Very sad, and illustrative of how hard it is to protect yourself from a random attacker with a gun. As far as I'm concerned, this sounds like both shooter and victims are more war casualties:

Chris Kyle, a former Navy SEAL and author of the best-selling book American Sniper, and a second person were shot and killed Saturday at a gun range in Erath County, U.S. Marshals said.

Late Saturday, Lancaster police arrested a man who they say matched the description of a man wanted in connection with the slayings. After a brief chase, officers arrested 25-year-old Eddie Ray Routh, according to Lancaster police spokesperson Kelly Hooten.

Reporting on the shootings, the Stephenville Empire-Tribune said Erath County Sheriff Tommy Bryant would not discuss the victims. But the newspaper said that a source working at Rough Creek Lodge, which has a gun range at which the newspaper reported the slayings occurred, confirmed that one of the victims was Kyle.

WFAA-TV (Channel 8) reported that Kyle was shot point-blank while helping another soldier who is recovering from post traumatic stress syndrome.

Erath County officials had issued an alert for authorities to be on the lookout for the gunman, who was believed to be armed and dangerous and driving a black Ford F-350 truck with large tires and rims.

The suspect was believed to be highly trained with military experience. The shooting location is 53 miles southwest of Fort Worth, according to WFAA.

Kyle grew up in Texas and spent much of his time riding horses and participating on the school rodeo team. His life quickly changed when he decided to go into the military and became a Navy SEAL. He deployed four times to Iraq. Kyle held the record for number of kills by an American sniper. The Pentagon has confirmed more than 150 of his kills. The previous record was 109. For his service, Kyle was awarded two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars with Valor. His autobiography, American Sniper, was released last year.

“When I grew up, I only had two dreams,” he told The News in January 2012. “One was to be a cowboy and another was to be in the military. I grew up extremely patriotic and riding horses. I went to college and was working at a ranch up there. Sun up, sun down, I was in a saddle. By the time I was 24, I decided it was time to go into the military and try it out. It wasn’t exactly the SEALs I was looking for at the time. I just wanted to go into the military and be the best.”

Kyle said he wrote his book because, “I wanted to be able to let people know about the sacrifices that not only people in the service make, but what their families go through. I knew this would give me a voice so I could speak about the guys I know who were killed. I wanted to get their story out and I wanted to raise awareness for veterans.”

When the tea party gained prominence, my husband scoffed at my insistence that they were propelled by racism. But the more he saw of them, the harder it became for him to deny. All of the things that existed when George W. Bush was president suddenly became tyranny when an African American man occupied the White House. Ironically, I've come to re-evealuate that initial conclusion, thanks in no small part to my buddies Driftglass and Blue Gal and their weekly podcast. It would be far more accurate to say that these people are white supremists. Well, actually, to be totally accurate, Christian white heterosexual male supremists in the purest sense of the word. They may have friends who are women, blacks, gays or non-Christians, but they believe that by virtue of their inherent white Christian male existence, they are superior and by rights, deserve to be at the apex of that totem pole. They resent any challenge to their supremacy and will fight tooth and nail to keep perceived pretenders from their top spot.

With that in mind, perhaps the ravings of Alabama high school football coach and teacher of psychology Bob Grisham isn't that surprising. Certainly, that Grisham is still blissfully ignorant that students now regularly carry these recording devices called cell phones should be your first clue that the man is not operating with a full deck. But nonetheless, it's still jarring to hear what passes for acceptable classroom discussion in Grisham's mind:

School district officials are investigating allegations that a Lauderdale County High School teacher made slurs in the presence of students regarding first lady Michelle Obama and gays.

Superintendent Jennifer Gray confirmed the investigation concerns the school’s head football coach, Bob Grisham, who also teaches driver’s education and psychology.

The investigation includes a 1-minute, 24-second audiotape of Grisham asking who knows who is behind the 600-calorie school lunch.

“Fat butt Michelle Obama,” he said. “Look at her. She looks like she weighs 185 or 190. She’s overweight.”

Male voices interject comments during the discussion, at one point referring to Michelle Obama as a “fat gorilla.”

