1. It’s been a wild week. Again.
2. Full disclosure: I kinda feel like September has been kicking my ass.
3. Full disclosure #2: That’s not necessarily an unusual feeling for me.
4. Anyhoo, let’s give this a whirl!
5. Lots of people are still talking about that white guy who got shot on Sept. 11 at his speaking engagement.
6. Some of those people are getting put into a database, doxxed, and fired for talking “the wrong way” about that guy’s death.
7. One could argue that the murdered man made his living championing the right to free speech.
8. I’d like to think he’d be horrified people are losing their jobs for speaking their mind.
9. That’s probably wishful thinking, though, and it’s time to let the fantasies go.
10. Meanwhile the Senate came together this week in a show of unity after this horrifying act of violence — gun or political, take your pick — to pass a meaningful resolution.
11. No, not a commitment to pursue gun legislation so it wouldn’t happen again, don’t be silly.
12. The U.S. Senate unanimously voted to create a “National Day of Remembrance for CK” on October 14.
13. We’ll see where that goes in the House.
14. What else has been happening?
15. Well, the day after that man’s murder a number of HBCUs went into lockdown due to threats.
16. A white conservative Christian nationalist got shot by another white man while speaking on a college campus in Orem, Utah, a city boasting 0.654% Black or African American people. Only 0.9% of the college’s students identify as Black or African American…so naturally the white supremacists starting threatening historically Black colleges and universities.
17. That tracks.
18. On Sept. 15 a 21-year-old Black student named Demartravion “Trey” Reed was found hanging from a tree at Delta State University in Mississippi.
19. The Cleveland City Police Department is handling the investigation into Trey’s death, if you’d like to encourage accountability on their part.
20. The president of Delta State University also has an obligation to push for a complete investigation on behalf of his students.
21. Also on Sept. 15 Corey Zukatis, a 36-year-old homeless white man from Brandon was found hanging near a casino in Vicksburg, Mississippi, about 100 miles from Delta State University.
22. On Sept. 16 thirteen people were hurt in two mass shootings at Minneapolis homeless encampments on the same day.
23. I bring up those last two events in light of this little exchange on “Fox & Friends” back on Sept. 10.
24. Roll clip.
25. Once the clip became widespread Brian Kilmeade issued his version of an apology.
26. The three were discussing the Aug. 22 stabbing murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina when Lawrence Jones suggested that homeless people who didn’t accept mental health services should be locked up in jail.
27. That’s when Kilmeade chimed in with “Or involuntary lethal injection, or something. Just kill ’em.”
28. So by “apology” I mean Kilmeade said the following on Sunday’s “Fox & Friends” Weekend Show.
29.
“I wrongly said they should get lethal injection. I apologize for that extremely callous remark. I am obviously aware that not all mentally ill, homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.”
30. Okay. Deep breath here.
31. I’d like us to sit with the fact that on Sept. 10 this man sat on live television and LITERALLY SAID kill them.
32. On Sept. 15 there’s a white homeless man hanged in Mississippi.
33. On Sept. 16 Minneapolis had mass shootings at two separate homeless encampments.
34. And these the only the ones we know about.
35. This is a big country and crimes against the homeless are notoriously underreported so I don’t pretend this is the full extent of that man’s impact.
36. We need to sit with the fact that an influential public figure called for killing homeless people he considered uncooperative.
37. “Involuntary lethal injection” is MURDER, right? We can all get on board with that?
38. There’s so much, everywhere, all the time right now and it can be paralyzing. Don’t give in.
39. It’s like the TSA says: if you see something, say something.
40. All of us pushing back is the only thing that can turn the tide.
Riddle from the Middle 
No one in government ever seems to mention that when the federal funding dried up, most states closed the mental hospitals where many (future) homeless people were housed with dignity and cared for as necessary. My mother worked for many years at one of those hospitals, and I worked there one summer. Those people were never going to make it on the outside, and I can’t believe that there are fewer of them today then there were in the 1970s – we just don’t want to “waste money on them.”
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No, not a commitment to pursue gun legislation so it wouldn’t happen again, don’t be silly.
That sums it up for me. Why bother with solutions when all this chaos is so much more fun? Asked in a sarcastic tone of voice.
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The obsession with chaos sowing will be the end of us all. These days it feels like slamming headfirst into a brick wall over and over again.
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This is really very sad and worrying
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It is a steady diet of sad and worrying these days.
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Very true and very disappointing
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OK, I flipped out a bit at #12, so I went and looked it up. Republicans voted unanimously, but it was a simple resolution and has not yet come to a full Senate vote. That made me feel a little bit better.
To be purely practical about the BS of jailing the homeless, they ignore the fact that putting someone in prison is much more expensive than housing them. But housing them doesn’t put money in the pockets of the prison system, lots of deep pockets in that whole thing.
Regarding the lethal injection and recent violence…UGH. I can’t even with this world sometimes.
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Thank you for this. I’d read that it was a simple resolution, that the Democrats in the Senate decided to focus on the gun violence piece and avoid muddying waters by fighting it. While trying to chase down exactly how that worked I saw the House passed the resolution this morning. Now I just feel like throwing my laptop against the wall so it’s time for a little break.
That Fox&Friends freestyling on how to get rid of [cue hollering] VIOLENCE ON OUR STREETS always seems to arc toward major violence. And they decidedly sidestep the nuance of prison system profits.
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I don’t know – I’m thinking maybe the tide is too high to control anymore. I’m thinking we may have divided ourselves into complete collapse. And the sheep follow along.
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I think you may be right, Carol. It feels surreal to see this whole thing dissolving in real time.
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Yep. I’ll keep rebeling but I’ve accepted that not only is our former democracy over, we’re very much living through and following the lead of – Iran’s reversal of human rights.
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I just can’t anymore.
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It’s a lot. All day, every day, so so so much. This creator has been singing a capella to regulate her nervous system and I find it so soothing. https://www.tiktok.com/@missxtinab/video/7551165211403701559?lang=en
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