Gun Control – Sanity First!

Trump: Worst President Ever

Donald Trump will surely be seen by future historians as the worst president in our history. Dozens of respected historians are saying that now. The reasons are clear to anyone who follows the news:

He has massively increased the federal budget deficit. The stock market and job market are artificially inflated and the coming downturn cannot be avoided. His tax cuts were a boon for corporations and the wealthy while doing little or nothing for the middle class.
He has severely weakened health care for millions of Americans without providing any viable alternative.
He continually endangers future generations by cancelling environmental protections.
He has made America a laughing stock, literally, within the community of nations.
He has done nothing to stop what he called “this American carnage.” Mass killings continue unabated, while he cozies up to the NRA.
His long-standing barrage of attacks on our most valuable and cherished institutions – the Intelligence agencies, the FBI, the election process, the Free Press – have done harm that cannot be easily repaired.
He has done nothing to improve our crumbling infrastructure.
He shows us daily that he considers being president to be a part-time job. Between his non-stop campaign rallies and his golfing, along with his obvious lack of knowledge about the most basic issues, we know we have a narcissist, not a leader, in the Oval Office.
And worst of all, he has horrifyingly debased the office of the President of the United States. His mean-spirited school-yard bullying, his wide-spread and treasonous conflicts-of-interest, his continual pitting of one segment of America against another, his debasement of women, minorities, immigrants, scientists, professors, journalists, all accompanied by his incessant deluge of daily lies, have all combined to diminish the integrity of, and respect for, the Office.

For all that (and much more) he can never be forgiven. And we must shout that message out tomorrow.

Please vote. Please vote straight Democratic. We need to save America!

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Please pass this message on.

Care to comment? Please do!

Shove Your Thoughts and Prayers.

Yesterday a relative of my son-in-law died.
Yesterday his brother-in-law’s niece went to school. She’s a high school freshman. Fifteen years old.
Yesterday she was the last person, of 17, identified as a victim in Parkland, Florida.

A couple of years ago she and her family came to our vacation home in Boca Raton to spend a day at the beach with us. I have a group picture. She’s in the middle, three people over from me. She’s smiling, happy.

Today I am shaking at the news. My anger grows by the minute. Those who follow me on Facebook know how frequently I have screamed at the bullshit arguments of the NRA and their spineless political lackeys in the Republican party.

Today, following the slaughter, Nick Morton, a friend from Australia, reacted to my latest anti-NRA post:

You know, here in the civilised world we simply cannot understand America’s gun laws.
We see it as the greatest failing of your mighty nation.
We see it as a failure of logic.
We see it as government supporting big business over the (majority) will of the people they were elected to serve.
We understand there are emotive arguments involved, but we simply cannot understand why you continue to allow your children to be massacred.
We believe that logically, the government must do something to stop it, and their failure to do so is a damning indictment of their inability to support the common good.
The needs of the many must be considered more important than the wants of a few.
I feel so sorry for the families of those 17 kids, and I would love to see the politicians blocking gun reform actually look them in the eye and say there’s nothing that can be done.

In the first 45 days of 2018, there have been 18 school shootings in the U.S., twice the number that took place in the same period last year.

Yesterday, Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, said on the Senate floor:

“Let me just note once again for my colleagues …This happens nowhere else other than the United States of America, this epidemic of mass slaughter, this scourge of school shooting after school shooting. It only happens here, not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but as a consequence of our inaction.”

“We are responsible for a level of mass atrocity that happens in this country with zero parallel anywhere else,” he later added.

How long are we going to wait? Why does your “right” to carry an assault rifle supersede that girl’s right TO LIVE?

Do something. Give money, give time, give effort. Support leaders who stand up to the madness, and work to defeat those who bow down to the murderous NRA.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Please pass this message on.

Care to comment? Please do.

