REPUBLICANS: DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR DRASTIC PROGRAMS WILL DO?

…Picture from after the GOP softball practice attack in Alexandria, VA.

 

The GOP was holding their softball practice in the most Blue, liberal Democratic area in all of Virginia.

I was amazed when a Republican congressman, (sorry I didn’t get his name) came on a Sirus XM radio interview after the attempted killing of the GOP softball players at the morning practice in Alexandria, Virginia.

 

What I was amazed at, was the congressman’s comments that he was blaming the shootings on “the aggressive tone of those on the left against the Republicans”, and especially against President Trump.  Huh? 

 

Apparently, this congressman thinks that all the things that Trump and the Republicans have stated that they plan to do in taking benefits away from a large section of Americans, that those people affected shouldn’t be upset….?  How about all the 23 million people that Trump’s & the GOP House health care plan would take away their health care coverage?  What about the many other budget cuts to items like Food Stamps, annual school budgets, the environment, and a host of other key budget cuts…?  Oh, and don’t forget about all this occurring while giving giant tax cuts to the top 0.1%!

 

When you have a president that constantly lies, and that has an on-going approval rating of ~37%, you can bet that means that there is a large group of upset Americans out there.  And some that would love to take advantage of all those guns that the GOP says we all should now be carrying.

 

But so far, the understanding is that the man that started shooting at the Republican softball congressmen was outraged at Trump & Co., but he obviously had not done his homework before he started shooting. 

 

The man that was doing the shooting and that was killed at the softball field was a Mr. James T. Hodgkinson.  He was from Illinois and he was a former volunteer for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.  He was also very upset at the election of Donald Trump.  He had posted many comments against Trump and the Republicans on his social network pages and he had apparently moved from Illinois to the Alexandria area just since last March.  It appears he was living out of his van and using the local YWCA for his morning coffee and personal hygiene. 

 

The reason I said he didn’t do his homework was that he didn’t realize that because there was just one single House leadership person at the soft ball practice, that meant there were going to be armed US Capital Police personnel there.  Had Congressman Steve Scalise not been in attendance, there would not have been anyone there that could shoot back at the assailant. It could have easily been a massacre that could have included the killing of the sons of one of the attending congressmen.

 

Here’s the way it all came down:

 

The Republican lawmakers and their aides had nearly finished batting practice at the Alexandria ballpark when they heard a single gunshot in the early-morning air. For a moment, the field went quiet as they wondered what the noise was about.

 

“He’s got a gun!” someone shouted.

 

Then came a torrent of bullets, and there, behind a chain-link fence near third base, was the man with the rifle.

 

One round immediately hit Steve Scalise in the hip at 2nd base, the majority whip from Louisiana, he screamed, and it dropped him to ground.  He then dragged himself to the grass outfield with a trail of blood in the dirt.

 

“Hit the ground!” all the people yelled.

 

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-ALA), who was holding a bat and waiting to hit, briefly hid before diving into the first-base dugout, where about a dozen people had taken cover. Inside, he found Zack Barth, a legislative aide who had been struck in the leg, and had hobbled all the way across the field.

 

“It’s not bad,” Barth assured Brooks.

 

“Dude, you’ve got a hole in your calf,” Brooks responded, before cinching a belt tourniquet above the wound.

 

The 10-year-old son of Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who coaches the GOP congressional baseball team, crawled for cover under an SUV. Some of the 20 or so people at the field sprinted into the nearby dog park and others leaped a fence and fled. All around, bullets whistled overhead and ricocheted off the ground, spraying bits of gravel into the air.  (They say that over 60 rounds were fired.)

“It was bedlam,” Brooks later said.

 

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) had already hidden behind a wooden shack beyond the dugout.

 

In front of him were two members of Scalise’s security detail who had just popped out of a black SUV. Wearing suits but with guns drawn, they returned fire.

 

“Are you friendly? Are you friendly?” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) screamed at one of them.

 

“Yes,” the man shouted back.

 

The shooter, wearing jeans and a blue shirt, methodically moved along the outside of the fence toward home plate, easing his way in their direction.

 

Then another burst of gunfire.

 

Chunks of bark exploded off an oak tree just behind Loudermilk.  Loudermilk is an Air Force veteran, and he realized that Matt Mika, a Tyson’s Food lobbyist, was sprawled across the ground with a bullet wound in his chest. Every time they moved to help him, Loudermilk said, more shooting erupted.

 

“Someone help me,” screamed a woman nearby who’d been walking her four dogs and was now lying flat on the dirt. When no one could get to her, she crawled on her belly to under a nearby car.

 

By then, the two Capitol Police officers, David Bailey and Crystal Griner, were in an intense, close-range firefight with the gunman, later identified as the 66-year-old house inspector from Belleville, Illinois.

 

Griner took a round to the ankle and slumped to the ground.

 

In an effort to draw fire away from the members, Loudermilk said, Bailey shifted his position and was struck by shrapnel, but he kept returning fire.

 

“If it hadn’t have been for those two officers,” Loudermilk later said, “it would have been a carnage.”

 

Within minutes, Alexandria police arrived, their sirens wailing.

