May Their Memories Be A Blessing And Peace Be Upon Them: Pittsburgh Roundup Day Two

In which many Republicans scramble to blame all of this on the Left. Somehow.

Yesterday, a white supremacist murdered 11 people and injured six others at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Robert Bowers, 46, has since been charged with "11 counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death; 11 counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence; four counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence." 29 counts in all.

The victims names have also been released:

• David Rosenthal, 54, of Squirrel Hill (Cecil's brother)

• Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill

• Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross Township

• Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood Borough

• Irving Younger, 69, of Mt. Washington, City of Pittsburgh

• Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill

• Joyce Fienberg, 75, of Oakland, City of Pittsburgh

• Bernice Simon, 84, of Wilkinsburg

• Sylvan Simon, 86, of Wilkinsburg (Bernice's husband)

• Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill

• Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill

Because there's so much still going on with this and the other right-wing terrorist attacks this week, we've decided to do a general round-up of sorts. So here we go!

• Eric Trump went on the Judge Jeanine Pirro show to talk about how his father's ethnonationalism (nor his, nor Pirro's) was definitely not responsible for the terror attacks this week. [ ThinkProgress ]

• Trump, being Trump, decided to have his rally in Murphysboro, IL anyway, and justified it by telling a very inspiring story about how his friend opened the New York Stock Exchange the day after 9/11
   
  With what happened early today, that horrible, horrible attack in Pittsburgh, I was saying maybe I should cancel both this and that. And then I said to myself, I remembered Dick Russell, a friend of mine, great guy, he headed up the New York Stock Exchange on September 11th, and the New York Stock Exchange was open the following day. He said — and what they had to do to open it you wouldn't believe, we won't even talk to you about it. But he got that exchange open. We can't make these sick, demented, evil people important
   
  That, as you probably guessed, did not actually happen. The NYSE reopened not on 9/11, but on 9/17, and it was kind of a big deal. Also his friend Dick Russell did not reopen the exchange, it was another Dick -- Dick Grasso -- who did that. Of course, as with everything Trump says, it literally doesn't matter if it's true so long as it psychs up his base. [ Washington Post ]

• Emily Jashinsky of The Federalist stopped by Fox to talk complain how CNN doesn't even TRY to understand why that guy wanted to bomb them, or why Trumpists like to chant "CNN Sucks." [ Mediaite ]

• Julia Ioffe wrote a very good thing for the Washington Post about why Trump is, in fact, to blame for these acts of terrorism and the current problem of anti-Semitism. [ Washington Post ]

• Fox News Sunday tried very, very hard to explain how bombing and shooting people are basically the exact same thing as non-violent forms of protest and interrupting people during dinner. [ Media Matters ]

• Gab, aka Twitter for Nazis, the social media site where Bowers posted his anti-Semitic rants (which were not especially different from what anyone else over there posts), was suspended by it's cloud host, Joyent. Also, both PayPal and Stripe have suspended the site's accounts. What does this mean? It means that Gab is going away soon, at least for a while. This is a good thing!
  
  While CEO Andrew Torba tries to claim that the site is merely a haven for "free speech," it is primarily just a site for bigots that no one else wants to listen to. While everyone has a right to free speech, no one has an obligation to hand anyone else a microphone or a soapbox or to host their meetings in their living room. [ The Verge ]

• Meet The Press brought Erick Erickson -- a man fallen for a 4chan hoax claiming a picture showed Christine Blasey Ford's lawyer with Hillary Clinton and who has claimed that David Hogg was not at school the day of the Parkland shooting -- to talk about the right wing conspiracy theories that fueled the terror attacks and popped up in response to them.
  
  Erickson did his usual "I'm such a reasonable guy! I totally don't believe in these conspiracies and other conservatives shouldn't either!" schtick that he does on TV, which stands in stark contrast with the things he actually tweets and writes about. This is calculated. He does this on purpose. He wants to be perceived as reasonable so that when people actually go and read the wacky shit he says, they do it with that image in mind. It's propaganda. Naturally, Meet The Press did not bother to actually bring up any of his bullshit or have a progressive on the show with him to counter it. [ Parker Molloy ]

In closing, Rebecca has asked me to post this morning's note, in which she describes the news she heard on the radio in Montana, in which nothing was mentioned except that three police officers were shot and Donald Trump was mad about it.

We went yesterday to see some Wonkette friends in Whitefish, and on our way home heard a news bulletin on the radio about the Pittsburgh shooting. Eleven dead, and all the news mentioned was that three police officers had been shot, and President Trump didn't like it and wants us all to come together.

Rural people who get their news from places like this would have no idea that Jewish people were killed by a Nazi in the biggest anti-Semitic massacre in our country's history. It was fake news without a single lie.

I guess my point, while I read more news, is thank you for keeping Wonkette going forever, because it matters that we're doing our tiny part to combat all of ... *gestures vaguely at entire country* ... this.

Thank you for being our friend.
becca

I shall update this if anything else comes up, but for now, this is your open thread!

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