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Oct 27, 2023
Today's GOP Fuckery
And maybe the same can be said for breast cancer.
So AIDS is god's punishment for being gay.
And I guess that means testicular cancer is god's punishment for being a total dick about everything.
Apparently, Republicans just can't stand anything that ends up helping women and minorities and queer folk and poor people.
Republicans delay more than $1 billion in HIV program funding
Life-saving PEPFAR program has been ensnared for months in a broader political fight around abortion
Republicans have delayed more than $1 billion in funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, better known as PEPFAR, the latest complication facing a lifesaving HIV program that has been ensnared in a broader political fight around abortion.
Created by President George W. Bush in 2003, PEPFAR has been credited with saving more than 25 million lives around the world. The nearly $7 billion annual initiative, which is managed by the State Department, has distributed millions of courses of medicine to treat HIV, funded testing and prevention services, and supported an array of other interventions. Dozens of foreign governments rely on PEPFAR as a key partner.
The program has traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress, which has reauthorized it every five years. But lawmakers this fall failed to reauthorize PEPFAR by a Sept. 30 deadline amid claims from conservative advocacy groups that the program is inadvertently funding abortions overseas — allegations that Biden officials, PEPFAR staff and public health leaders say are unfounded and threaten the program’s mission.
The GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee in August began objecting to language in PEPFAR’s country and regional operational plan, which offers guidance to partners around the globe about how to administer the aid program, according to the people with knowledge of the dispute.
The Republicans’ funding delays and objections, which have not been previously reported, center on PEPFAR’s use of terms relating to abortion, transgender people, sex workers and other areas, with the committee repeatedly demanding rewrites from the State Department. The negotiations have delayed the State Department from releasing more than $1 billion in funding for PEPFAR — funding that the program is planning to use to buy medicines, pay for staff and support other essential PEPFAR functions, several of the people said. PEPFAR officials have pushed back on some of the requested changes, including an attempt by House Republicans to change how terms such as “human rights” appear in the document.
Keifer Buckingham, advocacy director for the Open Society Foundations and a former Democratic congressional aide who worked on PEPFAR’s last reauthorization in 2018, said that prior PEPFAR documents used similar language and addressed the same issues.
“None of that phrasing is new … and it’s not like policy has dramatically changed,” Buckingham said, adding that House Republicans’ complaints about PEPFAR language are “ideological” and parallel their domestic political priorities around abortion and transgender issues.
The State Department confirmed that the House Foreign Affairs Committee has delayed approving the notifications that are required for allocating funds to PEPFAR.
“The delays in approval are straining PEPFAR country operations and threatening PEPFAR’s ability to continue implementation,” the State Department said in a statement. “If the [notifications] are not approved very soon, PEPFAR’s lifesaving work and gains will be threatened.” The department did not specify the amount of funding at stake.
Lawmakers have placed holds on PEPFAR funding in prior years in hopes of securing changes or getting answers about the program. But experts noted that the climate around the program has shifted in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which effectively overturned the national right to abortion.
“If the current [funding] delay is based on these larger issues that have also stymied reauthorization, it would be a potentially serious situation,” said Jennifer Kates, director of global health and HIV policy at the health policy nonprofit KFF.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee referred questions to the State Department.
Stuck in a stalemate
Republicans’ hold on PEPFAR funding comes as lawmakers continue to debate whether to reauthorize the program for one year, five years or not at all. In the wake of the Dobbs ruling, Republicans have alleged the Biden administration is using PEPFAR and other programs to support abortion access, a claim that public health experts roundly deny.
“PEPFAR’s never been an abortion program,” John Nkengasong, the program’s director, said in remarks Monday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington. “It is not and will never be because there’s a law, the 1973 Helms amendment,” which restricts U.S. foreign assistance programs from funding abortion abroad, he added.
Public health experts have clamored for lawmakers to swiftly reauthorize PEPFAR for five years through what is known as a “clean reauthorization” — effectively rolling over the current structure. Current and former PEPFAR officials said that a five-year reauthorization would protect the program from political pressures and help global partners plan their strategies.
Asking Congress to vote every year to reauthorize PEPFAR “is basically asking for the appropriations over time to dwindle down and [in] an irrevocable way,” Mark Dybul, a former head of the program, said at the CSIS event.
