#should start a fund for injured victims of mass shootings

[thundergrace]

February 18, 2023

The GoFundMe:

[didanawisgi]

Martin Luther King Jr., Guns, and a Book Everyone Should Read

BY JEREMY S. | JAN 15, 2018

“Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 89 years old today, were he not assassinated in 1968. On the third Monday in January we observe MLK Jr. Day and celebrate his achievements in advancing civil rights for African Americans and others. While Dr. King was a big advocate of peaceful assembly and protest, he wasn’t, at least for most of his life, against the use of firearms for self-defense. In fact, he employed them . . .

If it wasn’t for African Americans in the South, primarily, taking up arms almost without exception during the post-Civil War reconstruction and well into the civil rights movement, this country wouldn’t be what it is today.

By force and threat of arms African Americans protected themselves, their families, their homes, and their rights and won the attention and respect of the powers that be. In a lawless, post-Civil War South they stayed alive while faced with, at best, an indifferent government and, at worst, state-sponsored violence against them.

We know the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision of 1857 refused to recognize black people as citizens. Heck, they were deemed just three-fifths a person. Not often mentioned in school: some of that was due to gun rights. Namely, not wanting to give gun rights to blacks. Because if they were to recognize blacks as citizens, it…

“…would give to persons of the negro race . . . the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, . . . and it would give them the full liberty of speech . . . ; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

Ahha! So the Second Amendment was considered an individual right, protecting a citizen’s natural, inalienable right to keep and carry arms wherever they go. Then as now, gun control is rooted in racism.

During reconstruction, African Americans were legally citizens but were not always treated as such. Practically every African American home had a shotgun — or shotguns — and they needed it, too. Forget police protection, as those same officials were often in white robes during their time off.

Fast forward to the American civil rights movement and we learn, but again not at school, that Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a concealed carry permit. He (an upstanding minister, mind you) was denied.

Then as in many cases even now, especially in blue states uniquely and ironically so concerned about “fairness,” permitting was subjective (“may issue” rather than “shall issue”). The wealthy and politically connected receive their rights, but the poor, the uneducated, the undesired masses, not so much.

Up until late in his life, MLK Jr. chose to be protected by the Deacons for Defense. Though his home was also apparently a bit of an arsenal.

African Americans won their rights and protected their lives with pervasive firearms ownership. But we don’t learn about this. We don’t know about this. It has been unfortunately whitewashed from our history classes and our discourse.

Hidden, apparently, as part of an agreement (or at least an understanding) reached upon the conclusion of the civil rights movement.

Sure, the government is going to protect you now and help you and give you all of the rights you want, but you have to give up your guns. Turn them in. Create a culture of deference to the government. Be peaceable and non-threatening and harmless. And arm-less, as it were (and vote Democrat). African Americans did turn them in, physically and culturally.

That, at least, is an argument made late in Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms. It’s a fantastic book, teaching primarily through anecdotes of particular African American figures throughout history just how important firearms were to them. I learned so-freaking-much from this novel, and couldn’t recommend it more. If you have any interest in gun rights, civil rights, and/or African American history, it’s an absolute must-read.

Some text I highlighted on my Kindle Paperwhite when I read it in 2014:

But Southern blacks had to navigate the first generation of American arms-control laws, explicitly racist statutes starting as early as Virginia’s 1680 law, barring clubs, guns, or swords to both slaves and free blacks.

“…he who would be free, himself must strike the blow.”

In 1846, white abolitionist congressman Joshua Giddings of Ohio gave a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives, advocating distribution of arms to fugitive slaves.

Civil-rights activist James Forman would comment in the 1960s that blacks in the movement were widely armed and that there was hardly a black home in the South without its shotgun or rifle.

A letter from a teacher at a freedmen’s school in Maryland demonstrates one set of concerns. The letter contains the standard complaints about racist attacks on the school and then describes one strand of the local response. “Both the Mayor and the sheriff have warned the colored people to go armed to school, (which they do) [and] the superintendent of schools came down and brought me a revolver.”

Low black turnout resulted in a Democratic victory in the majority black Republican congressional district.

Other political violence of the Reconstruction era centered on official Negro state militias operating under radical Republican administrations.

“The Winchester rifle deserves a place of honor in every Black home.” So said Ida B. Wells.

Fortune responded with an essay titled “The Stand and Be Shot or Shoot and Stand Policy”: “We have no disposition to fan the coals of race discord,” Thomas explained, “but when colored men are assailed they have a perfect right to stand their ground. If they run away like cowards they will be regarded as inferior and worthy to be shot; but if they stand their ground manfully, and do their own a share of the shooting they will be respected and by doing so they will lessen the propensity of white roughs to incite to riot.”

He used state funds to provide guns and ammunition to people who were under threat of attack.

“Medgar was nonviolent, but he had six guns in the kitchen and living room.”

“The weapons that you have are not to kill people with — killing is wrong. Your guns are to protect your families — to stop them from being killed. Let the Klan ride, but if they try to do wrong against you, stop them. If we’re ever going to win this fight we got to have a clean record. Stay here, my friends, you are needed most here, stay and protect your homes.”

In 2008 and 2010, the NAACP filed amicus briefs to the United States Supreme Court, supporting blanket gun bans in Washington, DC, and Chicago. Losing those arguments, one of the association’s lawyers wrote in a prominent journal that recrafting the constitutional right to arms to allow targeted gun prohibition in black enclaves should be a core plank of the modern civil-rights agenda.

Wilkins viewed the failure to pursue black criminals as overt state malevolence and evidence of an attitude that ���there’s one more Negro killed — the more of ’em dead, the less to bother us. Don’t spend too much money running down the killer — he may kill another.”

But it puts things in perspective to note that swimming pool accidents account for more deaths of minors than all forms of death by firearm (accident, homicide, and suicide).

The correlation of very high murder rates with low gun ownership in African American communities simply does not bear out the notion that disarming the populace as a whole will disarm and prevent murder by potential murderers.

Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimated 1,900,000 annual episodes where someone in the home retrieved a firearm in response to a suspected illegal entry. There were roughly half a million instances where the armed householder confronted and chased off the intruder.

A study of active burglars found that one of the greatest risks faced by residential burglars is being injured or killed by occupants of a targeted dwelling. Many reported that this was their greatest fear and a far greater worry than being caught by police.48 The data bear out the instinct. Home invaders in the United States are more at risk of being shot in the act than of going to prison.49 Because burglars do not know which homes have a gun, people who do not own guns enjoy free-rider benefits because of the deterrent effect of others owning guns. In a survey of convicted felons conducted for the National Institute of Justice, 34 percent of them reported being “scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim.” Nearly 40 percent had refrained from attempting a crime because they worried the target was armed. Fifty-six percent said that they would not attack someone they knew was armed and 74 percent agreed that “one reason burglars avoid houses where people are at home is that they fear being shot.”

In the period before Florida adopted its “shall issue” concealed-carry laws, the Orlando Police Department conducted a widely advertised program of firearms training for women. The program was started in response to reports that women in the city were buying guns at an increased rate after an uptick in sexual assaults. The program aimed to help women gun owners become safe and proficient. Over the next year, rape declined by 88 percent. Burglary fell by 25 percent. Nationally these rates were increasing and no other city with a population over 100,000 experienced similar decreases during the period.55 Rape increased by 7 percent nationally and by 5 percent elsewhere in Florida.

As you can see, Negroes and the Gun progresses more or less chronologically, spending the last portion of the book discussing modern-day gun control. It’s an invaluable source of ammunition (if you’ll pardon the expression) against the fallacies of the pro-gun-control platform. It sheds light on a little-known (if not purposefully obfuscated), critical factor in the history of African Americans: firearms.

On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I highly recommend you — yes, you — read Negroes and the Gun: the Black Tradition of Arms.

And I’ll wrap this up with a quote in a Huffington Post article given by Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter: 

https://cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/huffpo-maj-toure.jpg”

[loudlytransparenttrash]

Goodbye 2019: A review of the lies that shaped the year

January

One Twitter user posted this thread, describing how there were “50-70 white men” wearing MAGA apparel who “surrounded us” and “sought to intimidate, mock and scare us” by “chanting ‘build the wall’ and “other trumpisms.” “The group was clearly looking for ANY opportunity to get violent,” they were “bumping into us and daring us to get physical.” Video was then clipped and shared on social media, the mainstream media spread the edited footage and within hours the story about “racist white MAGA hat wearing teens cornered an innocent Native elder while chanting build the wall” consumed the country.

Slate wrote an article comparing the student’s “cruelty” to Jim Crow mobs and neo-Nazis. BuzzFeed’s Anne Petersen tweeted how the students and Brett Kavanaugh are the epitome of “white patriarchy.” Kathy Griffin called for doxing the kids and Stormy Daniels in a now-deleted tweet fantasized about putting these children behind electrocuted walls. New York Times author Kurt Eichenwald wished that these kids should be doxed and denied work for the rest of their lives. Headlines included, “White students in MAGA hats taunt Native American elders,” “Covington Catholic High Student's White Privilege Didn't Win,” “White America, come get your children,” “White victimology, white privilege and the Covington Catholic rules of race,” “Boys Will Be Boys. Covington's Showed Yet Again Why Only White Boys Can Smirk Through That.”

The students and their families were doxed, harassed and threatened for weeks after. Covington Catholic High School was forced to close over security concerns. Then the original video was released that provided context: A group of Covington Catholic High School students went to the March for Life during a field trip to Washington, DC. While there, the students were confronted by the radical black supremacy group, Black Hebrew Israelites, where they were verbally harassed and racially abused, calling them crackers, fa*gots and told them to go find a school to shoot up. A black student was berated as a race-traitor and told his white classmates were going to harvest his organs. A Native activist later approached the kids and started continually banging a drum inches from their face. One student, Nick Sandmann, stood calmly in typical teenage bemusement. That’s it. That’s the story. Once it was realized not a single accusation made by the original poster or the media who spread it was true, everyone went silent, and despite many retractions, no apologies.

February

Empire actor Jussie Smollett was approached by two white men wearing Trump’s Make America Great Again caps and yelled racist and homophobic slurs at him before attacking him, dousing him with bleach and tying a noose around his neck, all while chanting, “This MAGA country!” Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Al Sharpton were among those calling it a modern-day lynching and evidence of the fear and hate black people live with. Harris and Booker even wrote an “anti-lynching bill.” Everybody gobbled this story up and quickly used it to push their idea that it said something more important about the state of race in the United States. Essentially they argued that Trump and his supporters are agitating for this kind of violence and, well, here it is.

Afterwards, Smollett proudly bragged how he had fought off his attackers to the loud cheers of a crowd, a true badass. He then appeared in an ABC interview where his eyes welled with tears as he recounted his traumatic experience and how defiant and inspirational he’s gotta be now. When asked why he thinks he was targeted, Smollett blamed Trump and his evil supporters.

But then some red flags started. 1. He held onto his sandwich during the attack and waited 45 minutes to call police. 2. When police arrived to take a report, Smollett asked that the officers turn off their body cameras. 3. He was still wearing the noose around his neck and wore it “like a tie” throughout their entire 40-minute interview. 4. He said he was on the phone with his manager when the attack happened but he refused to show his phone log to police. 5. He supposedly received a threatening letter a week prior to the “attack” which had child-like writing and drawings on it of his name and the word MAGA, and cliche magazine cutouts of letters pieced together to spell out “black fag.” In summary, we were supposed to believe white Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats were roaming around Chicago, carrying a noose, they saw Smollett, knew who he was, knew his show, his sexuality and singled him out for a lynching. 

As the police connected the dots, they found the whole thing was a giant hoax plotted by Smollett himself. When the “black fag” serial killer letter stunt failed to receive national attention, Smollett orchestrated the attack by paying two Nigerian brothers he worked with $3,500 to stage the attack on him while getting Subway. Chicago police spent days and worked overtime poring over security footage and devoting resources that could have been put toward real victims. On February 20, Smollett was charged with a class 4 felony for filing a false police report and was later indicted on 16 felony counts of false reporting. Smollett joined a long list of hate crime hoaxes since Trump took office. I can only assume because reality isn’t at all matching their delusion of the gloomy Nazi “MAGA country” they keep going on about, they’re forced to create these endless hate crime hoaxes to validate the delusion.  

March

After spending two years perpetuating allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary and wet dreams of Trump being removed from office and even imprisoned, the entire left, every Democrat and the mainstream media were visibly shaken by Mueller’s investigation ending with zilch. When the news broke that there would be no indictments against Trump nor anyone associated with his campaign, and Attorney General William Barr had exonerated him, those who were so certain of victory and so locked into their conspiracy, were once again forced into utter meltdown mode. Mueller spent tens of millions of dollars, employed 19 prosecutors, more than three dozen FBI agents and an analyst and issued 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 280 demands for phone and email records and interviewed 500 witnesses throughout the course of the investigation. No evidence was found.

There was however a major abuse of the rule of law by Obama administration officials and Department of Justice and FBI employees, a shameful politicization of the Russia investigation by Democrats and an end of journalistic integrity by many members of the media who all did their best to delegitimize and undermine the election. The DOJ and FBI used unverified research to obtain a court order to surveil the Trump campaign, and thereby obtain access to past campaign communications. In applying for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) order, the DOJ and FBI did not disclose to the secret surveillance court that the debunked Christopher Steele dossier (Trump/pissing prostitutes) was funded by the DNC and Clinton, the whole basis for the probe. The FISA application also did not inform the court of Steele’s bias and his desperation to keep Trump out of the White House. It was all a setup.

Since Election Day 2016, the Trump-hating political and media establishment have been in a cute relationship to achieve their desired end of destroying Trump. Their shared hatred of the man is indisputable. But the idea of them colluding in this information operation to maximum political and legal effect is altogether more disturbing. Russiagate put Trump’s presidency under a cloud of suspicion for more than half of his days in office, delaying his agenda through forcing the administration to expend valuable time and resources defending itself from the constant hounding. The Five F’s seems to be the Democrat’s only tactic, all they can do is deceive, degrade, deny, disrupt and hope that it all will eventually wear Trump down enough to ultimately destroy him.

April

On Easter Day, churches across Sri Lanka were targeted by radical Islamist suicide bombers. The Muslim terrorists walked into several crowded churches and murdered masses of people. They also targeted international hotels popular with Western travelers. The bombings marked the country’s deadliest violence in a decade, leaving 290 dead and over 500 injured. After the quick condemnation of white supremacy and Islamophobia after the Christchurch shootings a few weeks prior, the media and Democrats avoided at all costs condemning Islamic terrorism and recognizing the victims as Christians. A host of politicians such as Obama, Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro all refused to condemn Islamic terrorism and none called the victims Christians, while others such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Portland mayor Ted Wheeler stayed silent altogether. Christians being killed at the hands of Islamists goes against the entire left-wing doctrine, despite it happening all over the world. 

It’s not the only time we’ve seen the media and politicians cover for Islamic extremism. Under Obama, officials were so afraid of the phrase “Islamic terrorism” that they redacted the very mention of Islam and even Islamic State from the Orlando gay nightclub massacre transcripts, despite 49 people being killed and 50 others injured by a Muslim terrorist who had pledged allegiance to ISIS. In the UK, police and child protection workers were so afraid of the phrase “Islamophobia” that they ignored and refused to investigate Muslim human trafficking and child rape rings, allowing 1,400 young British girls to be raped with knives, bottles and their tongues nailed to tables. In Sweden, the police and media were so scared of “anti-immigration sentiment,” they covered up dozens of sexual assaults against teenage girls. Not wanting to make their new waves of Muslim refugees look bad, German media and the government also covered up mass sexual abuse across the country where 1,200 women were sexually assaulted and raped in just one night. Who exactly are we protecting by refusing to tell the truth and call something what it is?

May

Alyssa Milano, an actress who has been a valiant fighter for progressive causes, demanded for American women to undertake a “sex strike.” The idea is that women should not risk pregnancy until they have an insurance policy. Uh, so like exactly what Christian conservatives already believe in. There’s something funny about Milano embracing the banner of Christian conservatives in order to own Christian conservatives. Just like when Janelle Monáe advocated for women to go on a sex strike, saying that “people need to start respecting the vagina.” Once again, that’s what conservatives have already been screaming, respecting your vagina, respecting yourself, respecting sex and the good and bad product of sex. 

In championing this “revolutionary” concept of women withholding sex in order to attain bodily autonomy, Milano and her blue-check buddies unwittingly preached the same message you often hear during Sunday sermons, especially in youth groups. The Christian perspective posits that the way for women to attain bodily autonomy is to have self-control over your body and choices, to not give away your body so carelessly and to be aware of the consequences of sexual activity outside of committed relationships. Most Christians embrace Milano’s message, not just because the only women who’d participate and use sex as a political bargaining chip in the first place are those who probably need to reevaluate their sex lives anyway, but it also places greater meaning on sex and the power and responsibility of it, which again is another Christian view.

Milano, like many others, also referred to abortion as “reproductive rights,” which is a pretty new term that replaces abortion and is also much catchier on picket signs when used alongside “human rights.” The problem is the term isn’t even close to being accurate. Abortion has nothing to do with reproductive rights. By the time abortion is even a possibility, post-fertilization has already created a tiny human and the mother has discovered that she is pregnant. In other words, reproduction is already complete. That “right” to reproduction was already exercised when you gave it up, literally and figuratively.  

June

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried her best to compare Trump to Hitler by comparing illegal migrant detention centers to actual concentration camps: “This administration has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying,” she tweeted. Ocasio-Cortez continued this claim during an Instagram Live video, where she said, “The United States is running concentration camps on our southern border. That is what they are. The fact that concentration camps are now an institutionalized practice in the home of the free is extraordinarily disturbing.” 

