Between SkyNews reporter Mark Stone interviewing Ted Cruz, and MSNBC's Garrett Haake interviewing Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) who represents the district which covers Uvalde, it's my hope that journalists are now grasping the concept that if someone doesn't answer your question and just diverts to something else and regurgitates talking points, you don't have to accept that and can actually ask your question again. And again. And again. Most especially when it comes to gun massacres.
First, this below is Ted Cruz eventually running away (perhaps to catch a flight to Cancun) when Mark Stone won't accept him not answering.
And thouogh I can't find a standalone video to post of Garrett Haake interviewing Gonzales, but this is an article with it embedded. There are two videos on the page. It’s the first one, and the exchange comes about 45-seconds in. You can get to it here. At his press conference on Wednesday, Gov. Greg Abbott wanted the public to know that Texas has allowed 18-year-olds to buy rifles for 60 years. What he conveniently left out was that only four years later (on August 1, 1966) was when the nation's first school shooting took place -- at the University of Texas. And with a rifle. Far more than that, it was a high-powered, semi-automatic weapon and overloaded with ammunition. There were 14 people killed. And 47 casualties overall. To be clear, there may be no direct cause-and-effect between the then-new Texas law and shooting -- or was -- but it was a Really Horrible Example for Abbott to use. Further, not totally dissimilar from this week's school shooting, the murderer Charles Whitman killed his mother and wife the night before he headed to the tower on the college campus for his killing spree. An acclaimed 1975 TV movie was made about the ghastly tragedy with Kurt Russell, called The Deadly Tower. It also starred Ned Beatty, John Forsythe and Pernell Roberts. And the actor Richard Yniquez played the heroic Hispanic police officer who is able to end the rampage. The film is gripping -- methodical, underplayed and wonderfully done. From the taut build-up until the attack begins through the long and horrifying shooting. Highly recommended. It's available for streaming on Amazon Prime here for $3.99. You can read more about it on its iMDB page. Here's a five-minute clip. It's just a movie, not news footage, but it's fact-based, understated, showing what happened during that heart-sickening gun massacre, four years after Gov. Abbott proudly pointed to the then-new Texas law opening up the purchase of rifles. There are a few odd, jump-edits by the person who posted this, but overall it's straightforward from the film. One note: at one point, we see a young woman on the phone, but it cuts away mid-sentence. That's the wife of the police officer who eventually makes it into the tower. I've posted a couple of pieces this week with Hanna Einbinder, and figure that I ought to make it a trilogy, and this fits in well with this. In my previous posting, I embedded his first appearance on Stephen Colbert's show, a bold, risky monologue that won over the audience. She was only 24 at the time, and was the youngest standup comic The Late Show had had on. Also notable is that the monologue was pre-taped when Colbert wasn't present, so not only did the audience not have a clue who this young comedian was, but she appeared without the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval with Colbert introducing her. This is her return visit, much later -- after she got hired to co-star in the sitcom Hacks and getting an Emmy nomination for it. She and Colbert address that earlier appearance (without him there...) and move on to other subject with much humor.
Usually, we have Al Franken podcasts on the weekend, but this is a little different. It's an eight-minute piece from the good fellow on video. The main topic at hand is "Why the founding fathers didn't mention abortion in the Constitution." It's interesting, information, amusing -- and he even has a couple of one-person "sketches" of a sort thrown in. |
AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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