July 26, 2015 By Allen Clifton
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I’m not going to lie, the more I study Donald Trump the Republican presidential candidate, the more I think he just might be an absolute genius. Now don’t get me wrong, I still think he’s a vile human being, but as a Republican presidential candidate he might just be brilliant.
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Let’s start out with how this all came to be. For years Trump built a solid following among conservatives as an anti-Obama birther who bashed the president any chance he got. Not only that, but he dedicated quite a lot of his time to attacking Hillary Clinton as well. And to conservative voters, if you show unrelenting disdain toward those two, they’ll pretty much worship you. Hell, he managed to get himself a weekly feature on Fox News’ Fox & Friends where he was promoted (for free) on America’s most-watched conservative entertainment channel.
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But when it comes to understanding the mind of conservative voters, make no mistake about it – Trump gets it. He knows that it doesn’t matter if what he’s saying is true, just as long as it’s what conservatives want to hear. Which is why when he called most Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, he didn’t hesitate and he sure as heck didn’t back down. Why would he? That’s what most conservatives wanted to hear. In fact, had he walked back his comments it would have only hurt him in the polls.
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After that came his controversial comment about Sen. John McCain’s war record. Now, even I was a bit unsure how this might play out for him. Then he pulled out another “genius’ move by shifting the conversation away from what he said about McCain to the ongoing issues facing our veterans and our VA system. As we all know, that’s a go-to issue Republicans like to harp on – even if they never do anything about it. However, there’s also the reality that most conservatives don’t like McCain anyway. They ran him through the mud in 2000 during the GOP presidential primary and couldn’t have cared much less about him in 2008 when he was trounced by President Obama. So, while Trump’s remarks were off-putting for some who fiercely defend veterans, the fact he shifted some of that focus to our government’s continued incompetence with providing for our veterans, and how McCain has been a part of problem, was a fairly intelligent political maneuver. Somehow he managed to mock a war hero – and still went up in the polls.
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Then there’s the fact that it’s almost impossible to really attack him for anything. He’s proven time after time that if one of these other Republican candidates comes after him, he has no problem saying whatever he has to say to come out looking stronger and more “in charge” than they do. He really doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him, and he doesn’t have any sort of political career to protect like many of these other candidates do. He’s rich, 69 years old and really has nothing to lose. Even if his campaign fails, he’s still going to be a billionaire. Aside from all of that, he’s also put the Republican party in a no-win situation. The RNC sure as heck doesn’t want him to be their candidate. But at the same time, they can’t just go after him to tear him down because if they really tick him off he can run as a third-party candidate and ruin any hope they might have at winning the presidency in 2016.
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Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/let-explain-donald-trump-absolute-genius/http://www.forwardprogressives.com/let-explain-donald-trump-absolute-genius/
This blog will focus on political images I have found all around the Internet, though I will intersperse some commentary and quotes that I find interesting.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
U.S. Marshalls Seize Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Records Over Racial Profiling Charges
U.S. Marshalls seized over 1,400 identification cards and 50 hard drives from the corrupt Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office in Maricopa County, Arizona on Friday. A judge ordered that the documents be secured after a court monitor reported that they were scheduled to be destroyed by the sheriff’s office in a vile attempt to evade the law. Sheriff Arpaio has been involved in serious legal trouble ever since a suit was filed in 2007 accusing Arpaio’s deputies of blatant racial profiling and discrimination, a case he considers to be a conspiracy of the Obama administration.
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In 2013, Judge Murray Snow ruled that Arpaio’s sheriff’s office was guilty of profiling Latino drivers at traffic stops and illegally detaining them. It is also alleged that they regularly stole items from citizens during traffic stops and busts. Since then, the disgraced public official has been involved in an on-going contempt-of-court trial for failing to deliver documents related to the profiling case.
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Arpaio, who appears to be willing to obstruct the law by any means available, had for months refused to turn over more than 1,400 IDs, which were eventually turned in by a sergeant who claims to have needed them to teach a class on identity fraud. (There was never any such class.) He was also hiding information on 50 hard drives. On Friday, Judge Snow finally had enough and demanded the records be turned over.
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Arpaio admitted in April that his office conducted a secret investigation of Judge Snow and his wife. Lying, stealing, spying, it’s clear that this officer of the “law” has no respect for law or morality at all. Arpaio has attempted to have Snow removed from the trial, but this was attempt was rejected by a judge on Monday.
