West of Tombstone, the shootouts continue

You can't get much further west than Manhattan Beach. Calif., one of the state's premiere beach communities that attracts the moneyed young. Gunfire started in the Manhattan Gateway shopping center with one police officer down almost immediately. Several cops then opened fire on the suspect. No information yet on the injured officer. A bike rider commented...

“This is just a trip,” said Hawthorne resident Chavita Medrano, who was out for a bike ride. “You hear about all these things horrible happening in the world, but you don’t expect it right in your backyard.”

Precisely. We expected this sort of action in the old days of Tombstone, but not in an upscale community of Los Angeles. It started with a guy chasing a woman through the lobby of a hotel and then he took off running into a shopping center. The cop shot was hit in the leg and taken to a hospital. The suspect was eventually captured and a female, also chased by cops, was apparently OK, but her relationship to the suspect was unknown.

Sounds like a great day for a walk around the beach and then all hell breaks loose and there is a shooter on the loose. There are 393 million guns owned by Americans. There are 857 million firearms owned worldwide, meaning the U.S. gun nuts are in possession of almost 46% of total guns owned in the world. And one of these characters just happened to be in Manhattan Beach, Calif. on Sunday, deciding to shoot up the community.

Police announced "the gunman was armed with 'some sort of assault rifle or a TEC-9-type high-powered or high-capacity weapon.'" Assault rifles seem to be the weapon of choice when a deranged individual decides to go out and kill a few people. In this case the police officer should be fine, but the next time the guy could take out 10, 15, up to 20 or more victims in yet another mass killing.

And ladies and gentlemen, all thanks to Wayne LaPierre and his misguided National Rifle Assn. (NRA).

Do we really care about these people?

To begin with, I could care less. And what is even more frustrating is the fact that the media gives it such high profiling. I did one blog post on the news that some top TV and movie stars could be prosecuted for their involvement in an admissions scandal for their children at the U. of Southern California. USC is a bastion of higher learning and should be quick to deal with those school officials involved. But I am really sick and tired of hearing bout it.


These people made their beds so now they must sleep in it, a term Hollywood is quite familiar with. Apparently Lori Loughlin and her husband bought their kids way into USC because they felt they were too dumb to do it on their own. From what I have seen so far from kid Olivia Jade Giannulli, the parents were right in their mental assessment. And Olivia now says she also fears prosecution, but recently blaming her lost career on her mother. What lost career?

While this freak daughter screams over her persecution, People Magazine said, "The 19-year-old knew about the alleged scheme and would have stopped it if she thought they’d get caught." Now that shows real character and is why this whole thing should go to court soon if this case is prosecutable. There's talk of some of the culprits making a deal and in tinsel town that is done regularly. But no matter what happens, these people will always carry with them their involvement in a petty scam.

Mick Mulvaney Trump taxes statement just...stupid

Mick Mulvaney

The release of Donald Trump's taxes, its legality, and whether he was elected in spite of the fact he refused to release the information is not the point here. Newly elected Presidents normally release their tax returns as a matter of transparency, and Donald Trump did not. Mike Mulvaney is either just dumb or he thinks the American public is dumb and will buy his bullshit over the issue. He said the Democrats would never see T-rumps's taxes, then added...

"Nor should they (obtain the documents)" Mulvaney told "Fox News Sunday." "Keep in mind, that's an issue that was already litigated during the election. Voters knew the President could have given over his tax returns, they knew that he didn't and they elected him anyway. Which, of course, is what drives the Democrats crazy."

Don't you just love the reasoning of these idiot Republicans, their arrogance, and how they attempt to protect the Oval Office lunatic. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that Donald Trump is trying to hide something. The question is why, and if his constituency doesn't care, then they are dumber than Mike Mulvaney. Trump's attorney said...

"that the requests for Trump's tax information 'are not consistent with governing law, do not advance any proper legislative purpose, and threaten to interfere with the ordinary conduct of audits.'"

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff responded that, "there is no legal ground for them here." And the beat goes on.

WARNING: To those using home blood pressure monitors

Sphygmomanometer

If you have a home blood pressure monitor you need to read this post. In my experience they are erratically inconclusive and could be so misleading as to cause the person using it either think their BP is too high, or too low. In my case it was registering an unusually high reading, when, in most cases, it was normal. I had purchased an Omron meter because they were highly touted, using it for a while but always getting readings higher than a normal BP.

