World asking why so many U.S. mass shootings?

The U.S. has 4.4 percent of the global population but owns 42 percent of the world’s guns. According to a 2015 study by Adam Lankford, professor at the University of Alabama...

Dianne Feinstein-Here's the culprit

"Worldwide, a country’s rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds it would experience a mass shooting. This relationship held even when he excluded the United States, indicating that it could not be explained by some other factor particular to his home country."

In another Lankford study of the same year, "only 4 percent of American gun deaths could be attributed to mental health issues." And re. suicides...

"countries with high suicide rates tended to have low rates of mass shootings — the opposite of what you would expect if mental health problems correlated with mass shootings."

That pretty much puts a damper on the NRA's perpetual and tiring comment that mass shootings are a mental health issue. The Washington Post Editorial Board said "there have been more than 100 mass shootings, more than 4,500 gun deaths (not counting suicides) and more than 8,400 gun injuries. Here's a comparison with down under...

"Australian physician. Nikki Stamp, a heart and lung surgeon in Perth, Australia, said in a Wednesday Post op-ed that in more than 16 years of practice, she has had to deal with only two instances of gunshot wounds. One was a man who had accidentally shot himself and the other an attempted suicide."

And if you look at the Aussie's gun laws you can understand Stamp's comment. This is "because of the gun-control measures the country put in place after a mass shooting in 1996, in which 35 people were killed." Sheer common sense which neither the U.S. Congress nor the American public has. Australia wonders why we haven't tried the same thing here. So do American gun advocates. And speaking of the U.S. Congress...

"Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California is introducing legislation to increase the minimum age to buy assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the wake of a shooting in that state."

This is sheer nonsense considering the magnitude of the gun violence issue, especially since it was Feinstein who proposed banning assault weapons entirely just a few years ago. It is dumb moves like this the rest of the world will look at and marvel that the U.S. population hasn't self-destructed using its 393-million guns. Come to think of it, it is a wonder we haven't.

Wm. Barr on a par with Mitch McConnell as lowlife

Barr and Trump

CNN's analysis by Stephen Collinson is frightening, to say the least, and predicts months of "unchained presidency" by Donald Trump. Collinson says Trump was right when he remarked that he could get away with anything. He continues...

"The drama also showed that in the short span of a White House term, given certain partisan conditions, the modern political system will find it almost impossible to constrain a President -- especially one who poses such an overwhelming challenge to congressional custom as Trump."

He has accomplished all this with the help of Attorney General Wm. Barr, "a human block of granite, who sees few limits on presidential power and is willing to obfuscate and execute blocking movements on his behalf." But Collinson's most alarming statement is...

"There's probably never going to be a price to pay."

Which means Stephen Collinson believes that the Oval Office lunatic will never be held accountable for the bizarre antics of his administration. He doesn't believe House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will act on impeachment and the House investigations will continue until they have run their course. In other words, we must live with T-rump until he is voted out of office, because with his enormous ego exceeding all limits, he won't resign. A dismal outlook for sane voters.

Barr has completely obfuscated the Mueller Report getting harsh criticism that comes from both sides of Congress and the general public. Benjamin Wittes of The Atlantic says, "The attorney general misled the public in seven key ways." And although in the beginning he said he was willing to give Barr a chance, finally concluded that "he [Barr] is likely as good as we’re going to get," [from Donald Trump] 20 more months to put up with this monumental nuisance.

Wittes on Barr's failures...

"Where Barr has utterly failed, by contrast, is in providing 'honest leadership that insulates [the department] from the predations of the president.' I confess I am surprised by this. I have never known Barr well, but I thought better of him than that.'

Benjamin Wittes is Editor in chief of Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Please give me your comments on this issue.

Latest on the Democratic Primary for 2020

2020 Democratic candidates

To begin, it should be noted that after Joe Biden announced his candidacy recently, he shot up to a 26-point lead over other candidates, Elizabeth Warren second, Bernie Sanders third. Don't know about Warren's campaign, but I'll bet that Bernie's camp expected the surge; the question is what will he do about it? One thing he is doing is out-raising his competitors in contributions bringing in $18.2million in first-quarter fundraising.

On the other hand, Biden raised $6.3 million on his first day out of the gate. Kamala Harris is second to Bernie and Elizabeth Warren is a distant fifth at $6 million in total returns. The BBC says...

"Her [Warren] campaign is far from scraping the bottom, however, as she transferred $10.4m from her Senate campaign coffers to her presidential account, giving her some financial breathing room in the months ahead."

But here's the game changer...

"64 percent of Democrats and likely Democrats who had selected a favorite presidential candidate said it is possible they might change their mind. Thirty-six percent said they 'definitely support' their top choice."

