LATEST The NRA and gun violence

It is easy to lose sight of the damage guns cause in our society when COVID-19 is wreaking such havoc across the country. But there was a 3% increase in gun deaths in 2019 over 2018, and 2020 has started with 13,674 gun deaths, including 8,382 suicides.

They're down and probably won't get up

Talking to gun nuts is just as futile as trying to convince an anti-stay at home nut to protect himself or herself and others by observing the lockdown rules. I did a blog post recently on double-digits who fail to acknowledge the severity of a disease that is killing an average of 2,000 daily, just in the U.S. Their response is, "It's only a virus." This corresponds with the gun owner who will protect his weapons, and that is plural, over your right to survive from gun violence.

Here are the stark figures from Gabby Giffords site, Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence: 100 Americans are Killed with Guns Every Day; 36,383 Americans Die from Gun Violence each Year; States with the Highest Gun Death Rates have the Weakest Gun Laws; Americans are 25 Times More Likely to Die from Gun Violence than Residents from Peer Nations; and 51% of suicides in the U.S. Involve a Firearm. There's more and it is pathetic.

Economist on what gun violence looks like in America...

And there is one organization that is always in the forefront to prop up gun violence, at least until recently, the National Rifle Assn. and its head gun nut Wayne LaPierre. pushing constantly for more guns on the streets to please its gun manufacturing supporters. Well, someone has pulled the shade down and the NRA is going down the drain...where it should be. A recent report shows their legal troubles alone have cost the group $100 million. And it's getting worse.

LaPierre was just reelected executive vice president and CEO of the National Rifle Association, just in time to see his gang...

"go from an electoral kingmaker to the edge of financial ruin. He and other NRA executives have urged laid-off employees to seek public assistance benefits. The nation's most prominent pro-gun lobby has lost tens of millions of dollars amid numerous legal woes and investigations that have exposed its questionable financial dealings."

Yet, it gets even better...

"Now, the longtime NRA leader hopes his lawyers can "keep him out of jail," according to previously unreported allegations in court documents in the group's legal battle against its longtime public relations firm, Ackerman McQueen."

Gun owner groups fight to replace NRA...

Life in this country couldn't be better with the complete eradication of the NRA and Wayne LaPierre in jail one year for each death he has caused from gun violence. And I don't think I am alone with this feeling. According to Gallup, 49% have an unfavorable opinion of the National Rifle Assn. But there is another side to the gun violence problem; that's countries who have the common sense to act when they see why it is happening.

The weapon of choice for shooting someone is now the assault rifle. There are around 17 million of these guns in the hands of private American gun owners, and have been used regularly in the execution of mass shootings. In this country so far this year there have been over one-hundred mass shooting, and, yes, the U.S. leads the world in this carnage. Canada, a gun-wise country, has decided to ban assault weapons.

Canada's Trudeau announces assault weapons ban...

The Canadians have regularly come forward to control the gun violence in their country which is the reason it has only a 0.61 death rate per 100,000 population when the U.S. has 4.46. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is quoted in the Washington Post...

"The Canadian government on Friday announced an immediate ban on some 1,500 makes and models of 'military-grade' assault weapons, including two models used by the gunman who killed 22 people last month in rural Nova Scotia during the country’s deadliest mass shooting."

Trudeau said...

“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time.”

He added...

“There is no use — and no place — for such weapons in Canada,” he said. While most firearms owners are responsible, he said, “you don’t need an AR-15 to bring down a deer.”

Canada sits just north of the United States but is millions of miles away when it comes to logical thinking about gun violence. Perhaps with the NRA's huge budget for propaganda gone, leading to its inability to bribe members of Congress with generous donations that have resulted in weak to no guns laws in this country to protect its citizens, well, one might hope for improvement. But many of the gun nuts in Washington will never abandon the 2nd Amendment.

Donald Trump waffles on gun violence...

A USA opinion piece calls attention to "Donald Trump’s vacillating response to repeated acts of carnage that occurred prior to the coronavirus pandemic"...

"In 2018, after meeting with survivors of the Parkland shooting, Trump vowed, 'We're going to be very strong on background checks.' However, days later, after conferring with his friends and financial supporters at the National Rifle Association, he walked back on that assurance."

There's more...

"The same Trump turnaround occurred in the wake of horrific mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton on successive days last August. The Tweeter-in-Chief typed, 'Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks.' A week later, Trump’s resolve wilted under pressure from the gun lobby, insisting, 'we have very strong background checks right now.'"