The Biden administration has also warned that Congress’s delay to reauthorize the program is “damaging the United States’ image globally, particularly in Africa,” and threatening plans to acquire supplies, roll out innovations and take other steps that require certainty about PEPFAR’s long-term viability.
But some Republicans want to reauthorize the program for just one year — arguing that it would allow a future GOP president to make changes to it. Conservative advocacy groups also have warned lawmakers that a vote to reauthorize PEPFAR in its current form will be viewed as a vote to support abortion abroad.
House Republicans last month advanced a measure that would extend PEPFAR funding for one year while reinstating a Trump-era policy, Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance, that explicitly bars global assistance funds from being used for abortion.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he had “high hopes” that lawmakers could reach a compromise to reauthorize PEPFAR.
“Time is running out and it’s critical to find a path forward and get PEPFAR reauthorized. I know all parties involved in this discussion care about PEPFAR’s success,” McCaul said in a statement. “But that means they also all need to be willing to come to the negotiating table — and everyone needs to be prepared to give a little.”
Having failed to sway holdout Republicans by focusing on PEPFAR’s public health accomplishments, advocates are increasingly touting the program’s national security implications. The George W. Bush Institute sent a letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, signed by more than 30 organizations and leaders in global health, foreign relations and faith communities, saying that a five-year “clean” reauthorization would help fend off strategic rivals seeking influence in regions that rely on PEPFAR support.
“As authoritarian China and Russia seek to increase their influence in Africa by any means possible, PEPFAR has been a shining example of compassion, transparency and accountability, as well as a massive strategic success story for the United States,” the letter reads. “Abandoning it abruptly now would send a bleak message, suggesting we are no longer able to set aside our politics for the betterment of democracies and the world.”
Deborah Birx of the Bush Institute, who led PEPFAR during the Obama and Trump administrations and helped organize Wednesday’s letter, said the congressional debate over the program “is bigger than PEPFAR,” citing the growing political divides over foreign aid, funding the Defense Department and other areas that were traditionally bipartisan.
“There are places where this country has compromised across the aisle for issues that transcend any specific party,” Birx added. “That’s what PEPFAR was about — translating the best of America.”
PEPFAR’s fate has been further clouded by uncertainty in Congress, as House Republicans spent most of October without a speaker, paralyzing legislative efforts in the chamber. Lawmakers and staffers told The Washington Post that it was unclear whether newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who is staunchly antiabortion and a longtime ally of conservative advocacy groups that allege PEPFAR is funding abortions abroad, would favor swiftly reauthorizing the program.
Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Senate’s PEPFAR efforts have also been disrupted. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who was steering Democrats’ efforts and working with Republicans to find a deal, stepped down last month as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair after he was indicted over allegations he accepted bribes in exchange for exerting political influence. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), who had not been closely involved in the PEPFAR negotiations, is now serving as committee chair.
Lawmakers in both parties have discussed attempting to attach PEPFAR’s reauthorization to a larger bill to fund the government at the end of this year, but congressional staffers and experts have said they remain cautious about its prospects.
“If the only conversation is abortion, we’re not going to have a reauthorized bill,” Dybul said this week, calling on public health experts “to stand up, to speak, and not allow the misinformation to win.”
PEPFAR partner organizations across the globe said they are nervously watching the congressional negotiations, which have raised international questions about whether the United States remains committed to its long-running HIV program.
“The anxiety we are causing to patients and health workers is unfair,” Nkatha Njeru, the coordinator and CEO of Nairobi-based African Christian Health Associations Platform, wrote in an email.
It is unclear what will end the logjam. Bush appealed to Congress to reauthorize the program for five years in an op-ed in The Post published last month, and senior officials from both parties have increasingly issued their own pleas.
“I can’t think of another thing like PEPFAR until I go back to the Marshall Plan,” said Bob McDonald, who served as secretary of Veterans Affairs during the Obama administration and who co-signed the letter sent by the Bush Institute on Wednesday. “Imagine if we had been against the Marshall Plan.”
Asked how to break the political stalemate, Nkengasong called for a “dialogue” with the program’s critics. “We have to have a forum where we have an honest conversation … and lead with facts and not misinformation and disinformation,” the PEPFAR chief said.
Today's Tweext
How long before we find out this guy's gay?
Nothing gets the conservatives more het up than the thought of what's going on in other people's bedrooms.
Mike Johnson called for criminalizing gay sex.