Of course, the claim that conditions at U.S. border facilities are anything like Nazi concentration camps or Japanese American internment camps is absurd. Detainees are not subjected to forced labor, malnutrition or executions. They also chose to enter these facilities by willingly coming to the United States and either illegally crossing or turning themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol, while obviously concentration camp inmates were forced to be there. Let’s not forget the little detail that any of the migrants may opt for voluntary departure at any time. I don’t remember concentration camps ever having that policy. Concentration camps detained and persecuted their own citizens because of who they were, not temporarily detained people who chose to illegally break into a different country. I don’t think there were many Jewish people trying to sneak into Nazi Germany. Even the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum released a statement rejecting such ridiculous comparisons.

But it’s not just AOC driving this rhetoric. MSNBC anchor Joe Scarborough showed photos of border officers escorting kids to showers and compared it to Nazi officers marching Jews into gas chambers. Former CIA chief Michael Hayden posted photos of the Auschwitz death camp, also comparing it to the temporary housing policy at the border. The New York Times published an article that called for U.S. Border Patrol agents to be doxed so they can be “publicly shamed" and “held accountable.” Almost the entire Democrat Party and mainstream media have made similar comparisons. Yet the CBP detention centers are not operating any differently today than they were during the Obama administration. The famous photos of caged kids are from Obama’s time in office. Even when the most anti-Trump news network CNN went to investigate, the kids had full bellies, they were watching soccer, playing video games on big flat-screen TVs, sleeping in comfy beds and participating in tai chi classes, rather than ya know, being caged, gassed and worked to death.

July

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal held a hearing on complaints from Jessica Yaniv, a man formerly called Jonathan who now identifies as a woman, after multiple small business beauticians refused to wax Yaniv’s penis and testicles. The defendant in the case was a young mother who operates in her family home, but there were also 12 other female beauticians Yaniv filed human rights complaints against which put some of them out of business while others paid settlements to save further legal action. Up until July 17, Yaniv’s name was fiercely protected by the Canadian government, as well as technology platforms like Twitter, which banned numerous women and some men who’d tried to warn others about his predations. But once the ban was lifted, it was revealed Yaniv had used “connections” to a band to help solicit advice from both women and teenagers on how to approach young girls and talk to them about tampons and menstruation in female washrooms. You can read the whole thing here.

Yaniv also recently tweeted shock to be turned away from a gynecologist. “So a gynaecologist office that I got referred to literally told me today that ‘we don’t serve transgender patients. And me, being me, I’m shocked... and confused… and hurt. Are they allowed to do that, legally?" I’m sure Yaniv will be taking gynecologists to human rights courts next for refusing to inspect anuses. We have to be careful to not misgender Yaniv as several journalists have been banned from Twitter for this crime against Yaniv. Any concerns about women being forced to touch male genitalia or biological men being allowed into women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, rape crisis shelters and prisons, you’re done for. This whole story resembles a new trend forming, such as the Christian cake shop owner who was sued for not wanting to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage: An individual from a politically designated victim class seeks out a service, intentionally from a small business owner who they know they can exploit, and the moment the businessperson declines - voila! A movement is born with a slew of lawsuits, powerful interest groups and media backing. 

August

Dave Chappelle’s newest Netflix special was only uploaded for a few hours before the PC grievance mob went to work trying to sink it. Buzzfeed lectured Chappelle for his “truly vile” jokes and instructed him “to be more thoughtful.”  Salon spoke out against “the cruelty” and Slate compared him to that "uncle who doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, how much he’s disappointing you.” While “Uncle Dave” was once cool, they say, his jokes in 2019 make you “wince.” Vice went a step further and gave a total trigger warning to its audience, writing "you can definitely skip” it altogether. As of today, “Sticks & Stones” shows a 38 percent score from media critics on Rotten Tomatoes, while 39,881 of viewers have given it a 99 percent audience score, reflecting the massive disconnect between the media and the general public and proving the only ones who are “out of touch” are themselves. This same pattern can be seen with “woke” movies too. Media critics sing their praises and hail their progressive activist messaging and pandering, yet in reality, these movies completely bomb.

Hollywood wants to water down comedy as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, but in doing so quickly turns into telling people what’s funny and what’s not and who can laugh and who can’t. Even the most devoted left-wing activist surely can see the problem. But a comedian like Dave Chappelle makes fun of everyone and doesn’t believe in a protected class during a stand up routine, as it should be. He also made fun of things that the right cares about, yet they still applauded the special as a celebration of comedy. But no, because Chappelle didn’t obey by their rules, because he didn’t stand on stage and call Trump a Cheeto (the pinnacle of left-wing comedy), he too must be one of those Nazis we keep hearing about. Chappelle isn’t running for public office. He’s a comic, and we’re not meant to seek the ultimate answers from him. It’s his job to talk about and then joke about current events, trends, what’s going on in the world, his only sin was talking about them a little too honestly. 

September

Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations through teary eyes and gritted teeth, claiming that the world is about to end and how unfair it is that she has to save it. Throughout the melodramatic speech warning of “mass extinction” and attacking capitalism, Thunberg repeatedly declared “how dare you!” and “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood!” Sadly, she’s right. How dare a child from one of the most healthiest, progressive, wealthiest, safest and most peaceful countries known to man be indoctrinated to believe adults have failed her and the weight of the world is on her shoulders to save mankind from apocalypse. It’s not her fault.

It’s the fault of the schools who pile on the panic-stricken talk of environmental disaster starting from kindergarten. It’s the fault of the ideologues who obsess over every weather event as if it were Armageddon, whether it’s hot or cold, rain, sun or snow, it’s all evidence of the end looming. And it’s the fault of the politicians, too cowardly and desperate for votes to tell people that utopian visions of a world run on windmills is a pipe dream. And why the hell isn’t China being lectured by the Swedish teenager? Their emissions from aviation and maritime trade alone are twice that of the United States, and more than the entire emissions of most nations in the world, but we’re the ones being told to ban straws, stop eating meat, roller skate to work and stop having kids? Really? Then again, it’s easier to go after countries which roll out the red carpet, gives her a platform and awards her with prizes in return for her criticisms. The real pollution culprits aren’t nearly as accommodating.

Climate activists could learn something from Thunberg’s honesty, though. She argues that “money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth” have to come to an end. Thunberg’s dream for the future means technocratic regimes will have to displace capitalistic societies. We can see this future in the radical environmentalist plans of AOC’s Green New Deal, one supported by leading Democratic Party candidates. It’s authoritarianism. There is no other way to describe a regulatory regime that dictates exactly what Americans can consume, sell, drive, eat and do in their personal lives. As Hawaii Democrat senator and climate change enthusiast encouraged fellow activists to think of climate change as a religion rather than a science, we can only hope that most Americans will continue to reject these regressive ideas. One reason we should is so that Greta Thunberg’s generation, including her army of schoolchildren, can continue not having to suffer needlessly.

October 

Media outlets responded to Trump’s announcement of the U.S. military’s successful mission against ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was not met with much praise and excitement that the world’s most wanted terrorist leader had been stopped, but with anger and snark. Many media outlets, the Washington Post for one example, worked hard to spin the killing of Baghdadi into, somehow, a negative story for Trump, beginning with a look at Baghdadi as not as a brutal terrorist and murderer, but as an “austere religious scholar.” 

The Washington Post followed it up with a chain of negative stories: “Three ways the Baghdadi raid undermines Trump’s chaotic policy,” “Despite the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, some analysts question U.S. ability to prevent ISIS resurgence,” “The U.S. kills an ISIS leader. But Trump is giving the group a new lease on life.” They even complained how long Trump talked for and how using words such as “dog” and “coward” weren’t as presidential as Obama. Oh, and a Washington Post and CNN journalist tweeted how wrong it was for Trump to call al-Baghdadi a coward because it takes guts to blow yourself up rather than allow yourself to be captured...

If only it ended there. The Washington Post joined other media outlets including the New York Times in debunking the “doctored” and “faked” photo Trump tweeted of himself giving a Medal of Honor to the dog that chased down al-Baghdadi. White House reporter Steve Herman also debunked the meme by breaking news on Twitter, "I've requested details on this photo! There was no such a canine event on today's schedule!" He later confirmed in a tweet after speaking to a White House official that the meme was indeed Photoshopped. Jim Acosta of CNN also made sure everyone was aware, "The dog is not at the White House." The Huffington Post wrote, “A photo tweeted by Donald Trump is getting dogged by accusations that the pic is the very definition of fake news. The photo didn’t really happen,” then proceeded to show side-by-side photos to prove it was photoshopped. Everywhere the meme was called “fake news.”

Once the media confirmed that the very clearly photoshopped dog was not at the White House after all, and the meme was just a meme, they moved onto asserting the meme was insulting and disrespectful to the original recipient of the Medal of Honor, James McCloughan, which the photo was taken from. Yet when the meme was shown to McCloughan, he laughed and said he wasn’t offended and he liked it. Now that another outrage had fizzled out, the only thing that was left for them to complain about was... Trump hates dogs because he used the term negatively to describe the ISIS leader. Yep. 

November

Nine American Mexican family members were slaughtered in broad daylight in an ambush by a drug cartel in Northern Mexico, less than a hundred miles from the Arizona border. The family were traveling to visit family when they were attacked by the cartel which left three women and six children dead, including a pair of infant twins. As Trump voiced outrage over the attacks, condemning the violence and offering the Mexican government help to come down harder on the cartels, not a single one of the seventeen Democrats in the race issued a statement on the attacks. 

That’s probably because they’ve already established it’s racist and bigoted to point out that some Mexicans can do bad things and there’s gonna be some bad eggs illegally crossing the southern border, despite leading Democrats including Clinton and Obama holding the same view just a few years ago. Let’s forget those behind most illegal border crossings are actually rapists or in just one city, over just a few weeks, seven illegal immigrants were convicted of rape. For the record, Trump never called all Mexicans rapists. He said there are rapists among those being sent over, along with drugs and MS-13 members, all true. He also said in the very next breath that there’s also good people crossing. Now, it’s also racist to call MS-13 gang members “animals” despite them being known for beheadings, dismemberments and cutting out hearts. And now we know we’re not even allowed to talk about the epidemic of terrorism and violence along the border, even when nine American women and children are massacred as it runs counter to the new, insane Democrat narrative mocking the need for stronger border security or the need for borders at all. 

This is the latest incident that has shined a spotlight on Mexico’s growing crime problem as drug cartels have launched an insurgency in the failing country.  A month earlier, hundreds of gunmen stormed the city of Culiacan after Mexican National Guards arrested one of the sons drug kingpin “El Chapo.” In a stunning display, the Mexican president told his National Guards to surrender to the cartel and release El Chapo’s son. The day after the family massacre, more murders and bus burnings were unleashed on the city of Juarez. The mayor of Juarez said the chaos was the cartel’s response to police arresting suspects involved in an ongoing drug turf war. We’ll have to wait and see if the new Mexican president’s policy of “hugs not bullets” will end the endless territory being controlled by different armed groups, similar to the Middle East and Africa. Maybe love and giving into cartel demands will bring law and order back.

December

Democrats finally did what they’ve been promising to do since Trump won the election, they impeached their mortal enemy. The obsession with impeachment has little to do with anything Trump did, and everything to do with who he is. Democrats never expected to lose the 2016 election, especially not to Donald Trump, which humiliated them even more. And ever since, they have been trying every trick in the book to prove what a horrible mistake voters have made. Democrats have floated the idea of impeachment over fake Russian collusion conspiracy theories, drivel about porn stars and even the president’s criticism of his critics. All of them bombed. With time running out before the 2020 presidential race gets into full swing, they seized on the only thing they had left: bogus “concerns” with a phone call to the newly elected Ukrainian president.

The evidence Democrats have rallied on makes for the weakest impeachment ever launched in American history, highlighting gross abuse of congressional power and serving as a national embarrassment. The impeachment inquiry was kicked off by an unknown person during a phone call between Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. An unredacted transcript of the phone call was quickly released to the public, putting the conversation between the two leaders in plain sight for all to see in an unprecedented move. There was nothing to hide. Democrats and media outlets took slices from the transcript and came up with a story about Trump pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s family in exchange for nearly $400 million in military aid. Yet when Trump mentioned “do us a favor,” in the very next sentence, he referred to Ukraine looking into the 2016 election meddling after Mueller did such a poor job, it had nothing to do with Biden. Zelensky himself said there was no pressure and he didn’t even know about the military aid being delayed. 

But House Democrats still held four weeks of impeachment hearings and not a single piece of incriminating evidence to impeach the president of any kind of crime was found, whether it be a “quid pro quo,” “bribery,” or “extortion. In fact, to the contrary, witnesses called by Democrats actually exonerated the president of any wrongdoing. Ousted former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovich blatantly admitted that Trump committed no crime. “Do you have any information regarding any criminal activity that the president of the United States has been involved with at all?” “No,” Yovanovitch said. Former State Department Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker was asked, “In no way, shape or form did you receive any indication whatsoever, or anything that resembled a quid pro quo, is that correct?” “That’s correct,” Volker said.

Despite clearly having no case against the president, Democrats still voted to deliver their promise, it was now or never. Unlike other impeachment cases, it wasn’t at all bipartisan, the House’s impeachment inquiry passed without a single Republican vote. In fact two Democrats joined GOP lawmakers in voting against the resolution, ironically making opposition to impeachment the more bipartisan vote. One Democrat even switched parties after he was pressured by his Democrat colleagues to vote against his will. Now, Pelosi is refusing to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial. She knows Trump will be swiftly exonerated and claim another monumental victory, so let’s savor in the impeachment juices that nobody cares about for as long as we can. At least until the next “existential threat” or “constitutional crisis” they can whip up. 

[tamzaraaaa-blog]

Artifacts that show growth: Top 10 Blog posts and Top 5 blog post responses

 TOP 10 BLOG POSTS (DESCENDING ORDER)

Connecting the Dots: 

    This summer I read the book The souls of the black folk by W.E.B Dubois. It was a book that mainly one of the many problems of the 20th century; "the color-line". He writes from the perspective of an African American man struggling to earn his rights. He continuously expresses his views on living life at the mercy of your race. 

     He mostly focuses on the regressions caused by the emancipation proclamation especially in the south. He also writes about the establishment of Freedman's Bureau and its role in the reconstruction of the nation after the civil war. He centers his book around to themes; the idea of "double consciousness" and "the Veil". Double Consciousness refers to the idea that every African American must live with the struggle of balancing two inconsistent identities that can't be combined. They must balance their ideal "American identities" with the black experience that they inherited from the remnants of their ancestors who were born into slavery. This compliments the second theme of living under "the veil". He describes the theory of "the veil" in terms of living on the other side of the color line. He stresses he importance of the black experiences and how that experience can only be gained from living on the other side of the color line. 

    It was hard for me to find a connection with this book because I have never truly experienced what it's like to live on the other side of the color line. I do however, know the significance of the black experience and how it affected those who came before me. This book did not really challenge my beliefs but it did enhance them. One challenge narrated in this book was the struggle of balancing both identities and I was able to connect with that theory. Having to incorporate both the ideal American identity with the black experience in their daily lives is a struggle I can relate to even though they had to do it while under the prejudice of living behind the color line. From this book, I was able to learn what it truly means to earn the black experience and how difficult it was to live under "the veil" while still trying to achieve the ideal standards of an "American Identity".

Making Meaning from the News: 

This article was about a sexual harassment claim filed by Shailja Patel against Tony Mochama. Patel claimed that writer and journalist, Tony Mochama, had sexually assaulted her at an event. She quickly took to various social media platforms to tell her story and never shied from public bashing Mochama every chance she got. Soon after these allegations took to twitter and took a large toll on Mochama's career. He claims he lost scholarships, guest lectures, business opportunities, friends and many more. Due to the backlash he faced, Mochama decided to sue Patel for her "false allegations". He ended up wining the case in which Patel was forced to pay a 9 million shilling fine and officially apologize to Mochama. She refused to do and went into a self imposed exile claiming she would rather go into exile than apologize to Mochama.     Patel was very quick to take to social media to tell her story. She told majority of it on twitter. Along with Ms Wambui Mwangi, she took to twitter to publicly bash Mochama and ruin his otherwise perfect reputation. The only thing she failed to do was file an actual police report, reporting his actions. She never filed a case and never went to the police about it. There is currently an ongoing debate on whether Patel was telling the truth because if she should have gone to the police first. This issue arrived when he decided to sue her and even then she neglected to counter sue him.     The opposing side of this debate sympathizes with Patel and understands the struggle of coming forward about an assault. They argue that the act itself is hard enough on women, it is often even more traumatizing to be degraded in court. She also appealed o our sympathy when she claimed she would rather go into exile than have to apologize to Mochama for what he did to her.     As for my perspective, I want to believe that Patel is being honest. There have been a few other reports regarding Mochama's aggressive behavior towards women and a few of his friends have suggested that these allegations could be true about him. Even his wife left him after hearing all of this. The one thing I think she should have done differently is she should have gone directly to the police when it happened. Even if she delayed a bit on that she should have at least countersued him when he sued her. Overall I think Patel was telling the truth I just think she went about it the wrong way. 