Later in the tape, Grisham referred to the U.S. as going in the “wrong direction” and tells the students they can “get pissed off at me or not. You can go tell the principal, call the superintendent and tell her. I don’t believe in queers. I don’t like queers, I don’t hate them as a person, but what they do is wrong and an abomination against God.” The tape was reportedly recorded by a student Monday and took place on school campus during the school day.

When the recording came to light, Grisham immediately claimed he misspoke:

“I misspoke in a debate-type situation,” he said. “I have no hatred toward anyone or any group. People that know my heart, they know that.”

And exactly my point at the beginning of this post. I'm sure that Grisham doesn't think what was said by him or by other people in the room with his tacit endorsement was racist. He doesn't hate Michelle Obama or gays. He just finds it unacceptable that they should be accorded as much respect as him.

By the way, as a woman, I would like it to be known that effective immediately, any man who comments in a derogatory fashion about a woman's looks, especially as a value judgment of her person, has to immediately offer forward a picture of his own unassailable looks for the evaluation of women in a similar fashion, or simply STFU. Suggesting (not mandating or legislating, for crying out loud) that Americans make mindful and healthy eating choices does not invite anyone to comment on the size or weight of any portion of Michelle Obama's body.

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The threat to the recovery is Washington.

There is more truth in those seven words than in the entire 11.5 hours of Sunday news programming we monitor put together.

We were at the precipice of a global economic catastrophe, thanks directly to Republican policies, at the time that Barack Obama was inaugurated. While it's difficult to gauge success from the absence of devastation, there is no argument that the preemptory measures taken in the early days of the first Obama term did slowly turn the economy around. There's far to go still, especially when it come to jobs, but we're at least moving away from the cliff.

But...

If Republicans still take their marching orders from deep thinkers like Rush that could change. And Carly Fiorina shows the same fundamental understanding of the drivers of the economy that enabled her as a CEO to drive two major American corporations into the ground. For her, we have to keep cutting federal spending because...bureaucrats!

FIORINA: I think it's important to remember when we talk about the economy that a private-sector job and a public-sector job are not the same things. They're not equivalent. I'm not saying public-sector jobs aren't important, but a private sector job pays for itself. A private-sector job creates other jobs. A public-sector job is paid for by taxpayers.

The government does not spend and invest money as efficiently as the private sector. There's all kinds of data to support that. So it isn't simply a matter of saying, well, whatever job is created out there, if it's a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., or a small-business owner hiring another employer, those are not equivalent thing.

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: ... when you say public-sector jobs, it is not a bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.

FIORINA: Oh, it is, actually.

KRUGMAN: When we talk about public-sector jobs, we look at the public-sector jobs that have been lost in large numbers in this, it's basically school teachers. Don't think about bureaucrats. It's school teachers. What we've laid off is hundreds of thousands of school teachers.

And we talk about the cuts in public spending that have happened, they are not, you know, some god-awful who-knows-what. It's actually public investment. It's largely fixing potholes and repairing bridges. So, you know, you have this image of these wasteful bureaucrats doing god knows what. What we've actually seen is an incredible drought of basic infrastructure...

FIORINA: And it is a fact...

KRUGMAN: ... and -- and laying off hundreds of thousands of school teachers.

FIORINA: It is a fact that virtually every department in every organization in Washington, D.C., has seen its budget increase for the last 40 years. That money is being paid to hire people. The number of people who are -- of course there are some teachers...

KRUGMAN: Almost -- almost no...

FIORINA: Of course there are some police officers. I'm not saying that.

KRUGMAN: ... the vast bulk of -- the vast bulk of public-sector employees are at the state and local level. They are largely school teachers, plus police officers, plus firefighters.

(CROSSTALK)

KRUGMAN: And your notion that it's all these bureaucrats, that's a myth that is used to...

(CROSSTALK)

FIORINA: It's a fact. It's not a myth. It's a fact.

Words have meanings. Fiorina needs to understand that the word "fact" has a specific definition which is not "partisan talking point" or "my opinion". There is little question that there is bloat in the bureacracies of federal offices. But that isn't where the cutting is happening.

