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Month: February 2018

Every Member of Congress Who Took Money From the NRA and Tweeted ‘Thoughts and Prayers’ to Parkland

Jason Tate

Rafi Schwartz, writing at Splinter News:

On Wednesday, 17 people—the vast majority of them children—were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. The suspected gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was apprehended by police late Wednesday, leaving America to grapple with yet another horrific act of gun violence.

In the wake of this latest mass murder, lawmakers have once again resorted to the now-cliché gesture of offering “thoughts and prayers” for the victims of the Parkland shooting, while stopping conspicuously short of actually acting on their laughably hollow sentiment. And once again, those lawmakers are the very same people who have gladly pocketed dollar after blood-soaked dollar from the National Rifle Association.

This country has a sickness. We are very, very broken. And we need to make massive changes to even begin the process of healing what we’ve created.

Shazam Gets an Updated Design

Apple
Jason Tate

MacStories:

As it turns out, Shazam has continued to be updated and support Spotify since Apple’s acquisition. In fact, there have been at least four updates to Shazam since the acquisition including one today that adds synchronized lyrics and a design refresh of the app’s results screen.

The new UI looks great. The results screen is dominated by a background image of the artist. In the foreground is a big play button, the name of the song the app recognized, and the name of the artist. If you tap on the artwork, you get an image of the artist and album in some cases, plus more details on the artist, album, song, and release date.

It looks pretty good.

Racist Trolls Are Saying Black Panther Fans Attacked Them

Marvel
Jason Tate

Aja Romano, writing for Vox:

On social media, racist trolls are currently attempting to fake a battle that isn’t happening by stealing photos, many of assault victims, from various parts of the internet and claiming they’re evidence of attacks by black moviegoers during Thursday night showings of Black Panther.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

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What to Bring to a Gun Fight

Crooked Media
Jason Tate

Dan Pfeiffer:

The fatal flaw in the Democratic strategy is a failure to heed one of the key lessons of twenty first-century American politics: Democrats never win when they fight on Republican terms.

Republicans have defined the terms of the debate on guns and instead of trying to change those terms, we have resigned ourselves to playing on their turf. The Democratic approach to guns is one of the last vestiges of the mushy strategic applesauce that dominated 1990s DLC-style centrism—the only way to beat Republicans is to try to sound more like them. It is a defensive posture borne of a defeatist mindset that is more a product of Democratic psychology than of political reality. Democrats speak softly and carry a small stick to the gun fight because they have convinced themselves that Republicans have the law, politics, and a presumption of victory on their side. The truth is less daunting, but unless Democrats come around to that truth, the presumption of Republican victory will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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