The Easy Guide to Election 2016

The Easy Guide to Election 2016

It’s not complicated. You’re going to vote for Hillary Clinton because:

You know that climate change is the greatest threat to life on Earth and it is based on scientific observation, and is not a Chinese hoax.
You care about protecting a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.
You know more than 30,000 Americans are killed by guns every year and you know that reasonable gun control will save some lives.
You know that trickle-down economics — tax cuts for the rich — has never worked.
Since, over the past 30 years the lion’s share of economic gains have gone to the wealthiest Americans, you know it’s time for that group to start paying their fair share of taxes.
You understand that the important work Planned Parenthood does deserves our support, not our scorn.
You want sensible regulations that protect your food, water and air.
And most importantly, you desperately want a smart, rational, experienced adult to lead our military and to possess the power to unleash our nuclear arsenal.

Those are the big issues and Hillary Clinton is on the right side of all of them. Delusional Donald Trump has shown us again and again that he stands firmly on the wrong side of each issue.

Your decision, therefore, is easy, clear and urgent.

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Please pass this message on.

The Rock-Solid Case Against Trump (and for Hillary)

Forget, if you can, about grabbing and groping. The case against him and for her goes far beyond the sleaze factor.

Here’s your eye-opening brick-by-brick summary of how this campaign looks right now. For Trump supporters, it’s brutal. Most of these articles have been posted to my Facebook page over the past two months, but seeing them all strung together like this is stunning.

Never has any major party candidate been so thoroughly repudiated by so many competent observers.

Every story here includes links to the sources.

The Arizona Republic

“Since The Arizona Republic began publication in 1890, we have never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican for president. Never.

Hillary Clinton is the only choice to move America ahead.”

The Cincinnati Enquirer

“The Enquirer has supported Republicans for president for almost a century … Our country needs calm, thoughtful leadership to deal with the challenges we face at home and abroad. We need a leader who will bring out the best in all Americans, not the worst.

That’s why there is only one choice when we elect a president in November: Hillary Clinton.”

USA Today

“The Editorial Board has never taken sides in the presidential race. We’re doing it now. … Donald Trump is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.”

No Fortune 100 CEOs Back Republican Donald Trump

From the Wall Street Journal: “Democrat Hillary Clinton has 11 contributors and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney had far more.”

Trump v. Clinton: Comparing the costs of their Economic plans (CBS News)

“The latest estimate shows Clinton’s economic plan would add $200 billion to the national debt over the next decade, while Donald Trump’s would add $5.3 trillion – or 26.5 times as much as Clinton’s – according to a new report from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.”

Military Officers for Clinton

“While only a tiny portion of military officers reach the rank of admiral or general, an even smaller sliver earn three or four stars.

Fifteen percent of Mr. Trump’s retired officer supporters are among those most senior officers.

Mrs. Clinton’s backers include nearly twice that number of highest-ranked officers.”

Dallas Morning News Endorses Democrat For President For First Time In Over 75 Years

“For all her warts, she is the candidate more likely to keep our nation safe, to protect American ideals and to work across the aisle to uphold the vital domestic institutions that rely on a competent, experienced president.

Hillary Clinton has spent years in the trenches doing the hard work needed to prepare herself to lead our nation.”

No Former Members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers Support Trump

“In a WSJ (Wall Street Journal) survey, no former members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers—spanning eight presidents—openly support Mr. Trump”

The Atlantic

“For the third time since The Atlantic’s founding (in 1857!), the editors endorse a candidate for president. The case for Hillary Clinton.”

Foreign Policy magazine

“In the nearly half-century history of Foreign Policy, the editors of this publication have never endorsed a candidate for political office. We cherish and fiercely protect this publication’s independence and its reputation for objectivity, and we deeply value our relationship with all of our readers, regardless of political orientation.

It is for all these reasons that FP’s editors are now breaking with tradition to endorse Hillary Clinton for the next president of the United States.”

