December 31st . We're screwed !

 ** Obama Orders Pay Raise for Biden, Members of Congress, Federal Workers

despite fiscal cliff. 

It's December 31st, 2012 . Nothing new has come out of Washington D.C. . I had a gut feeling that when President Obama went on 'vacation' just right during the most crucial part of the fiscal negotiation that it spelled bad news . The President did not really care since the cliff is all he needs to increase taxes on everyone . The Republican's just wimpier about , as if paralyzed to the point of suspicion . Senators were "very, very close" to a deal, having worked out an agreement on taxes, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday afternoon. But the House of Representatives won't vote on any plans to avert the fiscal cliff on Monday, leaders have told members.  But Obama did not sound hopeful a deal was imminent, saying he expected to remain at the White House for New Year's Eve as a midnight deadline neared. This entire dispute is over who bears the burden of funding a runaway, gerrymandered corrupt Government which only answers to the rich. The rich want not only to run the show but to fund it on the backs of the peasants. We have all heard the blame game , the finger pointing going on between Senators of both parties . How they lie to the public is outrageous . They are working together secretly behind the sidelines . They want to raise taxes on us all because our nation is fiscally bankrupt . The very fact that it is an issue demonstrates that the US has no functioning representative government. Our elected representatives are using politics to further tilt the playing field in favor of the wealthy, who have been growing in wealth and favor for 30 years already. There is so much corruption in our government it is becoming hard to believe it can ever be corrected. Was the Iraq war about helping private oil companies secure new sources of oil, or was it about using some of the weapons of the military industrial complex to show the need we have for them? Why won’t the government break up the biggest (too big to fail) banks for our safety? Why are so many large corporations allowed to pay zero income tax? How can the country allow the super wealthy to spend as much as they please influencing our elections? It is madness all around. anticorruptionact.org and some others suggest reform, but will lawmakers ever kill their golden goose? How did Occupy Wall Street die out? That is exactly what we will need to do on a larger and larger scale if we the people, the workers, are to have any chance at a fair deal with the wealthy and powerful. I pray for integrity and honesty to rise up and meet these challenges of corruption, but will any statesman like elected officials ever step up to the plate? Bernie Sanders, Vermont senator, has many sensible ideas but no one supports him or them. Worst of all, the candidates who will do the bidding of the rich are elected by voters who are poor and quite unintelligent. The rural red states have given us a Congress that won’t raise taxes on millionaires who are paying historically low taxes. Do they still believe in trickle down and job creators despite abundant evidence to the contrary? Health insurance is so screwed up I cannot imagine why we won’t switch to government single payer, except for the greed of the wealthy and the lawmakers. If we are too stupid to vote them out, I guess we’ll get what we deserve.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 ** President Barack Obama issued an executive order to end the pay freeze on federal employees, in effect giving some federal workers a raise. One federal worker now to receive a pay increase is Vice President Joe Biden.

According to disclosure forms, Biden made a cool $225,521 last year. After the pay increase, he'll now make $231,900 per year.

Members of Congress, from the House and Senate, also will receive a little bump, as their annual salary will go from $174,000 to 174,900. Leadership in Congress, including the speaker of the House, will likewise get an increase.

Here's the list of new wages, as attached to President Obama's executive order:

HAPPY NEW YEAR ! 2013.

Why Russians will never adopt American Children.

As BAD as Putin is . He did the Right thing on adoptions .

Believe this is going to make most Americans blow. ** I am in kinda ways glad the President Putin signed the bill that prohibited Americans from adopting Russian Children . I will argue here that NO Russian should  adopt American Children either .The law takes effect Jan. 1, the Kremlin said. Children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said 52 children who were in the pipeline for U.S. adoption would remain in Russia.The ban is in response to a measure signed into law by President Barack Obama this month that calls for sanctions against Russians assessed to be human rights violators. Seriously, there's a tinge of racism to the story. A lot of yuppie couples are flocking to Russia to get their hands on a blond, blue-eyed kid to match their dyed blond hair. Meanwhile, not-so-blonde but equally adorable American kids sit by waiting for a loving family to take them home. Why won't American's adopt American Children , why is it that we ( Americans  ) have to jump overseas on a "rescue " mission to a foreign nation  ? There are orphanages  here made in the USA  that need loving couples to adopt . Let's change American laws so that  Better adoption laws would see more American children being adopted here rather than couples going to Russia for children. Russians should adopt their own children. Of course the reasons for Putins action was not based on the best for Russian children, a political move to respond to the USA charge on human rights. Mr. Putin is being demonized  for this action , but it is his right  therefore . Mr. Putin should put in order his papers in Russia that the Russian government would do a better job of taking care  of it's orphans . BELIEVE  me it's no insult  on American childless couples who have adopted Russian Children . Yes, that for them is a miracle . Politically and morally it's not our nation's citizens business to adopt children from other countries . Same for any other foreign  power to adopt American orphans either .  So are YOU  getting my  drift here ? 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