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) October 25, 2023
Johnson called same-sex relations “inherently unnatural” and said it could destroy “the entire democratic system.” He railed against courts for “closing bedroom doors” and upholding the right to privacy. https://t.co/0VKww1AarQ pic.twitter.com/7y8DzEyZ8A
Oct 26, 2023
Bye Bye Uncle Bob
Charlottesville’s Lee statue meets its end, in a 2,250-degree furnace
Melted down in secret, the divisive Confederate monument will be turned into a new piece of public art
SOMEWHERE IN THE U.S. SOUTH — It was a choice to melt down Robert E. Lee. But it would have been a choice to keep him intact, too.
So the statue of the Confederate general that once stood in Charlottesville — the one that prompted the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in 2017 — was now being cut into fragments and dropped into a furnace, dissolving into a sludge of glowing bronze.
Six years ago, groups with ties to the Confederacy had sued to stop the monument from being taken down. Torch-bearing white nationalists descended on the Virginia college town to protest its removal, and one man drove his car through a crowd of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others.
The statue’s defenders more recently sought to block the city from handing Lee over to Charlottesville’s Black history museum, which proposed a plan to repurpose the metal. In a lawsuit, those plaintiffs suggested the monument should remain intact or be turned into Civil War-style cannons. But on Saturday the museum went ahead with its plan in secret at this small Southern foundry, in a town and state The Washington Post agreed not to name because of participants’ fears of violence.
“Well, they can’t put Humpty Dumpty back together again,” said Andrea Douglas, the museum’s executive director, as she watched pieces of oxidized metal descend into the furnace. “There will be no tape for that.”
“No cannons,” added Jalane Schmidt, a University of Virginia religious studies professor standing beside her.
Swords Into Plowshares, a project led by the two women, will turn bronze ingots made from molten Lee into a new piece of public artwork to be displayed in Charlottesville. They made arrangements for Lee to be melted down while they started collecting ideas from city residents for that new sculpture.
Given past threats to the project and worries about legal action, Douglas, Schmidt and other organizers who traveled to this foundry in the American South took great pains to keep this part of the process under wraps. Only a few dozen people, including some who had housed or transported the dismembered figure of Lee, were invited to watch alongside them in secret. They plan to announce the feat at a news conference Thursday afternoon in Charlottesville.
As dozens of Confederate monuments have been toppled around the country, most others have been left to sit in storage or put up on Civil War battlefields that venerate the Lost Cause. A few have been exhibited in museums, where historians can add necessary context. But this might be the first Confederate monument to be melted, and each person witnessing the scene on Saturday had a different view of what it meant.
Some said the statue was being destroyed. Others called it a restoration. Depending on whom you asked, the bronze was being reclaimed, disrupted, or redeemed to a higher purpose. It was a grim act of justice and a celebration all in one.
Schmidt, who directs the Memory Project at U-Va.’s Karsh Institute of Democracy, said she felt like she was preparing for an execution of sorts — “like if there’s a rabid dog in the neighborhood that’s been hurting people, and it needs to be euthanized,” she said.
Still, that dark feeling was better than carting Charlottesville’s “white supremacist toxic waste” away to some other community.
“We are taking the moral risk associated with melting it down,” she added, “in the hope of creating something new.”
After the city took the statue down in July 2021, officials left it in a bus depot until voting to hand it over to the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. In the two years since, the museum was forced to relocate Lee “on more than one occasion” because of safety concerns, Douglas said.
That happened under sometimes-urgent deadlines, amid security concerns and the logistical challenges of handling about 6,000 pounds of bronze. The metal requires a forklift to be moved even just a few yards, much less out of Virginia.
After the museum received the statue from the city but before it reached the foundry, Lee was cut down into nine pieces — although museum leaders declined to say where or when. The general’s head was removed from his body and his horse, Traveller, but it needed to be broken down further to fit into the small furnace here.
With a flash of bluish-white light and orange sparks, a trio of foundry workers carved seven long gashes into Lee’s severed head.
“It’s a better sculpture right now than it’s ever been,” one of the metal-casters said. “We’re taking away what it meant for some people and transforming it.”
All of this could have happened as early as January 2022. But once the lawsuit was filed to block the meltdown, the museum waited until a judge agreed to dismiss the case. A 30-day window for plaintiffs to appeal that decision expires Thursday afternoon.