Learning from Writing Mentors: 

   Stephen King starts of this book by explaining to us some of his earliest childhood memories. He makes it a point to focus on what he thought was his most painful childhood experience. He compares that single experience to many others and claims nothing came close in comparison to the pain he felt on that day. This is how he uses the rhetorical appeal of ethos. Rather than start the book off with facts and advice he chose to give us insight on what his childhood was like and how significant it was in his journey as a writer. He uses a very light hearted voice during the first couple chapters because this is when he is describing his childhood to us. 

   One very useful piece of advice he gave concerned the knowledge behind good story ideas. He said there were no short cuts to finding good story ideas. They seem to appear from void. It is not our job to create these "good story idea' but to recognize them when they show up. It's as if he is saying that we are constantly plagued with good story ideas but in order to become a decent writer, we have to recognize the good ideas when they come. This is a strategy I will definitely be incorporating into my writing. Conjuring up a good idea can be a challenge but when it hits you, it often hits ant the most random times. The challenge for me will be to wait until a good idea hits me. I'm a very fast-paced person and not a very patient one so he concept of awaiting a good idea is very foreign and quite simply unrealistic to me. It will be a very big challenge for me.

What's Education For? Education can be a very complex and sometimes prejudiced system of learning. As shown in the article "Best in Class" by Margaret Talbot, in education is what leads to a prosperous future but, at what cost? The idea that education is the only thing that leads to a prosperous future is an idea that has been stressed globally across multiple schools but success comes at a cost. As per my opinion, the problem with the education system is it has lost track of the true meaning of education. School has stopped becoming about learning. Students now focus their attention on passing instead of actively absorbing the materials taught. This is mainly a result of the common belief that success can only be achieved through a higher education. As shown in the documentary, school comes with a lot of academic stress and sometimes parental pressure. Idris' father was very hard on him when it came to his scholarly achievements and Seun had to leave Dalton after failing a class due to academic stress and a little prejudice. I think we need to work towards reforming the education system so that kids can once again feel the joy of learning. A lot of academic stress comes from the pressure of homework. I can understand why some teachers assign homework and why it can be essential to our education but an over supply of this becomes taxing and tedious. It would be beneficial to students if we did not receive as much work as we do now because, this results in students driving to complete their work rather than learn from it. It would also be beneficial to do more interactive activities within the classroom so that we can eliminate our workload after school and have more time in class to resolve any inquiries we may have.

News Evaluation 2: Shooting at South Carolina Bar leaves 2 dead and 8 wounded

The shooting happened early Saturday morning near Lancaster, South Carolina. The shooting occurred at around 2:45 am and it was said that the gunman was still at large. 10 people were shot. Two people were killed and 8 were injured in this tragic act of terrorism. The motive of the shooter was unclear but it was thought to have been a result of local conflict. The Sheriff declined to discuss the incident but, he said that one of the victims that was killed was involved in the local conflict that had been occurring for a couple of months. I think this is a horrible act of terrorism and no "local dispute" can excuse the act of intentionally harming nearly a dozen people. Of course, this goes back to the issue of gun laws in the U.S. I do believe stricter gun laws are what we need to keep situations like this from happening again. This is only one of multiple mass shootings that have occurred recently and the only solution I see is restricting the usage of guns. Unfortunately, I find that the reason stricter gun laws have not been incorporated into the legislature is because the republican party is largely funded by the National Riffle Association (NRA). Because of this, the government is hesitant to abolish the second amendment even if It means multiple losses of innocent lives. 

News Evaluation 3: Italy to lend Leonardo Da Vinci works to France in a Masterpiece Swap

Da Vinci's famous drawing Vitruvian man will soon be transported to Paris to participate in a block buster Leonardo da Vinci art exhibition at the Louvre. The Vitruvian man is a drawing that exhibits the study of the proportions of the human body. However, it is only one in a series of art works that museums in Italy are transporting over to the Louvre. This art show will mark the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance master's death. As part of the exchange, the Louvre has agreed to transfer over several masterpieces made by another Renaissance master; Raphael. These masterpieces include "Self Portrait with a friend" and "Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione". Both parties treat this as a sort of exchange of cultures. At first, a diplomatic dispute broke out between the two countries over the issue of sending over multiple of Davinci's pieces during a major anniversary year. The Italian undersecretary for culture claimed "Leonardo was Italian and he only died in France." It wasn't until later that both countries cultural ministers began working towards reconciliation and claimed "Now more than ever , it is essential for culture to be at the heart of European policies both because it is a tool for creating a shared sense of citizenship, and because it is a great opportunity for economic growth." I agree with this statement. An exchange of paintings like this not only stimulates cultural and economic growth on both parties but it also helps honors the Renaissance artist for their marvelous work. An exchange such as this one should liberate the world of art and revere the creators of such beautiful masterpieces. Da Vinci may have only died in France but that connects him to the cultural world of France. Not only did Leonardo die in France but the Louvre in holds some of his finest and most recognizable work including the Mona Lisa and a portrait of a woman known as La Belle Ferrionnière. France was a major part of da Vinci's history as it was his final journey and resting place. Both France and Italy have chosen to honor that and in return, France agreed to send over some of Raphael's most exquisite pieces. I only wish I could be there to witness the 500th anniversary exhibit of Da Vinci.

Telling Stories: All the single Ladies In this article, the author describes her less than enjoyable experience at her best friends wedding. At the beginning, Doll describes to us the apprehension she felt when she heard a masculine voice say "All the single ladies to the dance floor". It was made clear in the next paragraph that she wasn't the only one with feelings of apprehension as her friend pulled her close and they devised a plan to go hide out in the washroom. Sadly it did not work. In the next couple of paragraphs she talks about her relationship with the bride and groom. The bride and her were apparently very close friends until she decided to marry a man that Doll simply could not approve of. She characterized her friends decision to get married by absolutely refusing to pick up the brides bouquet of flowers when it landed footsteps away from her during the bouquet toss. She saw it as an act of condoning and accepting the union of her best friend and this man and she simply could not do it. The structure of each paragraph in this article is very autonomous. Each paragraph describes different parts of the story while still providing us with the context we need to understand the article. This helps the article flow a bit more. As per her choice of word and her sentence structure it is clear she is using the rhetorical appeal of pathos to entice her readers. I feel like this, along with the independence of each paragraph, are what makes this article so captivating. The style of writing she uses reflects on how she wants us, as readers, to feel about her article.

Thank You For Arguing Reflection Throughout this chapter, and majority of this book, the author used a lot of pop cultural references as evidence to back up his claims. Particularly in chapters 12-13, Heinrich really goes in depth when describing useful argumentative tools. In these chapters he focused on learning and utilizing the skills of inductive and deductive logic. He successfully manages to explain to his readers the importance of beginning your argument with a very broad opening and then narrowing it down to specific facts (deductive logic) and beginning your argument with a very precise fact and then opening it up to a wider spectrum. However, the tool I found to be the most interesting while reading this book would be the art of finding a common place. Commonplaces are words and phrases that reflect the audience’s core values. This tool is crucial to arguments because it condenses a lot of complicated ideals into just a few seconds of material, enough to successfully gain the approval of your audience. Another interesting section of the book was in chapter 12 when the author listed several different approaches to an argument. Traditionally, the best way to defend an argument is through evidence. Unfortunately, I find some evidence is also really easy to counter-argue. If this is the cause you could always attempt to redefine the term and if that doesn't work, argue the importance of your opponents statements. So far, I have found that Thank You for Arguing is actually quite an enjoyable book. I a learning new tools and techniques to use not just in speech but also in my writing and overall, I am learning a lot more about argumentative tools and how to skillfully use them.

Is there a role for public shaming? Discuss. I absolutely do not agree with the concept of public shaming as a punishment. I agree, using a concept like public shaming as a method of punishment is actually a very effective punishment however, it does more harm both morally and socially than it does good. Take Monica Lewinsky for example. Shaming not only exposed what she did but it also made her vulnerable to various attacks online that diminished her sense of worth as a human being. As shown in the Scarlet Letter, both Dimmesdale and Hester experienced some form of shame. While Dimmesdale’s shame was mostly internal, Hester experienced full on public shaming in front of the whole town for her transgressions. Her punishment did not end there. After her release from prison, Hester was forced to bear the scarlet letter A on her dress so that everyone would know that she was an adulterer. In some sense, the punishment was successful but it was also a demoralizing and humiliating process that some people are not strong enough to handle. Yes, actions do have consequences and most of the time shaming is used as a ploy to keep people in check. However there must be a different way to achieve this goal without demoralizing anyone

TOP 5 COMMENTS

Connecting the dots: Hidden Figures

Having read this book before, I also loved their devotion to overcome racial and gender barriers. They were indeed very inspirational and worked tirelessly to ensure that women were never overlooked and were just as capable of achieving greatness as men were.

News Evaluation 2: Justin Trudeau: New video of Canada's PM in blackface

The act of blackface is horribly racist and very very offensive but I agree with you. Trudeau has changed and he has seen the errors of his ways. He has seen exactly how much of a bad decision he made doing this and acknowledged that rather than deny or try to defend his actions. Instead he took responsibility and apologized. Yes, blackface is a horribly racist act and should not go unpunished. He has already faced a lot of backlash from the media and his people and this has done quite a bit of damage to his campaign. I don't think we should dwell on something that happened so many years ago especially since he has acknowledged and apologized for his mistake.

News Evaluation 2: Ugandan President Museveni seeks mandatory death penalty for murders after nephew's slaying 

I admire how you sympathized with Museveni. The loss of a family member is incredibly painful and my own heart goes out to him. I agree with what you said about Museveni thinking with his heart not his head. When it comes to the death penalty I feel like we, as humans, shouldn't be the ones to decide who lives and who dies. If someone is convicted because of murder, we shouldn't decide whether or not to take their life. It's not humane.

Making meaning from the News: Liu Yifei: Mulan boycott urged after star backs Hong Kong police

The controversial debate on whether or not it is considered culturally respectful for Disney to portray Mulan the way the original movie did it is a huge one. A lot of fans would like to see the original Mulan movie but unfortunately it highlights a lot of China's ancient cultural aspect so its hard to do that while still being respectful.

Learning from Writing Mentors: Bird by Bird - Anne Lamott  I agree with the writers idea if abandoning perfectionism. I also struggle with this when it comes to my writing because I feel like everything I write has to live up to an unrealistic standard of perfection. I think its the same for most people. Perfection can be defined in multiple ways by multiple people so living up to this standard of perfection is basically impossible because everyones definition of perfection is different. We should just abandon it :)

EDUCATION TED TALK - SOAPSTONE ANALYSIS

Pathos - It is almost as if he tried to guilt us into believing his story/ sympathizing with his story

Ethos - In order to convince his audience he uses his personal experiences which makes him seem more knowledgable about the topic. 

S - Roy Bunker O - The speaker visited a village and decided to complete his schooling there. He speaks of his experiences and his accomplishments A - All viewers of the Ted Talk P - He spoke not only to educate us on the matter of quality education, but also to describe the importance/unimportance of it.  S - Education/various teaching methods/accomplishments are equally effective and higher education is meaningless if you don’t learn. Women have vast power in knowledge TONE -  His tone was very authoritative and informative. He wanted us to see the proper value of education and all of his points were focused around the notion of importance in education. 

[savetopnow]

2018-03-26 06 NEWS now

NEWS

Associated Press

AP sources: Trump plans to oust Shulkin as VA secretary

China appeals for cooperation as it warns of 'trade war'

Catalan ex-leader's capture in Germany sparks mass protests

2 lawyers not joining Trump legal team after all

Heartbroken by gun violence: Rallies across US demand change

BBC News

Australia-UK: Passengers welcomed after non-stop flight

Australia ball-tampering: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull shocked by 'cheating'

Yolanda Renee King calls for 'a gun-free world'

March For Our Lives: 'Fight for your life before it’s somebody else’s job.'

I was expected to marry so I went to Antarctica instead

Chicago Tribune

2 shot in West Garfield Park, 1 critically injured in Little Village

Father, son die after getting trapped in Wisconsin silo

2 men slain in southwestern Michigan, suspect at large

Wisconsin police: Man with gun shot by officer faces criminal charges

Armed robberies reported at North Side businesses

LA Times

Do emotional support animals belong in the airline's cabin or should they be left at home?

Former Sen. Rick Santorum suggests students should take CPR classes instead of calling for gun control

Second woman accuses Lynwood councilman of sexual misconduct

Al Sharpton will attend funeral of Stephon Clark, unarmed man killed in police shooting

In Robert Colescott’s works at Blum & Poe, nothing is black and white

NPR News

More Upheaval For Trump's Special Counsel Legal Team: DiGenova Out Before Beginning

Ex-Catalan Leader Puigdemont Detained In Germany

With Little Choice, Egyptians Head To The Polls In Presidential Election

Terrifying Bombings Leave Cracks In Austin's Facade Of Cool

North Carolina Town Accepts, Then Spurns Russian Gift

New York Times

Opinion: Francis, the Anti-Strongman

When the Elderly Call for Help, a ‘Chain’ Immigrant Often Answers

Finding a Home After a Fire: ‘It Feels Like Your Life Is on Pause’

Villanova Returns to Final Four After Holding Off Texas Tech

Stormy Daniels, Porn Star Suing Trump, Is Known for Her Ambition: ‘She’s the Boss’

ProPublica

Warren Buffett Recommends Investing in Index Funds — But Many of His Employees Don’t Have That Option

Seeing Journalism Make a Difference in Election Results

Cutting ‘Old Heads’ at IBM

How the Crowd Led Us to Investigate IBM

Eroding Protection Under the Law

Reddit News

Jehovah's Witnesses accused of silencing victims of child abuse

Chinese space station to crash to Earth on Easter Sunday

Billy Busch, Anheuser-Busch Heir, Charged With Assaulting 6th Grader at Basketball Practice

Drunk pilot removed from cockpit before takeoff leaving 100 passengers stranded Co-pilot on TAP Air Portugal flight seen walking unsteadily and smelling of alcohol, and has since had his flying licence suspended

20 Kids Taken Into UK State Care Over Parents' ISIS Links

Reuters

Uber to sell Southeast Asia business to rival Grab: sources

Authorities urge Egyptians to vote as Sisi seeks second term

U.S. gun control movement pushing Congress to act: lawmakers

Trump not adding two lawyers to legal team, citing conflicts

Austin bomb suspect called self a 'psychopath,' congressman says

Reveal News

Nation’s largest janitorial company faces new allegations of rape

A group of janitors started a movement to stop sexual abuse

The Hate Report: How white supremacists recruit online

New documents about Jehovah’s Witnesses’ sex abuse begin to leak out

California is preparing to defend its waters from Trump order

The Altantic

West Virginia's Teachers Are Not Satisfied

This Average Joe Is the Most Quoted Man in News

The Unsinkable Benjamin Netanyahu?

Eric Garcetti Isn't Expecting Much From Washington

The Particular Horror of Church Shootings

The Guardian

Obama wants to 'create a million young Barack Obamas'

'We share the stage': white suburban liberals and minority activists fight together for gun reform

Protesters arrested in Belarus during opposition rally

My 17-hour Qantas odyssey in kangaroo pyjamas

Police operation in Rio favela leaves at least eight people dead

The Independent

At least 30 people killed in fire at shopping centre in Russia

Belarus protests: Scores arrested in capital after opposition attempt march

Return of the Beast: Wintry weather to hit Britain for third time, Met Office warns

Barack Obama speaks out on rising tensions and 'real threat' of North Korea

Trump officials encouraged George Papadopoulos to build 'partnership with Russia' with TV interview, emails reveal

The Intercept

The Radical Imagination of Eve Ewing

Terrible Mistreatment of Haitians Is a Shared Pastime of Donald Trump and the “Deep State”

The Only Good Thing About John Bolton in the White House Is That He’s Not a General

Mexicans Fear Abuses as New Law Empowers Military — but U.S. Security Aid Keeps Coming

Group That Opposes Sex Work Gave Money to Prosecutors’ Offices — and Got Stings Against Johns in Return

The Quartz

The famous names who took to the streets for “March for Our Lives”

How Nairobi can fix its serious waste problem

How a team of student journalists experienced “March for Our Lives”

Amazon has replaced Google as the best place to work in the US

Android phone users, Facebook was tracking your calls and texts

Wall Street Journal

Who Poisoned the Russian Spy? Russia Has Many Theories

Alexandria Security Chief Targeted in Egypt Bomb Attack

Killing of Woman Who Gave Voice to Rio's Poor Jars a Divided Brazil

French Officer Slain by Terrorist Is Hailed for Saving Others

China's Shift Away From Exports Provides Cushion Against Tariffs

[justsimplylovely]

