COULD THIS POPE HELP SOLVE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS?

The Vatican has recognized the Palestinian state and the Jewish community is up in arms. What has really happened is that it has switched its diplomatic recognition from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to the state of Palestine. The key here, according to the Israeli government..."is there a state of Palestine?" I have read the history of this conflict and for the life of me I cannot see how Israel can deny that Palestinians have some right to live in a land where their ancestors came from. Somewhere. The idea of who was there first has been described childish by some historians and the stories abound about the early settling tribes from both sides.

According to one story, the name Palestine was given to the region spreading from eastern Mediterranean coast to the Jordan Valley to the area covering Galilee Lake in the north and southern Negev Desert.  "Plesheth" is the origin of the word Palestine, appearing often in the Bible, and popularized as “Philistine” in English. The story goes on to say, "These people were mostly originates of Asia Minor and Greece and gradually became a part of the Arab world."

A major concern of the Pope is the plight of the Christians affected in the territories that are clashing. Along with this is his contention that those involved no longer place any value on human life. It would not surprise me if Pope Francis were able to bring these two countries together with a realization of what they are doing to each other and help them to decide that peace is the better way.

IS THE INTERNET REPLACING GOING TO CHURCH?

Although churches aren't empty, the congregations are dwindling and a new Pew Research study says "...the Christian percentage of the population [is] dropping precipitously." It's down to 70.6% from 78.4% in 2007. Millennials, or Generation Y, those with birth years from the 1980s to 2000s, are bailing out of Christianity with some one-third now claiming to be unaffiliated. And here's the kicker, some researchers blame it on the Internet, where the public can now get the facts on their faith and bond with those who think as they do. And in my view, if the person is knowledgeable enough, they can use the Internet to confirm or refute the dogmas of a religious group. My gut tells me the latter has a lot to do with the escape from Protestantism and religion in general. The only time I've been in a church in the last fifty years is for a wedding and when our granddaughter took my wife and me to a special service. Oh yes, a couple of Catholic Christmas Eve midnight masses. I am not proud but either am I apologetic. It's a matter of choice and apparently the current generation has chosen to veer away from all the pomp and circumstance.

ARIZONA LEADS NATION KILLING WOMEN WITH GUNS

All we hear from the gun nuts is, if you put more guns on the street, deaths will go down. Well Arizona has done that with their loose gun laws and the state's rate of intimate-partner gun murders was 45 percent higher than the national average from 2009 through 2013. Of course we do not know exactly how many guns are in Arizona, thanks to the National Rifle Assn., but apparently enough to kill 94 women in the above period. Once again the gun nuts scream we have enough laws but they didn't stop 12 of the shooters from obtaining a gun and killing his spouse or girlfriend. In addition, "41 percent of the shooters had a previous arrest or conviction or had been under an order of protection at one time." There's more, Arizona has 14.9 firearms deaths per 100,000 population, more than California, 7.97, New York, 5.1, the latter two with much more stringent gun laws. Some of this is due to protective orders that are not enforced.

"Part of the problem is that nearly 40 percent of the protection orders issued by Arizona judges in 2013 and 2014 were never entered into the National Crime Information Center," reported Andrew LeFevre, a spokesman for the Arizona Criminal Justice Commission. Police departments are remiss, not only in Arizona, but all over the country for not entering important data that could save lives. This is compounded by a patchwork system in sharing what data is available. But the primary problem here is guns in the wrong hands and the only way to solve that is more responsible gun laws...like background checks.

FEDS TAKE OHIO TO TASK ON NEW VOTING LAW

Ohio stopped in its tracks with a new federal lawsuit to stop their restrictive voter law designed to keep Democrats away from the polls. I reported on this today charging a shut out of some 930,000 Ohio voters, non-whites, college students and those with low incomes. Guess what party they usually vote for. This is all pretty blatant and typical of the dirty GOP politics first made popular in the Geo. W. Bush administration under the leadership of Karl Rove. The question is just how much the courts will let Republicans get away with.

REPUBLICANS ATTEMPT TO SHUT OUT 930,000 PROBABLY DEMOCRATIC VOTERS

The question arises over and over, why do we have to keep fighting for voting rights since this was passed into law back in the 1950s? The answer is that the GOP is constantly looking for loopholes to bar non-whites, college students and those with low incomes from voting. The reason is that most of these folks are Democrats and if they are allowed to vote, the Republicans lose. The latest in Ohio, John Boehner's state, finds Rep. Andrew Brenner pushing for a voting ID bill using the same old rhetoric, "...the need to stop illegal voting by non-residents, non-citizens or others." It's pure crap and they know it because a report issued by the Republican Sec. of State Jon Husted said "...fewer than 0.003% of votes in that [2012] election could have been fraudulent." With facts like this, even coming from one of their own, we can only assume that Andrew Brenner must consider that the Ohio voters are completely stupid. Well, Ohio, are you?

WHAT DOES IT TAKE FOR BERNIE SANDERS TO BEAT HILLARY?

In a recent piece on MSNBC, Bernie Sanders answered "YES" to the question of whether or not he could beat Hillary Clinton. He followed by implying that her closeness with the corporate world would push voters in his direction. When Clinton welcomed the support of a Super PAC, Sanders quickly backed away saying he won't have outside groups like this in his campaign. So far Mr. Progressive is right on but that also defines the needs of the Bernie Sanders campaign. Individual, Progressive grass-roots voters who can cough up some bucks to put this man in the White House. Corporate America will come through for Hillary because they need her support if she becomes President. And I don't have to tell you what these Super PACS can produce. In an earlier post I identified some 30 million Progressives out there, another 40 million Democrats that aren't necessarily Progressive but certainly don't want another Republican in the White House. Sen. Sanders won't be able to garner all 70 million but the question is what does Clinton's huge base think now since Bernie Sanders entered the race. If enough think he is the better candidate, and polls will be telling us that soon, the Vermont Senator could be on his way to the White House.

WHAT'S GOING ON BETWEEN POLICE AND BLACKS?

Blacks are naturally skeptical of Police and now the cops are even more scared of the black community. This has been going on for years in one form or another. So why all of a sudden do we have a rash of police beating and killing blacks and blacks killing police, leading to riots? The black community will tell us it is fed up with unjust treatment, and rightfully so. The police will tell us that blacks are prone to resisting arrest and in some cases completely uncooperative both individually and as a community. And there is credibility in this charge. This is a powder keg that has only seen the tip of its potential. Officers kicked a black man in the head in Dover, Delaware, with no obvious provocation. And now four blacks have shot and killed two Hattiesburg, Miss. police officers after being pulled over for a speeding violation. What is the sense in all this? The answer, of course, there is none. It will be tough to control the gangs, but most of the black people want this to end and now. And a large majority of the cops in this country have high standards dealing with the community, white or black; they really only want to protect and serve. I vote to put New York City's Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in charge of a task force to deal with this mess. He already has a great record running the policing of the largest U.S. city.