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In addition to his legal troubles, Arpaio has recently caught headlines again for his ridiculous and tired accusations that President Obama forged his birth records. In an interview with CNN, besides bragging that he does not own a computer, Arpaio continues to maintain that Obama’s birth certificate is “fraudulent,” and in June he claimed that he was “getting close” to finding out who is behind it. How ironic that the man who is obsessed with the President’s documents is unwilling to turn over his own when ordered by the court! How pathetic it is that a man must stoop so low draw attention away from his inevitable indictment.
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Sheriff Arpaio’s paranoia extends to the current case as well, which he feels is a “political attack” by the Obama administration. However, officials have said that the investigation into Arpaio’s office in fact began under the Bush administration.
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Arpaio made his name as the self-professed “toughest sheriff in America,” a no-nonsense guy who was hard on illegal immigrants. In his attempt to crack down on immigration, it is alleged that he ordered patrols to arrest people simply because people were speaking Spanish, and conducted aggressive “sweeps” of Latino neighborhoods in order to find undocumented immigrants. With the goal of fighting illegal immigration, Arpaio and his men embarked on a reign of terror and repression in Latino neighborhoods, stealing items and IDs from the inhabitants, persecuting those who appeared to be foreign- abusing his power in a horrific and very illegal way.
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Arpaio has a dark history of obstructing justice. In the past, his office has admitted to withholding traffic stop recordings and deleting emails regarding the sheriff’s immigration sweeps. How can this reprehensible man continue to hold his job serving the law?
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Unsurprisingly, Arpaio failed to attend the hearing on Friday where Judge Snow ordered the documents and data to be seized. With his ongoing track record of deception, discrimination, theft, and contempt for the law, Arpaio is a symbol of everything that is wrong with our nation and our law enforcement system.
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http://www.occupydemocrats.com/u-s-marshalls-seize-sheriff-joe-arpaios-records-over-racial-profiling-charges/
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In 2013, Judge Murray Snow ruled that Arpaio’s sheriff’s office was guilty of profiling Latino drivers at traffic stops and illegally detaining them. It is also alleged that they regularly stole items from citizens during traffic stops and busts. Since then, the disgraced public official has been involved in an on-going contempt-of-court trial for failing to deliver documents related to the profiling case.
.
Arpaio, who appears to be willing to obstruct the law by any means available, had for months refused to turn over more than 1,400 IDs, which were eventually turned in by a sergeant who claims to have needed them to teach a class on identity fraud. (There was never any such class.) He was also hiding information on 50 hard drives. On Friday, Judge Snow finally had enough and demanded the records be turned over.
.
Arpaio admitted in April that his office conducted a secret investigation of Judge Snow and his wife. Lying, stealing, spying, it’s clear that this officer of the “law” has no respect for law or morality at all. Arpaio has attempted to have Snow removed from the trial, but this was attempt was rejected by a judge on Monday.
.
In addition to his legal troubles, Arpaio has recently caught headlines again for his ridiculous and tired accusations that President Obama forged his birth records. In an interview with CNN, besides bragging that he does not own a computer, Arpaio continues to maintain that Obama’s birth certificate is “fraudulent,” and in June he claimed that he was “getting close” to finding out who is behind it. How ironic that the man who is obsessed with the President’s documents is unwilling to turn over his own when ordered by the court! How pathetic it is that a man must stoop so low draw attention away from his inevitable indictment.
.
Sheriff Arpaio’s paranoia extends to the current case as well, which he feels is a “political attack” by the Obama administration. However, officials have said that the investigation into Arpaio’s office in fact began under the Bush administration.
.
Arpaio made his name as the self-professed “toughest sheriff in America,” a no-nonsense guy who was hard on illegal immigrants. In his attempt to crack down on immigration, it is alleged that he ordered patrols to arrest people simply because people were speaking Spanish, and conducted aggressive “sweeps” of Latino neighborhoods in order to find undocumented immigrants. With the goal of fighting illegal immigration, Arpaio and his men embarked on a reign of terror and repression in Latino neighborhoods, stealing items and IDs from the inhabitants, persecuting those who appeared to be foreign- abusing his power in a horrific and very illegal way.
.