** Putin said U.S. authorities routinely let Americans suspected of violence toward Russian adoptees go unpunished — a clear reference to Dima Yakovlev, a Russian toddler for whom the bill is named. The child was adopted by Americans and then died in 2008 after his father left him in a car in broiling heat for hours. The father was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter . Russian officials, however, have pointed to the cases of 19 Russian adopted children who have been killed in the United States as evidence of broader mistreatment of Russian children by their adopted parents.  The bill also slaps sanctions on Americans accused of abusing Russian children and judges deemed to have provided them with lenient sentences. There is another  one unavoidable downside of adoption. Potential parents get to pick their child like a pet, often employing superficial criteria that has little to do with the child's soul or needs. Every child deserves to be lovedInterestingly, most media is talking about this adoption ban, but forget to even mention that the ban is part of much larger bill that includes sanctions on US human rights abusers, those who violate rights of Russian citizens, and bans all political so called ngos funded by US government and ‘privately’ (Soros and the like). This is a major bill designed to rid Russia of foreign political meddling.

No Commentary here please............

With this year almost out . I wanted to briefly write on stories I did not write my opinion on. There were many headlines that deserved a bit of a dismantling . I chose not to write anything on the  ** The trial of Jerry Sandusky on 52 charges of sexual crimes against children .... from hugs and wrestling and so on.  Passing that with Mass shootings this year .  Such stories drag our nation away from the main focus , and are distractions to a latter . Another piece that I sort of backed off , but not much to add was about the Arab Spring , and how it much the United States stood at safe harbor when all hell broke loose , and most of the dictators were overthrown . Thanks again that  our nation has engaged  in what it it always has been doing . Covert actions ,a secret action undertaken to influence the course of political events, as a government intelligence operation. Also called covert operation.  Thanks again  to the brilliance of the Secretary of the State Mrs. Clinton . We got rid of the old 'western looking ' dictators . Mubarak , Qaddafi . While it seemed to the American government that the rebels are our "friends" . Our country pulls something out of Jerry Sandusky's football strategy . It let it's defensive point  down . Case in point Benghazi. Our embassy was attacked , burned and four lives brutally killed  . It left the buck right up to the election at the hands of President Obama , and  Mrs. Clinton . The President was all hands off the subject I thought that Mitt Romney had his strongest case against Obama . The President and Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Rice  did an all but one two 'apologetic tour' when an uproar over a anti-Islamic film was posted on YouTube . There was enough CIA intelligence that the White House knew a year prior that al- Qaeda elements were possibly influencing the Arab Spring . There was even a purported 'Memo' that some Iranian elements were involved  in assassination attempts on western officials . Mr. Obama chose the obvious course and took a back seat to use the White House Bat phone and started calling his Arab friends - the Muslim Brotherhood . Obama then sends Mrs. Clinton on a peace mission all over the Middle east . It seems nothing else was done just prior to the NOV 6th vote , that Mrs. Clinton was slowing stepping out of the picture . She was burnt out , tired and made some poor judgments . She wanted the heat away from Mr. Obama who faced a tough election . She also bungled any chances for  U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice's potential bid to become the next secretary of state. Leaving Mr. Obama with John Kerry . Republican senators will refuse to confirm Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., as Secretary of State until the nation’s current top diplomat, Hillary Clinton, testifies about her handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack. “The Senate is expected to take up Kerry’s nomination in early January, but multiple Republican senators have already said they won’t agree to a vote on Kerry’s nomination until Clinton testifies about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi,” The Cable’s Josh Rogin notes. Clinton backed out of testifying at a congressional hearing last week after fainting and suffering a concussion. She was the first cabinet-level official to acknowledge that terrorists played a role in the assault on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.  Secretary Clinton accepted responsibility for Benghazi. She said that as Secretary of State, all State Department personnel work for her, and she is the person responsible for their safety. Therefore, she is the person responsible for the Benghazi tragedy. Christopher Stevens, the Associated Press reported in the first three paragraphs of its coverage that "Three State Department officials resigned under pressure," identifying those who had stepped down as "Eric Boswell, the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, Charlene Lamb, the deputy assistant secretary responsible for embassy security, and Raymond Maxwell, the deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the Maghreb nations of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco."

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

** Since details don’t seem to really matter anymore, here is the "Cliffs Notes" version of how the media created a false narrative (which they refuse to correct) in the Jerry Sandusky scandal. You might think of this as "Why Nearly Everything You Think You Know About the Penn State Story is False." Please feel free to share it as a resource with those whose minds you are trying to open about what really happened here.As the presidential debate on foreign policy is coming shortly, this is my current file of stories on "Benghazi-gate".  Apparently it is a riddle, wrapped in an enigma.  Competing theories range from simple incompetence to a planned October surprise gone wrong.  In any event, there has been a coverup, aided and abetted by those in the media loyal to the President to run interference.  The coming debate will be interesting and historic as this scandal now has the nation's attention.  It helps to have the information at your finger tips.  So, for you entertainment pleasure, here is the file: Benghazi-Gate. 

