If anything, he has a phenomenal sense of bad timing. He opened his mouth again a short while ago.
Now, Observer is reporting that Yiannopoulos’ descent into the political gutter continues apace. Asked by Observer to comment on a story, Yiannopoulos texted, “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.” He sent a similar comment to a Daily Beast writer.
Yiannopoulos has also sent anti-Semitic messages to the writer and fact checker Talia Lavin. “This past weekend, the nationalist bragged on Facebook and Instagram that he’d sent $14.88 to The New Yorker‘s former fact checker Talia Lavin,” Observer notes. (1488 being a notorious code used by white supremacists to hail each other).
Amid the current brouhaha over civility, it is important to remember that so noxious a figure as Yiannopoulos was once courted and promoted by a White House aide and major Republican donors. The successful campaign to shun and marginalize Yiannopoulos, made in the wake of the BuzzFeed story, now seems more justified than ever.
And then, what do you know, Someone shoots up a newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Maryland, killing 5 people.
Police have confirmed five people are dead and a gunman is in custody after a shooting in the Capital Gazette building in Annapolis.
The exact number of casualties remains unclear, but several are gravely injured, Anne Arundel County police said.
Only one suspect was involved, police said.
“We’re still talking to the individual, we’re engaging the individual, we’re trying to find a motive,” Anne Arundel County police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said.
Alas for Milo’s fame, the shooter was not inspired by him. He was — I know, you’re going to be shocked and surprised by this — an entitled white man with a history of misogynist stalking who was very angry with the newspaper for reporting on his abuse. He was also a Trump fan. I know! Who ever heard of such a thing?
McCarthy said the harassment and stalking began around 2009, after they became friends on Facebook. In 2011, she took him to court, where he pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and was placed on 18-months’ probation. Five days later, the Capital Gazette wrote a story titled, “Jarrod wants to be your friend.” It outlined Ramos’ alleged erratic behavior and included alleged emails he sent, telling McCarthy’s client: “go hang yourself,” “you’re going to need a restraining order now,” and “you can’t make me stop.”
“Mr. Ramos was obsessively angry about this particular story,” McCarthy said.
But don’t you worry. This will finally be the mass murder that will stir Republicans into action. Marco Rubio was quite upset that one of the survivors, with a shocked quaver in her voice, said “Thanks for your prayers, but I couldn’t give a fuck about them if there’s nothing else.”
Expect immediate legislation to bring an end to this incivility. Expect the Supreme Court to rubber-stamp all attempts to silence people who survive shootings. Expect the president to continue to call out reporters for violence.
Expect the Nazis to continue to thrive.
Another predictable thing: Milo now says his comment was a “joke”.
Clearly if Trump’s Muslim ban hadn’t been held up for so long this never would’ve happened.
They’re all such cowards. Have the courage of your convictions, ffs.
Can the person who comes in here to say he was bullied into doing this by the woman he stalked and harassed be banned?
PZ:
I quoted this from Sartre at my blog in 2016, and keep coming back to it these days:
The republicans won’t take mass shootings seriously until they’re lined up against a wall and shot.
The filthy ingrate! Does he know how much effort goes into appealing to the fickle will of an invisible cosmic tyrant that isn’t even there!? Such cheek!
Marco Rubio’s reaction reminds me of Tim Minchin’s “Pope Song.” If you’re far more offended by the language used in the message than by the reason for the message, you are part of the problem.
BBC Radio 4 news this morning reported that the murderer had a long-standing grudge against the paper, and that his defamation suit in pursuit of this had been dismissed, but said nothing at all about the contents of the article over which the murderer unsuccessfully sued.
When the bill comes due for enabling, providing the rhetorical underpinning and twisted justification for, murder it is always ‘just a joke’. No doubt in my mind that he reverses that when he is in the company of friendly fellow fascists.
It’s the old Jewish joke about “don’t make trouble, don’t make trouble.” Our Republican overlords demand civility, even while they’re killing us.
how long will this kind of thing keep happening before something different happens in reaction than useless thoughts and prayers alone?
uncle frogy
“invisible cosmic tyrant”
But he *loves* you, so it’s all OK. Plus everything he does is “for your own good”.
A joke?
“Milo Yiannopoulos walks into a bar….
He falls down screaming in agony, it was an iron bar”
Now that’s a joke
I’d hate to be the one responsible for laundering Milo’s underwear right now.
richardelguru @ 13
What makes it funnier is how Milo walked into the bar I was holding several times. What a klutz!
richardelguru@#13:
“Milo Yiannopoulos walks into a bar….
He falls down screaming in agony, it was an iron bar”
That got a laugh out of me!
Jokes like that are all in the delivery.
In his next attempt to get publicity with stunning bad taste, he now threatens to sue the Observer for reporting accurately what he said. ie just what the charged killer did to the newspaper a few years ago.
https://www.mediaite.com/online/milo-yiannopoulos-threatens-to-sue-the-observer-over-his-shoot-journalists-comments-your-life-is-over/
Tips For Staying Civil While debating thugs. remember when the onion was satire.
When someone says something awful and follows with “it’s just a joke”* I replace that with “I’m checking for acceptability”. Bigotry is social dominance behavior and bigots check for the acceptability of their dominance displays.
Milo apparently dislikes the attention he gets from the media and wants to “test the water”.
*Humor and social conflict intersect. Remember that awful “feminists love islamists” video Dawkins commented about approvingly? Pure social attack on feminists that got twisted into “just a joke”. I suspect that the true nature of humor will be difficult for many used to social dominance to accept because it’s just too useful to try to pretend it’s not serious.
In custody, as opposed to dead? I’m guessing the guy is white.
Possibly more likely, he(probably) is either a police or Putin officer.
</semi-snark>Just a guess: Milo’s fate will be to end up on a police blotter with his name misspelled. Probably the result of a publicity stunt gone wrong.
The greatest thing Milo Yianopoulous did for his chances of remaining out of prison in his lifetime was move from the UK to the USA. In the UK, if he’d made a comment like that, he’d be liable to arrest for “behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace” (especially with the incident occurring the day afterwards). In the USA, he’s able to get away with saying “it was a joke”.
Has anyone asked him which bit of his “joke” we were supposed to be laughing at? Was it the bit where he said he “couldn’t wait for vigilante squads to start gunning down journalists on sight”? Was it the bit where he forgets he is supposed to be a journalist himself (and was therefore putting himself on the firing line)? Was it the bit where an incident like the Capital Gazette shooting was almost certain to have occurred within nine days of his nasty little comment (because mass shootings in the USA are that commonplace)? Was it the bit where yes, journalists were shot? Or was it the bit where he back-pedalled on his “joke” so fast you could almost see the skid marks?
It might be interesting (and indeed, even comical) for someone to actually do the whole “humourless feminist” thing at him, and ask him to tell us what’s so funny about his “jokes”. Because he was a lousy journalist, and it’s looking like he’s equally lousy as a comedian.
Maybe I’m being dense but I don’t see anywhere that he’s a Trump fan. He essentially warned the newspaper that Trump might sue them for defamation and win as a result of their negative reporting on him. This is a man who hated the newspaper for their reporting of himself. There are probably very similar comments made by him over the years. On the otherhand this is the one and only public mention he’s made regarding Trump.
I’m a white guy, and this man makes me proud to believe that white people are the cancer of the fucking planet.