The general’s head was hollow, save for a few traces of wax mold and some dirt and rust buildup inside. “I hope it doesn’t convey a message of hate on hate. It’s not that,” one of the foundrymen said. Below his face shield, he wore a black “Don’t Tread on Me” cap.
The foundry workers put the statue fragments into a metal cage, covered them in a blanket and then used a forklift to move them from the indoor workshop to the yard outside, where the small crowd started filling in to watch the action.
Douglas paid tribute to the nearly 15,000 enslaved people who lived in Charlottesville at the start of the Civil War and made up a majority of the town’s population. Schmidt spoke about the “moral risk” of keeping Confederate statues intact.
The Rev. Isaac Collins, a United Methodist minister who at one point helped transport the broken-apart statue, followed with a sermon over the jet-engine whir of the furnace. He and Schmidt had organized Bible studies suggesting that celebrating the Lost Cause through public statues was a sin, and he made a similar case as he cited Bible verses and told of Charlottesville’s history of cross-burnings and Jim Crow.
“There’s a different story about the South to be told, and to do that, we have to get rid of all these myths,” he told the group.
A tank of propane gas mixed with forced air from a blower to reach a scalding 2,250 degrees Fahrenheit in the furnace. Working in batches, the foundry workers put fragments of the Lee statue on top of the equipment to preheat them and remove any moisture.
One of them compared the process of melting bronze to cooking: Any water can cause a small explosion, and you don’t want hot metal bursting out of the machine. But the preheating was not a bad excuse to add some dramatic flair, as they set up the glow of the fire to reflect off the inside of Lee’s cracked, severed face.
In the five-year debate over whether it could be toppled, the monument had been “patrolled” by armed vigilante groups and vandalized with paint and graffiti by protesters. Residents fought over whether it should be shrouded in black cloth, and politicians on the campaign trail cited the statue as a symbol of either heritage or hatred.
In some ways, organizers said, that history only made this haunted spectacle feel more real. “Oh, my gosh. It’s like a Halloween movie back here,” Schmidt said as she walked around to view the face from the back. “That is creepy.”
Finding a foundry to take on a project like this one was hardly an easy task. Plenty of people said no. But the owner of this foundry, a Black man, said he didn’t feel like he had a choice.
“The risk is being targeted by people of hate, having my business damaged, having threats to family and friends,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety. Yet, “when you are approached with such an honor, especially to destroy hate, you have to do it.”
To him, melting the statue down meant the trauma will be gone when Black people pass squares where Confederate statues once stood. “It is time to dismantle this hate, this infection that has plagued our beautiful country,” he said. “It is time to rid these icons of hate.”
Hours later into the night, he and another metal-caster used a set of lifting tongs to pick up the crucible, a ceramic container that holds the bronze inside the furnace. They used a new one to avoid contaminating the metal with other materials. The crowd gathered to watch, oohing and aahing at the glowing barrel as it was lifted up.
If you took away the off-duty police officers brought on to guard the property, or the plastic tarp hiding it all from the street, it all started to feel something like a backyard bonfire.
There were toddlers eating pizza, parents in “Swords Into Plowshares” shirts sitting on lawn chairs, and old friends sipping from paper cups filled with champagne and bourbon. Some were reuniting after helping with the project at some point in the past two years, and many brought their families along to witness this small moment in history.
All of them, though, had been instructed to disable the location on their phones. Charlottesville activists have faced online attacks and had tiki torches planted in their front yards, and the organizers didn’t want a repeat incident here.
The furnace was hot enough that it should have easily turned the bronze into liquid. But the molten metal got thick and clumpy unusually fast, and the workers wondered whether there was something else — maybe some tin or lead? — corrupting the century-old material.
The metal had been cast while Charlottesville and the South were ruled by segregation and dedicated days after the Ku Klux Klan marched through town. Philanthropist Paul G. McIntire, whose prosperous enslaver father had been financially crippled by the Civil War, commissioned and donated the monument to the city.
“This metal has a lot of bad juju stuck in it,” the foundry owner said, studying the lumpy bronze. “It’s cursed.”
After the molds cooled, the foundry workers flipped them onto a pool of sand and banged on them so the ingots would fall out. They were streaked in different shades of brown, some of the engravings a little hard to see.
To Schmidt, it did not seem to particularly matter. The ingots were something to work with — something that took up a different kind of space in the world — and could allow them to imagine what form the metal might take on next.
