Hocus Pocus witch Bette Midler weaponized Easter to demand action for gun control, while San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich went on a pregame rant attacking Republicans.
“On this most Holy Day in the Christian calendar, remember the slaughter of your own innocents in school shootings across America, and let this #Easter mark a #resurrection, for them and for your commitment to change. It’s your turn,” Midler posted on Sunday.
She finished of the tweet with a hashtag promoting Bloomberg-linked Moms Demand Action.
“What the hell kind of correlation is that,” someone responded. “Quite a reach. Laughable.”
“Interesting how @BetteMidler never complains about drunk driving deaths,” another added.
“Deaths caused by someone making a choice to drink and drive but yet no one blames the beer industry like they do the gun industry. How about @BetteMidler address mental illness instead.”
“Guns don’t kill people. Crazy, evil people kill people. Many lives could be saved if we trained good citizens to use guns safely to protect our children,” one person concurred.
“Your “change” would disarm America and make it even less safe.”
Elsewhere on Easter Sunday, Popovich dodged questions about retirement at a pregame presser with an unhinged nine-minute rant about gun control, which he kicked off by asking reporters in attendance if they were packing.
“I just wondered because we have a governor and lieutenant governor and an attorney general that made it easier to have more guns,” Popovich said about Texas lawmakers.
“That was a response to our kids getting murdered. I just thought that was a little bit strange decision. It’s just me, though.”
He also criticized Tennessee lawmakers for booting black Democrats Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the state’s House of Representatives, for protesting gun control on the chamber floor last week.
“What would it take to budge those people? What would it take?” Popovich asked reporters according to ESPN. “I mean, we’ve got two young Black guys in Tennessee who just got railroaded by a bunch of people that I would bet down deep in their soul want to go back to Jim Crow.”
“And what they just did is a good start. It’s beyond comprehension. And what were they guilty of? They actually protested?”
He said that Tennessee Republicans called the “kids” who had protested “insurrectionists,” which he lamented was “hard to believe in America.”
“But America ain’t what we thought America was. It’s changed. So if those kids are insurrectionists, what were the people on January 6th?” Popovich questioned.
“What do we call them? What’s the next step or word or level of violence after insurrectionists? I don’t know what it is. What will it take?”
He read a statement that Republican Tennessee U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn issued after the Covenant School mass shooting, which offered office’s ability to assist.
“In what?! They’re dead!” Popovich crowed. “What are you going to assist with — cleaning up their brains off the wall, wiping the blood off the schoolroom floor? What are you going to assist with?”
He also criticized Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s remarks about monitoring the situation and offering prayers after the lives of three children and adults were taken.
“What are you monitoring? They’re dead! Children — they’re dead,” Popovich hissed. “When I pick up my 6- and 11-year-old grandkids at school, when I’m here at home, on the way it goes through my mind that I hope they’re going to be OK.”
He then likened the Second Amendment to a myth that is utilized to resist gun control legislation.
“But they’re going to cloak all this stuff [in] the myth of the Second Amendment, the freedom. You know, it’s just a myth. It’s a joke. It’s just a game they play,” Popovich ranted on.
“I mean, that’s freedom. Is it freedom for kids to go to school and try to socialize and try to learn and be scared to death that they might die that day?”
The Spurs coach then pointed at the blame at Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz.
“But Ted Cruz will fix it because he is going to double the number of cops in the schools. That’s what he wants to do,” he continued.
“Well, that’ll create a great environment. Is that freedom? Or is it freedom to have a congressman who can make a postcard with all his family holding rifles, including an AR-15 or whatever.”
“Is that cool? Is that like street cred for a Republican? That’s freedom? That’s more important than protecting kids? I don’t get it,” he stated.
Popovich wrapped up his long-winded tangent with a jab at politicians on both sides of the aisle.
“You know, these people, they think we’re stupid — Republican and Democratic alike. But they might be right because they get away with that crap,” he concluded.
“They tell us things about prayers and you know, their offices are monitoring this stuff, like I said. Get away from me. Stop all the bulls–t. Stop talking down to us. We’re not stupid, but they will do it to keep their jobs.”