Against concealed and open carry of guns

I've wondered from the beginning why these cowboys feel the need to walk around on the streets armed, finally coming to the conclusion it somehow makes them feel like a man. For some time there has been a debate over whether this action keeps the streets safe. A new study says NO! It's the "good guy with a gun" theory that says. "If more well-intentioned people carry guns, there's a higher chance of stopping a violent shooter."

I've never witnessed anything personally, but there was a report from the Gabby Giffords shooting in Tucson that says two civilian gun carriers on the scene heard gunfire and rushed in with their weapons drawn and almost shot each other. These carriers can be a menace...

"according to new research published in the journal Justice Quarterly. The study found that laws allowing more people to carry guns in public are associated with a rise in gun violence. The results also showed that the higher a state's gun-ownership rate, the more likely a mass shooting is."

Emma Fridel, an assistant professor at Florida State University authored the study and found...

"that looser concealed-carry laws had little impact on mass shootings and increased a state's gun homicide rate by 11%. Higher rates of firearm ownership overall, meanwhile, was associated with a 53.5% increase in the likelihood of a mass shooting."

But during all this, concealed carry laws proliferate throughout the country, and Congress is even considering passing federal legislation making them overlap nationwide. Hopefully, November will change all this.

NRA should be dissolved

The New York Attorney General has been investigating the National Rifle Assn. and it head, Wayne LaPierre, for some time now. Some time back the NRA was accused of an insurance scam that alleges they acted "as an unlicensed insurance producer and engaging in misleading marketing practices." That was in February with the state seeking upwards of $14 million in civil fines. In the 18-month investigation it found the NRA is "fraught with fraud and abuse."

Here's what NPR reported...

"Attorney General Letitia James claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday that she found financial misconduct in the millions of dollars and that it contributed to a loss of more than $64 million over a three-year period.

The suit alleges that top NRA executives misused charitable funds for personal gain, awarded contracts to friends and family members, and provided contracts to former employees to ensure loyalty."

There's more...

"The NRA's influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets," James said in a statement. "The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law."

 And back in September of 2019, it was also revealed by NPR that the NRA had...

"acted as a "foreign asset" for Russia in the period leading up to the 2016 election, according to a new investigation unveiled Friday by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore."

A colossal example of how the NRA will accept support, including funding from anyone to further its goals. It seems that...

"the Senate Finance Committee's Democratic staff found that the NRA underwrote political access for Russian nationals Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin more than previously known — even though the two had declared their ties to the Kremlin."

Butina spent 15 months in prison and was then deported to Russia. The NRA has also spent time in Russia on a visit hosted by Maria including the gun group's board members and supporters. There was also concern over how the trip was financed. It is just another example of an organization gone bad, after having been created for hunters. The change from a peaceful body to one that promotes violence to attain its goals was orchestrated by NRA head, Wayne LaPierre.

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Donald Trump supporters thinking twice?

Salon points out that Donald Trump followers have never really cared that he is "a liar and a cheat." That, in itself, identifies the profile of these minions. And they would follow him right off the end of a cliff. The piece by Amanda Marcotte says, "The evidence of Trump's sociopathic disregard for business ethics, or any ethics at all, is overwhelming."

Trump cheated people who worked for him, finding ways to refuse to pay them. He spent decades engaged in tax fraud, reaping hundreds of millions through the process. Trump's claims to be a billionaire appear the inverse of reality, where he was a billion dollars in the red, making him the photonegative of a billionaire. Trump University was a scam, described in court as preying "upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money." Trump's supposed charitable foundation was also a scam that faked giving to worthy causes but operated largely as a way for Trump to pay bribes and pay down his personal debts with other people's money. Trump's real estate business was drowning in fraud, with the entire family engaging in practices that should have resulted in criminal charges, such as lying to potential buyers about how well their condos were selling.

The above is an aggregate of some of the most egregious acts of a card-carrying con artist. It is, however, the regular behavior of the one who sits in the Oval Office of the White House. And, after almost four years, I am proud to say that I have never called this buffoon "President." Marcotte adds...

"There are easily a dozen more examples of the various ways that Trump has shamelessly lied, distorted numbers, cheated other people and generally committed fraud with the ease most of us would pour a cup of coffee. It was inevitable that he would do the same thing as president — but with the coronavirus statistics, that has turned deadly."

Donald Trump will go down in history as the worst, certainly, most corrupt and incompetent president the United States has ever had. I just hope Joe Biden is up to the job ahead of him to pick up the shambles of the Trump administration and cure the U.S. of the Trump stigma.

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Republicans/White House cause Americans to suffer financially

“House Democrats passed a bill specifically designed to deal with this mess two and a half months ago,” Krugman notes. “The Trump Administration and Senate Republicans had plenty of time to propose an alternative. Instead, they didn’t even focus on the issue until days before the benefits ended. And even now, they’re refusing to offer anything that might significantly alleviate workers’ plight. This is an astonishing failure of governance — right up there with the mishandling of the pandemic itself.”  READ MORE...

Coronavirus positivity rate              

In comparison, the top U.S. state is Arizona, with a positivity rate of 25.3%, followed by Florida 18.7%, then Texas 13.8%. On the other end of the scale is New York at only 0 to 1%. The District of Columbia is 2%. Now keep in mind this is based on August 2, 2020 data and could change tomorrow. To check your state and keep up with updated daily changing rates, go here. Florida has been hardest hit...

Miami-Dade County in Florida, where the number of cases is skyrocketing, on Sunday reported a staggering 26% positivity rate.

There's more...

Los Angeles County, another Covid-19 hotspot, on Tuesday reported its positivity rate had jumped more than 2 percentage points to 11.6%, from the 9.5% reported Monday.

The positivity rate does not preclude watching the total number, ie., total cases, new cases, total deaths, new deaths you can find here, also updated daily. The figures are frightening, just depends on how much of this disaster created by Donald Trump you can take. READ MORE...

 

Mandatory masks driving some people crazy...

Continued...Dr. Richard Stutt, a postdoctoral research associate at Cambridge University. says, "essentially every country that has used masks has done better than every country that hasn’t." As an example, until recently, seven months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump has refused to wear or recommend face masks, and the United States ranks number one in the world for coronavirus cases. Trump's recent impotent support is an insult to Americans.

It was just recently that...

"Robert Redfield, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the country’s outbreak could be controlled within four to eight weeks if everyone wore masks."

Believe what you will, but doesn't it make sense to at least give this a try? READ MORE... 

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Birmingham, Ala. clinic doctor marvels over those who disrespect COVID-19

Dr. Michael Saag is risking his life to save people's lives who have coronavirus, but is daily confronted with those on the outside who discard the whole thing as a frivolous hoax. He speaks of...

"the intense struggle being waged against a virus that has cost about 140,000 lives nationwide and made so many — including the doctor — seriously ill."

There's more...

"It’s not just an Alabama problem. About 250 miles (400 kilometers) from Birmingham, Dr. Chad Dowell warns that his hospital in tiny Indianola, Mississippi, is filling up and so are others, making it difficult to locate beds for the sickest patients even as people debate on social media whether the pandemic is real."

As this is being posted, the worldwide figures are 14,802,464, 611.786 deaths. In the United States, 3,947,382 cases, 143,636 deaths, MAKING THE U.S. 23.5% OF WORLD DEATHS.

Thank you, Donald Trump!