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Police Say "Kill All Asians" Shooter Isn't Racist
On Tuesday. March 16th there were a series of mass shootings in and around Atlanta, Georgia, allegedly perpetrated by a 21-year-old gunman. The shootings took place at three massage parlors and eight people were killed; six of the victims were Asian women. While investigators are still trying to suss out the motive, it is suspected that this could have been a hate crime and that the victims were singled out for being Asian. The shooter is still alive and was taken into custody Tuesday evening.
Yesterday, the Atlanta Police Department held a news conference to discuss the shootings. One officer said that the suspect may have had other motivations and “made indicators that he has some issues, potentially sexual addiction.” This suggests that maybe there wasn’t a racial motivation. However, there is also a good deal of evidence that the attack was indeed against the greater Asian community. The South Korean newspaper Chosun, which interviewed the survivors, reported that the shooter said to one witness “I’m going to kill all Asians.” If true, that’s as clear as it gets, but it needs to be corroborated. It might just be too early to definitively say why these killings took place. Certainly racially motivated attacks are a major problem regardless of if this was one. The rise in vitriol and hate crimes against the Asian community over the past year has been appalling.
Fox Host & GOP Senator Claim $400,000/Year is Middle Income
During yesterday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Jen Psaki made a clarification on Joe Biden’s tax plan. While it was reported that Biden wanted to raise incomes on individuals who make over $400,000 a year, he actually meant households earning more than $400,000 a year. This created an opening for right-wing media to complain. Fox News host Charles Payne had Republican Senator Chuck Grassley on his program yesterday and the two strongly implied that people who would be affected by this tax increase include middle class folks. Payne argued that the voters were duped by what Biden promised on taxes during the 2020 campaign. Grassley followed up by saying, “the middle income people in this country are smart enough to know . . . better. If you go there, you’re going to eventually end up taxing middle-income people.”
There is no way to argue that someone making $200,000 a year (or a couple making $400,000 a year) is middle-income. Making $200,000 puts someone at the top 2% of personal incomes. It’s unclear whether Payne and Grassley don’t actually know that the vast majority of people in this country don’t make nearly that much. They are perhaps more likely just playing dumb to get the Fox News audience to oppose the Biden tax hike on the rich. This is only the beginning of the right-wing fearmongering that will take place if Biden and Democrats decide to advance this as part of their agenda items over the next two years.
From yesterday’s show:
Biden Bad for Not Having Press Conference AND Bad for Announcing One
Fox News and right-wing media generally has had a difficult time attacking the nascent Joe Biden presidency. Biden currently enjoys a 62% approval rating with 66% of Americans supporting his handling of coronavirus, according to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll. That means, that Fox has really had to dig to find reasons to criticize the new president. Lately, Fox has been making a stink out of Biden not holding a formal press conference during his presidency. Biden has taken questions from the media, but not for an extended period of time in the press room. Well this week, the White House announced that Biden will be doing his first press conference on March 25th and Fox found a reason to criticize that as well. Host Dana Perino found it suspicious because the presser was planned too far in advance. Fox is going to have to keep trying to find something to attack Biden on that sticks, otherwise the network is going to have a difficult four years.
--More on the show:
--Dan Kovalik, labor and human rights attorney and author of the book "Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture," joins David to discuss the book and cancel culture. Get the book: https://amzn.to/3f5l5HJ
--Joe Biden's approval rating remains at 62% almost into his third month of his presidency, buoyed by his popular recently-passed $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill
--Notable discussions from the David Pakman Show subreddit, including about 2024, Tulsi Gabbard, and TDPS podcast listening tips
--Tucker Carlson decides that the country is suddenly "too crowded" because of immigration
--The David Pakman Show is hiring
--Voicemail caller wonders if Republican COVID vaccine hesitancy will eventually lead to coronavirus being a disease that disproportionately kills Republicans
--On the Bonus Show: Fox conflates Trump's Georgia calls and makes false claims, tipped minimum wage has been $2.13 for decades, FCC cracks down on robocalls with $225 million fine, much more...
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