A notable aspect of the July employment report is the decline in public-sector employment. In fact, public-sector employment (i.e. federal, state, and local government jobs) declined in 10 of the past 12 months, in sharp contrast to 29 consecutive months of private-sector job growth. Indeed, falling public employment has been among the largest contributors to unemployment in the United States since the end of the Great Recession.

In this month’s employment analysis, The Hamilton Project examines public-sector employment trends over the last three decades and finds that government employment contracted, both in absolute numbers and as a share of the population, during the Great Recession and throughout the current recovery.

Additionally, we report on the results of a new analysis that finds that the cuts in public school teachers are projected to reduce the future earnings of today’s students by more than five times as much as the current budget savings.[..]

Total government (i.e., the sum of state, local, and federal) employment has decreased by over 580,000 jobs since the end of the recession, the largest decrease in any sector since the recovery began in July 2009. State and local governments, faced with tough choices imposed by the confluence of balanced-budget requirements, falling tax revenues, and greater demand for public services, have been forced to lay off teachers, police officers, and other workers.

[..]In raw numbers, the largest cuts were to teachers, but of these occupations, the largest percentage decline was among emergency responders.

Transcripts below the fold:

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If you thought that the Obama administration's recent changes to the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act would quell the Fox News/right-wing fear mongering over religious liberty, think again. Fox & Friends Weekend this morning conducted an all-male discussion over the new guidelines in which their guest, Jim Towey, president of Ave Maria University, said that the contraception mandate is a “new federal entitlement, something like 'contraception stamps.'” It was very telling that he meant that as a slur, rather than a government safety net.

As Karoli described in an earlier post, the new rules allow religiously-affiliated organizations to avoid having to directly cover contraception yet still provide an opportunity for women employed by those organizations to get that coverage at no charge through a separate policy.

Think Progress has reported that a number of Catholic leaders have already come out in favor of the new regulations, including Bill Donahue of the Catholic League, normally a good pal of the Foxies. Think Progress also noted that “The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued a statement to say they 'welcome' the new Obamacare regulations, and plan to comment further after a more thorough review of the rules.”

But the Friends held two discussions (this one and another with Father Jonathan Morris) about the new rules with two male, Catholic detractors without mentioning the support received elsewhere.

It wasn't clear to me whether Towey's Catholic university would qualify for the opt-out. Towey did, however, vow to continue fighting its lawsuit against the Obama administration, via the largesse of the Koch-supported Becket Fund.

But what host Mike Jerrick did make clear is what we should think about the new contraception compromise. Jerrick said, “They call it an accommodation. What do you call it?” But before Towey could answer, Jerrick added, “I mean other people say it's a gimmick.”

Speaking of gimmicks, Towey responded by characterizing the contraception mandate as some kind of welfare program. He called it “obviously” a “new federal entitlement, something like 'contraception stamps.' And so they've made this now available for free to all individuals, all women in the country and a lot of people are upset... If the federal government wants to do this kind of expansion, this kind of new entitlement, why involve religious organizations?”

It was also very telling that neither host objected to using food stamps to smear the mandate.

As Karoli emphasized in her earlier post, there's another question looming just behind all this self-righteous outrage: Why do the religious beliefs of employers who are out of step with mainstream American opinion, trump the beliefs of their employees? Especially when it's the employees who will or will not use the contraception coverage?

Yet this question was never asked, much less answered, in either of the segments.

In case you really, really missed the editorializing, Jerrick made it even more explicit as he wished Towey good luck with his lawsuit at the end of the discussion.

The above video is an ad that you'll see during the Super Bowl: "Demand a Plan" is a campaign of Mayors Against Illegal Guns -- a national, bipartisan coalition of mayors working to make America’s communities safer by keeping illegal guns out of dangerous hands. Co-founded in 2006 by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, the coalition has grown from a committed group of 15 members to more than 850 mayors, including Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, from major cities and small towns around the country. The group has more than 1.2 million grassroots supporters, making it the largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization in the country.