9 days for the Cliff.

President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wave as they board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Friday, Dec. 21, 2012 before departing for Hawaii.. Adieu FISCAL CLIFF.

With 9 days to go before the Fiscal Cliff President Obama landed in Hawaii on Saturday to begin his vacation, Washington went quiet for Christmas — even though the fiscal cliff deadline is just days away.

Negotiations remained at an impasse in the face of sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts that would automatically be triggered if a deal is not reached by Dec. 31.

Talks broke down this week, leaving Obama frustrated as he boarded Air Force One bound for his native state.

“There is absolutely no reason — none — not to protect these Americans from a tax hike,” Obama said at a White House news conference late Friday. “At the very least, let’s agree right now on what we already agree on.” Well OK .So, the President is still known as a 'my way or the highway' negotiator. Another way to look at is, the President gets a big win by going over the cliff (tax revenue and defense cuts), so he has no reason to negotiate. I thought the President would be working hard to avoid the "cliff" it seems that it was blown up in a big argument with  Speaker of the House John Boehner who  is home in Ohio. He recorded the weekly GOP address before leaving Washington, stressing the president's role in the failure to reach an agreement on the cliff. "What the president has offered so far simply won't do anything to solve our spending problem and begin to address our nation's crippling debt," he said in the recorded address, "The House has done its part to avert this entire fiscal cliff. ... The events of the past week make it clearer than ever that these measures reflect the will of the House." Right now Washington D.C. is a ghost town with no DEAL in sight . It might be rightly so . I believe that all these politicians including  the President DO WANT THE FISCAL CLIFF . The "cliff" would benefit both parties . It would "raise" taxes on EVERY AMERICAN , it would increase revenues . As a added PLUS the "cliff" would also "CUT SPENDING" nearly a trillion dollars . You see no wonder Obama is on Vacation , and the Speaker of the House Boehner is enjoying every minute  of the "media" side show. Certain politicians in the house are in a tough position. They have a pledge to never raise taxes up against a "fiscal cliff". Throw in a letter from conservative groups confirming positions and making it clear what could happen politically if certain legislation is passed. The "fiscal cliff" if it occurs could push the US and the world into another recession and eventually reduce spending so much our military could be weakened. Pledge against raising taxes for all or raising taxes on the top percent of the riches American's. We have had historically low tax rates for over a decade. Previous rates were managed by both parties over the years. Not to mention how a certain party will be impacted by no deal being reached. That all being said. Do they really believe that tax rates or revenues should never be raised? What if we go to war, want to pay down deficits, have environmental issues like storms? What about inflation? It is like a company saying no matter how much a product cost to produce or what our competition is doing we will never raise our prices. It is almost funny to think taxes should never be raised period.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

Partly by fate, partly by design, some scary fiscal forces come together at the start of 2013 unless Congress and Obama act to stop them. They include:

• Some $536 billion in tax increases, touching nearly all Americans, because various federal tax cuts and breaks expire at year's end.

• About $110 billion in spending cuts divided equally between the military and most other federal departments. That's about 8 percent of their annual budgets, 9 percent for the Pentagon.

Taxes would jump $2,400 on average for families with incomes of $50,000 to $75,000, according to a study by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. Because consumers would get less of their paychecks to spend, businesses and jobs would suffer.

At the same time, Americans would feel cuts in government services; some federal workers would be furloughed or laid off, and companies would lose government business. The nation would lose up to 3.4 million jobs, the Congressional Budget Office predicts.

• Some 2 million jobless Americans may lose their federal unemployment aid. Obama wants to continue the benefits extension as part of the deal; Republicans say it's too costly.

• Social Security recipients might see their checks grow more slowly. As part of a possible deal, Obama and Republican leaders want to change the way cost-of-living adjustments are calculated, which would mean smaller checks over the years for retirees who get Social Security, veterans' benefits or government pensions.

• The price of milk could double. If Congress doesn't provide a fix for expiring dairy price supports before Jan. 1, milk-drinking families could feel the pinch. One scenario is to attach a farm bill extension to the fiscal cliff legislation — if a compromise is reached in time.

• Millions of taxpayers who want to file their 2012 returns before mid-March will be held up while they wait to see if Congress comes through with a deal to stop the alternative minimum tax from hitting more people.

The Second Amendment a bio .

Blaming the NRA in this case recently has not covered up our nations
"bloody history " of violence .

AMENDMENT II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

WE have often underestimated our constitutional liberties . Over the years , and primarily the past 100 years our nation has changed to a degree . What has stood still is our American fascination with guns that  has a long history of "bearing arms"  for other reasons that have anything to do with hunting deer . America has fallen asleep as I have said before . We have always had a violent edge to our society . How could we forget that in the last century during the 1920's there has been a violent wave of mass killings or-castrated buy gangsters during prohibition . Like the St Valentines Day massacre .  In the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings  it seems a little to late for me to think that ** President Obama is jumping to curb violence . Take Oakland Ca  for instance recently there have been drive by shootings with "legal" guns that already has killed over a hundred people this year . The Police in that American city are out gunned by criminals who carry military style  weapons bought and sold in American gun shops .

