Saturday

You probably heard about the mass shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday where eleven people were killed, including a physician, two brothers, a married couple in their eighties, and a 97-year-old woman. About half were in their seventies and older, including the wounded who survived.

Donald Trump was typically tone deaf in his response. After offering up some canned statements of sympathy, he then hypocritically stated, "it’s a terrible, terrible thing what’s going on with hate in our country and ... something has to be done."

Trump should follow his own advice and stop dishing out hate nearly every time he opens his mouth. The New York Times noted this in a piece (link here) with the title "Trump Calls for Unity After Synagogue Shooting, Then Swiftly Denounces Democrats."

The article notes: "In minutes, Trump moved from a call for unity to attacking and name-calling Democrats, including his former presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, and leading lawmakers like Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Maxine Waters."

Trump then went on the victim blame the people who were murdered. "If they had protection inside, the results would have been far better," he claimed. He then went on to make the absurd claim that the shooting had little to do with gun laws.

As the Washington Post noted (link here), Trump joined the long line of those who blame Jews for anti-Semitic violence against them.

Saturday's tragedy wasn't enough for Trump to cancel his rally the same evening. A little murder shouldn't get in the way of campaigning and ego gratification, apparently.

To justify his poor taste, Trump rolled out a whopper of a lie at the event and capped it off with a salute to an imaginary friend (details here). Slate doesn't pull any punches with this piece titled "Trump Lies About Sept. 11 to Justify Holding Campaign Rally After Synagogue Shooting."

At the rally and also in press comments beforehand, Trump falsely claimed that the New York Stock Exchange opened the day after the September 11 terrorist attack in 2001. In reality, the market was closed for nearly a week. He also gave a shout out to his imaginary "friend" Dick Russell who he claimed headed the stock exchange. No such individual was CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, but Dick Russell was a notorious senator and bigot.

Another day in Trump's America of hate.