Caturday

Chip is in one of his favorite hidey spots.

Twin Falls Shooting

I've kept quiet about those who responded to the Twin Falls shooting. Those who responded, both to help the victims and take on the shooter, are heros. You can read about a couple of them here.

I didn't plan to comment on their actions, except for this:

Once wounded, Mr. James said he drew his gun and tried to fire, but his gun was without a round in the chamber. He said he was trying to chamber a round when his wife and her friend — both emergency room nurses — found him and pulled him back to the car, where they began to treat his wounds.

Pistols are handguns, not handsguns. They are tools of defense, not offense. They should not be carried in a condition that requires the use of two hands to bring to bear.

Because It's Friday

A steam meet in Germany.

Fuck Flock, Uber and Lyft

Flock wants to use Uber and Lyft vehicles to create a roving surveillance network.

Flock is evil. Full stop. It has been abused by snooping cops and thugs in Texas seeking to enforce their abortion ban nationwide.

Arresting These Down, Here

Bet Consumers Won't See a Dime

The Trump administration has refunded about $100bn from the tariffs it collected before the US supreme court ruled them illegal, according to reports.

The $100bn (£74bn) figure, which represents 60% of the total $165bn collected from Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs, was reported by customs officials to the US court of international trade (CIT) on Tuesday, according to the Financial Times.

Consumers who paid increased prices because of Tariff Bpy's snit aren't going to see a nickel. But the middlemen and importers will make a bundle.

Donald J. Trump, King of Stolen Valor

There was a time when doing this would have led to ostracism from public life:

Recall that he was a draft dodger whose dad allegedly paid off a podiatrist to document bone spurs that probably didn't exist. The Selective Service wasn't going to drag a rich kid in for diagnostic X-rays when they could fill their quota with poor kids.

But that doesn't stop that cowardly fuckwad from cosplaying as a decorated general.

That those on the Right haven't lined up to denounce this bullshit tells me all that I ever needed to know about their integrity. But we knew that, ever since the same people who lashed out at Bill Clinton for being a draft dodger and who Swift-boated John Kerry closed their eyes to Chimpy's getting a champagne NG post and the late unlamented Dick the Torturer's draft-dodging.

Banging These Down, Here

Maybe the Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago Can Find A Lawyer Who Won't Mind Being Disbarred.

President Donald Trump is considering removing Jeanine Pirro, the US attorney for the District of Columbia, over a Justice Department conclusion that problems with the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool stemmed from a flawed renovation rather than vandalism, two people familiar with his thinking told CNN.

The president is “furious” with Pirro, one of the sources said, telling CNN that he fumed about her all weekend. They added that based on his criticisms of her, they find it “highly likely she’s removed from her job.”

As I pointed out yesterday, Pirro and her subordinates know the risks of charging people without evidence. Trump doesn't care, of course. Odds are good that a new US attorney who brings charges unsupported by evidence on Trump's say-so is going to be disbarred. For I have a feeling that the judges and the bar associations have had their fill of this stupid shit.

Not the Civil War

It was, as this article points out, the Rebellion of the Slave-Owners.

Need proof? How about the infamous "Tweny Slave Law", which exempted slaveowners from being drafted to fight in their war. But they drafted hardscrabble farmers (read BadTux's comment to this post), leaving their families facing starvation.

It was no noble cause. It was a war waged by slaveowners, using poor white men as cannon fodder, to preserve their system.

And it is no accident that, once the Union Army began occupying plantations, the attitude of the soldiers went from "why are we fighting for this" to "burn the motherfucking South to the ground."