Getting back to the subject on the 2nd Amendment . For more than a hundred years, the answer was clear, even if the words of the amendment itself were not. #  The text of the amendment is divided into two clauses and is, as a whole, ungrammatical: “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” The courts had found that the first part, the “militia clause,” trumped the second part, the “bear arms” clause. In other words, according to the Supreme Court, and the lower courts as well, the amendment conferred on state militias a right to bear arms—but did not give individuals a right to own or carry a weapon. On Sunday, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer went on CBS’s Face The Nation and argued that people who support gun control “have to admit that there is a Second Amendment right to bear arms”.Schumer’s effort to reach out to the gun-rights community may be well-intentioned, but it is also deeply ironic. If the nation truly embraced the Second Amendment as it was originally written and understood, it would be the NRA’s worst nightmare.   Constitutional scholars understand that the term "militia" is defined as "non-professional soldiers / armed body of citizens." It was with just such an army that we fought off the greatest military power in the world! The idea was also that, during times of peace, no standing army would be required. The "militia" would take their guns and go back to their farms, shops and homes until "called up" for the next emergency.  The NRA recently made a statement In a press conference Friday, Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice-president of the National Rifle Association, said that children had been put in danger by “laws for gun-free school zones” and by having “unarmed principals.” (“How have our nation’s priorities gotten so far out of order?”) At what might have been a moment of humility for the organization, he said that people “driven by demons” were among us, along with a “much larger, more lethal criminal class,” and that the only way to stop them was with guns—with “armed security in every school” and a “National Model School Shield Program” to be developed by the N.R.A. Well the NRA seems to be thinking back to the old west here . Where else does all this lead? Will we evaluate teachers not only on their students’ test scores, but on target practice, with merit pay for mastery of semi-automatic weapons? Mourners at the funeral of the next Vicki Soto shouldn’t have to whisper about her aim. Or is the only good teacher the teacher who keeps a Glock in her purse, and knows how to use it; or the one who has a second gun on her so that when some troubled eighth-grader grabs the classroom weapon she can shoot down her own student? Perhaps we’d be told then that he wouldn’t have done it if he knew that everyone else at recess had a gun. Do we picture our students becoming regimented gunmen themselves, or rather gun-children, with weaponry a normalized part of the high-school, then middle- and elementary-school curriculum—child soldiers for the Second Amendment?

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 #  During the War of 1812 the United States army was made of of enlisted able bodied men who were 13 to 60 year old's who part of  "   militias"  carried their weapons and went off to fight ,Militia units from Maryland were called to defend Washington and Baltimore during the War of 1812. In 1813 and 1814 several companies were formed in Washington County. One of the muster rolls (or rosters) of men of the Company of Captain John Miller from Sharpsburg has survived, and can be seen at the Washington County Historical Society. Miller formed a company which was part of the 2nd Regiment under Lt. Col. R K. Heath. Edward Wright notes that four days were allowed for travelling to Sharpsburg, though this is not included on the muster roll itself.

**Mr. Obama’s record on gun control faces new scrutiny after his call for action in the wake of Friday’s Newtown, Conn., school shooting, which advocates of new restrictions on gun ownership say should be a wake-up call for Congress and the White House to act.

During the president’s first visit to Mexico in April 2009, Mr. Obama tried to prove that the U.S. was serious about reining in guns and ammunition flowing to Mexico, which Mexican officials contended was fueling the cross-border gang violence of the bloody drug trade.

After a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Mr. Obama announced his support for a long-stalled inter-American weapons treaty and said he would urge the Senate to ratify it.

The regional treaty, adopted by the Organization of American States, was signed by former President Bill Clinton in 1997 but never ratified in the Senate.

Mr. Obama at the time pledged to revive efforts to ratify the treaty “to curb small-arms trafficking that is a source of so many of the weapons used in this drug war.”

But the headline came and passed without a tangible push from the White House to urge the Senate to take up the treaty. It remains unratified.

Later that year, after the mass shootings by a U.S. Army major at Fort Hood, Texas, Mr. Obama grieved with victims and their families.

“This is a time of war, and yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle,” he said. “They were killed here, on American soil in the heart of this great American community.”

But Mr. Obama’s eloquent words and delivery did not lead to any major changes in administration policy on mental health services or inspire a national debate on gun violence.

In January 2011, after the shooting rampage in Tucson, Ariz., that took the lives of six people and wounded then U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona and 12 others, Mr. Obama got more specific, promising to launch a national discussion on gun violence to put an end to the slaying of innocent civilians.

In an op-ed column Mr. Obama penned for the Arizona Daily Star in March 2011, the president used some of the same language he did during remarks at a Sunday night vigil for families of victims of the Newtown shootings.

