Rudy Giuliani said on CNN just yesterday (emphasis mine):

Well, look, we argue about gay marriage in the United States. There’s nobody in the United States who argues for death for homosexuals in the United States. So this is a very, very different culture. And we’re at a very different level of civilization. And somebody should point out the superiority of our civilization to the barbarians that we’re facing.

Well, aren’t we the superior ones? All we do is debate over how much gays should be discriminated against! We don’t have anyone who calls for gay people to be killed!

Except, how about this guy, Theodore Shoebat, an evangelical Christian:

I don’t believe in vigilantism, but I do believe in the government killing the sodomites. I do believe in the government arresting the sodomites and executing them for homosexuality. Under my rule, that sodomite club in Orlando, it would have been destroyed, it would have been demolished, bulldozed and all the bastards in there would have been arrested, tried, found guilty for homosexuality and executed.

But hey, that’s just one guy.

How about Yosef Edery, an Orthodox Jew in Brooklyn, who believes that the Bible commands us to kill gays?

The Old Testament is a book that is respected by all faiths, and everybody knows that God says, “A man that will lie with another man, both of them shall be killed.”

… Gay club? I mean, they deserve to die.

But hey, these are just a few extremists! True—but Giuliani said that no one in our culture calls for gays to be put to death.

You want someone more mainstream? How about Pastor Kevin Swanson, director of Generations with Vision, who has a radio show in Colorado. He not only advocated death for gay people, but he did it on the stage at a conference he hosted, which Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Bobby Jindal all attended:

There are instances in which both the Old and New Testament speak to the matter with unbelievable clarity. There’s not to be any debate about it. You know what that sin is – it’s the sin of homosexuality. In fact in Romans 1 Paul affirms that this particular sin is worthy of death. The Old and New Testament, I believe both speak with authority and we outta receive it.

Granted, in that speech, he suggested that gays should be “given time to repent” before being killed, so it’s not as if they should be put to death immediately. Because this is a loving guy.

Want more? How about Arizona pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church?

“The Bible says that homosexuals should be put to death, in Leviticus 20:13. Obviously, it’s not right for somebody to just, you know, shoot up the place, because that’s not going through the proper channels. But these people all should have been killed, anyway, but they should have been killed through the proper channels, as in they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed.”

So, Mateen was not wrong about killing gays, he just didn’t follow the proper channels.

California has got people like this too, like Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento:

“Here’s the problem with that. It’s like the equivalent of asking me — what if you asked me: ​’Hey, are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?’ Um, no, I think that’s great. I think that helps society. You know, I think Orlando, Fla., is a little safer tonight. … The tragedy is that more of them didn’t die. The tragedy is — I’m kind of upset that he didn’t finish the job!”

Jimenez claimed later that “there are many people out there who agree with what I’m saying.”

Hey, while we’re at it, how about the Westboro Baptist Church? Just do a Google search on them, you’ll find enough. Nor are they the only ones. Search long enough, you’ll find a very long list of people in these United States calling for gays to be killed, and a lot more people who agree with them but remain silent (though less and less so, it seems).

What was Giuliani’s claim again?

“There’s nobody in the United States who argues for death for homosexuals in the United States.”

So, not exactly true.

Not to mention that virtually half the entire country, while not calling for gays to be killed outright, do call for them to be made second-class citizens, who can be discriminated against, fired from their jobs, prevented from holding office or taking on certain professions, or who can be singled out for various punishments short of death. Imprisoned for having sex, harassed and beaten by random members of society, and in general simply despised and mistreated and called every hateful name in the book.

But hey, we’re so civilized that most of us don’t actively call for them to be put to death by law.

That’s gotta be worth something. Surely enough to tout our cultural superiority against those other guys, who are just barbarians.

Apple is about to hold their WWDC and announce a number of new hardware and software releases.

I have a few suggestions for great new features.

The first one is called, “Stop Shoving Crap at Me.”

Here’s how it works: if I don’t want to download an iOS upgrade because the current one works just fine for me and I’d rather not risk using an OS version which could cause lots of problems for me, then stop forcing my phone to repeatedly use up bandwidth and storage by downloading it, and cut out the crap with the two-step “reminder” every day. Would it kill you to add a “stop reminding me” button? I know you look better if you have better OS adoption rates, but you are pissing your customers off.