From Demand a Plan's website:

Our efforts cannot bring back the 20 innocent children murdered in Newtown, CT -- or the 33 people murdered with guns every day in America. But we can prevent future tragedies by passing common sense legislation that will:

Require a criminal background check for every gun sold in America
Ban assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines
Make gun trafficking a federal crime, with real penalties for “straw purchasers”

Demand that your members of Congress support these legislative priorities.

If you so desire, you can also sign their petition that calls upon Congress to come up with a plan to end gun violence.

Your open thread begins below.

Today is the Al Weisel/Jon Swift Memorial Blogroll Amnesty Day #6, and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo has all the deets. I also understand that there is some sort of sporting competition today? Thanks for letting me be part of your week, Crooks and Liars. 'Till next time! --Tengrain

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have something to say about women in combat.

Messaging Matters reminds us that all of the amendments—including the second—are not absolute rights.

Stonekettle Station is looking for a political equivalent for Jumping the Shark.

Bonus track: the Satirical Political Report sees an opportunity for quid pro quo for the Teabaggers.

Round-up by Tengrain of Mock, Paper, Scissors who also blogs at Dependable Renegade. Send tips to: mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com

Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes, and may not be safe for work.

Lee Camp's Moment of Clarity: hero of the week, Jonathan Frieman

New Yorker / Political Scene: Hillary Clinton's Departure and Prospects

Nation Conversations (Video): Why are feminists so angry? Why aren't you?

Open Thread below...

Although I don't think they've ever released figures or confirmed it, it's largely believed that Wal-Mart is the largest gun dealer in the country. So of course their loyal customers, faced with possible restrictions on their unlimited right to get drunk and shoot at sh*t in the woods, are stocking up. (Also because of the black helicopters, FEMA camps and the Kenyan coming for their freedom.)

Faced with months of surging demand, Wal-Mart is rationing sales of ammunition.

The nation's largest retailer is limiting ammunition sales at its stores across the country to three boxes per customer, per day.

Guns and ammunition have been flying off store shelves since President Obama's reelection in November, and the firearm rush only picked up in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December.

More and more people are buying up guns while they have the chance, since many are worried that their right to buy assault weapons could be curtailed with gun control legislation. The increased demand has hit Wal-Mart's ammunition supply.

"Right now we're monitoring supply issues daily, since supply is limited at this time," said Ashley Hardie, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman. "We're trying to take care of as many customers as possible and we're working with suppliers to put products back on shelves."

Hardie said that the purchase limit will stay in place until the retailer is able to resolve the shortage.

Yesterday, the Obama administration released new and improved guidelines concerning how free contraception under the Affordable Care Act is handled for religious organizations or organizations which serve a broader community but are church-sponsored.

On first blush, they appeared to be a cave to the Catholic bishops and screaming tea party gangs, but in practice, they're not that much different than the other ones were, as Ezra Klein explained on The Last Word Friday night.

For women, nothing changes. If they're employed by a religious institution or non-profit organization with religious purposes, their employer-provided coverage will not cover birth control, but they will receive a separate card which will cover it to the minimum standards required under the Affordable Care Act and regulations.

But if you fundamentally have a problem with the hissy fit they threw which takes us to this place, then yes, it's a compromise. Charles Pierce at Esquire:

Whatever you may thing of the compromises that were necessary to get the Affordable Care Act passed, the very nature of them, and the sheer number of them, has produced a mechanism uniquely vulnerable to political sabotage. This extended hissy fit is a very good example. The president made one compromise before he was re-elected, even though he didn't have to, and then he got re-elected with a whopping gender gap because he stood up for the right of ladies to manage their own ladyparts free from Bible-banging interference. Now, with absolutely nothing to lose, we have another compromise, this one open to all sorts of new mischief no matter how often we are told that the new deal merely "simplifies" the problem and brings the act into more complete compliance with IRS guidelines. This, of course, presumes there was a "problem" to begin with, and not just an ensemble hissy fit among meddling clerics and theocratic pests.