50 G.O.P. Officials Warn Donald Trump Would Put Nation’s Security ‘at Risk’

“Fifty of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump ‘lacks the character, values and experience’ to be president and ‘would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.’

Mr. Trump, the officials warn, ‘would be the most reckless president in American history.’”

Here are all the major newspapers that have endorsed Hillary Clinton for president

From Business Insider: “This presidential election may have the most lopsided batch of newspaper endorsements the US has ever seen.

While Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has garnered the support of a long list of editorial boards, her Republican rival Donald Trump hasn’t received any.”

Whew. Quite a list, and it’s only a small fraction of what I could post!

How could any breathing, sentient voter still be supporting Trump?

Thanks for caring about the truth.

Ken

Please pass this message on.

Gun Control: Who Are the Real Terrorists?

The National Rifle Association is the biggest terrorist organization in America.

This powerful lobbying organization loudly opposes every attempt to legislate rational gun control. And with help from the Republican Party – and some Democrats – they are usually successful. As a result, each year around 30,000 Americans die by guns, according to federal statistics. That’s ten times the deaths of the 9/11 attacks – every year!

Many thousands more, of course, are severely injured.

The rate of death by gun is significantly higher in the U.S. than in other industrialized countries, most of which have much stricter guns laws than the U.S.

Some examples:

Firearm-related death rate per 100,000 population in one year is

United States – 11.66.
France – 6.35
Canada – 4.78
England – 0.38.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate

Imagine if 30,000 Americans died from swine flu, or food poisoning. The outcry would be deafening.

But things are about to get worse for Americans, thanks to a horrendous 5-4 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, handed down on June 28th, 2010.

As the New York Times editorialized, “About 10,000 Americans died, in the four months that the Supreme Court debated which clause of the Constitution it would use to subvert Chicago’s entirely sensible ban on handgun ownership. The arguments that led to Monday’s decision undermining Chicago’s law were infuriatingly abstract, but the results will be all too real and bloody.”

The average right-to-bear-arms advocate (I’d rather call them nut jobs) will tell you that their “rights” are guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution.

Really? Ask that person to tell you how long that Amendment is — in pages, paragraphs, or sentences. Most, I’d bet, couldn’t give you the answer.

The Second Amendment is one sentence long:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

(There are several versions of the text of the Second Amendment, each with slight capitalization and punctuation differences. The version cited above is the one distributed to the states, and then ratified by them. (source: Wikipedia) Since no Amendment becomes law until ratified by the states, this, it seems to me, should be the official version.)

The first four words of this sentence are “A well regulated militia …” What part of “well regulated” is not clear? Why would those two words be there if not to mean exactly what they say? In one sentence, containing no hyphens, colons or semi-colons, the second part of the sentence must relate directly back to the first part. And the first part calls for a well regulated militia. (A militia was understood to be composed of “the People” in the various states, as opposed to a Federal army.)

If the Founders wanted all citizens to have unrestricted gun rights, they would have written this sentence: “The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

But they didn’t!

How, then, can the conservative majority on the Supreme Court justify its ruling to in effect strike down almost all regulations? Here’s a quote from the Fox News web site (it was regarding an earlier, similar anti-gun control ruling) …

Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia said that an individual right to bear arms is supported by “the historical narrative” both before and after the Second Amendment was adopted. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,372041,00.html

The “historical narrative” phrase sounds impressive. But to buy that argument you need to say that men who wrote the Bill of Rights were not capable of writing a simple sentence! To accept Scalia’s logic you must deny the actual words of our Founders and insert your own meaning!

It’s nonsense. It’s maddening. And it will kill thousands and thousands of Americans.

For people who think politics don’t matter – remember that the President nominates candidates to the Supreme Court, and the Senate confirms those nominations. (And don’t forget the Supreme Court rulings on abortion rights, environmental causes, campaign finance reform, and other issues that were decided by a 5-4 vote.)

Rational gun control is just one more reason why we need to keep Democrats in control.