Obama's failed Gun policies.

The President shed  only one  "tear" . Since he has been in office there
have been 3 mass shootings. What is wrong here?

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a leading national voice for new gun control laws, said President Barack Obama hasn’t made enough of an effort to ban ownership of assault weapons and restrict gun sales to criminals and mentally ill buyers.   Bloomberg accused Obama, who has said he supports an assault weapons ban, of failing to act on the issue and other gun restrictions. “It’s time for the president, I think, to stand up and lead,” he said. “This should be his number one agenda. He’s president of the United States, and if he does nothing during his second term, something like 48,000 Americans will be killed with illegal guns.President Obama missed a golden opportunity when, in the wake of the July massacre in Colorado, he failed to press Congress to ban assault weapons and outlaw large magazines for repeating firearms. The president should make good on his 2008 campaign promise to reinstate the 1994 ban on so-called assault weapons, Bloomberg said. As far as guns goes Mr. Obama has been the NRA's best friend So, who knew Obama would be such a pro-gun president?  That goes without saying -- but ordinary citizens. Pressure came from the National Rifle Association, but if Obama thought it might appease the gun lobby, he was dead wrong. He's the most pro-gun Democratic president in recent memory but he's still being accused of harboring a "secret plan" to abolish all hand guns. Everyone now is  out buying guns because they think he’s going to confiscate them but here  ***he is signing a bill that allows gun owners with carry permits to carry loaded guns into national parks: Obama signed the bill despite a controversial clause inserted in the legislation by allies of the gun lobby group National Rifle Association. The language permits gun owners to carry concealed weapons in national parks, a rule which gun control advocates complain threatens public safety. Another flub thanks to President Obama .  Amtrak passengers will be allowed to bring unloaded guns on most trains starting in December, The Sacramento Bee reports.The policy, which took effect  Dec. 15, allows passengers to bring guns aboard trains that have checked baggage service. Unloaded firearms must be packed in hard-sided containers and will be stored in train lockers, the newspaper reports. The change, ordered by Congress, brings Amtrak's firearms policy in line with air travel rules that permit unloaded guns to be stored in locked baggage holds, the paper says. Well the politicians have kicked the can , so far we have had 3 mass shootings since Obama took office . Remember during the Presidential debates the question of gun control came up and it was dodged by  Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to address gun violence. In last night’s second presidential debate, Nina Gonzalez, an audience member, finally forced the issue by asking the candidates about guns. Both Obama and Romney said what their supporters wanted to hear, but neither offered up any proposals that would have any significant impact on gun deaths. You may not have noticed, but gun sales are booming these days. since  2011 was another record breaking year, with Americans purchasing some 10.8 million firearms, a 14% increase over 2010, and up 50% from ten years ago. Expect sales in 2012 to push even higher. Surveys among gun store owners and statistics on firearm background checks, among other sources, confirm that America's interest in gun ownership is growing exponentially. I think there are two reasons why these mass murders happen mostly in the US. It's not just the availability of semi-automatic weapons, although that is a big part of it. It is also the prevalence of the kind militant paranoia . As a "greatest nation" on the earth, it would be humbling to learn from other developed countries who have implemented strict gun control laws to deal with the tragic events without infringing on the rights of citizens, a concern often voiced by the conservatives. But at least make it a priority and undertake a bipartisan effort to achieve a conclusive goal. We owe it to the departed souls.

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

*** Obama said this way back in 2011 . 

"In this country, we have a strong tradition of gun ownership that's handed from generation to generation. Hunting and shooting are part of our national heritage. And, in fact, my administration has not curtailed the rights of gun owners -- it has expanded them, including allowing people to carry their guns in national parks and wildlife refuges."

That wasn't Ronald Reagan speaking, or even George W. Bush. It was Barack Obama in an op-ed published in March 2011. Obama, like so many Democrats these days, is running scared on the issue of gun control; one reason, despite last week's horrific killings in Aurora, Colorado, that you haven't heard a peep from him, or from his party on this issue. Going back to the Aurora massacre . The first gun that the Aurora shooter used was a shotgun, You know, the kind of gun that almost everyone agrees you should be able to own to "hunt" with? Well most all shotguns sold today are semi auto and they function exactly the same way an "assault rifle" does. But an "assault rifle" shoots the .223 round, meant for long flat shooting. Actually it's not all that lethal of a caliber and in certain cases rather survivable. The .223 is basically a reved up .22. Now take a 12 ga. shotgun loaded with heavy slug rounds. That combination will take your arm off at the shoulder of your leg off at the knee at 30 feet..and you don't really have to even aim to do it Adam Lanza on the other hand was a product of "bad parenting"  Nancy Lanza loved guns, and often took her sons to one of the shooting ranges here in the suburbs northeast of New York City, where there is an active community of gun enthusiasts, her friends said. At a local bar, she sometimes talked about her gun collection.It was one of her guns that was apparently used to take her life on Friday. Her killer was her son Adam Lanza, 20, who then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, where he killed 26 more people, 20 of them small children, before shooting himself, the authorities said. Ms. Lanza’s fascination with guns became an important focus of attention on Saturday as investigators tried to determine what caused Mr. Lanza to carry out one of the worst massacres in the nation’s history.