Arpaio has a dark history of obstructing justice. In the past, his office has admitted to withholding traffic stop recordings and deleting emails regarding the sheriff’s immigration sweeps. How can this reprehensible man continue to hold his job serving the law?
.
Unsurprisingly, Arpaio failed to attend the hearing on Friday where Judge Snow ordered the documents and data to be seized. With his ongoing track record of deception, discrimination, theft, and contempt for the law, Arpaio is a symbol of everything that is wrong with our nation and our law enforcement system.
.
http://www.occupydemocrats.com/u-s-marshalls-seize-sheriff-joe-arpaios-records-over-racial-profiling-charges/
The Unraveling Of A New York Times Story About A ‘Criminal Probe’ Of Hillary Clinton
BY EMILY ATKIN JUL 24, 2015 2:11PM
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The New York Times broke a big story on Thursday night. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the Times reported, could be the subject of a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice because of the personal email account she used as secretary of state. The Times reported that two inspectors general had asked for the criminal probe.
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This would be a pretty big deal if true. Clinton’s personal email account has already been under intense scrutiny, as many speculated Clinton was using that account to avoid congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests for disclosure. But Clinton publicly released her emails from that account, and insisted nothing was improper or unlawful. A possible criminal investigation would suggest otherwise.
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But as the story unfolded, things became a bit more complicated. Most importantly, the Justice Department has said that it never actually received a request for a criminal probe into Clinton’s email, contradicting the New York Times story. Prior to that announcement, the Times made small but significant changes to its copy, and a high-ranking congressman said the Inspector General’s request was about something entirely different.
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The whole thing has been a bit scattered, so it’s worth taking each detail step by step to understand the full picture. Here’s what we know so far.
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The Story Breaks, And Clinton Comes Under Fire
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The Times’ story was published Thursday night, citing “senior government officials” who said that the Justice Department would be asked to perform a criminal investigation into Clinton’s emails. It asserted that the personal account may have contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails,” and that Clinton herself may have improperly handled the sensitive materials.
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The internet then promptly exploded. As a barrage of aggregated articles piled up, pundits put the candidate under fire. On CNN, John King called the allegations “very troubling,” while Michaela Pereira called the story “pretty damning” for Clinton’s presidential campaign. “It feeds into a kind of narrative she can’t quite be trusted,” Earth Institute director Jeffery Sachs said on MSNBC.
Clinton has already faced political lashings over her use of her personal email while at the State Department, mostly from Republicans who imply the emails contain answers to their questions about whether Clinton mishandled the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. So far, Republican investigations over Clinton’s handling of that attack have come up largely empty.
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The Times Quietly Alters The Story
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Amid the hubbub, it was discovered that the Times had quietly altered the story. “Small but significant” is how Politico described it, and noted that the headline, among other things, had been changed. The first headline, “Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email,” had been changed to “Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account.”
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The change reflects something very important: that the possible criminal inquiry was not necessarily about Clinton’s direct use of her own email. The potential criminal inquiry, then, could now be read as not being focused on Clinton herself. The correction was made in response to pushback from the Clinton campaign, Politico reported.
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A Congressman Clarifies The Situation
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Things got even more confusing when Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said he had spoken directly to the State Department Inspector General. According to Cummings, the inspector general said he had never asked the Justice Department to perform a criminal probe of Clinton’s email.
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Instead, he said the investigation was about something entirely different. According to Cummings, the inspector general had identified classified information in a few emails that Clinton had publicly released in response to outrage over her personal account, and told the Justice Department about it. Those emails had not been previously marked as classified, though there was no evidence that Clinton had marked them as classified at the time they were transmitted.
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“This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate leaks to generate false front-page headlines — only to be corrected later — and they have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi or protecting our diplomatic corps overseas,” Cummings said in a statement.
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The Justice Department Says No Criminal Probe Was Requested
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Later on Friday afternoon, Reuters reported that the Justice Department said that it had indeed received a request to look at Clinton’s email, but that it wasn’t a request for a criminal investigation. Instead, the story suggested that the requested investigation may be about how the emails were handled as they were being prepared to be released to the public, alluding to concerns that they may not have adequately censored classified information.
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If Cumming’s statements are correct, however, those emails would not have been previously marked as classified, meaning Clinton would not be held responsible.
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The Clinton Campaign Responds
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As the details continue to unfold, Hillary Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill issued a statement speaking harsh words to the Times.
