Friday, February 16, 2018:   Nothing But Regrets From Our Worthless Legislators
Yesterday another group of children were savagely attacked in their school and what did we get from Washington, "nothing but regrets."

The only common denominator to America's gun violence is a gun and in the vast majority of the cases, that gun is a semi-automatic handgun or assault rifle. I was in combat in Vietnam and I carried an M 16 which was the precursor to the AR-15. These weapons are aptly called "assault rifles" because they are designed for only one purpose, to quickly and efficiently assault and kill other human beings. The same is true of the semi-automatic pistols. Why do you think firing ranges have targets with human shapes?

The gun advocates, backed by the NRA, point to their "second amendment" rights. Unfortunately, they often fail to include the opening part - "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…" We have long since gone past the era of needing a "well regulated Militia." I also think that it is save to assume that the framers of the constitution were thinking that the weapon of choice was a musket, not an assault rifle, and that the bearing arms meant in defense of a free State, not to shoot other Americans.

Every day 315 people are shot in the United States – 46 of them are children. The firearm related death rate per 100,000 in the United States is 10.54. Compare that to Canada where the death rate is 1.97 per 100,000. According to a 2015 study by NORC at the University of Chicago, the number of households with guns has changed little since 2006. What has changed is the number and type of weapons in these households. Between 2010 and 2013, the number of guns manufactured in the U.S. nearly doubled with most of that growth coming in the form of pistols and rifles. Until we control the unbridled proliferation of these weapons, tens of thousands of Americans will die each year – many of them children.

The answer to America's gun violence is addressing the problem of the weapons being sold that are designed solely for the purpose of killing humans.


Sunday, February 4, 2018:   The Republican Assault on the Rule of Law
Rule of law refers to an end state in which all individuals and institutions, public and private, and the state itself are held accountable to the law, which is supreme. Laws must be consistent with international human rights norms and standards, legally certain, legally transparent, drafted with procedural transparency, and publicly promulgated.

This end state requires equal enforcement and equality before the law, independent adjudication of the law, fairness in the application of the law, and avoidance of arbitrariness. Access to justice – the ability of people to seek and obtain a remedy through informal or formal institutions of justice – is a mutually reinforcing component of rule of law. The rule of law requires the separation of powers and participation in decision making. (Source: United States Institute of Peace)

The Republican assault on the rule of law that guides our nation is about to reach a climax. If Trump and his Republican coconspirators decide to take actions that actually stop the current Mueller investigation, then we will have descended into the next level of Fascist hell. If this descent is not stopped at this critical juncture, then it will become exponentially more difficult to keep the forces of evil from destroying our democracy.

Graphic courtesy of David Pol (https://www.cheatography.com/davidpol/cheat-sheets/what-is-the-rule-of-law/)


Thursday, February 1, 2018:   Obstruction Of Justice To A Whole New Level…
Why do Trump, his administration, and the Republican congress continue to try and discredit and disrupt the investigation in Russian probe? If Trump has done nothing wrong, why not let it proceed? What are they afraid of?

The amount of effort put forth to try and derail this investigation into the activities surrounding Trump's connection to the Russians is incredible and the more noise they make, the worse it looks. Trump and his suck-ups in the congress are using every trick in their book to get this investigation derailed. God help us if they succeed, because in the process they will have crippled our democracy.