This was merely the “end of the middle.” They had already faced lawsuits and protests, fought neo-Nazis and monument defenders, fended off attacks and worked in secret to get the bronze to this state. Now came the very public process of taking something ugly and making something beautiful.
“This is a relief,” she sighed. “This feels good to have material created. … It’s got to go forward.”
Today's Wingnut
Our rights don't come from a god, and they don't come from a government.
Saying our rights are god-given (endowed by a creator), or granted under the US Constitution - all of that is euphemism. It's just a convenience of language.
Nobody "gives" us our basic human rights - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness - we're born with them. So what we do is create institutions of law to keep powerful people from denying us those rights.
If we allow Mike Johnson's imaginary friend to inform us about our rights, then we're opening the door for Mr Johnson to tell us he gets to fuck us out of our rights because that same imaginary friend said so.
You believe what you want to believe, and sorry not sorry, but fuck you and the god you rode in on, Skeezix.
#36 YTD
Mass murder in Lewiston Maine last night.
At least 16 dead in Maine mass killing and police hunt for the shooter as residents take shelter
Hundreds of police officers are searching for Robert Card, a person of interest in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that killed and injured several people.
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — A man shot and killed at least 16 people at a restaurant and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday and then fled into the night, sparking a massive search by hundreds of officers while frightened residents stayed locked in their homes.
A police bulletin identified Robert Card, 40, as a person of interest in the attack that sent panicked bowlers scrambling behind pins when shots rang out around 7 p.m. Card was described as a firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve and assigned to a training facility in Saco, Maine.
The document, circulated to law enforcement officials, said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks in the summer of 2023. It did not provide details about his treatment or condition but said Card had reported “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” the military base. A telephone number listed for Card in public records was not in service.
Maine shooting is the 36th mass killing this year
Lewiston Police said in an earlier Facebook post that they were dealing with an active shooter incident at Schemengees Bar and Grille and at Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) away.
One bowler, who identified himself only as Brandon, said he heard about 10 shots, thinking the first was a balloon popping.
“I had my back turned to the door. And as soon as I turned and saw it was not a balloon — he was holding a weapon — I just booked it,” he told The Associated Press.
Brandon said he scrambled down the length of the alley, sliding into the pin area and climbing up to hide in the machinery. He was among a busload of survivors who were driven to a middle school in the neighboring city of Auburn to be reunited with family and friends.
“I was putting on my bowling shoes when when it started. I’ve been barefoot for five hours,” he said.
Melinda Small, the owner of Legends Sports Bar and Grill, said her staff immediately locked their doors and moved all 25 customers and employees away from the doors after a customer reported hearing about the shooting at the bowling alley less than a quarter-mile away. Soon, the police flooded the roadway and a police officer eventually escorted everyone out of the building.
“I am honestly in a state of shock. I am blessed that my team responded quickly and everyone is safe,” Small said. “But at the same time, my heart is broken for this area and for what everyone is dealing with. I just feel numb.”
After the shooting, police, many armed with rifles, took up positions while the city descended into eerie quiet — punctuated by occasional sirens — as people hunkered down at home. Schools were closed Thursday in Lewiston, Lisbon and Auburn, as well as municipal offices in Lewiston.
The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office released two photos of the suspect on its Facebook page that showed the shooter walking into an establishment with a weapon raised to his shoulder.
Two law enforcement officials told The AP that at least 16 people were killed and the toll was expected to rise. However, Michael Sauschuck, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, declined to provide a specific estimate at a news conference, calling it a “fluid situation.” State police planned to hold a mid-morning news conference Thursday.
The two law enforcement officials said dozens of people also had been wounded. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
On its website, Central Maine Medical Center said staff were “reacting to a mass casualty, mass shooter event” and were coordinating with area hospitals to take in patients. The hospital was locked down and police, some armed with rifles, stood by the entrances.
Meanwhile, hospitals as far away as Portland, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) to the south, were on alert to potentially receive victims.
An order for residents and business owners to stay inside and off the streets of the city of 37,000 was extended Wednesday night from Lewiston to Lisbon, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) away, after a “vehicle of interest” was found there, authorities said.
Gov. Janet Mills released a statement echoing instructions for people to shelter. She said she had been briefed on the situation and will remain in close contact with public safety officials.