Leave the nagware to Microsoft. You’re making their Windows 10 reminders look good.

And how about this: when I want to do a search for a song on my Music app, stop making me take an extra step if I want to search my own collection of music, instead of searching your store. Yes, I see what you did there. Very clever. Now cut that shit out. If I want to go to the store to search for something or buy something, I know where to find it. Stop making me want to curse Apple every time I want to find a song in my collection and I forgot to specify that after tapping on “Search.”

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Here’s my other great idea: make it possible to find apps.

This is actually a tangent of the “stop shoving crap at me” idea. Currently, if I want to find apps for my TV OS or Apple Watch OS, aside from the idiocy of only being able to only search for TV apps on the clumsy TV OS interface, or only search for watch apps on my iPhone (what suddenly happened to interconnectivity?), I am presented with only a few dozen options unless I specifically know what to search for.

For example, if I want to see new apps for my watch, I have to go on my iPhone (why not my Mac?) and select a category… and then see no more than 20 or 30 apps. Total. Obviously there are more, but I can only see them if I search for them.

Which means that unless (1) the app is one that Apple has chosen to grace with their seal of approval by placing it in the category listing, or (2) I can magically guess at the app’s search terms, then I will never find out about it. Same goes for the Apple TV, where the interface is at least twice as hard to use. And even then, I have no way of sorting these.

Apple has put huge effort into making different apps work together, and yet they can’t manage to have app searching controlled by a Mac OS device?

And as for presentation, is a desktop app which can present data sorted by price, popularity, reviews, and other useful information somehow beyond their capabilities?

I know Apple likes to sell you a car in any color so long as it’s black, but getting people hooked up with apps is their bread and butter. Having endless choices of apps was the big selling feature, it’s what people loved.

Instead, we now seem to only see what Apple wants us to see. That might be good for shaking down developers so they pay a premium for window space, but it royally pisses off users and makes if far more difficult for them to enjoy the grand diversity that has been Apple’s major advantage in the off-desktop world.

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Oh, one more request: Allow me to set how much of my computer’s SSD space can be taken up by the Photos app. Seriously, I tried to clear what precious little space I have, and then Photos started stealing gigabytes from me by downloading photos I have no desire to see. Let me decide that. Right now, it’s all or nothing, and Apple gets to decide how much free space I have.

Oh yeah, not to mention that Apple’s vaguely worded dialogs make me fear that I am about to delete my entire library of data if I turn a feature off.

No. I am supposedly paying Apple to give me cloud storage so I can be confident that my data is being stored off my computer. Instead, I get this crap.

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Look, I am used to Apple being greedy and overcharging. I am used to Apple deciding how things look and shutting me out of control. But Apple could do that because the overall experience was so good. That is now eroding. Whether it’s because of Steve Jobs’ departure from this realm or otherwise, I don’t know. I just know that it’s happening.

It used to be that I would get pissed off only once in a while, like when Apple released a new mouse, or decided to erase app features in a new version release.

Now, I’m starting to get pissed of all the time. I am a die-hard Apple fan who never imagined that I might like the alternative more. Apple is succeeding in changing that.

Seriously, Apple, get your shit together.

To anyone, Sanders supporter or otherwise, who is now thinking of not voting for Hillary, or not voting at all, I have something to say.

Back in 2000, there was a common theme: Bush and Gore are essentially the same, or at least they are both just as bad as each other. It was seen as a choice between two evils. Many sat out the election, and many voted for Nader as a protest vote.

It should be painfully clear by this time that Gore and Bush were not even close to being equivalents. Even if Gore would not have caught 9/11 (there is fairly good reason to believe that he would have) and would have started the war in Afghanistan, he would NOT have (1) started a war in Iraq, which led to the creation of Daesh, or (2) passed an upper-class tax cut that ultimately cost us trillions in debt and lost numerous economic possibilities (do not forget that Gore championed the Internet with early funding—the “Gore Act”—which has given the U.S. many trillions in wealth). At the very least, we would be $4 to $6 trillion less in debt, and would have avoided a major, catastrophic war.