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“It is now more clear than ever that the New York Times report claiming there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton’s use of email is false,” he said. “It has now been discredited both by the Justice Department and the Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee. This incident shows the danger of relying on reckless, inaccurate leaks from partisan sources.”
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The Times Story Remains In Place
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The story itself is still in place, but on Friday afternoon, the Times added a correction saying the original version “misstated the nature of the referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state.”
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“The referral addressed the potential compromise of classified information in connection with that personal email account,” the correction continued. “It did not specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton.”
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http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/07/24/3684315/hillary-clinton-email-investigation-explainer/
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The New York Times broke a big story on Thursday night. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the Times reported, could be the subject of a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice because of the personal email account she used as secretary of state. The Times reported that two inspectors general had asked for the criminal probe.
.
This would be a pretty big deal if true. Clinton’s personal email account has already been under intense scrutiny, as many speculated Clinton was using that account to avoid congressional and Freedom of Information Act requests for disclosure. But Clinton publicly released her emails from that account, and insisted nothing was improper or unlawful. A possible criminal investigation would suggest otherwise.
.
But as the story unfolded, things became a bit more complicated. Most importantly, the Justice Department has said that it never actually received a request for a criminal probe into Clinton’s email, contradicting the New York Times story. Prior to that announcement, the Times made small but significant changes to its copy, and a high-ranking congressman said the Inspector General’s request was about something entirely different.
.
The whole thing has been a bit scattered, so it’s worth taking each detail step by step to understand the full picture. Here’s what we know so far.
.
The Story Breaks, And Clinton Comes Under Fire
.
The Times’ story was published Thursday night, citing “senior government officials” who said that the Justice Department would be asked to perform a criminal investigation into Clinton’s emails. It asserted that the personal account may have contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails,” and that Clinton herself may have improperly handled the sensitive materials.
.
The internet then promptly exploded. As a barrage of aggregated articles piled up, pundits put the candidate under fire. On CNN, John King called the allegations “very troubling,” while Michaela Pereira called the story “pretty damning” for Clinton’s presidential campaign. “It feeds into a kind of narrative she can’t quite be trusted,” Earth Institute director Jeffery Sachs said on MSNBC.
Clinton has already faced political lashings over her use of her personal email while at the State Department, mostly from Republicans who imply the emails contain answers to their questions about whether Clinton mishandled the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. So far, Republican investigations over Clinton’s handling of that attack have come up largely empty.
.
The Times Quietly Alters The Story
.
Amid the hubbub, it was discovered that the Times had quietly altered the story. “Small but significant” is how Politico described it, and noted that the headline, among other things, had been changed. The first headline, “Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email,” had been changed to “Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account.”
.
The change reflects something very important: that the possible criminal inquiry was not necessarily about Clinton’s direct use of her own email. The potential criminal inquiry, then, could now be read as not being focused on Clinton herself. The correction was made in response to pushback from the Clinton campaign, Politico reported.
.
A Congressman Clarifies The Situation
.
Things got even more confusing when Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said he had spoken directly to the State Department Inspector General. According to Cummings, the inspector general said he had never asked the Justice Department to perform a criminal probe of Clinton’s email.
.
Instead, he said the investigation was about something entirely different. According to Cummings, the inspector general had identified classified information in a few emails that Clinton had publicly released in response to outrage over her personal account, and told the Justice Department about it. Those emails had not been previously marked as classified, though there was no evidence that Clinton had marked them as classified at the time they were transmitted.
.
“This is the latest example in a series of inaccurate leaks to generate false front-page headlines — only to be corrected later — and they have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks in Benghazi or protecting our diplomatic corps overseas,” Cummings said in a statement.
.
The Justice Department Says No Criminal Probe Was Requested
.
Later on Friday afternoon, Reuters reported that the Justice Department said that it had indeed received a request to look at Clinton’s email, but that it wasn’t a request for a criminal investigation. Instead, the story suggested that the requested investigation may be about how the emails were handled as they were being prepared to be released to the public, alluding to concerns that they may not have adequately censored classified information.
.
If Cumming’s statements are correct, however, those emails would not have been previously marked as classified, meaning Clinton would not be held responsible.
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The Clinton Campaign Responds
.
As the details continue to unfold, Hillary Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill issued a statement speaking harsh words to the Times.