 

Just as one of those officers emerged from a car, Loudermilk said, Hodgkinson shot at her but missed, blowing out the window of a car on the street.

 

“There were people lying on the ground screaming, but he was targeting us,” Loudermilk said. “He wasn’t shooting at any of those other folks. He was targeting congressional members.”

 

More officers arrived, flushing the gunman from his cover. By then, Loudermilk said, Hodgkinson had switched from his rifle to a pistol.

 

“Drop your weapon,” an officer shouted at Hodgkinson.  When he didn’t, they shot him.

 

Hodgkinson, who later died, had been a former, long-time Illinois citizen.  His Facebook page included a post that reads: “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”

 

Investigators said later, Hodgkinson had been living out of his white cargo van since March. He had been hanging out there for weeks, often early in the morning, at the local YMCA next to the park. He often talked with former local Mayor Bill Euille, who worked out at the YMCA every morning around the same time.

Mayor Euille didn’t make it to the YMCA early Wednesday morning, but he later learned from a manager that Hodgkinson had come to the YMCA gym.  At around 7 a.m., Hodgkinson had walked toward the ball field.

 

About 10 minutes before the shooting began, Reps. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) and Ron Desantis (R-FL) said they spoke to a man they now believe was Mr. Hodgkinson.

 

Duncan, who was just about to leave the practice field, said: “he asked me if the team practicing was a Democrat or Republican team.”

“I told him they were Republicans,” Duncan recalled. “He said, ‘Okay, thanks,’ and turned around.”

 

During the rampage, which began just after 7 a.m., bullets whizzed by neighborhood front porches and shattered windows at the adjacent YMCA.

 

“People were physically shaking,” said Charles Halloran, who lives about a block from the park.

 

When the gunfire stopped, Senator Flake heard someone say the shooter was down, he sprinted out to Scalise, who asked for some water. Flake pressed his hand against the wound until someone cut away his uniform and a doctor applied gauze to stem the bleeding. Flake then found Scalise’s phone and called his wife so she wouldn’t hear what had happened from the news.

 

Bailey, one of the officers who’d been injured, limped out onto the field to check on the lawmaker he had fought to protect.

 

Meanwhile, Loudermilk rushed to Mika. The congressman knelt down with him as paramedics flood the area, scrambling to treat six different people, including the shooter, who had been shot.

 

Soon, each would be rushed to hospitals. Scalise was in critical condition following 3 surgeries at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. Mika’s family released a statement saying he, too, was in critical condition after undergoing surgery at George Washington University Hospital for multiple gunshot wounds.

 

Seven miles away on Capitol Hill, the routine of a busy morning had ended.

 

Votes and speeches were cancelled. President Trump tweeted that “his thoughts and prayers” were with Rep. Scalise. Lawmakers stared at televisions, awaiting updates on their colleagues. A psychologist offered post-traumatic stress counseling.

 

At the Democrats’ baseball practice, members were called off the field and held in the dugout under police protection.

 

Hours after the bloodshed ended, Senator Flake still wore his red-and-white baseball uniform, the word “Republicans” imprinted on the front. He walked, shaken, to his car near the fields.  One person, standing on his balcony overlooking the park, yelled down at him: “We’re glad you’re safe.”

 

Just as a final note about all this.  I am in no way going to try to justify what the former house inspector from Illinois did.  It is totally unacceptable.  But the Republican congress doesn't seem to understand what they and our president says they intend to do, that will negatively affect many average Americans.  Also, when will the GOP acknowledge that Trump is the most dishonest president the US has ever had?  These congresspersons have to understand why this has become such a divided nation and that this is anything but a normal presidency.

 

One of my observations about this happening at this location is that this area where the GOP personnel practice is held, is probably the most Blue, Democratic area in all of Virginia.  Why would the very Red, partisan Republicans pick the village of Alexandria, VA, to have their softball practice?  Why in this very Blue area would these Republican congressmen pick this area to come together wearing their bright Red Tee shirts with the word "REPUBLICAN" emblazoned across their chest?  For Mr. Hodgkinson, he probably chose coming to this particular location because it was a very “Blue” area with people he mostly altogether agreed.  For this well armed man from Illinois, with his anti-GOP/Trump attitude, this group of Red-shirt Republican congressmen was like offering “live bait to a shark”.  The end results were still not acceptable, but perhaps more understandable for someone with obvious mental issues.

 

No, I’m not saying that this is an excuse for what Mr. Hodgkinson did.  As I said, it was totally unacceptable and totally out-of-line.  But these congresspersons know what is going on today in such a highly divided America.  That is not to mention, what is going on in the US Congress and within their own districts.  They have all heard the venom that is regularly offered up at their Town Meetings.  They also know that in today’s era of Twitter and Facebook, things can quickly, and sometimes do get out of hand.

 

Mr. Hodgkinson has proven that point in spades.  Having a bunch of Red shirt-Republican congressmen working out in a totally Blue area near the nation's capital, this is not good planning.  Especially in today’s era when an American citizen can become physically enraged due to pure partisan politics……and in America, they can also easily obtain a military style gun & plenty of ammo.

 

I’m just sayin………..

 

Copyright G.Ater  2017