Senate Democrats are preparing a legislative push to curb guns, a week after a mass shooting at an Oregon community college refocused attention on the nation’s toll of firearms deaths.
Republicans controlling Congress have shown scant interest in restricting guns and the Democratic effort has little chance of success. But their drive could keep the issue alive during next year’s elections, driving up support from sympathetic voters and contributors while complicating GOP senators’ re-election campaigns in some closely divided states . . .
Democrats said their effort would include broadening federal background checks, now required only for sales by federally licensed firearms dealers, to cover all purchases at gun shows and online. A bipartisan version of that plan, opposed by the National Rifle Association, was blocked in 2013 by Republicans and a few Democrats, months after the fatal shooting of 20 students and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. (Read more from “Senate Democrats Preparing Legislative Package to Curb Guns” HERE)
For years, police nationwide have used patrol car-mounted scanners to automatically photograph and log the whereabouts of peoples’ cars, uploading the images into databases they’ve used to identify suspects in crimes from theft to murder.
Nowadays, they are also increasingly buying access to expansive databases run by private companies whose repo men and tow-truck drivers photograph license plates of vehicles every day.
Civil libertarians and lawmakers are raising concerns about the latest practice, arguing that there are few, if any, protections against abuse and that the private databases go back years at a time when agencies are limiting how long such information is stored. (Read more from “Private Database Lets Police Skirt License Plate Data Limits” HERE)
Through the course of her 20-plus years in national politics, Hillary Clinton has on many occasions told a tale about the time in the summer of 1969 that she worked briefly at a fishery in Valdez, Alaska after graduating from Wellesley College.
The story appears to have a couple of purposes. It makes Clinton seem tough, gritty and humble — the kind of story that a person with political aspirations would like to tell. Clinton also uses it as the perfect analogy to a career in Beltway politics.
“Best preparation for being in Washington that you can possibly imagine,” she told David Letterman during an interview in 2007.
But the story has morphed over the years, from its first iteration in 1992 when the then-first lady of Arkansas claimed she was fired from her job because she confronted her fishmonger boss over the putrid state of the salmon she was hired to gut to the version she shared during a question-and-answer session during a town hall on Monday . . .
Asked if she has ever been fired from a job, Clinton told voters in New Hampshire Monday that she was. (Read more from “Hillary Clinton Tells a Fishy Story About Being ‘Fired’ From Job in Alaska” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-08 00:43:542016-04-11 10:57:38Hillary Clinton Tells a Fishy Story About Being ‘Fired’ From Job in Alaska
Rates of depression and anxiety among young people in America have been increasing steadily for the past 50 to 70 years. Today, by at least some estimates, five to eight times as many high school and college students meet the criteria for diagnosis of major depression and/or anxiety disorder as was true half a century or more ago. This increased psychopathology is not the result of changed diagnostic criteria; it holds even when the measures and criteria are constant.
The most recent evidence for the sharp generational rise in young people’s depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders comes from a just-released study headed by Jean Twenge at San Diego State University. Twenge and her colleagues took advantage of the fact that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), a questionnaire used to assess a variety of mental disorders, has been given to large samples of college students throughout the United States going as far back as 1938, and the MMPI-A (the version used with younger adolescents) has been given to samples of high school students going as far back as 1951. The results are consistent with other studies, using a variety of indices, which also point to dramatic increases in anxiety and depression—in children as well as adolescents and young adults—over the last five or more decades.
We would like to think of history as progress, but if progress is measured in the mental health and happiness of young people, then we have been going backward at least since the early 1950s.
The question I want to address here is why.
The increased psychopathology seems to have nothing to do with realistic dangers and uncertainties in the larger world. The changes do not correlate with economic cycles, wars, or any of the other kinds of world events that people often talk about as affecting children’s mental states. Rates of anxiety and depression among children and adolescents were far lower during the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and the turbulent 1960s and early ‘70s than they are today. The changes seem to have much more to do with the way young people view the world than with the way the world actually is. (Read more from “The Decline of Play and Rise in Children’s Mental Disorders” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-08 00:41:562016-04-11 10:57:39The Decline of Play and Rise in Children’s Mental Disorders
By the end of this week we will know if there is any constructive purpose to the existence of the House Freedom Caucus. If they can’t block the less articulate version of John Boehner from ascending to the speakership they as might as well close up shop.
As we noted last week, the problems with the Republican Party run far deeper than the woes of John Boehner. They certainly will not be solved with this leadership election. But one thing is clear: The GOP base is demanding a change in course, and simply promoting another rung of repudiated leaders—the deputy arsonists of Boehner’s five-year inferno—up one notch on the totem pole will not satisfy those demands. An outcome that allows McCarthy and Scalise, baggage and all, to climb the ladder of leadership is unacceptable.