President Joe Biden spoke by phone to Mills and the state’s Senate and House members, offering “full federal support in the wake of this horrific attack,” a White House statement said.
Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, said he was “deeply sad for the city of Lewiston and all those worried about their family, friends and neighbors” and was monitoring the situation. King’s office said the senator would be headed directly home to Maine on the first flight possible.
Local schools will be closed Thursday and people should shelter in place or seek safety, Superintendent Jake Langlais said, adding: “Stay close to your loved ones. Embrace them.”
Wednesday’s death toll was staggering for a state that in 2022 had 29 homicides the entire year.
Maine doesn’t require permits to carry guns, and the state has a longstanding culture of gun ownership that is tied to its traditions of hunting and sport shooting.
Some recent attempts by gun control advocates to tighten the state’s gun laws have failed. Proposals to require background checks for private gun sales and create a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases failed earlier this year. Proposals that focused on school security and banning bump stocks failed in 2019.
State residents have also voted down some attempts to tighten gun laws in Maine. A proposal to require background checks for gun sales failed in a 2016 public vote.
According to Gun Violence Archive, this makes 565 mass shootings (4 or more people shot), and 31 mass murders (4 or more people killed).
But as you can see in the AP story below, there is some discrepancy on whether the number of Mass Killings is 31 or 36. Like we can't even keep track of this shit anymore?
Which beggars the question - once again:
What the fuck is wrong with us?
More than 3 mass murder incidents per month so far in 2023.
Hundreds of police officers are searching for Robert Card, a person of interest in a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that killed and injured several people.
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — A man shot and killed at least 16 people at a restaurant and a bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, on Wednesday and then fled into the night, sparking a massive search by hundreds of officers while frightened residents stayed locked in their homes.
A police bulletin identified Robert Card, 40, as a person of interest in the attack that sent panicked bowlers scrambling behind pins when shots rang out around 7 p.m. Card was described as a firearms instructor believed to be in the Army Reserve and assigned to a training facility in Saco, Maine.
The document, circulated to law enforcement officials, said Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks in the summer of 2023. It did not provide details about his treatment or condition but said Card had reported “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” the military base. A telephone number listed for Card in public records was not in service.
Maine shooting is the 36th mass killing this year
Lewiston Police said in an earlier Facebook post that they were dealing with an active shooter incident at Schemengees Bar and Grille and at Sparetime Recreation, a bowling alley about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) away.
One bowler, who identified himself only as Brandon, said he heard about 10 shots, thinking the first was a balloon popping.
“I had my back turned to the door. And as soon as I turned and saw it was not a balloon — he was holding a weapon — I just booked it,” he told The Associated Press.
Brandon said he scrambled down the length of the alley, sliding into the pin area and climbing up to hide in the machinery. He was among a busload of survivors who were driven to a middle school in the neighboring city of Auburn to be reunited with family and friends.
“I was putting on my bowling shoes when when it started. I’ve been barefoot for five hours,” he said.
Melinda Small, the owner of Legends Sports Bar and Grill, said her staff immediately locked their doors and moved all 25 customers and employees away from the doors after a customer reported hearing about the shooting at the bowling alley less than a quarter-mile away. Soon, the police flooded the roadway and a police officer eventually escorted everyone out of the building.
“I am honestly in a state of shock. I am blessed that my team responded quickly and everyone is safe,” Small said. “But at the same time, my heart is broken for this area and for what everyone is dealing with. I just feel numb.”
After the shooting, police, many armed with rifles, took up positions while the city descended into eerie quiet — punctuated by occasional sirens — as people hunkered down at home. Schools were closed Thursday in Lewiston, Lisbon and Auburn, as well as municipal offices in Lewiston.
The Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office released two photos of the suspect on its Facebook page that showed the shooter walking into an establishment with a weapon raised to his shoulder.
Two law enforcement officials told The AP that at least 16 people were killed and the toll was expected to rise. However, Michael Sauschuck, commissioner of the Maine Department of Public Safety, declined to provide a specific estimate at a news conference, calling it a “fluid situation.” State police planned to hold a mid-morning news conference Thursday.
The two law enforcement officials said dozens of people also had been wounded. The officials were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
On its website, Central Maine Medical Center said staff were “reacting to a mass casualty, mass shooter event” and were coordinating with area hospitals to take in patients. The hospital was locked down and police, some armed with rifles, stood by the entrances.