When will Gun violence end?

What have we learned from past mass shootings?
nothing. 

I have to send my condolences to the families that lost their children , friends and partners at  Sandy Hook Elementary School. When will Gun violence end? There is no thought that races in my mind how our society that has glorified violence in movies can sustain it's  self .After a whole lot of confusion, the NY Post, NY Times and other news outlets have now identified  **Adam Lanza as the suspect in the tragic shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut this morning. Altogether, at least 27 people were killed, including 20 children, when the 20-year-old Lanza allegedly walked into the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and opened fire. We have had mass shootings before . A friend of mine I was talking to said to me today that it seems to her that this kinda violence seems to be escalating , and each one more horrific . I have to play the escapologist here. Yes , we have always had violence in our American Society . Yes we have always had guns available ,  and for me a historian , and researcher we only have to look at our history as a nation a little deeper . We are all shocked today and forget the long last century of violence . It has always been with us. It's our nation that has fallen asleep because our politicians bicker on what to do about guns . Yet these sorts of headlines are also becoming gut-wrenchingly familiar. Of the 12 deadliest shootings in U.S. history, six have taken place since 2007. (The Newton school shooting will likely rank second on that list.) Mass killings appear to be on the upswing — even as other types of homicides and violent crimes are becoming less frequent. One source says " David Brooks highlighted this discrepancy back in July. For much of the 20th century there were, on average, a handful of mass killings per decade. But that number spiked in 1980, and kept rising thereafter. In the United States, there have now been at least 62 mass shootings in the past three decades, with 24 in the last seven years alone. This has happened even as the nation’s overall violent crime and homicide rates have been dropping.". 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:
Conspiracy theorists would note these , As a culture, and I’m specifically speaking about North America, we’re being desensitized to violence and mass death. It seems it’s every other week that we hear about violent incidents and mass shootings at malls, cinemas, schools, and other public places. Zero Hedge has complied a list of mass shootings in the last two decades, and the list is by no means comprehensive. For instance, it doesn’t include the shooting at Eaton Centre Mall in Toronto in early June. 

 **  

Adam Lanza was reclusive, painfully shy and intensely bright. He also lived in a house full of guns.

   SO: WHEN our society as a whole is FORCED to confront and WITNESS over and over and over again something as FUNDAMENTALLY shocking as having our young people perpetrating inconceivably horrific mass murders of peers and others on A REGULAR BASIS, as is NOW THE CASE in the present-day United States, then the population as a whole AND on an individual basis to some extent develops an analogous, similar psychological break, and in FACT to some extent develops split personality/multiple personality disorder conditions... READY FOR FURTHER MIND CONTROL PROGRAMMING.

Increased disconnectedness with society and gun availability have become powerful factors in mass murders. 
 
Social Disconnectedness  1950s studies demonstrated increased alienation and disaffection due to social and industrial changes in Post-WWII America. "The Lonely Crowd," (1950) by David Reisman, et. al. posited a new social trait, the "outer-directed" person who had no traditional or "inner-directed" guides to behavior. Leon Festinger proposed cognitive dissonance theory (1957) where perceptions about the world and ourselves clash, and that discrepancy becomes a tension that can result in irrational or even violent behavior. Thus, outer-directed and cognitive dissonance behaviors become indicators of social alienation in modern society. 
 
Troll numerous "comments" sections of various web sites and observe the comments that are outrageous, alienated rants against the values and beliefs that characterized the tradition-directed and inner-directed values and beliefs of earlier times. 
 
Availability of Guns: Assume a jr lawyer is called in by a law firm principal and told she /he has first choice of 2 clients the firm will represent. Client 1 is accused of murder with a knife. Client 2 is accused of murder with a gun. Which client should the jr lawyer choose? The answer is Client 2. Client 1 would be rejected because it would be much more difficult to convince a jury that plunging a knife into a victim was not intentional. But with Client 2, pulling a trigger was a passive action, not being involved in the moment the bullet tore into the victim's flesh. 
 
Even if social disconnectness and gun availability are powerful factors in mass murders, there is no way to identify potential mass murders and there is no political will to reduce gun availability. It might be thought that if the murders were horrific enough, the public would demand stricter gun control, but even with the murder of a president and successive mass murders, the public is mum. That is the tragedy.

The "Shock Jocks" my View.