So what is the end game? There are, after all, only a few dozen conservative members and they lack the votes to elect one of their own to the speakership.
Conservative members must understand that this was never about electing one of their own. It’s about using their leverage to overrule the next in line and force a complete change in leadership, however imperfect the new candidates might be. With more than 30 members committed to opposing McCarthy, the House Freedom Caucus can use its leverage to veto this colossal mistake.
It is quite clear that McCarthy will garner well over 124 votes in the conference election on Thursday, securing a majority of the GOP conference in support of his election on the House floor. But given that all the Democrats will presumably vote for Pelosi, if all of the Republicans who vote for Jason Chaffetz or Daniel Webster in conference commit to doing the same on the House floor, McCarthy will be denied the majority. This will have the effect of delaying the election and adding another dimension of significance to this race. As conservatives, we all understand that choice and competition perfect the outcome, and by making it clear that the“next in line” is unacceptable, the Freedom Caucus can open the door for even more candidates to toss their hats in the ring, lay out their vision for the House and what issues are important to them. A drawn out speaker election, no matter the ultimate result, is a win for conservatives who wish to be heard.
At this point, chaos is our best friend. No conservative believes that we are one leadership election from the Promised Land. What ails this party cannot be cured without electing a principled and fearless conservative to the presidency. But for now, the least we can do is elect a vanguard until 2017, someone who will focus on issues conservatives care about and who does not owe his position to the existing corrupt system, but to the conservatives who created a path for an unlikely upstart.
Some conservatives believe Kevin McCarthy will toss them a few bones as it relates to “process” rules in return for obtaining their support. But how could the man who artfully worked the existing system to his advantage—who thrives off the power structure we seek to upend—ever work for us?
What sort of insanity has possessed those who would give McCarthy and Scalise, the very leaders who shepherded the Planned Parenthood funding through the House, an immediate promotion?
House conservatives were elected for a reason and it’s time for them to use their leverage to fulfill the mandate from their constituents to change leadership. If they think McCarthy qualifies as change they will learn the hard way from their voters that he is merely a cloddish version of everything they despise in Washington. (For more from the author of “Leadership End Game: Anyone but McCarthy” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-07 13:47:412016-04-11 10:57:39Leadership End Game: Anyone but McCarthy
By F. Peter Brown. Presidential candidate Ben Carson has been outspoken about his faith, communicating it in a way that has drawn mass appeal, especially among social conservatives.
Carson was recently in the spotlight, coming under attack for saying that he would not advocate for a Muslim running for President of the United States.
Now Carson has produced a meme with the #IAmAChristian hashtag that has gone massively viral: there were more than 1 million likes and 173,000 shares on Facebook as of Sunday night. He created it in response to the school shooting in Oregon.
Photo Credit: Facebook
Carson posted on both Twitter and Facebook a picture of him holding a sign saying “I am a Christian” with the icthus (Christian fish symbol) below it.
According to reports by several survivors, the gunman in the Oregon shooting asked people if they were Christians before shooting them. If they answered ‘yes’, they were shot in the head. If they instead answered ‘no’, they were shot in the legs.
Carson frequently holds a Facebook Q&A session, answering various questions sent in by the American people. That night Carson decided to call it off, saying he thought it was “inappropriate” in light of the shooting. (Read more from “See the Photo of Ben Carson That Has Gone Massively Viral- One Look and You’ll Know Why” HERE)
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Ben Carson on Oregon: ‘I Would Not Just Stand There and Let Him Shoot Me’
By Alan Rappeport. Ben Carson, the retired neurosurgeon who is a leading Republican presidential contender, has intensified his defense of gun rights in response to last week’s Oregon campus massacre, arguing that the Second Amendment is more sacred than spilled blood.
He also suggested that the victims should have had the courage to attack their assailant and accused President Obama of politicizing the tragedy by embracing the families of the dead.
In a Facebook question-and-answer session Monday night, Mr. Carson tried to show empathy with victims by recalling that two of his cousins were killed in the streets and that, as a doctor, he had removed many bullets from the bodies of gunshot victims. But he said the right to bear arms was paramount . . .
And on Tuesday, Mr. Carson’s suggestion that he would have fought back in the face of an attack like the one in Roseburg, Ore., went viral, drawing widespread rebuke from his critics and reviving questions about his candidacy.
