Stories to Watch: 4/4/14

A former colonel and Medal of Honor winner points out the obvious -- if every one's armed during a mass shooting like the one that occurred at Fort Hood, that's a bad thing, not a good thing. "The situation that existed at Fort Hood the other day, in a circumstance in which everybody has weapons, could very easily result and probably would have resulted in an enormous mass fratricide, and you would have this all the time," Col. Jack Jacobs told a gun lobby tool on MSNBC. "Arming everybody in a civilian situation like at Fort Hood would result in a terrible, terrible tragedy, larger than this one." The shorter version: when bullets are flying, more gunfire does not make the situation safer. Duh.


Good news for cable news talking heads who love pulling stuff out of their butts: the motive of the Fort Worth shooter may never be known -- they may be able to engage in baseless speculation forever. I know, it was violent video games!


Eric Cantor talks about jobless benefits and gives no indication that he has any clue as to what the benefits are even for. Seriously, if you didn't know he was bullshitting, you'd naturally assume he was just stupid.


Meanwhile, the perpetually buffoonish Rep. Louie Gohmert stuns the world by saying something both lucid and rational.


If there's a silver lining to the Republican War on Voting, it's that the GOP is all but admitting that their base is drifting off into demographic oblivion and they have absolutely no confidence of being able to win future elections fair and square. Unless Republicans change their positions to become more relevant, voter suppression efforts are pretty much that party's death throes.


Paul Ryan admits that Republicans can't come up with anything as good as Obamacare.


Finally, despite the best efforts of God-fearing Republicans to preserve inequality and discrimination, Ohio may be the next state to fall under the Iron Boot of the Homosexual Menace. Courage.


[cartoon via McClatchy Newspapers]