.
“It is now more clear than ever that the New York Times report claiming there is a criminal inquiry sought in Hillary Clinton’s use of email is false,” he said. “It has now been discredited both by the Justice Department and the Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee. This incident shows the danger of relying on reckless, inaccurate leaks from partisan sources.”
.
The Times Story Remains In Place
.
The story itself is still in place, but on Friday afternoon, the Times added a correction saying the original version “misstated the nature of the referral to the Justice Department regarding Hillary Clinton’s personal email account while she was secretary of state.”
.
“The referral addressed the potential compromise of classified information in connection with that personal email account,” the correction continued. “It did not specifically request an investigation into Mrs. Clinton.”
.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/07/24/3684315/hillary-clinton-email-investigation-explainer/
Shooting report - daily dose of reminders on how guns get used in America
Analyzing the conservative posters
I've said it before - it is a common theme - conservative posters are ALWAYS short on facts, long on insult. Not sure WHY this poster thinks Obama's policies are any more full of shit than anyone else's, but that seems to be how he feels. And that's the secret - they operate on "feel," not on information.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Black pastor rips hypocritical churches for doing to gay people ‘what slavemasters did to us’
BETHANIA PALMA MARKUS
24 JUL 2015 AT 14:24 ET
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A Georgia pastor is making waves after being caught on video unloading on what he called the hypocrisy of condemning LGBT people by Christian churches.
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Pastor E. Dewey Smith of the House of Hope, Greater Travelers Rest church in Decatur gave an impassioned sermon, posted to YouTube on Thursday, in which he slammed church leaders for judging gay people but “you change wives like we change underwear.”
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“‘These folks are an abomination, they are nasty,’ tell you what you do then. Go find every song that’s been written by a gay person for the last 100 years and don’t sing it in church,” he said, as the church congregation cheered him on. “Let’s see how many songs you can minister on that Sunday.”
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He went on to criticize the habit of picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to adhere to, based on what is socially advantageous or convenient, but ignore it when it gets in the way of business.
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“We demonize and dehumanize the same people that we use and we don’t say nothing about the gay choir director because he’s good for business” Smith said. “As long as the choir sound good, I ain’t saying nothing about his sexuality. We have done what the slave master did to us. Dehumanize us, degrade us, demonize us, but then use them for our advantage.”
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http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/watch-black-pastor-rips-hypocritical-churches-for-doing-to-gay-people-what-slavemasters-did-to-us/
24 JUL 2015 AT 14:24 ET
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A Georgia pastor is making waves after being caught on video unloading on what he called the hypocrisy of condemning LGBT people by Christian churches.
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Pastor E. Dewey Smith of the House of Hope, Greater Travelers Rest church in Decatur gave an impassioned sermon, posted to YouTube on Thursday, in which he slammed church leaders for judging gay people but “you change wives like we change underwear.”
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“‘These folks are an abomination, they are nasty,’ tell you what you do then. Go find every song that’s been written by a gay person for the last 100 years and don’t sing it in church,” he said, as the church congregation cheered him on. “Let’s see how many songs you can minister on that Sunday.”
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He went on to criticize the habit of picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to adhere to, based on what is socially advantageous or convenient, but ignore it when it gets in the way of business.
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“We demonize and dehumanize the same people that we use and we don’t say nothing about the gay choir director because he’s good for business” Smith said. “As long as the choir sound good, I ain’t saying nothing about his sexuality. We have done what the slave master did to us. Dehumanize us, degrade us, demonize us, but then use them for our advantage.”
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http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/watch-black-pastor-rips-hypocritical-churches-for-doing-to-gay-people-what-slavemasters-did-to-us/
Not One More
Jul 24, 2015 | By CAP Action War Room
Yet another community is reeling from a senseless act of gun violence today. Last night, at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, a gunman opened fire, killing two people and injuring at least seven others, before turning the gun on himself. Three years ago this week, also on a Thursday, another gunman opened fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others.
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Just hours before the shooting broke out, in an interview with BBC, President Obama said his biggest frustration so far as president is that “the United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient, common-sense gun safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings.” It’s true. America has unfortunately earned its sad title as the land of mass shootings. By one count, there have been 204 mass shootings and 204 days in 2015. Of 32 comparable OECD countries, the United States makes up 30 percent of the total population but 90 percent of all firearm homicides.
