Moral Depravity And The Contagion Of Cowardice

Morals and decency are not partisan. Having facts and information is not enough. Please consider becoming a subscriber to support news with a heart, and a mission to hold power to account.At every turn, the conservative movement is putting women and children in their crosshairs, enabling mass shootings in schools and domestic violence attackers to be armed with guns, at the same time as they are inciting their supporters to threaten violence against people with whom they disagree. It has gotten so bad it is now identifiable as a voluntary violation of morals. Moral depravity: “A state of voluntary violation of morals, values, customs, or manners leading to an aberrant style of personality commonly known as antisocial psychopathy.” Also known as the dark rot corrupting the U.S. government from within.The Right to Life Outweighs the Right to Bear Arms“The right to life surely outweighs the right to bear arms,” a Sky News reporter pushed a fleeing Tennessee Republican Representative Andy Ogles. There was nothing but silence in response. The right to life surely outweighs the right to bear arms? No, it does not, in effect. Nashville Republican Representative Andy Ogles, whose district — thanks to Tennessee Republicans redrawing the district lines last year to gerrymander the red state even further — includes Covenant, the Christian school in which there was a horrific mass shooting just two days ago on Monday March the 27, ran away when confronted by a Sky News reporter (it took someone from the UK to push like this) with the notion: “The right to life surely outweighs the right to bear arms… Does the right to life outweigh the right to bear arms?”This confrontation on Tuesday occurred during questioning about Ogles’ obscene family Christmas photo (above), which included his children and wife posed around a tree holding guns with the caption, “"MERRY CHRISTMAS! The Ogles Family," the post reads, adding in quotes: "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."This is the Republican position: Guns deserve a place of honor with all that’s good. Over children.SKY NEWS TO OGLES: “Do you regret your family gun photo? Why did you take it down from your Facebook feed now?” Rep. @AndyOgles(R) - who reps the district #CovenantSchool is in - didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but says he doesn’t regret it.Moral depravity, you ask? Why yes. This man, Congressman Andy Ogles, took nearly $25,000 he claimed in a GoFundME was meant for a child burial garden and he won’t say what he did with it. He used the photo of a stillborn child to grift, “promising a place for burial of babies with benches for families, life-size statue of Jesus. It never happened, and he won’t say where money went.” The Daily is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts/podcasts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Contagion of CowardiceA contagion of cowardice spread among Republican lawmakers like Speaker McCarthy and Andy Ogles on Tuesday as they ran away from the press, loath to answer questions about their anti-safety, gun-fetishizing stances after the mass shooting in Nashville took the lives of 6 people, including 3 children.The 28 year-old-school shooter legally bought the seven firearms that were hidden at home even though that shooter, Audrey Hale, was under care for an emotional disorder, according to Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake. Speaker Kevin McCarthy has refused to answer questions about the Nashville shooting and when reporters tried to ask him anything about guns, he ran away.McCarthy was asked at least two questions about Nashville including, “should there be any gun restrictions at all?” He responded by not even looking at the reporters and walking away. Speaker McCarthy gave the weakest imaginable response to the question.“Republicans like McCarthy appear to lack the courage to state their belief that sacrificing the lives of young children is acceptable in defense of an unlimited Second Amendment,” Jason Easley wrote in PoliticusUSA.Moral depravity is the themeWe have devolved into a state of moral depravity due to the dark money corruption that runs the U.S. government. This money attracts lawmakers who have no moral center, people like leader of the Republican Party Donald Trump, let’s say. Or George Santos. Or Andy Ogles. A party led by someone who bragged he could shoot someone and not lose voters does not attract the best people.These lawmakers are why children are being murdered in their classrooms. They vote against abortion putting women and young girls’ lives and health at risk, but enable mass slaughter of actual children. No lawmaker who votes against gun control should be allowed to argue against abortion without pushback from a free press.It’s absurd and obscene position, given that the leading cause of death for children in the United States is guns, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.This means that guns have more rights than children do, largely because of the party that calls themselves “pro-life.” The Bill of Rights to the Constitution states in the 14th amendment (why is it that we so rarely hear about any amendments but the second?), “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”It’s clear that guns pose a threat to the right to life. Yet an inanimate object has more rights than human beings, including children, in the United States.Hiding behind concern for fetusesWhat kind of movement shields itself under the cover of concern for fetuses, while actively ensuring that dangerous people who have threatened women and children are allowed access to as many weapons as they please? It’s the same movement that works in the dark, has corrupted our judicial system and is judge shopping to overturn rulings they don’t like, and has seemingly bought off so called “representatives” in Congress.The violence isn’t an accidentA knife-wielding Trump supporter threatened a woman and her children outside of the Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.Trump took his authoritarian circus show to Waco, but claimed he wasn’t signaling what a trip to Waco symbolizes. Meanwhile, his followers got the messages he sent, either from his social media postings or his rally rantings, or both.A Trump supporter was arrested on Tuesday for threatening a mother and children with knife outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, which began preparing over a week ago for a possible indictment against the man known for inciting violence. Angela Rucker, 39, was holding a yellow sign with black lettering that said, “I’m With Trump Are You?” when she got embroiled in an argument with two women, one with two small kids and the other with a child in a stroller, according to Lucien Chalfen, spokesman for the New York State Office of Court Administration.As the verbal dispute flared up, Rucker whipped out a knife from her hip pocket and started waving it at the woman in a threatening way, the spokesman added. A letter sent from Florida to the Manhattan DA contained white powder and threatened to kill the DA. The rally Trump held also glorified violence and elevated people in prison for their involvement in the domestic terrorist attack of January 6th into martyrs. It’s partisan. But it shouldn’t be.Basic safety is now partisan. In the summer of 2022 after mass shootings at a Uvalde, Texas elementary school and a Buffalo, New York supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood, 34 Republican senators voted against the bipartisan gun safety bill, which was itself brought by Republican Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Kyrsten Sinema (who is no longer a Democrat).If some of those names have you side-eying this bill, you wouldn’t be wrong. But in this country, we take the crumbs we can get when it comes to the Right to Life.Fourteen House Republicans finally got on board with Democrats to pass first major federal gun safety legislation in decades, which did not ban any weapons and was a country mile short of what Americans want in polls and indeed what President Biden and the Democrats pushed for. While Mitch McConnell and 14 Republican Senators joined Democrats for this watered down barely asking for a