A Joke gone bad has it's consequences . Here are our two  apologetic DJ's 

. Mel Greig and Michael Christian,

I guess a Prank is a Prank as long as NO ONE  GET's HURT . I am not trying to be a "devil's advocate" here , you know that in our society here in America we for a long time had to deal with Radio Shock Jock doing stunts for ratings  The call, in which they impersonated Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles.With the apparent  ** suicide of Jacintha Saldanha, the nurse who inadvertently put through a prank call to the hospital ward where the Duchess of Cambridge was staying, has provoked outrage, sadness and demands for retribution in all corners of the media.The tragedy has revived memories of previous practical jokes that have gone horribly wrong, but also stirred an already febrile debate on ethical boundaries, whether in the mainstream or social media, and what, if any, legal recourse should be available to people humiliated or taunted in public. I guess with all argument the two radio DJ's probably never wanted to hurt anyone . Practical jokes--or any kind of jokes--can backfire on joker very quickly and without warning. If it does backfire, there is nothing to do but to accept responsibility for the consequences. You made the joke, you starts it, you are responsible for whatever the end outcome is.responsible for whatever the end outcome is.It was a harmless prank that went south because of a woman with mental problems. I would not hold these two responsible for this woman's death. The nurse who actually gave out all the information doesn't seem to have a problem with it. I'm glad the DJs are not losing their job because some woman overacted to the point she took her life.The nurse who killed herself was from a foreign country, where public humiliation leads to shame. Of course the nurse didn't know the voices of the Queen and Duke. And after she found out that she had inadvertently allowed a bogus call through that exploited confidential information, she must have been shocked, frightened and tortured. Of course she thought she would lose her job. Of course she thought she had ruined her life and the lives of her family, after having worked so hard to become a nurse and help others. She was from India, a country where this sort of disgusting humor would not be understood.Is there any chance we're mistaking coincidence with cause? Did she leave a note stating that it was this incident that she felt led her to no out but suicide? Suicide is such a devastating decision and to reach it one normally needs to have reached a tremendous low point, and I'm not sure I understand how this prank could have affected her so strongly. Were there other factors in her life that were negative? I'm not saying there were, only that it seems something else might well have been amiss. I don't much care for prank radio shows or prank calls, as they can go terribly wrong and this is a serious risk for something that is not particularly funny, educational, entertaining nor uplifting. Whatever the case may be, it is truly a sad day all around.Is there any chance we're mistaking coincidence with cause? Did she leave a note stating that it was this incident that she felt led her to no out but suicide? Suicide is such a devastating decision and to reach it one normally needs to have reached a tremendous low point, and I'm not sure I understand how this prank could have affected her so strongly. Were there other factors in her life that were negative? I'm not saying there were, only that it seems something else might well have been amiss. I don't much care for prank radio shows or prank calls, as they can go terribly wrong and this is a serious risk for something that is not particularly funny, educational, entertaining nor uplifting. Whatever the case may be, it is truly a sad day all around.Is there any chance we're mistaking coincidence with cause? Did she leave a note stating that it was this incident that she felt led her to no out but suicide? Suicide is such a devastating decision and to reach it one normally needs to have reached a tremendous low point, and I'm not sure I understand how this prank could have affected her so strongly. Were there other factors in her life that were negative? I'm not saying there were, only that it seems something else might well have been amiss. I don't much care for prank radio shows or prank calls, as they can go terribly wrong and this is a serious risk for something that is not particularly funny, educational, entertaining nor uplifting. Whatever the case may be, it is truly a sad day all around.Is there any chance we're mistaking coincidence with cause? Did she leave a note stating that it was this incident that she felt led her to no out but suicide? Suicide is such a devastating decision and to reach it one normally needs to have reached a tremendous low point, and I'm not sure I understand how this prank could have affected her so strongly. Were there other factors in her life that were negative? I'm not saying there were, only that it seems something else might well have been amiss. I don't much care for prank radio shows or prank calls, as they can go terribly wrong and this is a serious risk for something that is not particularly funny, educational, entertaining nor uplifting. Whatever the case may be, it is truly a sad day all around.   It is easy to look through our cultural eyes and see it as a joke, but other cultures do not necessarily share our contemporary Anglo humor  and may well see such a prank as a great shame to bear, 

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

 **About 30 years ago there was a "craze" that music , some Heavy Metal Bands put subliminal messages in  their music driving Teenagers to commit suicide . I remember  "Ozzy" Osbourne" and "Judas Priest" recived  bad press because of acts attributed to their music . Our culture thrives on witch hunts instead of taking the least logical  'psychological ' explanation . The Bad press to Ozzy actually made him even more "famous" . People were buying his records trying to find any hidden messages . Like wise these DJ's are likely going to clime the road .  Right now there could be legal action against the DJ's. Only people to blame here are the hospital. Lets not forget that this is a VERY expensive private hospital.  Clearly they do not have in place a 24/7 professional call reception service that provides the expected level of checking and filtering compatible with the types of patients it looks after. If your going to look after celebrities, royals and billionaires then make sure you have communications and security managed by people used to dealing with this environment, and not leave it to some poor nurse to pick up the phone. 