A Saudi trainee military pilot reportedly condemned the United States as a "nation of evil" before carrying out a mass shooting at a top US Navy base in Florida. Lieutenant Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani killed three people and injured eight before being shot dead himself by police at the Naval Air Station Pensacola. The Saudi Air Force officer, who was on a US-sponsored training programme, reportedly posted a manifesto on Twitter in which he wrote: "I'm against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil." It went on: "I'm not against you for just being American, I don't hate you because your freedoms, I hate you because every day you supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but also humanity." According to the the SITE intelligence group, which monitors jihadist activity, the messages were posted hours before the shooting, and quoted Osama bin Laden. The FBI was investigating whether the postings were made by Alshamrani, and whether he was part of a wider group. Navy Capt. Tim Kinsella briefs members of the media following a shooting at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla., Friday, Dec. 6, 2019. The US Navy is confirming that a shooter is dead and several injured after gunfire at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. Credit: Pensacola News Journal Agents detained six other Saudis for questioning, three of whom reportedly started filing after the attack. It was not clear whether they had any connection to the gunman or were just at the scene. The sprawling Naval Air Station Pensacola is the site of the US National Naval Aviation Museum, and the base of the Blue Angels flight demonstration team. It is referred to as the home of US naval aviation and hundreds of pilots from allied nations pass through for training at any one time. Military personnel are not allowed to carry weapons on the base but Alshamrani was able to take a Glock handgun, purchased locally, into a classroom building where trainee pilots were studying. His training at the base began in August 2017 and was due to finish in August 2020. He was also armed with up to six extended magazines, meaning he could have caused far greater carnage had he not been shot by sheriff's deputies who rushed to the scene. Gun murders per 100,000 residents Saudi Arabia sought to distance itself from the incident as it seeks to repair its image of being an exporter of Islamic extremism. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the September 11, 2001 attacks were Saudis, including some who gained civilian flight training in the US. Last year, the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi was killed at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. King Salman telephoned Donald Trump to denounce the Florida shooting as "heinous" and to pledge cooperation over investigating it. Prince Khalid bin Salman, the king's younger son and deputy defence minister, said: "Like many other Saudi military personnel, I was trained in a US military base, and we used that valuable training to fight side by side with our American allies against terrorism and other threats." The aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy arrives for exercises at Naval Air Station Pensacola Credit: US NAVY via Reuters However, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suggested Riyadh should offer compensation to the victims, saying they "owe a debt". US officials said Saudi Air Force officers undergoing military training in the US were intensely vetted, "hand-picked," and often came from elite families. But Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, said vetting procedures would be reviewed. He said: "Are we screening persons coming to make sure they have their life in order, their mental health is adequate?" There are currently 5,000 foreign aviation students from 153 countries in the US, including hundreds of Saudis. Captain Timothy Kinsella, the Pensacola base commander, said: "The cross-training with allies is something that we have done for a long time. In World War II, we had Royal Air Force folks training here." Alshamrani reportedly held a dinner party in the days before the shooting, at which he and three others watched videos of mass shootings. One of the three men who attended the dinner party then filmed outside the building while the Pensacola shooting was taking place, according to a US official. One victim was named as Joshua Kaleb Watson, 23, a recent graduate of the US Naval Academy. His brother Adam Watson said that, despite being shot several times, he made it outside and alerted the response team to where the gunman was. Mr Watson said: “He saved countless lives today with his own. He died a hero.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2DSlrgQ

[itsfinancethings]

Lori Alhadeff is haunted by the fact that she did not send her 14-year-old daughter to school with a bulletproof backpack. The mother of three had wanted to buy one but never got around to it. By Feb. 14, 2018, it was too late. Her first child, Alyssa, was fatally shot trying to hide under a classroom table at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. “I wish to this day that I did give that protection to Alyssa. It could have saved her life,” Alhadeff says. “Obviously, I regret that.”

After the massacre, which killed 16 others, Alhadeff bought bulletproof backpacks for her two sons, who are now 14 and 12. “I have peace in my heart for my two boys, at least, that I’m doing everything in my power to protect them,” says Alhadeff, who won’t let her sons go to school without the backpacks.

With more than 69 people killed so far in mass shootings in the U.S. in 2019, thousands of Americans like Alhadeff are seeking security through an explosion of products marketed to those scared of being shot or of losing loved ones to gun violence. Backpacks that double as shields are sold by major department stores, including Home Depot and Bed, Bath & Beyond. There are bulletproof hoodies for children as young as 6; protective whiteboards and windows; armored doors and anchors designed to keep shooters out of classrooms; and smart cameras powered by artificial intelligence that alert authorities to threats. In Fruitport, Mich., officials are building a $48 million high school specially designed to deter active shooters, with curved walls to reduce a shooter’s line of sight, bulletproof windows and a special locking system.

In 2017, U.S. schools spent at least $2.7 billion on security systems, and that’s on top of the money spent by individuals on things like bulletproof backpacks, the IHS Markit consulting firm reported. Five years ago, in 2014, the figure was about $768 million, IHS said. But school shootings haven’t decreased in frequency, and critics of the growing industry in bullet-resistant items say the only beneficiaries of these so-called security measures are the people making money off of them.

“These companies are capitalizing on parents��� fears,” says Shannon Watts, a mother of five who founded the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action following the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre that killed 20 first-graders and six educators.

In September, as students were returning to school, Sandy Hook Promise, a gun violence prevention nonprofit led by family members of Sandy Hook victims, released a video that used biting satire to highlight the bulletproof industry and the country’s failure to prevent mass shootings. It shows cheerful children returning for classes and using their new clothes and back-to-school supplies to save themselves and others from a shooter. One boy shows off his new skateboard, then uses it to smash a window and escape; a girl demonstrates how her new socks can be used to tie a tourniquet; another uses her jacket to lock a set of double-doors. The message is clear: these shootings should be prevented before kids get to the point of using tube socks to save classmates from bleeding to death.

Survive the school year with these must-have #BackToSchool essentials. https://t.co/9KgxAQ0KGz This PSA contains graphic content related to school shootings & may be upsetting to some viewers. If you feel this subject matter may be difficult for you, you may choose not to watch. pic.twitter.com/5ijYMtXRTy

— Sandy Hook Promise (@sandyhook) September 18, 2019

But with efforts at gun control legislation stalled as the Senate refuses to take up a House-passed bill that would require background checks for private gun sales, even critics of the booming security industry concede it’s unlikely to slow down. “There’s not a parent in the country who isn’t worried that their child will be the next victim of gun violence,” Watts says.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been more than 330 mass shootings—in which at least four people other than the shooter were injured or killed—so far this year in the United States. This summer alone, 31 people were killed in back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio and another 10 died in attacks in Gilroy, Calif. and Odessa, Texas. In the aftermath of each tragedy, companies saw striking growth in profits. “It’s a business fueled by fear,” says Sean Burke, president of the School Safety Advocacy Council, which works with school districts and police departments.

TuffyPacks, an online retailer selling ballistic shields that are inserted into backpacks, reported up to a 500% increase in sales after the shootings in El Paso and Dayton in early August, which coincided with back-to-school shopping season. “Every time shootings occur, we see spikes in sales,” says TuffyPacks CEO Steve Naremor, 63, of Houston, Texas, who insists his company’s $129 inserts are no different from other safety equipment, like fire extinguishers and bicycle helmets. Guard Dog Security, a competing company that sells bulletproof backpacks that weigh up to 4.5 pounds and can cost up to $299, couldn’t keep up with the orders. “They were selling out faster than we could get it back in stock,” says Yasir Sheikh, its 34-year-old CEO. Sheikh—who like Naremor declined to disclose revenue figures—launched his company in 2009 but didn’t see a huge demand until Sandy Hook.

The demand that follows mass shootings prompted Vy Tran, 25, to quit her job and use $100,000 in savings and retirement funds to start selling homemade bulletproof hoodies. Her company, Wonder Hoodie, began as a side business, which she launched after her next-door neighbor, a mother of two, was shot dead in their Seattle neighborhood during an attempted robbery in 2016.

Panicked after the killing, Tran says she searched online for body armor to protect her mother and younger brother, but the products she found were either too expensive or too heavy. So Tran, a health and safety consultant, decided to make them herself, using Kevlar that she ordered online. Tran was making an average of one or two hoodies a week until 58 people were killed at a Las Vegas music festival on Oct. 1, 2017 in the worst mass shooting in modern history. Sales spiked, and there were suddenly 10 to 15 requests pouring in every day.

Courtesy: Vy TranVy Tran in one of her bulletproof Wonder Hoodies

“I couldn’t keep up with the orders,” says Tran, who hired a team to help her. Wonder Hoodie has since fulfilled almost 1,000 orders for hoodies that cost up to $600 and weigh up to 9 pounds.

It’s not just young and new CEOs leaping into the growing field of gun safety products, and the merchandise isn’t all body armor. Chris Ciabarra and Lisa Falzone of Austin, Texas, launched Athena Security, a smart camera system, after they sold their first tech startup for $500 million in 2017. Athena’s software detects 900 different types of guns and can send an alert and video feed to law enforcement if it senses a threatening movement, like someone pointing a gun, according to Ciabarra. More than 40 schools, malls and businesses in the U.S. use Athena’s software, which charges $100 a month for each camera it monitors. Since schools and malls typically have 100 cameras building-wide, Athena could make more than $100,000 a year monitoring just one school. The weapons detection program has been installed in one of the two New Zealand mosques where a suspected white supremacist opened fire in March, killing 51 worshippers. After the massacre, New Zealand’s prime minister banned assault weapons. But that’s not likely to happen in the United States, says Ciabarra. Even presidential candidates during the fourth Democratic debate Tuesday night couldn’t seem to agree on how to manage assault weapons. Rep. Beto O’Rourke and South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg clashed on the best way to get the weapons off the streets, whether by banning the sale of assault weapons or also instating mandatory buyback programs.

“We’re not going to change the law and forbid guns. It’s not going to happen,” Ciabarra says. “People will have weapons.”

Jason Connolly—AFP/Getty ImagesAA teacher takes part in an active shooter drill during a firearms course for teachers and administrators in Commerce City, Colorado on June 28, 2018.

When Mike Lahiff, a former Navy Seal, launched ZeroEyes, a competing gun-detection system based in Philadelphia, he and his team of fellow veterans saw it as a continued service to the country. Lahiff, a 38-year-old father of four, hopes the U.S. will find a way to reduce gun violence and put him out of business. “If the active shooter problem goes away, and that’s the end of the company, then great,” he says, “that’s a win for me.”

***

While mass tragedies spark surges in sales, most of the bulletproof products on the market today, including backpacks and hoodies, would not withstand the force of the assault-style weapons commonly used in high-casualty attacks. Killers used assault-style weapons in the Sandy Hook and Parkland school shootings, as well as in El Paso and Dayton. The products would, however, protect against most handguns—the weapon of choice in the majority of U.S. gun murders in 2018, according to newly released FBI data. Handguns were used in nearly 65% of the roughly 10,000 gun murders that year, while rifles were used in about 3% of the cases, statistics show.

But spending hundreds of dollars on a hoodie or backpack is not a viable option for many people, particularly those living in lower-income neighborhoods plagued by gun violence. In St. Louis, for example—which has the highest murder rate among major cities in the nation, according to FBI data—more than 65,000 people are living below poverty, and the median household income is about $44,000, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. Even across the nation, many Americans are not prepared to handle a sudden expense of $400 or more, like replacing a broken car engine or visiting an emergency room without insurance, according to a recent report by the Federal Reserve. Nearly 30% would have to borrow or sell something to pay for the expense, and 12% would not be able to cover the expense at all, the report says.

NICHOLAS KAMM—AFP/Getty ImagesBulletproof whiteboards and backpack inserts at the Hardwire factory in Pocomoke City, Maryland, on March 1, 2018.

Bulletproof products may make consumers feel safer, but they may be putting people in more danger, according to school safety experts like Michael Dorn, a former police chief for the Bibb County School District in Georgia who’s now the executive director of Safe Havens International, a nonprofit that advises schools on security. Dorn worries that in a shooting situation, students with bulletproof backpacks may expose themselves to greater risk by standing in place and holding up their packs for protection instead of running away. “A focus on the armor could result in death because people don’t focus instead on things they need to do like lock a door,” says Dorn.

The products may also be distracting officials and parents from focusing on long-term solutions to gun violence, like adequate training and stronger gun laws, critics say. School districts investing in these products are doing so, in many cases, knowing they’re not real fixes, according to Ken Trump, a school safety expert and president of the consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services. “They rely on the hardware, the technology, the gadgets, so they can focus less on the human side,” he says.

Researchers have found some evidence that so-called red flag laws, which allow courts to take guns away from potentially dangerous people, may help stop mass shootings. A recent study by the University of California Davis School of Medicine cited 21 cases in which such a law in California was used to help prevent potential mass shootings in the state. The measure exists in 16 other states and Washington, D.C.

Rather than buy body armor or conduct active shooter training drills, school officials and parents should focus more on early intervention strategies, including student-threat assessments and better student supervision, according to gun control advocates and safety experts. Dorn, who has an 11-year-old son, says he wouldn’t let his child carry a bulletproof product to school, even if it was free. “I teach him how to be alert and react rather than rely on something that’s so statistically unlikely to do any good,” he says.

Alhadeff knows the backpacks she bought for her sons are only the last layer of protection. To improve safety in other ways, she launched a national nonprofit, Make Our Schools Safe, and won a seat on the local school board, where she’s pushed for legislation to make schools safer. In February, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy enacted “Alyssa’s Law,” named for Alhadeff’s daughter, which requires every public elementary and secondary school in the state to install a silent panic alarm button. When pressed, the alarm would immediately alert local law enforcement, reducing emergency response times. On Oct. 4, a bipartisan version of the bill was introduced in Congress.

“Before the shooting, my biggest fear was whether my children would do well on their tests,” Alhadeff says. “It’s sad and unfortunate that our society has come to this.”

[florenciolampkin]

Recent Apparent Suicides Highlight Need for Post-Violence Recovery Plans

Three apparent suicides that occurred in late March reaffirmed the need for post-incident plans that address long-term trauma in the aftermath of workplace violence and mass shootings.

All three decedents had either survived a school shooting or had been related to a victim. Two youths who survived the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida died by apparent suicide just 13 months after a former student killed 17 and injured several more. Shortly after, it was reported that the father of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Massacre–in which a gunman killed 26 children and adults in a Connecticut elementary school–allegedly died by suicide.

As of March 31, 2019, the Gun Violence Archive confirmed 68 mass shootings for the year, and with statistics sure to rise, companies and institutions should be mindful of the delayed effects of workplace violence. Risk Management Monitor previously reported the number of suicides in the United States has risen in nearly every state between 1999 and 2016. Employers may use these tragedies to reconsider their own prevention and awareness efforts, and ways they can productively contribute to the dialogue and keep their workers safe.

Paul Marshall, managing director of Active Shooter and Workplace Violence at McGowan Program Administrators said post-incident trauma counseling is critical when it comes to preventing or reducing long-term effects.

“The trauma counseling for the mental anguish needs to be aggressively pushed, almost like the way post-traumatic stress disorder is for first responders,” Marshall said.

Counseling for physical and non-physical injury survivors and witnesses is something that could be missed when drafting a premises or employer liability policies, he said. In fact, Risk Management magazine reported that companies may not be aware of potential gaps in their coverage or that the limits of their coverage, when considering active shooter incidents, are insufficient.

Marshall said that instead of a duty to defend when it comes to a commercial general liability policy, insurers can address long-term trauma with a duty of care clause. This, he said, demonstrates an employer’s willingness to help victims from the outset.

“There’s a typically a year limit on these policies – in the insurance industry you need to apply some sort of time limit,” Marshall said. “But it’s still a year longer than you’d otherwise get. And there has been a huge uptick in these policies from a year ago.”

#BeThe1To is the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline’s campaign to empower people to help those in crisis.

How Employers Can Help

Addressing post-incident trauma in an insurance policy is important, but equally paramount is the need to ensure that employers make training available for affected employees – regardless of where the incident occurred. Regina Phelps, president of Emergency Management & Safety Solutions, said that post-incident crisis management protocols should be added to workplace violence preparedness plans. Therapy and grief counseling are critical details of those protocols.

“Always give co-workers the option of attending any funeral or memorial service for the victims,” Phelps said. “Be aware of employees’ feelings of guilt – some might feel that they could have done something to stop the suicide or perhaps the victim told them of their plans, and they dismissed the comments. Incidents like that will make co-workers feel like it is their fault. Engage your employee assistance program [EAP] to provide education and training about the suicide threat and the complexities of the situation. If appropriate, support employees who start a tribute or fund to support the worker’s family.”

Phelps said that regular post-incident training can be just as crucial as prevention.

“It is essential to conduct regular exercises with the individuals responsible for the plan and its implementation. This could include the organization’s crisis management team as well as key departments such as human resources, security, facilities and communications,” Phelps said. “Plans are written in a vacuum. During most incidents, plans are not pulled out and people instead operate on muscle memory.  Exercises are the best way to ensure that the muscle memory will be helpful.”

Finally, Phelps stressed that employers communicate that their EAPs are typically available to employees’ families as well.

“Providing mental health services to employees and their families is essential,” she said. “The incident will affect not only the employee but their families. Ensure that counseling services are very convenient – offering an option at work, off-site as well as virtually is essential to make sure that employees get the help that they need. It is also critical to provide these same services to their immediate family.”

For more about active shooter preparedness, RIMS members can access a new professional report, “Active Shooter Preparedness and Your Organization.” To download the report, visit RIMS Risk Knowledge library at www.RIMS.org/RiskKnowledge.

If you or someone you know might be at risk of suicide, here’s how to get help: In the United States, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide also can provide contact information for crisis centers around the world.

Recent Apparent Suicides Highlight Need for Post-Violence Recovery Plans published first on https://australianriskservices.tumblr.com/

[marilynngmesalo]

‘We remember the unforgettable’: One year since Las Vegas mass shooting

‘We remember the unforgettable’: One year since Las Vegas mass shooting https://ift.tt/eA8V8J ‘We remember the unforgettable’: One year since Las Vegas mass shooting

LAS VEGAS — It has been a year since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and a woman set to talk at a sunrise ceremony commemorating the lives lost says that although hearts are still healing, she hopes people can move forward from the enormous tragedy with “love and light.”

Among survivors, victims’ family members, first-responders and elected officials offering prayers, songs and speeches on Monday, Mynda Smith will remember her sister.

Nyesa Davis Tonks was killed by a gunman in a high-rise hotel raining gunfire into a crowd of 22,000 at an outdoor country music concert on the Las Vegas Strip.

