”

In addition to the recent mass shootings, this month has seen two mass killings not involving a gun, including the stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students last week.

The U.S. has suffered 39 mass killings overall in 2022, says Fox.

As you digest all this and mourn for our children and our country, let me leave you with two images.

Within hours of Paul Pelosi having his skull fractured by a hammer-wielding, conspiracy-driven lunatic,  Donald Trump, Jr. reacting to a made-up rumor that the assailant was a gay hustler, posted a picture of a pair of men's underpants and a hammer.

And just yesterday, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham flanking Herschel Walker on Fox TV nodded their heads in agreement when Walker said:  “This erection is about the people.”

The only weapon we have is the voting booth.

Vote Georgia.  Vote. Our lives are dependent on you.