Southern Cross Austereo also has apologized, and stopped running any advertising on 2DayFM following Saldanha's death. On Tuesday it issued a statement announcing that ads would resume Thursday, with all profits for the rest of December to be donated to "an appropriate fund that will directly benefit" Saldanha's family. The company said it would donate at least 500,000 Australian dollars ($525,000)

The world must be a terrible and frightening place for you if you can't stomach that. Hospitals have protocols for handling calls like those. People are making a huge deal out of this one lapse because the patient happened to be married to a privileged rich person who was born into it. If there was ever a link between the prank and the suicide (and I doubt it), it was because of the unwarranted attention being paid to the incident. What has the world become? It has become a place where 16000 children dying of starvation worldwide daily is less interesting news than the royal family doing shopping.

"Up in Smoke " - Legalization Issues.

Recent trends in  Legalization only shows how our American Laws conflict  with
each other 

It's  finally  happening . There are signs that America's "war on drugs" is falling apart.  Least for now . Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana in the prohibition era on Tuesday, dealing a major blow to the war on drugs. Medical marijuana was also legalized in Massachusetts, underlining long-running trends in public opinion toward more permissive attitudes on drugs. Pro-pot groups cheered passage of referendums legalizing recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington state as the "light at the end of the tunnel" in their 50-year campaign to make the drug legal nationwide. The votes marked a significant shift from decades of tough-on-crime policies that burned through $1 trillion in tax dollars over 40 years, led to the arrest of 850,000 Americans for marijuana law violations in 2010 alone, and fueled the rise of deadly drug cartels abroad. But even as pot reformers celebrated their long-sought victories, the threat of a confrontation with the federal government loomed.It's very interesting to see that only two states have passed the laws to legalize the use of recreational marijuana. Though, I believe this is short-lived since it is the federal government that makes marijuana illegal -- Hence a federal law that is boaster by the pharmaceutical companies not to mention the billions that could be freed up in the "War on Drugs" machine Before someone says something totally stupid, I am against the  legalization of  of marijuana.  On grounds that as a society we have enough "intoxicants " , we have also been flooded recently with legal designer drugs .  We could see how well prohibition has worked on Alcohol only making people and organizations in crime richer -- Not to mention making ordinary people criminals when they took a drink. Many people, too many, though it seems doesn't understand the United States Government -- The Government here is a corporate government Meaning; It is controlled by the corporations, those goons of the 1% and marijuana is the loss of the pharmaceuticals controls of these medical companies. Hundreds of millions of dollars in Colorado and Washington now are being lost in spite of whatever state taxes may be implied. Obama administration considering ways to overturn marijuana legalization in Washington and Colorado. Here is what the Whitehouse is considering from it's web sit @ gov.  " Recently, there have been increasing efforts to legalize marijuana. The Obama Administration has consistently reiterated its firm opposition to any form of drug legalization. Together with Federal partners and state and local officials, the Office of National Drug Control Policy is working to reduce the use of marijuana and other illicit drugs through development of strategies that fully integrate the principles of prevention, treatment, recovery, and effective supply reduction efforts. Proposals such as legalization that would promote marijuana use are inconsistent with this public health and safety approach."  Meanwhile Pat Robertson of Christian Coalition has another view that not so conservative . He said , and I quote : 

We're locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana and the next thing you know they've got 10 years -- they've got mandatory sentences and these judges, they throw up their hand and say "What can we do? It's mandatory sentences." We've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes, and that's one of 'em. I mean, I'm not exactly for the use of drugs, don't get me wrong. But I just believe criminalizing marijuana, criminalizing the possession of just a few ounces of pot, and that kind of thing, I mean it's costing us a fortune, and it's ruining young people. The young people go into prisons, they go in as youths, and they come out as hardened criminals, and it's not a good thing.

The comments naturally drew lots of attention and so quickly drew a response from CBN spokesman Chris Roslan, who insisted that Robertson did not call for the decriminalization of marijuana but rather "was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws because mandatory drug sentences do harm to many young people who go to prison and come out as hardened criminals. He was also pointing out that these mandatory sentences needlessly cost our government millions of dollars when there are better approaches available."

NOTES AND COMMENTS:

We have have heard all sides to the Legalization issues . I for one  am concerned that once the 'herb' is legal, and available . Certain people will mix it with alcohol . Yes it's going to be a "chronic" for the country. Maybe perhaps that is why we will have Obama-care in effect to treat all the recreational pot smokers who mixed it up with booze .  The POLLS show a trend to the nation its' self . The YouGov survey, conducted for The Huffington Post on Dec. 5 and 6, found that 51 percent of the 1,000 adults interviewed said the federal government should “exempt adults who follow state law from enforcement.” Thirty percent said the federal government should “enforce its drug laws the same way it does in other states,” the poll found.Support for legalizing marijuana use — and not simply for medical purposes — has been rising steadily since the early 1990s. The most recent polls have shown a public divided. A CBS News poll from mid-November found an even split, with 47 percent supporting legalization and 47 percent opposed. A more recent Quinnipiac University poll found a bare majority supporting legalization, 51 percent to 44 percent.