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Louisiana, the home of yesterday’s tragedy, has some of the weakest gun laws in the country and the nation’s highest rate of gun murders—the state gun murder rate is 164 percent higher than the national rate. Data shows that weaker gun laws are correlated with higher rates of gun violence across the country. According to a 2013 report by the Center for American Progress, the 10 states with the weakest gun laws have a level of gun violence that is more than twice as high as the states with the strongest gun laws.
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While information about yesterday’s shooter, John Russell Hauser, is still evolving, early reports suggest that he, like the gunman in Charleston, may have been motivated by racial hatred. Further, other reports suggest that Hauser had a history of mental illness and spousal abuse, which may have prohibited him from lawfully possessing a gun.
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Federal law prohibits people who’ve been involuntarily committed to a mental institution from purchasing or possessing gun – and, in this case, reports indicate that a court in Georgia did involuntarily commit Hauser to a facility in 2008. Unfortunately, Georgia is among a number of states have failed to supply all relevant mental health records to the FBI gun background check system. In fact, as of 2014, the state of Georgia had only submitted 8,263 mental health records to the FBI – for context, Michigan, which has a similar population to Georgia, had submitted more than 125,000 such records.
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Additionally, federal law prohibits individuals subject to certain domestic violence protective orders and convicted of certain domestic violence misdemeanor crimes from possessing a firearm. Reports indicate that Hauser had a history of domestic abuse and that his wife got a protective order against him in Georgia. It is so far unclear whether Hauser’s history should have barred him under the current federal domestic violence protections. Notably, however, earlier this week new bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress that would expand the scope of intimate partner violence that would make a person ineligible to possess guns. A new poll by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, also released this week, showed that 82% of Americans support this legislation to disarm intimate partner abusers.
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BOTTOM LINE: Another community has been saddened by a tragic act of gun violence. There are common sense steps we must take to ensure that not one more has to.
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http://app.mx3.americanprogressaction.org/e/er?s=785&lid=175112&elq=9b1649cb6ad74a02853fad9ad194acd3&elqaid=26546&elqat=1&elqTrackId=e7fea4faa914437a86dd3a9171bc096d
In The Wake Of The Lafayette Shooting, A Look At Gun Violence In America
.Yet another community is reeling from a senseless act of gun violence today. Last night, at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana, a gunman opened fire, killing two people and injuring at least seven others, before turning the gun on himself. Three years ago this week, also on a Thursday, another gunman opened fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others.
.
Just hours before the shooting broke out, in an interview with BBC, President Obama said his biggest frustration so far as president is that “the United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient, common-sense gun safety laws — even in the face of repeated mass killings.” It’s true. America has unfortunately earned its sad title as the land of mass shootings. By one count, there have been 204 mass shootings and 204 days in 2015. Of 32 comparable OECD countries, the United States makes up 30 percent of the total population but 90 percent of all firearm homicides.
.
Louisiana, the home of yesterday’s tragedy, has some of the weakest gun laws in the country and the nation’s highest rate of gun murders—the state gun murder rate is 164 percent higher than the national rate. Data shows that weaker gun laws are correlated with higher rates of gun violence across the country. According to a 2013 report by the Center for American Progress, the 10 states with the weakest gun laws have a level of gun violence that is more than twice as high as the states with the strongest gun laws.
.
While information about yesterday’s shooter, John Russell Hauser, is still evolving, early reports suggest that he, like the gunman in Charleston, may have been motivated by racial hatred. Further, other reports suggest that Hauser had a history of mental illness and spousal abuse, which may have prohibited him from lawfully possessing a gun.
.
Federal law prohibits people who’ve been involuntarily committed to a mental institution from purchasing or possessing gun – and, in this case, reports indicate that a court in Georgia did involuntarily commit Hauser to a facility in 2008. Unfortunately, Georgia is among a number of states have failed to supply all relevant mental health records to the FBI gun background check system. In fact, as of 2014, the state of Georgia had only submitted 8,263 mental health records to the FBI – for context, Michigan, which has a similar population to Georgia, had submitted more than 125,000 such records.
.