And that is just the beginning. He would not have put Alito or Roberts on the court. Citizens United would never have passed. Heller would not have rewritten the Second Amendment. The Voting Rights Act would not have been gutted.

Even with 9/11, we might not have transitioned to the surveillance state we now have. We certainly would not have had the “Patriot” Act as it stands. New Orleans would not have waited, drowning, for several days before help even began to move their way. We would never have instituted torture as a policy. No Guantanamo Bay. No Abu Ghraib. We would not have shredded international nuclear proliferation treaties. We would not have seen so much deregulation. We might even have possibly avoided the Great Recession, or at least have seen its effects mitigated somewhat.

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Now we have an election in which many people see a similar choice: two candidates that they hate, both seen as sell-outs (or a sell-out and a clown/idiot/farce/loon). I have heard rumblings about how some will just sit this one out.

DO. NOT. BE. SO. INCREDIBLY. STUPID.

I am no fan of Hillary’s neoliberalism, but even if she is twice as bad as I imagine, she’ll still be ten times better than the best Trump could possibly be.

Despite her predilection for moving to the middle, she’ll be a moderate compared to the extremism of Trump. Despite her shifting on some issues, she is rock steady relative to Trump’s mad flip-flopping. Despite her apparent affinity for banks and corporations, she’ll be much less a friend to them than Trump will be.

Trump will put another right-wing extremist on the court; Hillary, unless Obama is too stupid to withdraw his compromise nominee when Hillary wins, would appoint a reasonable candidate. That alone is worth your vote. And in the next four to eight years, it is possible that several more seats on the court could open up—with Trump in office, the court would become locked in right-wing extremism, the constitution would become shredded.

And let’s not forget that Hillary is experienced and is skilled; even without a comparison to Trump, there’s no denying she’s excessively prepared for the job. Trump, on the other hand, would be an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions. And no, I am not exaggerating for effect. He would be literally that.

We often suffer from the delusion that inaction voids us of responsibility. That is a grievous error: there is no such thing as inaction. There is only choice, and not voting is a choice—and it is equivalent to a vote for Trump as sure as if you pulled the lever yourself.

Those who have been disgusted by the way Bernie Sanders has been treated—myself included—should take a break, understand that something significant has still been achieved, even if it’s not as much as we wanted, and re-orient ourselves. Leave it for a few weeks, then come back—fighting tenaciously for Hillary.

Do not just vote for Hillary. Campaign for her. Fight for her. Convince anyone who will listen to vote for her. And then VOTE. Vote for her enthusiastically, and be grateful if she wins.

Obama got the gun question at a town hall meeting:

Knowing that we apply common sense to other issues in our society, specifically like holding irresponsible people accountable for their actions when they drink and drive and kill somebody, and we do that without restricting control of cars and cells phones to the rest of us, the good guys, why then do you and Hillary want to control and restrict and limit gun manufacturers, gun owners and responsible use of guns and ammunition to the rest of us, the good guys, instead of holding the bad guys accountable for their actions?

And Mr. President if I may, I would like to use Chicago your hometown, a city that has the strictest gun laws in the nation, a city that for decades and still is under Democratic control, a city that has an outrageous and even embarrassing murder rate, as my first example. Why can’t we round up these thugs, these drug dealers, and gang members, and hold them accountable for their actions, or allow the good people in Chicago access to firearms to protect themselves?

If you watch the video below, you’ll see Obama’s reaction, and it’s a good one—he makes several points about gun control which are very reasonable—but he does not answer some of the key right-wing lies about guns and gun control in the United States.

Let’s review this question from top to bottom.

Knowing that we apply common sense to other issues in our society, specifically like holding irresponsible people accountable for their actions when they drink and drive and kill somebody, and we do that without restricting control of cars…

The argument he is giving is a common one amongst gun advocates: for everything else, we punish people for improper actions; we do not restrict prior to that improper action.

We don’t have car control, so why do we have gun control?

However, the fact is, there are far more controls and restrictions to cars than there are to guns.

With a car, you often have to go through extensive training and testing, especially if you are a teen; not so for guns in most places in the U.S.

With a car, you have to get a license and maintain it for your lifetime, something most people don’t have to do with guns—less and less often, in fact, as concealed-carry gun laws are relaxed more often than not.