Nyesa pronounced her name “Neesha.” She was a 46-year-old single mother originally from the Salt Lake City area who was raising three boys in Las Vegas. Smith said she was energetic, adventurous, a fan of all kinds of music.

“I want to bring the message about living life to the fullest,” Smith told The Associated Press. “About how grateful we are for our community, the love and support that we got, and being ‘Vegas Strong.”‘

Smith started a scholarship fund for victims’ children and says she reached loved ones of almost all the dead. Thirty-three were from California, six others from Nevada, four from Canada and 12 from other U.S. states.

“It was a heartbreak every time,” Smith said. “This was a tragedy of grand scale. We have a long way to go. But we have to move forward with love and light.”

//<![CDATA[ ( function() { pnLoadVideo( "videos", "LvAzX1koj1Y", "pn_video_944616", "", "", {"is_mobile":""} ); } )(); //]]>

Many who were cheering Jason Aldean’s headline set on the Las Vegas Strip late Oct. 1, 2017, said later they thought the rapid crack-crack-crack they heard was fireworks — until people fell dead, wounded, bleeding.

From across neon-lit Las Vegas Boulevard, a gambler-turned-gunman with what police later called a meticulous plan but an unknown reason fired assault-style rifles for 11 minutes from 32nd-floor windows of the Mandalay Bay hotel into the concert crowd below. Police said he then put a pistol in his mouth and killed himself.

Medical examiners later determined that all 58 deaths were from gunshots. Another 413 people were wounded, and police said at least 456 were injured fleeing the carnage.

A flock of 58 doves will be released at the daybreak memorial, and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo also are due to speak. They won’t provide answers to what made Stephen Craig Paddock unleash his hail of gunfire.

Lombardo declared the police investigation ended in August. He issued a report that said hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of investigative work found no motive, no conspiracy and no other shooters.

//<![CDATA[ ( function() { pnLoadVideo( "videos", "oKVfhxfrTqg", "pn_video_226127", "", "", {"is_mobile":""} ); } )(); //]]>

A final FBI report, including a behavioural analysis of Paddock, is expected by year-end.

Another report last month involving the Federal Emergency Management Agency found communications were snarled and police, fire and medical responders were overwhelmed by 911 calls, false reports of other shootings and the number of victims.

Las Vegas police continue to make weekly releases of material collected following the attack under court order in a media public records lawsuit. Included have been investigative documents, 911 audio recordings, police reports, witness statements and many hours of officer body-worn video.

Unanswered in the 21 batches posted to date: What made a 64-year-old former accountant, real estate investor, small plane pilot and high-limit video poker player assemble an arsenal and attack a concert crowd?

Paddock was characterized by police as a loner with no religious or political affiliations who became obsessed with guns, spent more than $1.5 million in the two years before the shooting and distanced himself from his girlfriend and family.

A forensic accountant recently put the value of Paddock’s estate at just under $1.4 million. Paddock’s mother said the money should go to victims. A disbursal plan has not yet been established.

Las Vegas shooting survivors embrace life despite challenges

Las Vegas shooter had $1.3 million stashed away in various accounts

Paddock’s gambling habits made him a sought-after casino patron. Over several days, Mandalay Bay employees readily let him use a service elevator to take suitcases to the $590-per-night suite he had been provided for free. The room had a commanding view of the Strip and the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert grounds across the street.

After breaking out windows, Paddock fired 1,057 shots in 11 minutes, police say.

Incendiary shots hit airport fuel tanks but didn’t ignite. He sprayed gunfire through his suite door, wounding a hotel security guard in the leg. Paddock may have seen the guard coming with a camera set up on a service cart in the hall, police said.

On Las Vegas Boulevard, uniformed police officers crouched near patrol vehicles being pocked by gunshots. Windows broke. One officer was struck in the arm. Another was hit in the neck. Both survived.

Officer Charleston Hartfield, who was off-duty attending the concert, was killed.

Sixty-four minutes after shooting stopped, a SWAT officer with explosives blasted through Paddock’s hotel room door. Officers found him dead on the floor with guns and ammunition clips strewn about. Drapes fluttered next to broken windows.

Sirens wailed. Strangers carried wounded concert-goers to pickup trucks driven by volunteers that snaked through jammed traffic to hospitals.

Paddock left survival gear and thousands of rounds of ammunition in the room and bomb-making materials in his car parked in the Mandalay Bay valet area. Police said he left no suicide note or manifesto.

Canoe Click for update news world news https://ift.tt/2DMRyRO world news

[kansascityhappenings]

Watch Live: Remembrance ceremony for victims on anniversary of Las Vegas shooting

Watch live: https://x.tribtv.com/namp/player/embed.html?station=wdaf&feed=1&auto=yes

LAS VEGAS (AP) — It has been a year since the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, and a woman set to talk at a sunrise ceremony commemorating the lives lost says that although hearts are still healing, she hopes people can move forward from the enormous tragedy with “love and light.”

Among survivors, victims’ family members, first-responders and elected officials offering prayers, songs and speeches on Monday, Mynda Smith will remember her sister.

Nyesa Davis Tonks was killed by a gunman in a high-rise hotel raining gunfire into a crowd of 22,000 at an outdoor country music concert on the Las Vegas Strip.

Nyesa pronounced her name “Neesha.” She was a 46-year-old single mother originally from the Salt Lake City area who was raising three boys in Las Vegas. Smith said she was energetic, adventurous, a fan of all kinds of music.

“I want to bring the message about living life to the fullest,” Smith told The Associated Press. “About how grateful we are for our community, the love and support that we got, and being ‘Vegas Strong.’”

Smith started a scholarship fund for victims’ children and says she reached loved ones of almost all the dead. Thirty-three were from California, six others from Nevada, four from Canada and 12 from other U.S. states.

“It was a heartbreak every time,” Smith said. “This was a tragedy of grand scale. We have a long way to go. But we have to move forward with love and light.”

Many who were cheering Jason Aldean’s headline set on the Las Vegas Strip late Oct. 1, 2017, said later they thought the rapid crack-crack-crack they heard was fireworks — until people fell dead, wounded, bleeding.

From across neon-lit Las Vegas Boulevard, a gambler-turned-gunman with what police later called a meticulous plan but an unknown reason fired assault-style rifles for 11 minutes from 32nd-floor windows of the Mandalay Bay hotel into the concert crowd below. Police said he then put a pistol in his mouth and killed himself.

Medical examiners later determined that all 58 deaths were from gunshots. Another 413 people were wounded, and police said at least 456 were injured fleeing the carnage.

A flock of 58 doves will be released at the daybreak memorial, and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo also are due to speak. They won’t provide answers to what made Stephen Craig Paddock unleash his hail of gunfire.

Lombardo declared the police investigation ended in August. He issued a report that said hundreds of interviews and thousands of hours of investigative work found no motive, no conspiracy and no other shooters.

A final FBI report, including a behavioral analysis of Paddock, is expected by year-end.

Another report last month involving the Federal Emergency Management Agency found communications were snarled and police, fire and medical responders were overwhelmed by 911 calls, false reports of other shootings and the number of victims.

Las Vegas police continue to make weekly releases of material collected following the attack under court order in a media public records lawsuit. Included have been investigative documents, 911 audio recordings, police reports, witness statements and many hours of officer body-worn video.

Unanswered in the 21 batches posted to date: What made a 64-year-old former accountant, real estate investor, small plane pilot and high-limit video poker player assemble an arsenal and attack a concert crowd?

Paddock was characterized by police as a loner with no religious or political affiliations who became obsessed with guns, spent more than $1.5 million in the two years before the shooting and distanced himself from his girlfriend and family.

A forensic accountant recently put the value of Paddock’s estate at just under $1.4 million. Paddock’s mother said the money should go to victims. A disbursal plan has not yet been established.

Paddock’s gambling habits made him a sought-after casino patron. Over several days, Mandalay Bay employees readily let him use a service elevator to take suitcases to the $590-per-night suite he had been provided for free. The room had a commanding view of the Strip and the Route 91 Harvest Festival concert grounds across the street.

After breaking out windows, Paddock fired 1,057 shots in 11 minutes, police say.

Incendiary shots hit airport fuel tanks but didn’t ignite. He sprayed gunfire through his suite door, wounding a hotel security guard in the leg. Paddock may have seen the guard coming with a camera set up on a service cart in the hall, police said.

On Las Vegas Boulevard, uniformed police officers crouched near patrol vehicles being pocked by gunshots. Windows broke. One officer was struck in the arm. Another was hit in the neck. Both survived.

Officer Charleston Hartfield, who was off-duty attending the concert, was killed.

Sixty-four minutes after shooting stopped, a SWAT officer with explosives blasted through Paddock’s hotel room door. Officers found him dead on the floor with guns and ammunition clips strewn about. Drapes fluttered next to broken windows.

Sirens wailed. Strangers carried wounded concert-goers to pickup trucks driven by volunteers that snaked through jammed traffic to hospitals.

Paddock left survival gear and thousands of rounds of ammunition in the room and bomb-making materials in his car parked in the Mandalay Bay valet area. Police said he left no suicide note or manifesto.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2018/10/01/watch-live-remembrance-ceremony-for-victims-on-anniversary-of-las-vegas-shooting/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2018/10/01/watch-live-remembrance-ceremony-for-victims-on-anniversary-of-las-vegas-shooting/

[jeroldlockettus]

Who Decides How Much a Life Is Worth?

After 9/11, Congress authorized unlimited funds to compensate the families of victims. It was Kenneth Feinberg’s job to distribute that money, assigning a monetary value to each of those lives. (Photo: Wally Gobetz/flickr)

Our latest Freakonomics Radio episode is called “Who Decides How Much a Life Is Worth?” (You can subscribe to the podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or elsewhere, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above.)

After every mass shooting or terrorist attack, victims and survivors receive a huge outpouring of support — including a massive pool of compensation money. How should that money be allocated? We speak with the man who’s done that job after many tragedies, including 9/11. The hard part, it turns out, isn’t attaching a dollar figure to each victim; the hard part is acknowledging that dollars can’t heal the pain.

Below is a transcript of the episode, modified for your reading pleasure. For more information on the people and ideas in the episode, see the links at the bottom of this post. And you’ll find credits for the music in the episode noted within the transcript.

*      *      *

When something terrible happens — something truly terrible, a mass shooting or a terrorist attack — there is a man whose phone, eventually, will ring.

Kenneth FEINBERG: My name is Kenneth Feinberg, I’m a lawyer here in Washington, D.C.

Feinberg grew up near Boston — in Brockton, MA.

FEINBERG: Brockton High School, graduate; University of Massachusetts, graduate; New York University School of Law. And then I was asked by the Chief Judge of New York State to clerk for him.

This was in 1970. As Feinberg’s career progressed, he got to know many of the chief judge’s other former clerks.

FEINBERG: One of whom was the very distinguished eminent Federal District Judge Jack B. Weinstein in Brooklyn.

One day in 1984, Feinberg got a call from Judge Weinstein. By this time, Feinberg had put in time as a federal prosecutor and as chief of staff for Senator Ted Kennedy. Now he was in private practice. What did Judge Weinstein want?

FEINBERG: Weinstein had assigned to him the Agent Orange litigation brought by Vietnam veterans against the chemical industry — Dow, Monsanto — alleging certain physical injuries and deaths attributable to inhaling or swimming in the herbicide Agent Orange while serving in Vietnam.

Stephen DUBNER: For those who don’t recall or know, Agent Orange was an exfoliant meant to burn the shrubs off to give American soldiers an advantage, yes?

FEINBERG: That’s right, so the Viet Cong couldn’t hide and ambush American soldiers. Well, Vietnam veterans came home with chloracne, with soft tissue sarcomas, with other cancers. And Judge Weinstein had that case — very complicated, very complex medical case — and on the eve of trial, he asked me would I be willing to come to Brooklyn to mediate a settlement of that case and then design and administer a compensation program for eligible Vietnam veterans?

DUBNER: So, Judge Weinstein knew that you very much admired him. Was that in any way his putting his thumb on the scale in that case?

FEINBERG: Yes, he put his thumb on the scale to get it settled. I don’t think he put his thumb on the scale as to what the amount should be, or whether the chemical industry had a better case than the Vietnam veterans. He put his thumb on the scale only in the sense that, “Let’s try and resolve this case rather than litigate the case, and then appeals and five or six more years of uncertainty.” He saw the necessity of trying to bring the litigation to closure. And he also saw that legally, the veterans had a tough case, they may not win.

DUBNER: Were you aware of any previous programs, or any previous settlements that were even close to similar to that in terms of scope and magnitude?

FEINBERG: No. Unprecedented. Writing on a blank slate. So I accepted the assignment at the request, of course, of the court. And in eight weeks, we settled that massive, complex litigation. Once I did that, everybody started calling me.

The Agent Orange settlement didn’t please everyone. In fact, there’s barely ever a settlement like this that leaves everyone happy. Because underlying each case is a tragedy that dollars cannot repair, a tragedy requiring a thankless and perhaps impossible calculus. But that’s when Feinberg’s phone rings.

FEINBERG: It might be a Governor — Hickenlooper in Colorado after the Aurora movie shootings. It might be a mayor — Menino in Boston, after the Boston Marathon bombings. It might be the president of Virginia Tech University.

There was one tragedy that differed from the rest — on several dimensions.

FEINBERG: The 9/11 Fund was fascinating because Congress authorized unlimited funds. “Whatever Feinberg thinks is appropriate, fine with us. We don’t know how to value these lives.”

Today on Freakonomics Radio: how do you put a monetary value on a human life?

*      *      *

It’s been happening with increasing intensity, if not quite regularity. The gun massacres at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut; at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando; at the country-music festival near the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas. When the call comes, Kenneth Feinberg sets aside his regular legal work and takes up the case, usually working pro bono.

DUBNER: I know every case is different. There’s a different set of victims, there’s a different motivation, there’s a different pool of money, there’s a different public sentiment. Walk us through how you get involved, how you assess the landscape, and then how you begin to make it happen.

FEINBERG: So, on the agenda — one, somebody initiates it. Not me, I get the call to design it. Somebody initiates it, then the very next question you have to ask: how much money do you have to distribute? That drives everything. Until you know whether you’ve got a billion dollars, $5 billion, $20 billion, $3 million, $8 million, there’s nothing to plan; you can’t decide and design a program until you know how much money there is that you’re going to allocate to victims.

Then you ask, based on the amount of money, who’s eligible? The dead? The physically injured? What about those who didn’t suffer any physical injury, but are now so mentally incapacitated they can’t get out of bed? Are they eligible? Then you have to ask — very important — what is the methodology that will be used to calculate how much goes to each individual? Do we base it on our tort system — if somebody gets hit by an automobile or falls off a ladder — that system? Does one size fit all, all lives are equal, everybody gets the same? You’ve got to decide what methodology will be used.

And then after you’ve got eligibility and methodology decided: what proof does a victim — alleged — have to submit to me to corroborate the claim? And then, finally, do you want to give every eligible victim, or their family, an opportunity to be heard, to come in and talk with me? Once I get that call, those are the issues that have to be addressed.

DUBNER: In the time between the event itself and you getting the call — let’s say it’s the Vegas shooting or it’s the Orlando shooting — what are you thinking? Are you waiting for the call? Are you thinking about that event, are you assessing in any way?

FEINBERG: I’m not waiting for the call. I hope the call won’t come. And if it does come, I hope that it will come later rather than earlier. The more time that goes by after a tragedy, you hope there’ll be a dampening of the emotion of the survivors and the victims. Emotional trauma is the single biggest handicap — obstacle — to successful implementation of these programs.

DUBNER: You’ve said in the past that the single, maybe most common, heartache of 9/11 victims’ families was the lack of a body. Yes?

FEINBERG: Yes.

DUBNER: Did that surprise you?

FEINBERG: It surprised me. The depth of the emotional angst when mothers and fathers would come to see me and say, “You know Mr. Feinberg, you’re offering me $4 million, and they haven’t even found my daughter’s body. And probably never will.” That raises the emotional stakes of a hearing, of a give-and-take, and makes it all that much more difficult to talk in the cold world of dollars and cents.

DUBNER: One of your most unusual settlements was after the 2008 financial crisis, when the government essentially took over a number of firms, and you were called in to set the limits on their top executives’ compensation.

FEINBERG: Congress bailed out corporate America after the 2008-09 financial crisis, in order to prevent Bank of America, or G.M., or Chrysler, or Citibank, A.I.G. from going under. Taxpayer money propped up the private American business economic system. Congress passed a law, and the law said, “Well, now that we have protected these companies and bailed them out from bankruptcy, we are now a creditor.” And until the companies pay us back with interest, we will appoint the Treasury Department to fix corporate pay, the annual compensation of private corporate officials.

DUBNER: And they thought what kind of guy could we get?

FEINBERG: Populist revenge. The Secretary of the Treasury called me up and said, “We’re at Treasury, we don’t want to be in this business setting private corporate pay. What would Alexander Hamilton say?” So, this was my job for 16 months, to set individual corporate packages of compensation for the top 25 officials in the seven companies that received the most taxpayer bailout assistance.

DUBNER: And what kind of blowback did you get from them?

FEINBERG: Tremendous blowback. I did not realize how emotional this would get. Corporate officials, if I go to them and say, “You’re making $5 million a year, now I’m going to cut it back to a million,” I waited for them to say, “Oh, that means I’ll have to sell a third car. I’ll have to get rid of our estate on Long Island at the beach. I won’t be able to send my kids to Exeter and Andover,” that’s what I expected. I was wrong. Very emotional, because these corporate officials viewed their compensation as the sole barometer of self-worth.