Additionally, federal law prohibits individuals subject to certain domestic violence protective orders and convicted of certain domestic violence misdemeanor crimes from possessing a firearm. Reports indicate that Hauser had a history of domestic abuse and that his wife got a protective order against him in Georgia. It is so far unclear whether Hauser’s history should have barred him under the current federal domestic violence protections. Notably, however, earlier this week new bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress that would expand the scope of intimate partner violence that would make a person ineligible to possess guns. A new poll by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, also released this week, showed that 82% of Americans support this legislation to disarm intimate partner abusers.
.
BOTTOM LINE: Another community has been saddened by a tragic act of gun violence. There are common sense steps we must take to ensure that not one more has to.
.
http://app.mx3.americanprogressaction.org/e/er?s=785&lid=175112&elq=9b1649cb6ad74a02853fad9ad194acd3&elqaid=26546&elqat=1&elqTrackId=e7fea4faa914437a86dd3a9171bc096d
Government Granted Patent Monopolies Are Not the Free Market
Published: 21 July 2015
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Those folks at the Wall Street Journal are really turning reality on its head. Today it ran a column by Robert Ingram, a former CEO of Glaxo Wellcome, complaining about efforts to pass "transparency" legislation in Massachusetts, New York, and a number of other states. This legislation would require drug companies to report their profits on certain expensive drugs as well as government funding that contributed to their development.
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Ingram sees such laws as a prelude to price controls. He then warns readers:
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Ingram bizarrely touts the "flowing pipeline of new wonder drugs spurred by a free market," which he warns will be stopped by "government price controls." This juxtaposition is bizarre, because patent monopolies are 180 degrees at odds with the free market. These monopolies are a government policy to provide incentives for innovation. Mr. Ingram obviously likes this policy, but that doesn't make it the free market.
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Of course there are other ways that the government can finance research and development, such as paying for it directly. It already does this to a large extent. At the encouragement of the pharmaceutical industry it spends more than $30 billion a year on mostly basic research conducted through the National Institutes of Health. It could double or triple the amount of direct funding (which could be contracted with private firms like Glaxo Wellcome) with the condition that all findings are placed in the public domain.
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This would eliminate all the distortions associated with patent monopolies, such as patent-protected prices that are can be more than one hundred times as much as the free market price. This would eliminate all the ethical dilemmas about whether the government or private insurers should pay for expensive drugs like Sovaldi, since the drugs would be cheap. It would also eliminate the incentive to mislead doctors and the public about the safety and effectiveness of drugs in order to benefit from monopoly profits.
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Read more...
http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/government-granted-patent-monopolies-are-not-the-free-market
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Those folks at the Wall Street Journal are really turning reality on its head. Today it ran a column by Robert Ingram, a former CEO of Glaxo Wellcome, complaining about efforts to pass "transparency" legislation in Massachusetts, New York, and a number of other states. This legislation would require drug companies to report their profits on certain expensive drugs as well as government funding that contributed to their development.
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Ingram sees such laws as a prelude to price controls. He then warns readers:
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"There is no surer way to bring pharmaceutical innovation to a halt in the U.S. than letting governments decide how much companies can charge for their products or harassing them into lower prices. It also represents a fundamental misunderstanding of how pharmaceutical research works. Scientific discoveries involve trying and failing, learning from those failures and trying again and again, often for years.".
Ingram bizarrely touts the "flowing pipeline of new wonder drugs spurred by a free market," which he warns will be stopped by "government price controls." This juxtaposition is bizarre, because patent monopolies are 180 degrees at odds with the free market. These monopolies are a government policy to provide incentives for innovation. Mr. Ingram obviously likes this policy, but that doesn't make it the free market.
.
Of course there are other ways that the government can finance research and development, such as paying for it directly. It already does this to a large extent. At the encouragement of the pharmaceutical industry it spends more than $30 billion a year on mostly basic research conducted through the National Institutes of Health. It could double or triple the amount of direct funding (which could be contracted with private firms like Glaxo Wellcome) with the condition that all findings are placed in the public domain.
.
This would eliminate all the distortions associated with patent monopolies, such as patent-protected prices that are can be more than one hundred times as much as the free market price. This would eliminate all the ethical dilemmas about whether the government or private insurers should pay for expensive drugs like Sovaldi, since the drugs would be cheap. It would also eliminate the incentive to mislead doctors and the public about the safety and effectiveness of drugs in order to benefit from monopoly profits.
.
Read more...
http://www.cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/government-granted-patent-monopolies-are-not-the-free-market
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