Meanwhile, hospitals as far away as Portland, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) to the south, were on alert to potentially receive victims.
An order for residents and business owners to stay inside and off the streets of the city of 37,000 was extended Wednesday night from Lewiston to Lisbon, about 8 miles (13 kilometers) away, after a “vehicle of interest” was found there, authorities said.
Gov. Janet Mills released a statement echoing instructions for people to shelter. She said she had been briefed on the situation and will remain in close contact with public safety officials.
President Joe Biden spoke by phone to Mills and the state’s Senate and House members, offering “full federal support in the wake of this horrific attack,” a White House statement said.
Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent, said he was “deeply sad for the city of Lewiston and all those worried about their family, friends and neighbors” and was monitoring the situation. King’s office said the senator would be headed directly home to Maine on the first flight possible.
Local schools will be closed Thursday and people should shelter in place or seek safety, Superintendent Jake Langlais said, adding: “Stay close to your loved ones. Embrace them.”
Wednesday’s death toll was staggering for a state that in 2022 had 29 homicides the entire year.
Maine doesn’t require permits to carry guns, and the state has a longstanding culture of gun ownership that is tied to its traditions of hunting and sport shooting.
Some recent attempts by gun control advocates to tighten the state’s gun laws have failed. Proposals to require background checks for private gun sales and create a 72-hour waiting period for gun purchases failed earlier this year. Proposals that focused on school security and banning bump stocks failed in 2019.
State residents have also voted down some attempts to tighten gun laws in Maine. A proposal to require background checks for gun sales failed in a 2016 public vote.
Oct 25, 2023
Otis
Forecasters didn’t even anticipate Otis would become a hurricane. Then it broke all-time records.
When residents of Acapulco, Mexico, went to bed on Monday, Wednesday’s forecast called for gusty winds and some downpours. Otis, a run-of-the-mill tropical storm, was expected to only “gradually strengthen” en route to the coast. Instead, Otis intensified faster than any other eastern Pacific storm on record Tuesday and became the strongest hurricane to ever strike Mexico slamming Acapulco as a “potentially catastrophic Category 5.”
As winds catapulted to Category 5 strength Tuesday evening, shocked forecasters at the National Hurricane Center described the storm’s extreme intensification as a “nightmare scenario” and “extremely dangerous situation.” Nobody saw it coming — but with human-caused climate change warming the planet’s oceans, this situation could become more frequent.
On Monday night, most computer models only simulated Otis’s top winds reaching 60 mph (these forecasts increased some on Tuesday as the storm showed signs of rapidly gaining strength). Instead, Otis came ashore near Acapulco with 165 mph winds, surely catching most of the city of 1 million off guard.
On X, formerly Twitter, meteorologists described the forecast as “an almost incomprehensible miss,” “a fail of epic proportions” and “just a catastrophic failure.”
Hurricane warnings weren’t issued for southern Mexico’s western coast until 2 a.m. local time Tuesday, about 24 hours before landfall — and, even then, the forecast was for a Category 1. The 9 a.m. Hurricane Center forecast on Tuesday — about 15 hours before landfall — still called for a Category 1. Not until 3 p.m., less than 12 hours before landfall, did the forecast increase to a Category 4.
While hurricanes can surprise meteorologists, a wind forecast error of nearly 100 mph is highly unusual. But some climate scientists have warned that extreme rapid intensification, made more likely by the effects of human-caused climate change and warming oceans, will lead to more unpredictable storms.
In 2017, MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel published a paper titled “Will Global Warming Make Hurricane Forecasting More Difficult?” In it, he argued that instances of extreme rapid intensification could be up to 20 times more common by the end of the 21st century.
Otis careened from a tropical storm to Category 5 strength in 12 hours, and its peak winds increased 115 mph in 24 hours. That’s around a threshold that Emanuel wrote was “essentially nonexistent in the late twentieth-century climate” but increasingly probable in the current warming climate.
Just this week, a study documented substantial increases in rapidly intensifying Atlantic storms over the past several decades. “The increased likelihood for hurricanes to transition from weak storms into major hurricanes in 24 hours or less was particularly striking,” Andra Garner, the study’s author, told The Washington Post.
Strongest landfalling Pacific hurricane on record
On Monday night, most computer models only simulated Otis’s top winds reaching 60 mph (these forecasts increased some on Tuesday as the storm showed signs of rapidly gaining strength). Instead, Otis came ashore near Acapulco with 165 mph winds, surely catching most of the city of 1 million off guard.
