Some fascinating historical insights on what prompted the British to burn Washington 200 years ago this week.
The Scott Brown who now hails from New Hampshire is much more of a climate change denialist than the Scott Brown who used to be a Massachusetts guy.
The Army’s Fort Lee, south of Richmond near Petersburg, is reporting an active shooter on base. You can monitor the situation via TPM Livewire.
Late Update: The all-clear has been sounded, though it’s not clear if that means there was a false alarm or if the situation was otherwise resolved.
Later Update: More details emerge on what happened this morning.
200 years later, remember when and why the British burned the White House and much of Capital to the ground.
Shannon Kepler’s family is standing resolutely behind him after he allegedly shot and killed Jeremey Lake, the black 19 year old who daughter Lisa Kepler met at a homeless shelter after the Kepler’s kicked her out of their home. Kepler, an off-duty cop, tracked the couple down outside Lake’s home and confronted his daughter. He shot and killed Lake as he was trying to introduce himself. “There was no argument,” said Lisa Kepler. “I walked away and Jeremey introduced himself and my dad shot him.”
Kepler’s attorney seems to mix victim-blaming and unreconstructed racism in his defense of his client.
In a statement, Richard O’Carroll, said there was no basis for the charge since there was “not one credible eyewitness to this event” and claimed Kepler was trying “to protect his daughter, who preferred to live in a high crime area than live in a home with rules prohibiting her from bringing men home at night, some of whom even broke into the Kepler home.”
A judge today set Kepler’s bond at $825,000.
I don’t normally do this. But I’m reprinting this post in a thread from The Hive (sub req), as though it were a reader email. I don’t think it requires much explanation. It speaks for itself …
It’s incredibly unfair that it worked out this way but I think the historical take of the biggest success of the Obama presidency will be this.
As a white, suburban, middle++ aged liberal, I saw the run up to his first election as proof of what I believed for a long time – we were in a post-racial world where the only thing that was holding individuals of color back was a willingness to do the hard work that the rest of us were doing to get ahead.
Sean Hannity tries to educate Ferguson town official on police brutality. With the results you’d expect.
Republican Senate candidate Joni Ernst thinks the minimum wage ($7.25 an hour) is a “great starter wage for many high school students.” The problem is that most of the people making minimum wage are not high school students.
Mitch McConnell seems to be ready to go to the mat to oppose Obama — even risking a government shutdown with riders on must-pass bills — if he wins Majority Leader in a future Republican Senate.
Microsoft ends its involvement with ALEC, apparently over the group’s lobbying against renewable energy.