DUBNER: And that surprised you.

FEINBERG: Surprised me? It was as emotional as 9/11. “Mr. Feinberg, if you cut my pay by 90 or 80 percent — how dare you? I have worked for 25 years for this company, I have given up my sweat and my blood and all that I could. And now you have made me worthless in my own eyes.”

DUBNER: What did you think of that argument? Did you find validity in it, or no?

FEINBERG: I found validity in the legitimacy and good-faith emotion that they exhibited. But with all due respect, that was not a rationale for me to say, “I feel bad for you, and therefore I won’t cut your pay.” Congress passed a law. I was frankly astounded, at the emotional mirror of self-worth that was reflected in what your check says every week. What about the church and your role on Sundays at the church? What about your three children and how well they’re being raised? What about the loving family that you’ve got? Nope.

There is, of course, a big difference between a government clawback from corporate executives and distributing money to the victims and survivors of a mass shooting or a terrorist attack. And in most of the latter cases, the funds are coming not from an institution or a government, but from public donations. The OneOrlando Fund, for instance, was set up to help victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, in which 49 people were killed and dozens injured. The fund received more than $31 million in donations. Of that, Feinberg distributed more than $17 million to the families of the people who were murdered. The victims who spent time in a hospital but survived got between $69,000 and $321,000. People who were in the nightclub but weren’t hospitalized got a bit more than $26,000 each. When it comes to putting a price on human life and suffering, Feinberg is hardly reinventing the wheel.

Kip VISCUSI: There are actually lots of different ways to do it.

That’s W. Kip Viscusi

VISCUSI: I’m an economist, and I’m a professor at Vanderbilt University.

Viscusi’s work has focused on a widely used metric called the Value of a Statistical Life.

VISCUSI: The value of statistical life refers to how much it’s worth to prevent one expected death.

Some people — especially if it’s their own death they’re trying to prevent — would put that number at infinity.

VISCUSI: Everybody who thinks that life should have an infinite value should instead ask themselves the question, “How much would you pay for a car that’s safer but by a trivial amount?” And most people are not willing to pay an unlimited amount of money for this slightly safer car.

There’s another complication to statistically valuing a life, an even harder problem to solve.

VISCUSI: Lots of people say that even placing any dollar number on life devalues life. So we shouldn’t be doing it at all. But, as a routine practice, government agencies have to make decisions. So either implicitly or explicitly, they’re going to be valuing life, and we want them to use the right numbers.

Okay, so what are the “right numbers,” and how do you get there? Let’s start with the way it used to be:

VISCUSI: So, used to be, the government agencies — such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — did not want to explicitly say that they are placing a value on life. Instead, they called it the cost of death. Well, the cost-of-death figures only capture the income lost to survivors. They don’t capture how much you value your own life and how much you value staying alive. So what you really want to know is, how much are people willing to pay and how much is society willing to pay to prevent the risk of one expected death? And the way I’ve looked at it is by examining how much workers require in terms of compensation to face extra risks of death on the job. And if you do that, you come up with the number in current dollars of about $10 million.

In a perfect world, the compensation for risky work would inevitably price in that risk. But, as Viscusi explains, the world is far from perfect.

VISCUSI: What I’ve found is that whether you get paid or not depends in part on who you are. So, immigrant workers — particularly Mexican immigrants who are not fluent in English — work on jobs that are 50 percent riskier than the average job, and they don’t get extra pay for the risk. These are the areas where we need more government regulation and more vigorous enforcement of the regulatory standards. I would not place a lower value on their lives simply because they have fewer opportunities. If you gave them these opportunities, they would have different values.

Viscusi’s calculations are, well, calculated. Even rational, perhaps. The problem is that rationality often dissipates once a terrible thing happens — when people are hurt or killed by a company’s product and there’s a lawsuit.

VISCUSI: I’ve done studies with mock jurors, hundreds of mock jurors, where I presented them with different case scenarios. In some case scenarios, the companies didn’t place a value on life at all. Other scenarios, the company placed a value based on the lost earnings. Another variant was, the company placed a value on life based on the government’s value of statistical life. What I’ve found is that you get a seemingly perverse result, which is that if the companies value lives more — let’s say they value lives at $5 million or $7 million instead of a few hundred thousand dollars — jurors want to send companies a signal that they disapprove of what the company’s done. So, they want to punish them with an award that exceeds whatever dollar number the company used. If the company used a number of $300,000, then punishing them a million dollars would send them a price signal. But if they valued the life at $5 million, you have to punish them with a penalty of $10 million, in order to let them know that they’ve undervalued life.

And there’s another complication: are all lives valued equally?

FEINBERG: This is a capitalist society.

Ken Feinberg again.

FEINBERG: Money has always been the vehicle to lift up the innocent or the victim, and that is something that is American. “Gee, you’re giving different amounts to different individuals? That doesn’t sound very American.” It is very American. If somebody gets hit by an automobile or falls off a ladder, the stockbroker and the banker get more than the waiter, the bus boy, or the fireman. That’s the American capitalist system, and that’s the role of money in trying to temper the unfortunate.

*      *      *

Kenneth Feinberg is a lawyer in private practice in Washington, D.C.

FEINBERG: And I have the task after certain tragedies of trying to calculate what amount of public or private compensation should be allocated to particular victims.

If you’ve heard of Feinberg before today, it’s likely because one of the tragedies he worked on was the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He sought out that job.

FEINBERG: That’s correct. Once the legislation was passed by Congress and signed by President Bush saying there would be a fund, I suggested to both Senator Kennedy and Senator Chuck Hagel, a good friend of mine, from Nebraska, Republican, I’d be interested. Well, that’s all it took. They together contacted John Ashcroft, the Attorney General, President Bush, and I got the job.

This job was, for many reasons, different from any other — the scope of the tragedy; the political, economic, and emotional tensions; and, perhaps most distinctively, the source of the settlement money.

FEINBERG: The 9/11 Fund was fascinating, because Congress authorized unlimited funds. “Whatever Feinberg thinks is appropriate, fine with us. We don’t know how to value these lives.” And in that program, I spent taxpayer money, $7.1 billion. I thought that the Congress would hang me. And, instead, the Congress was very, very satisfied.

DUBNER: There were a lot of things about the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund that were unique. The airlines and other industries, for instance, didn’t contribute one cent. The legislation was written essentially to protect the airline industries and other industries, maybe insurance firms, from going out of business.

FEINBERG: It basically — although the program was voluntary — it encouraged all victims who lost loved ones in the World Trade Center, the airlines, the Pentagon, to divert themselves out of the legal system, come in for a special award, and promise on a signed piece of paper, “I will not sue.” If you’re giving immunity, in effect, to the airlines, who can’t be sued for negligence, or Boeing, “the cockpit door wasn’t secure, the security system was negligently installed” — if you are giving them sort of immunity from suit, well, what about the victims, who paid the price?

Congress decided, we better balance it. We’ll make it very difficult to sue the airlines or the World Trade Center, but at the same time we’ll make it very easy for victims to get compensated without suing. So that was the balance that was struck. That meant — the minute I saw that, that voluntary applicants have to sign a paper, “I will not sue” — well, that means everybody who filed a claim has to receive a different amount of money. A stockbroker or a banker or a high-priced lawyer or accountant — their survivors expect more from the 9/11 Fund in return for a promise not to sue than the waiter, the busboy, the fireman, the cop, the soldier. The minute you take a program with public money and join the litigation at the hip of the program, everybody’s getting a different amount, and that causes tremendous divisiveness.

DUBNER: I believe it was Senator Kennedy who said to you, “Listen, you need to understand that a life is a life and that while you do need to recompense more in some cases…” — can you talk about that balance you tried to strike?

FEINBERG: Of course. Senator Kennedy said, flat out, privately, “Now Ken, this is all taxpayer money, coming out of the U.S. Treasury. Make sure that 90 percent of that money doesn’t go to 10 percent of the victims. That will be a real mistake.” So, what I did under the statute, I had discretion. And I could say to a stockbroker’s widow, “You know, if you run the numbers, purely the calculation of lost earnings, your husband, over a lifetime, after taxes etc., would have made $21 million. Well, Congress never intended to give you $21 million. So, I’m exercising my discretion under the statute and I’m going to reduce it to $6 million. Now, there are very, very few people even getting $6 million. But, based on the data and what your husband was earning, and what he was likely projected to earn, you are going to be a high-end compensated individual. Whereas the waiter or the bus boy might have had lifetime earnings after taxes of $800,000, I’m going to raise you, in my discretion, closer, not to $2 million, but closer to the median of about $1.5 million.” And that way, exactly as you point out, I managed — exercising my valid discretion — to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor.

DUBNER: Did you hear a lot of complaints from the families of the highest earners?

FEINBERG: Some. A few sued. They went to federal court, claiming that I was violating the statute by not giving them their full economic lost-wage earnings.

DUBNER: They sued within the corridor of the settlement, having agreed to the settlement?

FEINBERG: No, they didn’t accept a settlement. I said, “I’ll give you $6 million instead of $21 million or $24 million.” And they said, “You are violating the statutory language,” they went to court. They all settled their cases five years later. There was never a trial, and people ask me all the time, “Did they get more or less?” Well, some may have got more. Some of may have got less.

DUBNER: Hard for you to know.

FEINBERG: Hard to know because it’s confidential, but don’t forget those families lived with this for five years, and relived it, and relived the tragedy. And at the end of the day, whatever they got, 25 percent of it went to their lawyers.

DUBNER: Do you feel it’s a more complicated calculation to do the kind of calculations that economists like Kip Viscusi do that try to put a price on, among other things, public goods, clean air and water and so on. Do you think that’s inherently a much more—

FEINBERG: Oh, much more difficult. What I do in all of these programs is not rocket science. The tough part, the debilitating part, is the emotion. The stories you hear, you wouldn’t believe. A lady comes to see me, 24 years old, sobbing, “Mr. Feinberg, I lost my husband. He was a firefighter and he died at the World Trade Center. And he left me with our two children, six and four. Now, when you cut the check from the 9/11 Fund, I’m going to get $2.4 million, tax-free. I want it in 30 days.”

“Mrs. Jones, why do you need the money in 30 days? This is public money. The Treasury has to do its due diligence, it might be 90 days. You’ll get your money.”

“I want it in 30 days.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you why, Mr. Feinberg, I have terminal cancer. I have eight weeks to live. My husband was going to take care of our two children. Now they’re going to be orphans. Now I’ve got to get this money while I still have my faculties. I’ve got to set up a trust, get a guardian, make sure they’ll be provided for. I don’t have much time. You’ve got to help me.”

Well, we ran down to the Treasury. We accelerated the program. We got her the check. Six weeks later, she died.

DUBNER: Did you try in the beginning to be more empathic perhaps than you realized was a good idea?

FEINBERG: Yes, and I make mistakes. You see, you make mistakes and you learn your lesson. I remember one 83-year-old man came to see me after 9/11. He said, “I lost my son. Mr. Feinberg, a father should never bury a son. I’ll never be the same. Doesn’t matter how much money you give me.”

I made the mistake of saying to this very nice man, “This is terrible, I know how you feel.”

He looked at me. Nice man. Tears. “Mr. Feinberg, don’t ever tell people like me that you know how I feel. You have no idea how I feel. You have a tough job, but those words ring hollow. They’re pretentious, they’re robotic.” Well, I’ll never do that again.

Charles WOLF: I was angry. I was very angry. Yet, at the same time I didn’t want to bite the hand that would feed me.

That is Charles Wolf, whose wife Katherine died on 9/11. He is an Amway distributor; Katherine worked with him on that business and had just started a new job as an executive assistant in the north tower of the World Trade Center. We asked our friend Anna Sale, host of the Death, Sex, and Money podcast, to talk with Wolf about his experience with Ken Feinberg and the 9/11 Fund.

Anna SALE: So, Congress takes action. Ultimately, there is one person, one man, whose job it is to be the person to give you an answer on what of this fund, this money from the government, what will be your share because of your loss.

WOLF: No, that’s not the way it worked. Real simply, this did not have a fixed amount of money allocated to it. He had the entire United States Treasury at his disposal. It was not based on how much of this money were you going to get. They made it exactly like it would happen for a wrongful-death lawsuit, they calculated it based on lost future earnings, and pain and suffering.

SALE: Did that feel like, “If he tells me he’s calculating,” — I feel like there could be more potential for frustration if you feel like he’s underestimating.

WOLF: I understood that. So, my mind was: I needed to prove how much Katherine was worth based on her current income, what her absence in our business would result in, and hopefully that everything would work out.

SALE: And when you say “had to prove,” are you sitting with spreadsheets and doing the numbers yourself?

WOLF: A lot of it, yeah. I’m gathering information, I’m gathering past information, I’m gathering data. Because the whole thing, and the issue was the non-economic damages, pain and suffering.

SALE: What was that worth? That was the question.

WOLF: Exactly. He had picked a number at that time that was 27 years old.

SALE: Based on a 27-year-old formula.

WOLF: Correct, and with no adjustments or anything. I learned that lawyers like to work on precedent, precedence. They don’t like to probe new ground.

SALE: Did you feel like he knew how to communicate with people who were in deep grief?

WOLF: No. Not at that time. No. So, I had to, shall we say, be very diplomatic about it. I had to say things in a certain way. But I had already done my homework. I knew the ins and outs of the whole thing, and I’m making sure that I attack his policies and rules, not him personally. I do remember though — because at this point you don’t know who to trust or who not to trust — and I remember, because I went after him several times. And he says to me, he says, “Charles,” in his Boston accent, he says, “Charles, I’ve heard this all before, but I’ve never heard it said so eloquently.” I’m like, is he giving me B.S.? Is he trying to placate me? Is he trying to soften me? Is he, well what what’s going on here? As he walked out of the room afterwards, he was just walking by me like this, I said, “You picked the wrong benchmark.”

SALE: I don’t know if you use the word closure when you’re thinking about your own grief, but—

WOLF: I just had a dream about her last night. Closure might be for something you go through in a divorce, and remember that old song, “I’m going to wash that man right out of my hair?”

SALE: I’ve felt that.

WOLF: That might be closure, “All right. It’s done.” That’s closure. No, there’s no closure in this. What you do is you move on in your life. But when there’s somebody that you’ve loved, deeply loved, does that love ever go away?

SALE: Would you want Ken Feinberg’s job?

WOLF: I will tell you this. Looking at it now, he had one hell of a hard job. He and I had breakfast together in ‘08. He says, “Charles,” he says, “my lawyer training taught me how to deal with other lawyers. It didn’t teach me how to deal with grieving widows six weeks after they lost their husbands.” I said, “I get that.” He had to learn. People had their spouses taken, their siblings taken, their parents taken. See, this is the thing: unless you’ve been through this —

There were times that I just wanted to be with her. I never thought of committing suicide, but I knew that I wanted to be dead so I could be with her. When you get to that level, it’s about having something in return. It’s about something. Who can value a person’s life? So what they did is they gave us what they would have made in the future. The best estimation they could. That’s the way it was. I still think that’s a fair way to do it.

FEINBERG: I’ll defend the 9/11 Compensation Fund to my grave. I think it did exactly what the American people wanted to show the world: we take care of our own. They wanted to demonstrate their sense of community with the victims. So, I think it was the right thing to do. But I think the 9/11 Fund is better studied in a history class, not a law-school class. You will never see another 9/11 Fund, I do not believe, nor should you.

DUBNER: Because why?

FEINBERG: Because you’re taking public money.

DUBNER: What if there is an event that necessitates?

FEINBERG: There’s an event every day that necessitates.

DUBNER: There’s this word that I’m sure you’ve heard a million times. The word is closure. Does it exist?

FEINBERG: No. I hear that all the time. You know, you hear this argument: “Here’s a check for two million dollars. It will bring you some small closure from the incident and the grief.” Dollars don’t do that. They’re a hollow substitute, I can tell you, for loss.

Thanks to Kenneth Feinberg for speaking with us today. If you want to learn more about his settlement work, he’s written two books: What Is Life Worth? and Who Gets What? Thanks also to Charles Wolf, Anna Sale, and Kip Viscusi.

Freakonomics Radio is produced by Stitcher and Dubner Productions. This episode was produced by Max Miller and Andy Meisenheimer, with help from Alvin Melathe and Anabel Bacon. Our staff also includes Alison Craiglow, Greg Rosalsky, Greg Rippin, Harry Huggins, and Zack Lapinski. The music you hear throughout the episode was composed by Luis Guerra. You can subscribe to Freakonomics Radio on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here’s where you can learn more about the people and ideas in this episode:

SOURCES

Kenneth Feinberg, attorney and special master of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.

W. Kip Viscusi, economist at Vanderbilt University.

Charles Wolf, 9/11 widower.

RESOURCES

“$7 Billion for the Grief of Sept. 11,” David W. Chen, The New York Times. (November 18, 2004).

“Corporate Risk Analysis: A Reckless Act?,” W. Kip Viscusi (2000).

EXTRAS

What Is Life Worth? by Kenneth Feinberg (PublicAffairs 2006).

Who Gets What? by Kenneth Feinberg (PublicAffairs 2012).

Death, Sex, and Money.