The big change would be that "a house of worship would not be excluded from the exemption because, for example, it provides charitable social services to persons of different religious faiths or employs persons of different religious faiths," according to the fact sheet. According to HHS, the change is meant to codify the intent of last year's rules, and is not expected to "expand the universe of employer plans that would qualify for the exemption."

Except, of course, that it will expand that universe in practice rather dramatically. It certainly seems to expand the universe of "religiously affiliated organizations," at least for the purposes of denying contraceptive coverage. More to the point, the individual consciences of the employees -- our Presbyterian charpersons -- are not accounted for at all. What we have here are regulations that codify the primacy of the employer's conscience over the consciences of the people who work for him, especially when we consider the institutions under discussion here.

The proposed rule would eliminate the need for such an entity to (via the HHS fact sheet): 1) have the inculcation of religious values as its purpose; 2) primarily employ persons who share its religious tenets; and 3) primarily serve persons who share its religious tenets.

These are loopholes you could slip St. Peter's through. In other words, to qualify for the religious exemption from the contraception mandate, an institution doesn't have to teach religion, hire the religious, or even serve much of a religious purpose, as far as that goes. And, in return, of course, the administration will be the beneficiary of the good will of those organizations with which it has tried to compromise.

It is the highlight in the second paragraph which concerns me most. Here's the problem. Pierce is absolutely 100 percent correct. I have absolutely no argument with what he says.

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From Slog, a blog from the The Stranger,* this shameful little tale of passive-aggressive douchebaggery: A coffee chain owner who announces a "surcharge" to cover the city's new mandatory sick pay law -- instead of quietly raising his prices:

We received a tip this afternoon from a reader who noticed that Cherry Street Coffee, which has seven locations in and around downtown Seattle, has just put up shiny new signs at all their registers alerting customers to a new "Sick Leave Surcharge" of 1.5 percent on every order.

The sign reads: "Sick Leave Surcharge: To help offset the costs of the City of Seattle's paid sick leave policy we are adding a 1.5% surcharge to all orders. We appreciate your understanding and continued patronage."

If you'll recall, on September 1, 2012, Seattle's new paid sick and safe time law went into effect, mandating that all Seattle employees receive paid sick leave. As Cienna reported at the time, the law was in part aimed at food-service workers, who often don't get sick leave and who, for the love of God, should not be serving you food or brewing your coffee while they are sneezing or barfing (or even just feeling a touch sneezy or barfy).

Says Slog Tipper Whitney: "There were many ways I could have dealt with this. He could have upped prices slightly to compensate, for example." But instead, says Whitney, "he chose to call himself out as a royal dickhead for life, because now we all know he wasn't paying for sick leave before forced to by law."

I called Ghambari to see if he agreed with that assessment. Incidentally, he says on his website that "Cherry Street is all about building love and community."

Because nothing says love and community like someone with the flu sniffing and hacking over your food, amirite?

Ghambari confirms that he's the author of the signs, which went up at all the cash registers last week. "Obviously, this is something we never had in our budget," he says. "We never had sick leave before." He says offering sick leave will cost him "$25,000 to $30,000 a year, easy," for his 45-plus employees.

"My employees know, hey, you're gonna get 40 hours time off for sick leave," he says. "Even if you are not sick, you'll get that paid to you anyway." Under the new law, for a business his size, 40 hours of accrued sick time can be rolled over from one year to the next. "If one of my employees is not sick for the whole year," he says, "all of a sudden next year, you've got 80 hours... I don't want my employees calling in sick when they're not sick to get a day off."

I asked him how the rollover of sick leave would cause his employees to be dishonest. He did not have an answer. "It's not about dishonesty," he says. "I'm not driving a Mercedes, I'm actively working my business. I feel pretty comfy with [this decision]. If some people don't feel good about it, bring it on, we'll talk about it." But so far, he says, "We haven't gotten any comments about it."

Even though several customers already told Slog they'd complained. Be sure to read the comments, because . Ali's not quite as beloved as he likes to think!

See more at CapitolHillSeattle.com.
*Edited to reflect correct name of publication