When contacting Omron customer service, they were of no help at all, a woman telling us their machine was not adjustable, of which we inquired, that my BP was probably correct on the Omron and that I should check with my doctor. I did and learned the Omron was wrong (over 20 points higher than by actual BP) when compared to the doctor's office sphygmomanometer. Let me emphasize, it is the latter that you should always compare your home unit with.

Checking with my primary care doc, I found their office used a Welch Allyn sphygmomanometer, so I purchased their home model. Same problem, but great customer service with WA. They even went so far as to replace their product free, even after I purchased it from Amazon. But it's all for naught since I recently learned the Welch Allyn was off an average of 34 points too high. The doc took the BP several times and in both arms.

The scary part of this is that for at least three years now I have been fooling myself thinking my blood pressure was significantly high. It isn't, but it is high enough to require some BP medication to keep it under control. Based on my experience, the only way I would use one of these home BP meters is to first check its accuracy with your doctor, then proceed based on those results. In my case with the Welch Allyn, I will simply subtract around 34 points from each reading.

Weekly opinion wrap up...

I started the week out with a post about a black man who was brutally murdered by a white man; the latter shot the other three times from his apartment balcony after the black man had simply mistakenly knocked on his door. It rings loud and clear of racial hatred that was supposed to be improving gradually over the years but, in fact, is seething in the minds of many.

It was around this same time that we found out that measles are at the 2nd highest level since elimination was declared in 2000. For this we have that new screwed up group of Anti-Vaxxers to thank. As of March 28, there are 387 individual cases of measles that have been confirmed in 15 states. Folks, that's after science eradicated the disease. Pathetic!

With the above in mind, a terminally ill child was exposed to measles by anti-vaxxers at the U. of California Davis Jackson Souza Bell Medical Center. The mother wasn't told for two days after her child had been exposed. It's bad enough that these maniacs are passing their disease around on the street, but there should be some level of security in a hospital.

Later, the National Rifle Assn. (NRA) was fighting the extension of a law that would make it a crime to abuse a date, stalking him or her, after they break up. There are federal domestic violence laws protecting spouses, but if you're not married, the NRA considers you fair game. But it has always been the NRA that is the problem in getting gun control done. Yet there is a host of gun owners who think gun ownership standards should be raised. It all comes down to one man, Wayne LaPierre, head NRA gun nut.

I ended the week with Robert Reich's statement: "Mitch McConnell is destroying the Senate – and American government." This has been my position on Mitch McConnell for years, expressed regularly in this blog. But there's more: "No person has done more in living memory to undermine the functioning of the US government than the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell." Robert Reich agrees with everything I have ever felt or said about Mitch McConnell.

ROBERT REICH: Mitch McConnell is destroying the Senate – and American government

I have been saying the exact same thing in this blog for years that Robert Reich is saying in the above headline. Reich goes on...

A smug Mitch McConnell

"The majority leader cares only for winning, not rules or democracy itself. He is doing more damage than Trump"

Bingo, my thoughts replayed, and maybe with this international utterance (source is the UK's Guardian) coming from a leading political figure of the past (served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton and was Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997) a witless Senate will realize what a jerk they have leading this body. More from Reich...

"No person has done more in living memory to undermine the functioning of the US government than the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell."

He compares Donald Trump's stupidity in the Oval Office with Senate Head Mitch McConnell but qualifies his statement with the fact that McConnell is, "actively and willfully destroying the Senate."

It remains to be seen just how far Robert Reich's comments go, or if they just fall on deaf ears. If it's the latter, we're back to a half-baked Senate that does nothing.

My favorite post on Mitch McConnell. 

Your Political Bullshit of the Day

TRICKLE DOWN BULLSHIT

And now a New York Judge joins the anti-vaxxers...Can Trump demean Mueller Report enough to convince the uninformed?...If Barr's credibility tanks, what happens to release of Mueller Report?...Obama worries about Progressives' "rigidity" - he could have used more in his administration...New York wants to end religious vaccinations exemptions with new law