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Two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum last night. The two victims were identified by the embassy as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim. Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter said they were a couple who were planning to get married, and were enjoying a night out when they were killed.
The suspected shooter, who police identified as Elias Rodriguez, a Chicago resident in his early 30s, was reportedly recorded on video shouting “Free, free Palestine!” as security guards at the museum took him into custody. This morning, local TV in Chicago reported that the FBI searched Rodriguez’s apartment, but authorities haven’t said what may have been recovered.
Washington Police Chief Pamela Smith said in a press conference last night that the shooter had been seen pacing back and forth in front of the museum, and then he fired a handgun at a group of four people as they exited, hitting the two victims. Emergency responders were unable to revive them.
Lischinsky and Milgrim had been attending an event at the museum for young Israeli diplomats sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. The AJC said that Milgrim was an American from Overland Park, Kansas.
As you’d expect, the murders have been condemned by both American and international leaders. It’s a horrible crime, and it goes without saying that it should be fully investigated and the shooter should be prosecuted to the proverbial full extent of the law. We just wish we had even a shred of confidence that the Trump administration won’t also use it as an excuse to push the US even farther into fascism.
Donald Trump condemned the murders on social media with the characteristic gravitas you’d expect from a sociopath attempting to feign empathy, but mostly interested in seeking enemies to punish:
“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen!”
At last night’s press conference, Attorney General Pam Bondi went Full Tough Prosecutor, taking care to emphasize that Donald Trump is watching closely and that “his prayers are with all of us, all of especially the Jewish community,” because it’s such a comfort to be blanketed by the love and prayers of that racist convicted felon.
Bondi, the most adult adult in any room that ever needed adults, was also very careful to say that the crime would be investigated by our “great US Attorney, Jeanine Pirro,” whose full title — acting interim stand-in unconfirmable 120-day US attorney — she forgot to mention, since Judge Boxwine was until two weeks ago a word-slurring Fox News panelist who hadn’t done any prosecuting since 2005. We almost said she hadn’t “seen the inside of a courtroom” since then, but we don’t know for sure where she gave her deposition in the lawsuit Fox lost over its 2020 election lies.
Hours before the shooting yesterday, Pirro herself was busy proving to America what a serious member of the legal community she is, posting a video to Twitter to complain that the federal government had wasted money on foreign aid to people who were starving and dying (oh! but also bad things, like “Sesame Street in Iraq”!), but she actually is expected to pay seven entire US dollars a month into the bottled water club at her office. Oh the humanity!
Hi everyone, it’s Judge Jeanine. I’m at the water cooler in the United States Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC. And you may recall that the United States gave something like $44 billion a year through USAID for things like dance classes in Wuhan, China, and Sesame Street in Iraq. But here in the United States, in the United States Attorney’s Office, where we prosecute crime on behalf of the victims, on behalf of the people who are targeted by criminals, the US attorneys, as well as the staff, in order to get water, they have to join a water club and they have to pay.
Today they asked for our patience. Why? Because we couldn’t get water delivered today. Today there was no water delivered to the United States Attorney’s Office. And remember, it’s only for those who pay $7 a month.
Now, ain’t it grand to be a part of the government, and I’m just thrilled to be here.
As far as we know, the water faucets in the building work just fine.
We should be clear that even with Bondi’s ritualistic declarations of greatness and the insistence that the administration will “be doing everything in our power to keep all citizens safe, especially tonight our Jewish community,” or Pirro’s batshit wish for bottled water or at least boxed wine, nobody in the administration has said anything outright insane about the embassy murders. But it’s early in the day, and we still have tonight’s Fox News opinion shows to get through.
At today’s daily press briefing, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated that Trump is “saddened and outraged” by the murders, adding that “the evil of antisemitism must be eradicated from our society,” which coming from most people is a noble enough sentiment. No room for hate and all that.
But it also sounds a bit chilling coming from an administration that’s already made clear it will use the excuse of fighting antisemitism to try to take control of universities and purge their faculties, or to deport non-citizen students for co-authoring an editorial or participating in campus protests.
We won’t be the least bit surprised if, in coming days, Trump and his people start talking about how there’s been entirely too much free speech, which will justify cracking down on critics of Israel’s war in Gaza. After all, the administration has already made clear that it’s devoted to combating antisemitism whenever it isn’t coming from the president’s dinner guests.
But gosh, that sounds terribly paranoid of us, doesn’t it? It’s not like they’re out to arrest political opponents, even members of Congress, or to threaten to jail anyone who opposes their fascist tactics. We’d love to be wrong, and if in the next six months Trump doesn’t invoke this awful tragedy to crack down (further) on dissent we will publicly apologize. (Offer void if dissent is otherwise criminalized even without any mention of the embassy murders.)
Can’t imagine they’d try to use this as some sort of Reichstag Fire pretext for whatever they want to do next.
OPEN THREAD.
[Politico / NBC News / Fox32 Chicago]
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