With a car, you have to register the vehicle and maintain that registration—rarely so with guns.

In addition to that, both cars and guns are treated in the same way in terms of “holding irresponsible people accountable for their actions.” You drive drunk, you get arrested; you discharge a weapon irresponsibly, you get arrested.

So really, the primary difference between guns and cars is that cars have far more prior restraint laws than guns—something which the questioner calls “common sense.” Hmm.

Most gun control advocates would love to see guns treated exactly the same way cars are. No hope of that in the near future, however.

Secondly, the speaker says:

…why then do you and Hillary want to control and restrict and limit gun manufacturers, gun owners and responsible use of guns and ammunition to the rest of us, the good guys, instead of holding the bad guys accountable for their actions?

First of all, gun control is aimed at everyone, not just the “good guys,” as this man claims, and more at the bad guys than the good.

Training and safety laws are for everyone (just like they are with cars). But background checks and registration, in addition to laws that prohibit mass purchases of weapons, are aimed at stopping the bad guys in particular.

Next, since when does anyone not “[hold] the bad guys accountable for their actions”? The suggestion is ludicrous. Of course we do.

The whole idea of gun control, aside from basic safety and competency, is to limit the access criminals and the mentally unstable have to weapons—and, as Obama pointed out, the NRA and so many gun advocates, like the questioner, are the people who are tying their hands, preventing us from keeping guns out of the hands of the irresponsible and the criminal. Obama answers it in greater length in his reply, which you can watch below.

Finally, the speaker moves on to an egregiously specious right-wing talking point: that gun control doesn’t work, and Chicago is a perfect example of why not. Conservatives love this, because it allows them to attack Democrats, black people, and gun control all at once.

I would like to use Chicago your hometown, a city that has the strictest gun laws in the nation, a city that for decades and still is under Democratic control, a city that has an outrageous and even embarrassing murder rate, as my first example. Why can’t we round up these thugs, these drug dealers, and gang members, and hold them accountable for their actions, or allow the good people in Chicago access to firearms to protect themselves?

First, there’s the suggestion that “these thugs, these drug dealers, and gang members” (gee, I wonder who he’s talking about?) are not being hunted or prosecuted for gun violence—an astonishingly incorrect assertion, one which, I believe, the Chicago PD would vigorously disagree with.

Second, he mentions that Chicago has been under Democratic control (at least he didn’t say “Democrat” control), as if somehow Democratic leaders somehow encourage gang violence.

People in urban areas tend to vote Democratic, and urban areas have more gun crime—but neither is the cause or the effect of the other, any more than meth use is caused by Republicans because it happens a lot in rural areas. Why doesn’t he try asking the Republican leaders in those areas why the meth dealers aren’t all “rounded up” and “held responsible”? Maybe it has to do with the fact that law enforcement is not quite as simple as that.

Third, he asks Obama why we shouldn’t “allow the good people in Chicago access to firearms to protect themselves.”

Wait—are drug dealers and gang members breaking into homes in such a way that armed citizens could repel them? Obviously not. The only connection between the two is ambiguous at best—people armed in their homes could not really do anything to affect gun violence on the streets. I don’t know if he understands exactly how gang violence works.

That’s what happens when you regurgitate random memes—you stop making much sense. Like, “There’s a problem with too many shootings, so why don’t we add more guns to the equation?” It’s like suggesting that we have too many explosions happening, so let’s get more sticks of dynamite and more matches, that ought to solve the problem.“

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But wait, the questioner is directly stating that law-abiding people cannot have weapons in Chicago: ”Why can’t we… allow the good people in Chicago access to firearms…?“

Is there a gun ban in Chicago? Exactly how hard is it to get a gun there?

Turns out, this guy is dead wrong: in Chicago, you can absolutely get a gun to protect yourself. And it’s easier to do so than it is to get a car.

Illinois requires an ”FOID,“ a kind of ID card, to get a gun for the home. It’s called a ”license,“ but it’s not really—it’s more like a certification that you have undergone background checks. No training or testing is required just for that. In fact, many red states require the same or more for voter ID, and they claim it is not a difficulty at all, even when they shut down most offices which provide such ID.

