Balloon Juice has a good takedown of the Not Hate chorus…

Atlanta has a very, very large number of strip clubs, gentlemen’s clubs, massage parlors, sex shops and emporiums. That the only three places that the possible sex addict felt the need to target were the ones owned by Asians/Asian Americans and predominantly employing Asians/Asian Americans should have been what is known as a clue…

Every time a Republican elected or appointed official or a conservative movement official or a conservative “news” personality – from the anchors on Fox News to the commenters – refers to COVID-19 with a derogatory slur instead of “COVID-19” or insinuates that immigrants – documented or undocumented – as well as those seeking asylum or refugee status are somehow bringing COVID-19 in and will make things worse, all they’re doing is feeding the fear, grievance, and victimization of their political base, their supporters, and their viewers. If you want to know where Long was radicalized, the answer is simple. Right here in the US, by Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Navarro, Kevin McCarthy, at least 2/3rds of McCarthy’s House Republican Caucus, at least 1/2 of the Senate Republican Caucus, by hundreds of elected and appointed Republican officials, by Fox News, OANN, Newsmax, Breitbart, Ben Shapiro and his execrable writers and commenters at the Daily Wire, by right wing talk radio, by right wing social and digital media.

Paul Campos over at Lawyers Guns and Money adds that even if you accept the premise that the killer was motivated by a sex addiction… “….Oddly, killing women because they’re sources of “temptation” (i.e., women) doesn’t count as a hate crime, for reasons. . . Also the odds that these women weren’t murderously fetishized because of their ethnicity seem pretty low.“

Ya think? Of course the usual suspects want everyone to believe it couldn’t possibly have been motivated by prejudice and hate. Especially not the torrent of hate they’ve been poisoning the American civic dialogue with for decades now. Maybe the folks at ABC News who did the 20/20 segment whitewashing the murder of Matthew Shepard will do one in a couple years about how the Atlanta murders were really just a drug deal gone bad.