“I would not just stand there and let him shoot me,” Mr. Carson, who has been surging in recent polls, said on Fox News. “I would say: ‘Hey, guys, everybody attack him! He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.’” (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-06 23:34:472016-04-11 10:57:39See the Photo of Ben Carson That Has Gone Massively Viral- One Look and You’ll Know Why
The noisy debate over this city’s Proposition 1 has centered on whether it would allow men to use women’s public restrooms, which boils down to how you define “men” and “women.”
In a battle that has ranged from bathroom etiquette to gender rights to constitutional debates over religious freedom, a key skirmish broke out after former Houston Astros baseball all-star Lance Berkman appeared in an ad saying that the Nov. 3 ballot measure would “allow troubled men who claim to be women to enter women’s bathrooms, showers and locker rooms,” and the Yes on 1 campaign fired back.
“Prop. 1 will NOT allow men to enter women’s restrooms,” says a post on the website Houston Unites, the group supporting Proposition 1.
By “men,” however, the campaign is excluding biological men who identify as women. Proposition 1 would ban discrimination in public accommodations such as restrooms based on 15 characteristics, including gender identity.
In other words, anyone who tries to stop a biological man who identifies as a woman from using a women’s room would be in violation and could face fines of up to $5,000, if the measure succeeds. (Read more from “Houston Transgender Bathroom Bill Debate Centers on Differing Definitions of ‘Men'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-06 23:30:342016-04-11 10:57:39Houston Transgender Bathroom Bill Debate Centers on Differing Definitions of ‘Men’
How much longer are we going to continue investing precious military lives, time and treasure into nation building and refereeing multiple sides of Islamic factions who hate us? When will we begin to make the right investments in those who actually ally with us and protect our strategic interests?
Just consider what is transpiring around the Middle East and how our military and resources are so misappropriated in a way that is antithetical to our national security interests.
Failure Across the Middle East
While there is much outrage over Russia’s decision to commence an air campaign in Syria protecting Bashar Assad and targeting the American-backed “Syrian rebels,” the bigger outrage is that our government is backing these rebels in the first place. The Syrian rebels are full of radical elements and have proven incompetent in fighting IS, Al Nusra, and Assad. In fact, why would anyone want to involve themselves in this incorrigible and multi-pronged Islamic civil war to begin with?
Yet, last December, as part of the FY 2015 “Cromnibus” bill, Congress dutifully handed the Pentagon $721 million to train, equip, and recruit Syrian rebels with no broader strategy or direction towards a definitive outcome. After training just 70 individuals, only four remain in the field! But once again, instead of cutting off funding to this Islamic Mujahedeen, Congress rubber-stamped $600 million for this program next year in the NDAA (section 1225) that passed the House last week. Remember, the Free Syrian Army has already been overrun a number of times by Al Nusra, making it likely that our weapons have fallen into the hands of terrorists (assuming the rebels themselves are not terrorists).
Over in Iraq, we have at least 3,500 U.S. military personnel on the ground refereeing the Sunni-Iran/Shiite civil war, with reports of American military members sharing bases with Hezbollah-backed militias. To the extent the Iraq army isn’t backed by Shiite militias, they are completely inept and have already lost over 2,300 U.S. armed Humvees to IS. We are also arming the Lebanese Army, which is backed by Hezbollah. We just can’t seem to bring ourselves to allow our two enemy factions to fight each other without gratuitously tipping the scales to one side or sticking our necks between their crossed swords.
In Afghanistan, 14 years after the initial invasion, our soldiers are still dying on a weekly basis towards an end game nobody can articulate. They can’t even do their ‘social work’ missions without being prosecuted by the politicized military leadership for roughing up Islamic terrorists.
We lost 2,500 men at Normandy freeing a continent and saving civilization; what can be said of 6,500 fatalities in the Middle East that has only resulted in the strengthening of both Iran and the Sunni Islamist factions?
After more than two decades of perpetual terrorism, we are still sending the “Palestinian” government almost a half billion in foreign aid per year, including military training of their terror outfit, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades. Moreover, at roughly $275 million a year, the U.S. is the largest donor to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, a multinational group that has long harbored Palestinian terrorists under the guise of humanitarian aid. Just this week, Al-Aqsa (not Hamas), which is affiliated with the Fatah-backed government, murdered an Israeli couple in front of their four children in the heart of Samaria.
Is it too much to ask that we refrain from funding terrorist groups? Is it too much to demand that we stop falling on our swords nation-building and refereeing civil wars for people who hate us and each other?
Keeping Focus on True Strategic Interests and Allies
I say the following as an ardent hawk, not as an isolationist. Sure, we need to keep a robust presence ready to protect our national security interests and our allies in the region, but why not focus on allies?
