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.

200 years later, remember when and why the British burned the White House and much of Capital to the ground.

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.

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.

Some fascinating historical insights on what prompted the British to burn Washington 200 years ago this week.

I am going on vacation. I will see you in September. I leave you with these good TPM people.

NYT reporter who wrote the Michael Brown is “no angel” profile explains what he was trying to convey.

Pew finds relatively few self-identified libertarians — and discovers their views are actually not as different from everyone else’s as they like to think.

McDonnell confessed last week that he’s living with a priest during the corruption trial against him. But it’s now been revealed that that priest was arrested for a sex crime in 2002 — one that McDonnell himself advocated for keeping on the books as a state delegate.

You have to check out these great pics of pre-revolution American cars which, because of the U.S. embargo, still show up all over Cuba.