It will take a revolt of the people and a clearing of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans to fix this dilemma. But, there is no doubt the more serious problem today is COVID-19, although neither Congress nor the White House maniac seem to be doing anything about this either.

Latest coronavirus results WORLDOMETER

Coronavirus cases 1,256,669

Coronavirus deaths 74,121

Coronavirus recoveries 205,268

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TRUMP LATEST: Everyone but supporters think he is losing it

I have blogged on Donald Trump losing it in the past and these headlines seem to persist in the media, but the Oval Office lunatic still charges ahead. Blindly and stupidly, but still on the move.

Evidence of the frailty of Trump's reasoning...

My thoughts were to forge on with coverage that pushes T-rump to the edge, joining others out there doing the same, which has happened, but to no avail yet. Not sure what the prop is that keeps him going, but my best guess is that when you're the kind of idiot that doesn't realize the damage he is doing to his country, then you are beyond the normal breaking point and could skate along forever, Which is simply not acceptable.

Here is Alex Henderson's take in AlterNet: "The more journalists report that Trump is losing it, the more he loses it." Yeah, that's true, he loses it constantly, but somehow seems to get it back. At least enough to survive, which is what Trump is all about. Say and do those bizarre things on a daily basis, throw the USA into more chaos by the hour, but with his double-digit supporters as his cornerstone, he proceeds in numbing bliss.

Many mental health experts spoke out on Donald Trump mental instability two years ago...

Bess Levin in Vanity Fair says he is beginning to lose it over reports that he is losing it. Levin continues...

“Donald Trump has never been the picture of mental stability, but over the last few weeks, he’s appeared to crank up the crazy from about a 45 to a 337. From seemingly proposing intravenous Lysol as a coronavirus cure to claiming the United States is close to testing 5 million people a day for COVID-19 — a number so completely absurd that he might as well have said we’ll soon be running 8 billion tests a day — to reportedly threatening to sue his campaign manager over a dimming 2020 outlook, the president has well and truly lost whatever remaining shred of sanity he once had on reserve.”

These are all interesting observations, any one of which might have pushed the button to oblivious disconnection, but haven't. Are we doomed to suffer the wrath of the White House maniac through another four years of misery and ineptitude? If so, there are several of us who might want to leave this planet. Yes, I said the entire planet, because there is nowhere on this one to get away from this moron and it is necessary to go as far as possible.

You have to read Henderson's AlterNet piece so you can see two of Trump's most comical tweets re. media people and his campaign manager. And in another AlterNet article written by Nancy LeTourneau from the Washington Monthly, she reports: "The signs show Trump is growing increasingly disconnected from reality." But where is the break? Now, don't get me wrong, in most cases you don't want to see anyone have mental problems, but???...

CNN fact-checks Donald Trump's recent town hall for more lies...

LeTourneau's observation here focuses on Trump's lying, something which no other American president has ever been guilty of in the history of this country, and something which will become his legacy...

"Almost three and a half years into Trump’s presidency, it has become almost blasé to talk about his ubiquitous lies. According to the fact-checkers at the Washington Post, as of April 3rd, he has told 18,000 in 1,170 days, for an average of more than 15 per day. What is even more disturbing: He’s getting worse."

This is the guy who is supposed to be running this country, which, of course, he is not, lying to the American public fifteen times every day. Yet, there is still that demented crowd of followers out there who continue to worship at his feet. Her piece also a must read for the video she includes (scroll down) that illustrates how this schizoid can sit there with a sincere straight face and talk about the great way he has handled the coronavirus pandemic.

LeTourneau does a more recent count on the lies, five in less than two minutes. and lists them one-by-one. So we have someone at the helm of this country who is in a constant state of oblivion, probably not prone to fully go over the edge because there is absolutely no connection there with reality. Here's a quote on reality from Douglas H. Everett...

"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."

Enough said. 

WORLDOMETER Latest coronavirus results

Coronavirus cases 1,237,633

Coronavirus deaths 72,271

Coronavirus recoveries 200,628

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LATEST COVID-19: Now it's going to be anti (COVID-19) vaxxer

For the anti-lockdown bunch looking strangely similar to anti-vaxxers, the word prudent, which you obviously don't understand, means: "wise or judicious in practical affairs." Something you aren't...but now at least know what it means.