The post Who Decides How Much a Life Is Worth? appeared first on Freakonomics.

from Dental Care Tips http://freakonomics.com/podcast/kenneth-feinberg/

[bobskiii87-blog]

Three Gun Violence Scholars on What Is Missing From America’s Gun Control Debate

Last week 10 people were killed at Santa Fe High School in Texas, just months after a shooter killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This pattern has become all too familiar in the United States, which has suffered 102 mass shootings to date this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

Skeptics of post-massacre gun control efforts often point to the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting as a watershed moment in the left’s losing fight against the NRA and gun rights activists: If 20 small children being slaughtered in an idyllic Connecticut community can’t lead to change, perhaps nothing will.

But there is room for hope after Parkland. Since that tragedy, we’ve witnessed the birth of the #NeverAgain movement and the #MarchForOurLives, both of which have led to small policy changes. The Republican-led Congress recently voted to reinstate funding to the CDC for gun violence research; state governments like Florida have already passed laws banning bumpstocks while raising the age (from 18 to 21) for buying a firearm; companies like MEC have severed ties with brands that do business with the NRA; and multimedia giant YouTube recently announced that they would prohibit people from posting DIY gun-making videos. Even if these motions don’t lead to drastic reductions in gun violence, they represent small symbolic steps toward sensible gun control laws. They show that people on both sides of the aisle don’t want to sit idly and wait for another mass shooting to happen.

But, in spite of these developments, the conversation about gun violence remains narrowly focused on mass shootings, which account for about three percent of the annual homicides committed with firearms in the US. Lost in all of the news coverage is a sustained discussion about gun violence in black communities, who are disproportionately at risk of getting injured or killed in shootings. African Americans account for roughly 50 percent of the gunshot victims in the US, even though they only account for 12 percent of the US population.

This is a familiar omission, one that we see after nearly all mass shootings in the US. This disparity is shaped in part by the fact that scholars of color—who have been doing research on the frontlines of America’s gun violence epidemic—are often relegated to the sidelines of this conversation. This is a shame, as many of us have a lot to offer.

Luckily, two of my favorite gun violence scholars, Desmond Patton (Columbia University, Social Work and Sociology) and Joseph Richardson Jr. (University of Maryland, African-American Studies and Medical Anthropology) were up to chat more about this. The following is an abbreviated and slightly edited (for readability) version of a discussion we had.

Jooyoung Lee: So, to get things rolling, what do you think is the most critical part of your work that’s been ignored in media coverage of gun violence? Desmond Patton: When I listen to discussion about gun violence, they tend to gravitate towards immediate causes and outcomes. That is to say, why did this person commit this murder right now. And of course we want to understand why a specific shooting happened, but I think as researchers we need to also focus on pathways to violence. I’m usually very uncomfortable when we start talking about communities of colour because we seem to never talk about how institutions and policies shape violent contexts that may lead to violent behaviours. When we talk about Parkland, I hear a structural analysis that leads to additional resources and attentions. I don’t hear the same things when we talk about urban-based gun violence, in which communities that have some of the highest rates of gun violence go untreated. Parkland becomes the narrative we uphold which further marginalizes those communities.

Joseph Richardson Jr.: There is no discussion about structural violence regarding the preventable harm associated with gun violence that disproportionately affects black boys and young black men. We have to acknowledge that structural violence leads to interpersonal violence yet with black boys and black men we tend to blame the victim instead of the structures that reproduce violence.

I direct the Capital Region Violence Intervention Program, a hospital based violence intervention program at the University of Maryland Prince George’s Hospital Center. We are the second busiest trauma center in Maryland and treat on average 700 victims of violent injury per year, that’s almost two people per day. The overwhelming majority of survivors of gun violence we treat are black boys and young black men. If you spent a week in our trauma center with our trauma surgeons and nurses it would be crystal clear the gun violence is a crisis in the black community and for young black men in particular. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for black boys and young black men. It has been the leading cause of death for this population for decades. Not a few years but decades. But, imagine if gun violence were the leading cause of death for young white males for decades? It’s impossible to imagine because it wouldn’t have ever gotten that far.

The question America should ask itself is why so much attention to gun violence now?

Jooyoung: For me, the discussion has also veered away from taking on larger racist stereotypes about black men and other young men of colour—who, as we all know, are the most vulnerable to getting injured and/or killed in shootings. It’s great that the Parkland kids have reached out to young folks from Chicago and other communities of colour where gun violence is happening on a much more routine basis, but I haven’t really seen anyone in this movement taking on the larger stereotypes that shape how society sees gunshot victims from places like Chicago, St. Louis, Philly, Compton, and other communities of colour left out of the spotlight created by Parkland. Harmful stereotypes about African Americans still persist. There’s still this underlying belief that if you are black and you got shot, you must have been doing something to get yourself shot. This is something that John Rich shows brilliantly in his work and something that has stayed around even when the Parkland kids are being intersectional about their activism.

What about grief and the broader impacts of gun violence? How does your work address these issues that have emerged in the aftermath of Parkland? Desmond: I’ve been fascinated by the ways in which social media shows you how trauma impacts an individual’s life. Through posts, emojis, hashtags, images, etc you’re able to observe how a person moves through a grief cycle. For example, a person may describe how they’re not sleeping or that they remain in disbelief because of the loss of a loved one. As time progresses, it becomes clear that social media may also hinder their ability to move through through a grief cycle as others comment and interact with their grief; at times making upsetting or disrespectful comments.

In new research published in Digital Medicine my research team found a pathway to threatening and aggressive tweets that starts with responses to trauma and grief for gang associated youth and young adults in Chicago. In fact, there was a two-day window between a response to loss and an aggressive post. This tells us that social media can be used to cope with violence in a way that run counters to how young black youth are depicted in media.

Joe: We have neglected to address the effects of gun violence on caregivers. Our program provides counseling services not only for male survivors of violence, we also facilitate, caregiver support groups because the caregivers often suffer in silence. In fact, the vicarious trauma suffered by caregivers in many cases is more severe than the trauma suffered by the person who was injured. Everyone suffers. You cannot just inoculate the person who was injured by providing them with mental health and social support services and send them back to a network and environment where violence is contagious.

Jooyoung: And the other thing is, calls for more access to mental health care services forgets that many folks of colour don’t have the same relationship with formal therapy. In my work, I met lots of young people living with injuries who were skeptical about formal mental health care services that were available to them. Some thought they were going to get hypnotized and others were resistant to the idea of talking about their innermost fears and vulnerability with a complete stranger. So, part of the mental health picture requires a new way to think about social and emotional support as something that people find in their everyday relationships with family, friends, and even people who are in religious institutions.

What are key policy discussions that aren’t happening right now? And how does your work inform a more nuanced discussion on these issues? Joe: There are a number of policy issues. For example, Maryland (which is where we run our hospital-based intervention) is trying to pass a bill SB 122 that would provide significant funding for violence prevention across the state. However, that bill includes mandatory minimums and increasing prison sentences for various crimes. So on the one hand, you get violence prevention funding that is desperately needed, but at what cost? Sending more poor black Marylanders to prison who live in neighborhoods that have been impacted by structural violence literally decimated by high rates of unemployment and the effects of mass incarceration. As a gun violence researcher of colour, I cannot support that kind of legislation, despite the funding for violence prevention.

Desmond: I think we have to contend with the role of social media in gun violence. We’ve been quick to utilize social media to monitor urban areas and Black Lives Matter activists, but we’ve missed white mass shooters who have left dark messages on social media. We need to have critical discussions about the very real concern that what people say or do on social media may lead to offline violence.

Jooyoung: The other thing, to go back to Joe’s point, is that this movement hasn’t really addressed the ongoing problems of police shooting and killing black men and other folks of colour. We’re having a discussion about raising the age for people to buy firearms and encouraging people to give up their firearms, but many people don’t want to do this because guns represent a means for self-defence. This is where there’s a lot of overlap between people in communities like West Philly and those in red states who own guns and concealed carry. People get guns because they don’t feel safe and have lost faith in the police. So, there’s this terrible irony that we’re talking about regulating guns, which is important, but also not addressing the underlying reasons for why Stephon Clark is getting shot and killed by Sacramento Police. Police violence against black men hasn’t gone away and yet that type of police violence has been swept under the rug in this whole #NeverAgain moment.

Joe: What’s interesting to me is what determines when we decide as a nation what constitutes a public health crisis? In the 80s and 90s we criminalized crack by creating draconian drug policies that sent millions of black people to jail and prison. The irony is Joe Biden framed a lot of those policies yet he is the vice president of the first black president. Policies such as the Anti Drug Abuse Acts of 1986 and 1988 and the Crime Bill of 1994 under the “first” black President Bill Clinton devastated black inner-city communities and families for generations. We can even go further back to the 70s when heroin ravaged urban communities, it was criminalized. It’s how we arrived at the Rockefeller Drug Laws in New York which served as the blueprint for mandatory minimums. The gun violence that was associated with crack markets in inner-cities was criminalized as well. So the black community has been suffering from a drug and gun violence epidemic for a long time yet it was never considered to be a public health issue. There was no public health approach for crack or gun violence. The approach has been lock them up, build more prisons, hire more police.

Only recently have we discussed criminal justice reform, which is interesting now that crack use has waned considerably. Now that heroin and the opioid crisis is literally killing white Americans at extremely high rates, we have approached it as a public health crisis, which has commanded resources, research funding from NIH and the CDC and considerable media attention. Where are all the visuals of SWAT teams and DEA using battering rams on the doors of white middle class homes in the same way they barreled into crack houses? Clearly someone is selling heroin as well right, particularly if most drug transactions are intraracial this means that there are a lot of white heroin and opioid dealers out there killing a lot of people. But there is no discussion about a war on drugs now because the faces suffering from it are white.

Conclusion

Our conversation continued for the greater part of a half hour. As we talked, it struck me how we often go round and round about gun control policies in the aftermath of mass shootings, but almost always fail to address what Desmond refers to as “pathways” into violence, or what Joe calls “structural violence.” In all of the talk about gun control—which is a positive thing overall—we lose sight of the bigger picture, the root causes of violence that propel young people, and particularly black youth, into gangs, drug dealing, and other risky behaviours that amplify their risks of being shot and becoming a shooter.

Follow Jooyoung Lee and Desmond Patton on Twitter.

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[foursprout-blog]

‘This Isn’t Going Away’: Generation Z’s Demand For Change

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/this-isnt-going-away-generation-zs-demand-for-change-2/

‘This Isn’t Going Away’: Generation Z’s Demand For Change

Lorie Shaull/Wikimedia Commons

“How To: Survive A Mass Shooting,” was the first thing I read when I opened my computer’s browser this morning. My heart sank into my stomach when I finally wrapped my head around what I had just read.

Like many of you, I’m inspired by America’s youth, or should I say Generation Z, and the action they’ve taken in recent weeks by marching, campaigning, and petitioning for a crucial change in America so that mass casualties such as Sandy Hook and Parkland never happen again.

I wanted to better understand where their thoughts lie in a time where mass shootings have become so common that “tips” and “tricks” on how to survive these situations go viral. I wanted to learn what fears they bring with them to their desks every day and what exactly they believe needs to be done to erase them.

So, I reached out to a few of the student organizers of Chicago’s March For Our Lives, and listened. I listened and learned what inspires them, what hopes and concerns they have, and what pushes them to keep, literally and figuratively, marching on and standing up for what they believe in.

“I’m motivated by the fact that gun violence in Chicago and across the nation is the status quo. That shouldn’t be the way it is, and that’s how it is,” Jeremy Liskar, a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, said.

Growing up in Detroit and coming from a place where my biggest worries in my middle and high school classrooms ranged somewhere between figuring out what was for lunch that day, and how I was going to ace my Spanish test, I wanted to hear their stories and at least try to comprehend what’s going on in their minds during a time where losing classmates, friends, and family members to gun violence is tragically becoming the norm.

“I saw a tweet the other day where a parent was talking about how his 6-year-old daughter was crying because she has light-up shoes and she said ‘Dad, if there was a shooter in the school, they would be able to see me because of my shoes,’” Sabrina Bitre, a senior at Hoffman Estates High School, said. “It broke my heart that this is the generation we’re growing.”

Isn’t the point of having light-up shoes to make a statement and stand out from all the rest? Not anymore. Not when they increase your chances of being the target for a 19-year-old active shooter who purchased an AR-15 legally. Not here in today’s America.

“The one word that I thought was, ‘again,’” Lauren Flowers a senior at Oak Park and River Forest High School said upon hearing the news that 17 people lost their lives in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL on February 14th. “This has happened, again?”

According to a recent report by CNN, there have been at least 12 school shootings in the year 2018 already. It’s only March… that’s an average of four per month. Another report by Chicago’s ABC 7 News states that there have been 344 shooting victims in the city of Chicago alone this year… that’s over three people per day injured by guns.

“I think of people I see in the hallway, I think of my friends, I think of my teachers, and there’s just a pit in my stomach that somebody can be here one moment, and not be there the next. That’s not supposed to be the case when you’re at school. You’re supposed to be protected, you’re supposed to be there to get an education, and the only thing you should have to worry about is getting an education,” Bitre said.

Although some of these organizers aren’t even old enough to vote, their intellect stretches far beyond their years, and their concerns regarding gun violence stem from other societal problems. They hope this movement also sheds light and creates conversation on other issues including intersectionality, poverty, and lack of funding for education, which in turn will decrease gun violence not just in schools, but on the streets as well.

“We have to realize that this doesn’t just happen in affluent white communities. This has been happening in inner cities and marginalized groups since the beginning of time, and they’ve been taking to the streets but have been shut down by the government and the media,” Bitre said. “I feel like this march is so important because we’re taking that platform that those Parkland students created and saying, ‘Let’s also not forget about these people.’ Being the voice of the people that people don’t listen to.”

According to a Mother Jones database of U.S. mass shootings since 1982, black males are responsible for 16 percent of mass shootings, which is less than one-third of the 54 percent that are white males, yet America more times than none, portrays people of color in a different light. “I really want us to start treating shooters of every race, the same way. I don’t understand why we put so much blame on people of color. We put so many negative stereotypes on them and we make them out to be monsters, but when a white man shoots up a school, people say they’re mentally ill and we have every reason in the world for why they did what they did,” Flowers said. “I feel like our lives are just not treated the same way, and I really hope that this movement will help people to see that gun violence, no matter where it is, it’s still important. No matter who is affected by it.”

With Chicago having stricter gun laws than other states, Juan Reyes, a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, and a member of the Chicago Students Union, which focuses on giving Chicago Public School students a voice on local issues, has hopes this movement will extend beyond issues with the National Rifle Association.

“We want to mimic the [students] in Parkland in terms of how they are pressuring politicians. But we want to pressure them by saying, ‘We want more resources in the city for food and education to improve these impoverished communities,’ instead of just not taking money from the NRA and [issuing] tighter background checks, because that’s not really a problem here. It’s more giving to these underfunded schools, giving more resources to these communities.”

Just a few days after Parkland’s tragedy, President Trump suggested arming teachers, a proposal that according to The Washington Post, would cost anywhere from $251 million to an upward of $1 billion dollars depending on training and firearm costs.

“It’s not a coincidence that the communities most affected by gun violence in the United States are communities that are low income where people are living in poverty and are communities that have the worst education systems in America,” Bitre said. “The levels of resources that are being given to these schools are so poor, and the amount that these teachers are getting paid is so little. I think the millions of dollars that they want to put into a program for teachers to be armed should be going into the schools, because once we start seeing a better education system, the violence will start to deteriorate, little by little.”

With the amount of “thoughts and prayers” spoken outweighing the amount of action being taken to decrease gun violence, these student organizers are looking for bills with new laws to be passed, not tweets with condolences to be sent.

“Thoughts and prayers are fine, if you are [also] actively doing something to eradicate the problem, thoughts and prayers aren’t fine if you’re talking money from the NRA, and just voicing your “thoughts and prayers,” Bitre said.

Our country’s Second Amendment, which many believe solidifies citizens’ rights to own guns including semi-automatic weapons, has been a topic of debate for years, especially regarding the advancement of weapons since the creation of the Bill of Rights.

“The Second Amendment was created when they couldn’t even fathom the type of weapons that we have now,” Bitre said. “Isn’t it my right to live? Isn’t it my right to feel safe at school?”

In a report by The Washington Post, the Second Amendment was first written in 1791, when a standard revolutionary-style musket held just one round, and had an effective rate of fire of three rounds per minute. Today a standard AR-15 can hold 30 rounds and has an effective rate of fire of 45 rounds per minute, not to mention a maximum range of up to 550 feet… 500 feet further than a revolutionary-style musket.

“I hope by the end of this movement, we’re able to look back at the Second Amendment and say, ‘We’ve successfully applied this to the 21st century, and what it should look like in modern times.’” Liskar said. “Because right now I think the interpretation is so outdated.”

Generation Z has banded together and shown us there’s a lot more to them than just the latest social media fad, or coolest fashion trend. From Parkland to Chicago to Los Angeles to Baltimore, students are reaching out for funding, making t-shirts, designing posters, all to help make America safe again.

“It was a kick in the face, the idea that teenagers can’t do anything, that teenagers need adults to get things done, that we’re lazy, and that we don’t care enough about anything to really make progress,” Flowers said. “Just seeing what myself and so many others are capable of is really amazing to me, and it just makes me so happy.”

From the nationwide student walkout that took place on March 14th, to marches to sit-ins to rallies, all organized for the upcoming weeks, America’s youth shows no signs of backing down when it comes to the demand for change in our country.

“I’m really proud that this event has been able to sustain beyond the typical press cycle, and that people aren’t just saying, ‘Okay, we’re ready for gun reform,’” Liskar said. “No. We’re demanding gun reform. We’re going to march on the 24th, and there’s another walkout on April 20th. This isn’t going away.”