On X, formerly Twitter, meteorologists described the forecast as “an almost incomprehensible miss,” “a fail of epic proportions” and “just a catastrophic failure.”
Hurricane warnings weren’t issued for southern Mexico’s western coast until 2 a.m. local time Tuesday, about 24 hours before landfall — and, even then, the forecast was for a Category 1. The 9 a.m. Hurricane Center forecast on Tuesday — about 15 hours before landfall — still called for a Category 1. Not until 3 p.m., less than 12 hours before landfall, did the forecast increase to a Category 4.
While hurricanes can surprise meteorologists, a wind forecast error of nearly 100 mph is highly unusual. But some climate scientists have warned that extreme rapid intensification, made more likely by the effects of human-caused climate change and warming oceans, will lead to more unpredictable storms.
In 2017, MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel published a paper titled “Will Global Warming Make Hurricane Forecasting More Difficult?” In it, he argued that instances of extreme rapid intensification could be up to 20 times more common by the end of the 21st century.
Otis careened from a tropical storm to Category 5 strength in 12 hours, and its peak winds increased 115 mph in 24 hours. That’s around a threshold that Emanuel wrote was “essentially nonexistent in the late twentieth-century climate” but increasingly probable in the current warming climate.
Just this week, a study documented substantial increases in rapidly intensifying Atlantic storms over the past several decades. “The increased likelihood for hurricanes to transition from weak storms into major hurricanes in 24 hours or less was particularly striking,” Andra Garner, the study’s author, told The Washington Post.
Strongest landfalling Pacific hurricane on record
Otis’s Category 5 landfall is a first for Mexico, as well as for the entire Pacific coastline of North or South America. While the west coast of Mexico regularly experiences hurricanes, and Otis is the fourth storm to make landfall in Mexico in a month, many of them exhibit a weakening trend before landfall. Otis strengthened up until the very last moment.
It appears that high-altitude winds relaxed more than originally intensified, offering Otis an undisturbed and untapped environment within which to intensify at breakneck pace. It took advantage of bathlike water temperatures around 88 degrees.
Otis’s entire formation came about as an “accident” of sorts; instead of beginning its life as a preexisting tropical wave, it instead was caused when northerly Gulf of Mexico winds were funneled through a gap in between mountain ranges on Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec. That created a spurt of winds that curled in on itself upon exiting into the Pacific, leading to a small lobe of spin, or vorticity, that began producing thunderstorms.
One of the reasons Otis was so difficult to forecast was its size. As a relatively compact storm, it was particularly sensitive to very localized environmental conditions and prone to rapid fluctuations in strength.
Although hurricane intensity forecasts have improved substantially in recent years, models still have a difficult time predicting rapid changes that can occur in smaller storms.
How does Otis compare to other storms?
Otis’s winds leaped 90 mph in 12 hours, a record for the eastern Pacific. However, its 24-hour intensification falls just shy of Hurricane Patricia in 2015; that storm’s peak winds leaped a record 120 mph in strength in 24 hours. It eventually made landfall as a 150 mph Category 4, weakening as it approached land. But it had become the strongest hurricane on record over the ocean with 215 mph winds.
Aside from Patricia, half a dozen other hurricanes made landfall on Mexico’s west coast as Category 4s since the 1960s.
It first became clear that Otis was undergoing extreme rapid intensification on Tuesday afternoon, when a Hurricane Hunter flight found staggeringly different conditions inside the storm within two consecutive passes through the eye. Within 80 minutes, the storm’s central air pressure dropped by 10 millibars. In other words, there was 1 percent less air in the middle of the storm. That may not sound like much, but it signaled an extreme “vacuum” effect within the storm, causing the winds near the ground to accelerate to dangerous levels.
Matt Lanza, a meteorologist who runs The Eyewall, a hurricane commentary website, wrote the forecast for Otis was unacceptable.
“Otis will be studied in the coming months and years to understand why it blew up so quickly, and so powerfully, in such a short period of time,” he said. “In moments like these, forecasters utterly failed the people of Southern Mexico. We must do better.”
A Red Flag (ish)
Peter Zeihan is a smart guy.
Peter Zeihan doesn't always get it right.
Peter Zeihan is worth a listen because he's not all that wrong all that often.
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