Which means Joe Biden's 26% lead could go up in smoke and any of the other challengers could become the favorite. Money is the thing and Bernie Sanders is one of the best at fundraising, depending on small donations in the range of around $27.00 each that are loyal donors who give over and over.  But "Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) topped the list, with 23 percent of respondents putting her in the top three candidates they were most curious about."

Elizabeth warren was second, Joe Biden third. It might be safe to assume, because of Bernie Sanders run in the 2016 election, the public is so familiar with him they don't need to know more. There are 21 Democratic presidential candidates in the race so far with Joe Biden regularly taking the lead and the Bern a close second. However, Elizabeth Warren has seen increased interest in the last few days. In other words, it's still a wide-open Primary.

Please give me your comments on this issue.

Reasons to trash NRA and pass gun control

DUMP THE NRA

Iowa woman shot and killed while driving home from work...2 dead, 4 wounded in U.N.C. Charlotte shooting...2 judges shot in disturbance outside White Castle in Indianapolis...National Review asks will culture war kill NRA?...NY Gov. Cuomo believes the NRA is counterproductive

Please give me your comments on these issues.

Latest on the NRA downfall

DOWN WITH THE NRA

Even gun nut Ted Nugent says NRA Has been "less than accountable...Head gun nut Wayne LaPierre re-elected at NRA...Re-elected NRA head Wayne LaPierre goes forward with internal turmoil and an outside probe...NRA has huge mess on it hands with New York Attorney General investigation of group...NRA's leadership battle is worst in very long time

Please give me your comments on these issues.

Fact Checker: Trump continues lies at "unbelievable pace"

What past president do you know of that made over 10,000 false or misleading comments in the first 2-years of their presidency...and they can be documented? I don't know of any since it is entirely possible that no other president has been flagrant enough in his lying to prompt the media to literally record this action. And that is purely pathetic! For the Oval Office lunatic, that's 12.2 claims per day, or 10,111 total claims in the 828 days of the Trump presidency.

The leading Washington Post Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler, said...

"The President continues to say false or misleading statements at an unbelievable pace."

This said of the moron who leads the most powerful country in the world. Here's more...

"According to The Post, the largest issue area of false or misleading claims has been immigration. The most-repeated claim is that the border wall is currently being built, something that Congress has not allocated funding for or authorized construction of. The Post points out that there are portions of the border wall being repaired."

If this lying dolt spent as much time in the improvement of this country as he does on immigration and other lies, the U.S. would be in much better shape. According to Fact Checker, most of Trump's false or misleading claims--22%--occur at his campaign rallies. There were 61 alone at the rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. As an example...

"Trump said he had cut the estate tax to "zero," or that he was one vote away from repealing the Affordable Care Act — both claims are untrue."

Yet, the man's pitiful followers still stand by him with accolades over his stupidity that is apparently inherent in the whole gang of Trumpsters. George Conway, the husband of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway had this to say on Twitter...

"Congrats, #DerangedDonald!! An amazing accomplishment!! No one but you could have achieved this."

it was retweeted 12,000 times by the time it was published.

Yes, make anti-vaxxers face isolation, fines, arrests.

I couldn't say it better so I will just quote the Washington Post headline...

Anti-vaxxers are dangerous. Make them face isolation, fines, arrests.

 The author of the opinion piece says she loves her children and believes these anti-vaxxers love theirs too. If the latter is the case, then they must be complete idiots with their actions going blatantly in the face of evidence that vaccinations save lives. Juliette Kayyem continues...

"But, I am quite confident in this fact: I love their children much more than they love mine. These anti-vaxxer parents — call them free-riders or even pro-plague — are putting my children and our communities at risk to cater to their erroneous belief that vaccinations would harm their children rather than contribute to the elimination of childhood diseases."

Kayyem wants to switch the focus on the measles epidemic from a public health problem to a public safety crisis, accompanied by arrests, fines and isolation. BINGO! My thoughts exactly, as you can read in past posts. With Trump admitting we have a big problem, it is now up to the U.S. Congress to put these uniformed parents in the position of vaccinate...or else. The patience period has ended and if we don't want a pandemic in this country, we must act now!

As of April 26, there have been 704 measles cases in the U.S. The last closest outbreak was 667 cases in 2014, which originated at the Disney theme park in Los Angeles. As Kayyem indicates, we are in an avoidable crisis that was caused by irresponsible parents, many of which were misguided by social media. She comments further...

"Imagine, instead, that this outbreak is what happens when negligent people do negligent things, such as sending a kid to school with a loaded gun and hoping for the best."

Now there is the best comparison I have seen of this senseless epidemic. Sending your unvaccinated kid to school is like putting a gun in their hand just before getting on the school bus. They both can kill!

PLEASE LET ME HAVE YOUR COMMENTS ON THIS ISSUE.