At this juncture, there is simply no game play to be made in Syria and Iraq outside of walling off an autonomous Kurdistan, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. If the Sunnis, Shiites, and Alawites want to fight each other, and Russia seeks a death warrant for themselves by entering an endless battle with the Sunni population, let that be their problem. They might strengthen Assad from the near-collapse of his regime, but the Russians will never be able to put the Sunni insurgency back in the bottle.
We should focus on helping the Kurds – the only stable and reliable ally in the region – preserve and protect their boundaries and eventually create a nation-state. A separate Kurdistan can also serve as a safe haven for persecuted Christians, Assyrians, and Yazidis. [In the coming days, I plan to elaborate on this point in greater detail.]
This is not a commitment that even requires a military presence on the ground. The Kurds have demonstrated their ability to fight for themselves. They simply lack the resources. This can be rectified by directly arming the Kurds, giving them robust economic aid, and bombing any of the other warring Islamic factions away from their strategic points. All of the funds needed to help the Kurds could easily be transferred from the blood money we give to the Syrian “refugees,” rebels, and Iraqi Shiite and Sunni warring forces.
If we want to show leadership in the Middle East and thwart Russian and Iranian hegemony, while leaving the Sunnis and Shiites to battle out their own future, focusing on the creation of a Kurdistan would serve as the best multiplying force to serve our interests in the region. If we are going to engage in nation-building, let’s build a nation that will actually hold together, appreciate our help, serve as a beacon for those who are truly persecuted, and drive a strategic dagger through the hearts of ALL our enemies in the region.
Unfortunately, Congress failed to address any of these issues in a meaningful way in the budget bill or the defense bill. Many of the presidential candidates have also been off message and focused on the wrong issues in Iraq and Syria.
Obama’s malfeasance on foreign policy is self-evident and transparently on display before the public. But the eventual GOP nominee needs to lay out a vision that will not only shun the failed policies of this administration but eschew the cycle of failure that has persisted since after 9/11. (For more from the author of “Why the U.S. Should Stop Investing in Failure Abroad” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-06 23:28:532016-04-11 10:57:39Why the U.S. Should Stop Investing in Failure Abroad
Joe Biden has been making his 2016 deliberations all about his late son since August.
Aug. 1, to be exact — the day renowned Hillary Clinton-critic Maureen Dowd published a column that marked a turning point in the presidential speculation.
According to multiple sources, it was Biden himself who talked to her, painting a tragic portrait of a dying son, Beau’s face partially paralyzed, sitting his father down and trying to make him promise to run for president because “the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values.”
It was no coincidence that the preliminary pieces around a prospective campaign started moving right after that column. People read Dowd and started reaching out, those around the vice president would say by way of defensive explanation. He was just answering the phone and listening.
But in truth, Biden had effectively placed an ad in The New York Times, asking them to call. (Read more from “Biden Himself Leaked Word of His Son’s Dying Wish” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-06 23:26:532016-04-11 10:57:39Biden Himself Leaked Word of His Son’s Dying Wish
By Julia Hahn. Data from the United States Census Bureau show that languages spoken in Muslim countries are surging into U.S. households due to rapid growth in immigration from Muslim nations.
The Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey (ACS) reveals that Arabic and Urdu – Pakistan’s national language– are the fastest-growing foreign languages spoken at home, according to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies.
After five decades of large-scale immigration, a record 63.2 million U.S. residents, or more than one-in-five, speak a language other than English when at home.
Previous reports have shown that the United States is now the second largest Spanish speaking country in the world. But the new census study shows that the fastest-growing foreign languages, in percentage terms, are languages spoken by immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.
Between 2010 and 2014, there was a 29 percent increase in Arabic, a 23 percent increase in Urdu, and a 9 percent jump in Persian, which is spoken in Iran. (Read more from “Here’s the Fastest Growing Language in the U.S.” HERE)
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Record 63.2 Million Non-English Speaking Residents, Surge in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish
By Paul Bedard. More than one in five U.S. residents speak a language other than English at home, a record, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In an analysis of the recent Census American Community Survey, a huge surge was recorded in those who speak Chinese, Spanish, Arabic and Urdu, Pakistan’s national language.
The report from the Center for Immigration Studies documented the growth of immigrants in the United States and provided evidence of concerns new immigrants are slow to assimilate into American culture, namely by speaking English at home.
According to the Center’s analysis released to Secrets Tuesday morning, in 2014, a record 63.2 million U.S. residents — native-born, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants — spoke a language other than English at home. That represents a surge of 16.2 million since 2000 and 1.4 million just since 2013.
Overall, wrote the Center’s Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler, the number of non-English speakers has doubled since 1990. (Read more from this story HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-10-06 23:25:102016-04-11 10:57:40Here’s the Fastest Growing Language in the U.S.