In Chicago proper, you need to get a ”Chicago Firearms Permit.“ It costs about $150 and requires 5 hours of training. That’s less than the the minimum possible requirement for getting a driver’s license. Getting a driver’s license also requires a behind-the-wheel test, which requires a great deal more practice, making getting a gun far easier.

In Chicago, within 5 days of a gun purchase, you have to register your gun—a much cheaper and less involved process than registering a car.

Concealed carry is also legal in Chicago, you just need 16 hours of training, another $175 or so.

So, although the questioner suggests that law-abiding citizens somehow aren’t allowed to get guns in Chicago, it turns out that it’s actually not that hard. Get an ID card, pay some fees, take a few hours of training, and bam, you have your gun. Another few days of classes, and you can do concealed carry. Even going so far as to get concealed-carry is less effort and expense than getting a driver’s license.

In Chicago, the laws which, the main restriction is against assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons. However, it is perfectly legal to purchase and own weapons in the city and county.

So, exactly what is it that is ”not allowing“ the ”good people“ from owning guns?

Nothing—except in his imagination.

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But then there’s the final, and biggest canard: that gun control doesn’t work. Obama only peripherally responded to this, by noting that one can buy as many guns as you like somewhere else, and even ISIL sympathizers can’t be stopped.

That’s a good reply, but he missed a golden opportunity in regards to the ”patchwork quilt“ and his own home state of Hawaii.

The reason why we have a gun problem is not because gun control laws don’t work, it’s because gun control laws are not allowed to work. You’re only as strong as your weakest link, and in terms of gun control, the country is riddled with weak links: cities, counties, and entire states with weak and permissive gun laws.

If you have a boat and want to stay afloat, you can’t have any leaks. Even if this part of the hull is sound, and that part of the hull is sound, if there are leaks elsewhere, the boat sinks.

The United States is like a boat in this respect. It doesn’t matter if Chicago has strong gun control laws, and New York has strong gun control laws; if there are leaks—cities, counties, and states with weak gun control—the boat sinks. But not because of the places with strong gun control. The boat does not sink because of the places where the hull is strong, it sinks because of the leaks and the weak spots.

And yet people point to the strong parts of the boat, then point to all the water leaking in, and then claim that the leaking is because of the strong parts. Their solution: create more holes and let in more water.

I suppose it makes sense: if you’re at the bottom of the lake, you don’t have to worry about leaks any more!

This is the ”patchwork quilt“ problem: gun control in one area is compromised by no gun control in a nearby area.

Ironically, conservatives have been caught making this exact argument: Nebraska and Oklahoma filed suit again Colorado because of Colorado’s permissive marijuana laws. Their argument: because you can get pot legally in Colorado, residents of Nebraska and Oklahoma have been going to Colorado, buying pot, and bringing it back to their home states.

Which is exactly why gun control doesn’t work. Apparently, conservatives only see this as a problem when it’s a mild recreational drug, and not an epidemic of deadly weapons causing the deaths of thousands of people.

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The fact that states with strong gun control laws find that the vast majority of guns used for crime come from out of state helps prove this point; if gun control doesn’t work, then why are almost all the guns coming from places without gun control?

Hawaii is the best proof of gun control working: it’s an island state far from the mainland. You cannot simply drive to another state to buy a gun. In this way, Hawaii is it’s own boat; weak gun control in other states won’t affect the state.

Hawaii does have good gun control laws. In addition to assault weapon bans, there is state-wide gun registration required. Home ownership requires at least 6 hours of training. There is a 2-week waiting period. Background checks are required. Concealed-carry and open-carry are technically legal, but heavily restricted, only issued in ”exceptional“ cases.

In all, Hawaii has stronger gun control than Chicago. And guess what? Hawaii has the lowest gun death rate in the country, and has one of the lowest gun crime rates in the nation.

Is it only because people in Hawaii are stripped of their guns? Hardly. There are still more guns than people in Hawaii. 400,000 have been registered in the last 15 years, and an estimated 1,000,000 guns exist in private hands since before then.

So we have (a) strong gun control laws, (b) lots of guns in responsible hands, (c) few criminals with guns, and (d) a low gun crime and death rate.

Gun control does work. The problem is places without gun control, not places with it.

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More complete video on PBS’s Facebook page here.