One of the aberrant protesters

Bernie Sanders was instrumental in founding the Progressive Revolution, a good thing for this country, much of its ideology found in today's Democrats, even Joe Biden, who is running for president against Donald Trump. A revolution can have two purposes as the Bern explained. One is to overturn a government by force, or Bernie's way, which is to create a grass roots effort that results in a change of government ideology. The anti-vaxxers/anti-lockdown are neither.

The latter two groups consist of misguided families and individuals who are being led like a bunch of double-digits who cannot think for themselves, and choose to follow the crackpots in social media who espouse the philosophy that you can be super-human if you just listen to them, These disciples of the movement, 'Let's hurry up and die' have followed the instructions of one of these lunatics, a mother, and her child died.

Security guard family

To begin with, the number of those protesting is definitely smaller than those who have decided to follow the law and common sense. So, these wingnuts are definitely in the minority, as you might expect a group of morons would be. That said, there is a report of a security guard shot at a Dollar Store in Michigan, just because he prevented a customer entrance without a mask. What we don't need is for the gun nuts to get into the act now.

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and public health scientist at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health said, "US anti-lockdown rallies could cause surge in Covid-19 cases." We have already seen COVID-19 cases increase in states that are reopening, and Aljazeera has just announced that the "US could see 3,000 daily deaths as economy reopens." The New York Times says Trump connected groups are behind the protesters...

"Among those fighting the orders are FreedomWorks and Tea Party Patriots, which played pivotal roles in the beginning of Tea Party protests starting more than a decade ago. Also involved are a law firm led partly by former Trump White House officials, a network of state-based conservative policy groups, and an ad hoc coalition of conservative leaders known as Save Our Country that has advised the White House on strategies for a tiered reopening of the economy."

Not an original thought in the whole let

Attorney General William Barr has even joined in, and NYT sees it as "a galvanizing cause for a vocal element of Mr. Trump’s base and others on the political right." But Business insider, in an opinion piece, thinks the protesters believe it is "the work of a tyrannical government out of control."  The piece goes on to comment on the fact that there is some provocation here, especially when you have lost your job and cannot pay the bills.

But the protesters haven't had a free rein as those on the front line grow tired of the idiots who don't understand the meaning of meeting death every day in the coronavirus pandemic. In Colorado...

"health workers wearing scrubs and face masks stood in traffic to block oncoming protest caravans that called on officials to end statewide stay-at-home measures intended to slow the spread of coronavirus."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer talks sense to armed protesters...

It's hard to say, but should the U.S. government provide support for those unemployed workers due to COVID-19? Considering the fact that it is clearly Donald Trump's fault the pandemic has grown like it has, he should provide workers compensation from his own pocket. So, yeah, we know that won't happen, then, perhaps, Trump's minions should be planning for more stimulus money, and in the near future.

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WORLDOMETER Latest coronavirus results

Coronavirus cases 1,211,545

Coronavirus deaths 69,617

Coronavirus recoveries 187,002

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TRUMP'S LATEST: What's New Today in COVID-19

IN CORONAVIRUS

HEADLINE: "Trump obsessed with ‘settling scores’ even as coronavirus kills thousands of Americans every day: report."   READ MORE...

Head losers in team

HEADLINE: "Trump didn’t just botch his response to the coronavirus — his team tried to cover it up: op-ed."   READ MORE...

HEADLINE: "US could be in for 'a bad fall and a bad winter' if it's unprepared for a second wave of coronavirus, Fauci warns."   READ MORE...

Doctors For Sale

HEADLINE:"Doctors who spread ‘reckless’ COVID-19 misinformation are Fox News’ newest stars — and darlings of the right wing."   READ MORE...

HEADLINE: "Coronavirus timeline: How the disease spread throughout the US."   READ MORE...

The Four Musketeers of narcissism  

HEADLINE: "Trump administration refuses to release the money for grieving families who need help paying for COVID-19 burials."   READ MORE...

HEADLINE: "Trump Ends Federal Social Distancing Campaign Amid Rising Coronavirus Deaths."   READ MORE...

HEADLINE: "Coronavirus testing in the U.S. was limited for months because of low Medicare payments."   READ MORE...

HEADLINE: "Wasted milk, euthanized livestock: Photos show how coronavirus has devastated US agriculture."   For full effect, scroll through entire article, the pictures are frightening...

HEADLINE: "This coronavirus model keeps being wrong. Why are we still listening to it?"   READ MORE...