March For Our Lives Chicago is set to take place on March 24th at Union Park at 11:00am. For more information on where March For Our Lives is happening in your city, visit their website.

[foursprouthappiness-blog]

‘This Isn’t Going Away’: Generation Z’s Demand For Change

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/happiness/this-isnt-going-away-generation-zs-demand-for-change/

‘This Isn’t Going Away’: Generation Z’s Demand For Change

Lorie Shaull/Wikimedia Commons

“How To: Survive A Mass Shooting,” was the first thing I read when I opened my computer’s browser this morning. My heart sank into my stomach when I finally wrapped my head around what I had just read.

Like many of you, I’m inspired by America’s youth, or should I say Generation Z, and the action they’ve taken in recent weeks by marching, campaigning, and petitioning for a crucial change in America so that mass casualties such as Sandy Hook and Parkland never happen again.

I wanted to better understand where their thoughts lie in a time where mass shootings have become so common that “tips” and “tricks” on how to survive these situations go viral. I wanted to learn what fears they bring with them to their desks every day and what exactly they believe needs to be done to erase them.

So, I reached out to a few of the student organizers of Chicago’s March For Our Lives, and listened. I listened and learned what inspires them, what hopes and concerns they have, and what pushes them to keep, literally and figuratively, marching on and standing up for what they believe in.

“I’m motivated by the fact that gun violence in Chicago and across the nation is the status quo. That shouldn’t be the way it is, and that’s how it is,” Jeremy Liskar, a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, said.

Growing up in Detroit and coming from a place where my biggest worries in my middle and high school classrooms ranged somewhere between figuring out what was for lunch that day, and how I was going to ace my Spanish test, I wanted to hear their stories and at least try to comprehend what’s going on in their minds during a time where losing classmates, friends, and family members to gun violence is tragically becoming the norm.

“I saw a tweet the other day where a parent was talking about how his 6-year-old daughter was crying because she has light-up shoes and she said ‘Dad, if there was a shooter in the school, they would be able to see me because of my shoes,’” Sabrina Bitre, a senior at Hoffman Estates High School, said. “It broke my heart that this is the generation we’re growing.”

Isn’t the point of having light-up shoes to make a statement and stand out from all the rest? Not anymore. Not when they increase your chances of being the target for a 19-year-old active shooter who purchased an AR-15 legally. Not here in today’s America.

“The one word that I thought was, ‘again,’” Lauren Flowers a senior at Oak Park and River Forest High School said upon hearing the news that 17 people lost their lives in a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL on February 14th. “This has happened, again?”

According to a recent report by CNN, there have been at least 12 school shootings in the year 2018 already. It’s only March… that’s an average of four per month. Another report by Chicago’s ABC 7 News states that there have been 344 shooting victims in the city of Chicago alone this year… that’s over three people per day injured by guns.

“I think of people I see in the hallway, I think of my friends, I think of my teachers, and there’s just a pit in my stomach that somebody can be here one moment, and not be there the next. That’s not supposed to be the case when you’re at school. You’re supposed to be protected, you’re supposed to be there to get an education, and the only thing you should have to worry about is getting an education,” Bitre said.

Although some of these organizers aren’t even old enough to vote, their intellect stretches far beyond their years, and their concerns regarding gun violence stem from other societal problems. They hope this movement also sheds light and creates conversation on other issues including intersectionality, poverty, and lack of funding for education, which in turn will decrease gun violence not just in schools, but on the streets as well.

“We have to realize that this doesn’t just happen in affluent white communities. This has been happening in inner cities and marginalized groups since the beginning of time, and they’ve been taking to the streets but have been shut down by the government and the media,” Bitre said. “I feel like this march is so important because we’re taking that platform that those Parkland students created and saying, ‘Let’s also not forget about these people.’ Being the voice of the people that people don’t listen to.”

According to a Mother Jones database of U.S. mass shootings since 1982, black males are responsible for 16 percent of mass shootings, which is less than one-third of the 54 percent that are white males, yet America more times than none, portrays people of color in a different light. “I really want us to start treating shooters of every race, the same way. I don’t understand why we put so much blame on people of color. We put so many negative stereotypes on them and we make them out to be monsters, but when a white man shoots up a school, people say they’re mentally ill and we have every reason in the world for why they did what they did,” Flowers said. “I feel like our lives are just not treated the same way, and I really hope that this movement will help people to see that gun violence, no matter where it is, it’s still important. No matter who is affected by it.”

With Chicago having stricter gun laws than other states, Juan Reyes, a senior at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, and a member of the Chicago Students Union, which focuses on giving Chicago Public School students a voice on local issues, has hopes this movement will extend beyond issues with the National Rifle Association.

“We want to mimic the [students] in Parkland in terms of how they are pressuring politicians. But we want to pressure them by saying, ‘We want more resources in the city for food and education to improve these impoverished communities,’ instead of just not taking money from the NRA and [issuing] tighter background checks, because that’s not really a problem here. It’s more giving to these underfunded schools, giving more resources to these communities.”

Just a few days after Parkland’s tragedy, President Trump suggested arming teachers, a proposal that according to The Washington Post, would cost anywhere from $251 million to an upward of $1 billion dollars depending on training and firearm costs.

“It’s not a coincidence that the communities most affected by gun violence in the United States are communities that are low income where people are living in poverty and are communities that have the worst education systems in America,” Bitre said. “The levels of resources that are being given to these schools are so poor, and the amount that these teachers are getting paid is so little. I think the millions of dollars that they want to put into a program for teachers to be armed should be going into the schools, because once we start seeing a better education system, the violence will start to deteriorate, little by little.”

With the amount of “thoughts and prayers” spoken outweighing the amount of action being taken to decrease gun violence, these student organizers are looking for bills with new laws to be passed, not tweets with condolences to be sent.

“Thoughts and prayers are fine, if you are [also] actively doing something to eradicate the problem, thoughts and prayers aren’t fine if you’re talking money from the NRA, and just voicing your “thoughts and prayers,” Bitre said.

Our country’s Second Amendment, which many believe solidifies citizens’ rights to own guns including semi-automatic weapons, has been a topic of debate for years, especially regarding the advancement of weapons since the creation of the Bill of Rights.

“The Second Amendment was created when they couldn’t even fathom the type of weapons that we have now,” Bitre said. “Isn’t it my right to live? Isn’t it my right to feel safe at school?”

In a report by The Washington Post, the Second Amendment was first written in 1791, when a standard revolutionary-style musket held just one round, and had an effective rate of fire of three rounds per minute. Today a standard AR-15 can hold 30 rounds and has an effective rate of fire of 45 rounds per minute, not to mention a maximum range of up to 550 feet… 500 feet further than a revolutionary-style musket.

“I hope by the end of this movement, we’re able to look back at the Second Amendment and say, ‘We’ve successfully applied this to the 21st century, and what it should look like in modern times.’” Liskar said. “Because right now I think the interpretation is so outdated.”

Generation Z has banded together and shown us there’s a lot more to them than just the latest social media fad, or coolest fashion trend. From Parkland to Chicago to Los Angeles to Baltimore, students are reaching out for funding, making t-shirts, designing posters, all to help make America safe again.

“It was a kick in the face, the idea that teenagers can’t do anything, that teenagers need adults to get things done, that we’re lazy, and that we don’t care enough about anything to really make progress,” Flowers said. “Just seeing what myself and so many others are capable of is really amazing to me, and it just makes me so happy.”

From the nationwide student walkout that took place on March 14th, to marches to sit-ins to rallies, all organized for the upcoming weeks, America’s youth shows no signs of backing down when it comes to the demand for change in our country.

“I’m really proud that this event has been able to sustain beyond the typical press cycle, and that people aren’t just saying, ‘Okay, we’re ready for gun reform,’” Liskar said. “No. We’re demanding gun reform. We’re going to march on the 24th, and there’s another walkout on April 20th. This isn’t going away.”

March For Our Lives Chicago is set to take place on March 24th at Union Park at 11:00am. For more information on where March For Our Lives is happening in your city, visit their website.

[gta-5-cheats]

Pressure on banks to rethink relationships with gun makers

New Post has been published on http://secondcovers.com/pressure-on-banks-to-rethink-relationships-with-gun-makers/

Pressure on banks to rethink relationships with gun makers

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The public and political forces that influenced businesses and investors to reconsider their relationships with the firearm industry have turned their attention to banks. The shift follows a successful campaign to encourage commercial entities to adopt gun rules lawmakers have failed to turn into policy and also pressured them to break ties to lobbying groups that block gun control legislation.

In the weeks since last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, a handful of investment firms they would provide greater transparency for clients by identifying financial products funding gun companies and dozens of businesses ended partnerships with the National Rifle Association because of its stance on gun control. But after nibbling around the edges, advocates started biting into key sources of financing for both gun makers and the NRA with the hopes of weakening the industry’s influence over lawmakers and in turn open up opportunities to pass gun control legislation.

Left-leaning news website ThinkProgress efforts to exert pressure on businesses connected to the NRA — out 24 of the 32 companies on their list — and then energies on banks. In all, the website named more than a dozen banks servicing the gun industry. Only a handful of banks so far have responded to calls for action, but the complex relationship between an entity and financier prevent an immediate unraveling of business agreements and policy changes.

Wells Fargo said it plans “to engage our customers that legally manufacture firearms and other stakeholders on what we can do together to promote better gun safety for our communities,” according to a Bloomberg published Wednesday. Since 2012, Wells Fargo has loaned out $431.1 million to gun companies and the NRA. Yet, the company inherited the NRA’s business — a $28 million loan with 6.08 percent interest, which pays Well Fargo some $1.2 million annually — in 2008 when it bought Wachovia Corp., which inherited the account when it bought First Union National Bank.

Bank of America issued a saying it joined “other companies in our industry to examine what we can do to help end the tragedy of mass shootings” and will “engage the limited number of clients we have that manufacture assault weapons for non-military use to understand what they can contribute to this shared responsibility.”

Berkshire Bank, which had operated as part of a pension fund that loaned Sig Sauer $178 million, on Monday that it had ended its relationship with the New Hampshire gun maker 18 months ago. The bank was responding to calls for action following 2016’s Orlando nightclub shooting in which the gunman used a Sig rifle to murder 49 people.

Andrew Ross Sorkin, a business columnist for The New York Times, financial institutions would have a better chance at reshaping gun policy than gun control advocates would by directly lobbying lawmakers. He suggested advocates should pressure financial institutions to demand reform instead of calling for them to boycott the gun industry.

Money managers have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients, so they have to make a financial case to divest rather than one based on moral grounds, Sorkin said. Using embattled Remington Outdoor Company as an example, he explained the company has struggled to access capital markets or find a buyer since one of its products was the primary weapon used in the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012.

Shop On SecondCovers

Despite record setting gun sales nationwide during the entirety of the Obama Administration, Remington is this month. The company racked up nearly $1 billion in debt, so it is unlikely to be able to repay bondholders this year and next.

Remington is an example — albeit, an extreme one — of the gun industry’s current state. Although indicators for gun sales show only a slight difference from President Obama’s record setting final year, gun and ammo makers had prepared for surging sales leading up to 2016’s presidential election (and believing the U.S. would have an anti-gun president). So when pro-gun Republicans took the White House and both chambers of Congress, demand for guns fell. To work down surging inventories, gun companies had to lower and slash prices.

A national force led by students and victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which left 17 people dead and 15 others injured, encouraged a number of gun sellers to revise company policy. Dick’s Sporting Goods by announcing it would only sell guns to buyers older than 21 and ended the sale of “assault-style” weapons. Dick’s explained that it changed company policies because regulations in place would not have prevented the 19-year-old gunman from legally obtaining a firearm.

Still, even with the amounting threats, the gun industry has current standards and even challenged Dick’s policies, the changes violate age discrimination laws and is an affront to the Second Amendment. Some have even taken to the company’s new policy in court.

The activism by corporate America makes the response to the Parkland mass shooting different from the public’s response to other massacres. While it’s too early to determine the impact it has had on public policy, it is clear that proposed policy solutions mirror one another.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and of different areas of government have measures to improve the background check system and to raise the age limit to buy long guns from 18 to 21. And, state lawmakers in Florida — nicknamed the “gunshine state” for its pro-gun policies — to the governor’s desk this week.

[savetopnow]

2018-03-24 03 NEWS now

NEWS

Associated Press

Trump signs $1.3 trillion budget after threatening veto

UN reports see a lonelier planet with fewer plants, animals

The Latest: France: Macron says suspect killed 3, injured 16

US charges 9 Iranians in massive hacking scheme

French police storm supermarket, kill hostage-taker; 3 dead

BBC News

Fighting for Marielle at Rio protests

Cate Blanchett meets Rohingya child refugees

Meet the disabled Syrian boy who is always smiling

How DNA can be used to store computer data

Trump's cabinet: Who's next in the firing line?

Chicago Tribune

Des Plaines man with 15 DUI convictions accused of driving on revoked license in hit-and-run

Public TV station WYCC to return in April on shared channel with WTTW-Ch. 11

Graffiti removals spiked near HQ2 sites ahead of Amazon visit this week

Deportation proceedings begin for Afghan War veteran

After years of inquiries, Willow Creek pastor denies misconduct allegations

LA Times

Police say former Raider Aldon Smith violated restraining order

The gas tax repeal pothole: The need to fix the roads collides with fiscal politics

Vigil planned for Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man fatally shot by Sacramento police

California gains 14,000 jobs, and unemployment continues to fall

Trump signs government spending bill after last-minute threat to veto

NPR News

20 Years Later, Jonesboro Shooting Survivors Conflicted Over Parkland

Maryland School Shooting Victim Has Died

What Are The Different Kinds Of Dietary Iron, And How Should I Get Enough?

#NationalPuppyDay: The Holiday You Didn't Know You Needed

Spending Bill Allows CDC To Study Gun Violence, Researchers Skeptical It Will Help

New York Times

Nicholas Kristof: ‘Conflict Is More Profitable Than Peace’

Trump Signs Spending Bill, Reversing Veto Threat and Avoiding Government Shutdown

France Hostage Situation Is Over; 4 Dead, Including Gunman

A Word With: Burt Reynolds Has Made Mistakes. But He Regrets Nothing.

Opinion: 20 Years After the Shooting on the Playground

ProPublica

Warren Buffett Recommends Investing in Index Funds — But Many of His Employees Don’t Have That Option

Seeing Journalism Make a Difference in Election Results

Cutting ‘Old Heads’ at IBM

How the Crowd Led Us to Investigate IBM

Eroding Protection Under the Law

Reddit News

Rod Rosenstein announces indictment of Iranians for "conspiring" to hack U.S. entities

Hostages taken at a supermarket after shots fired near Montpellier in southern France

Russia 'arming the Afghan Taliban', says US

Massive blaze on set of Edward Norton, Bruce Willis movie kills firefighter

Protests Rock Russian Town After Over 50 Children Poisoned by Landfill Gas

Reuters

China urges U.S. away from 'brink' as Trump picks trade weapons

Trump signs budget deal after raising government shutdown threat

Wall St. struggles to shake off trade war fears, tech gloom

Europeans promise more steps against Russia over UK spy attack

Three die in French shooting and hostage-taking, attacker killed

Reveal News

Nation’s largest janitorial company faces new allegations of rape

A group of janitors started a movement to stop sexual abuse

The Hate Report: How white supremacists recruit online

New documents about Jehovah’s Witnesses’ sex abuse begin to leak out

California is preparing to defend its waters from Trump order

The Altantic

West Virginia's Teachers Are Not Satisfied

This Average Joe Is the Most Quoted Man in News

The Unsinkable Benjamin Netanyahu?

Eric Garcetti Isn't Expecting Much From Washington

The Particular Horror of Church Shootings

The Guardian

Mass protests in Poland against tightening of abortion law

Democrats attack Trump's choice John Bolton as 'reckless partisan'

The Spice Girls set to voice animated superhero movie

Why Zlatan's move to LA Galaxy is bad for Major League Soccer

Ceasefire deal agreed in Syria's eastern Ghouta

The Independent

New York City firefighter dies battling blaze at Harlem jazz club film set

Households are using twice as much energy as needed for laundry, reveals research

Black Men Walking, Royal Court, London, review: This production has a wow factor

Mark Sampson under investigation by Uefa for intimidating female official before FA dismissal

Mother who left newborn son home alone to buy chocolate reveals how postnatal depression left her with &apos;no love&apos; for baby

The Intercept

The DCCC Just Endorsed a Democrat in a Texas Runoff. Her Opponent is Thrilled.

Georgia Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Voted With GOP to Make it Harder to Hold Bank Executives Accountable

Donald Trump’s Civil Rights Office for Housing Has Found the Real Problem: Pets

John Bolton Chairs an Actual “Fake News” Publisher Infamous for Spreading Anti-Muslim Hate

Climate Change Policy Is Proving Difficult To Enact Even in Liberal States with Democratic Control

The Quartz

Everyone should take the climate change class a federal judge just held in his courtroom

Nike is trying to become the next great direct-to-consumer brand

Elon Musk just removed Tesla and SpaceX from Facebook

Steve Jobs tried to warn Mark Zuckerberg about privacy in 2010

Six months after Hurricane María, 100,000 Puerto Ricans are still in the dark

Wall Street Journal

Three Dead in France in Terrorist Attack

China's Shift Away From Exports Provides Cushion Against Tariffs

With Clock Counting Down, Next Phase of Brexit Talks to Start

U.S. Charges Nine Iranians With Cyberattack Campaign

U.K. Ire at Russia Prompts Focus on London-Based Oligarchs