Proof: High Capacity Magazines Should Be Banned

This post is a bit late, but after seeing our President address the nation at the memorial service for the fallen and injured in the wake of the attack at the Safeway in Tuscon, Arizona, I would like to drop all divisive rhetoric.  I will say that I do honor my president, I think he is a great man. If there are times when he has disappointed me,  I speak out, but this is not one of those times. He has instructed me, us, all of us, not to use this event to polarize the country.  I listened. I hope we all listened.

I do believe that we can come together as a country and pass legislation to ban these high capacity magazines.  I strongly believe that this could saves lives and if just one life were to be spared as a result of this legislation, it would be in the name of Christine Taylor Green, and all the other lives that were taken out that day.

Let me state this as clearly as I can using the following conditional statements:

If a gun had more rounds of ammunition, it could kill more people.  This statement is true. If you had a counter-example to prove it false, I would love to hear it!

On the other hand, the converse of this statement: If more people were killed, then the gun used had more rounds of ammunition, is clearly false.  There are an endless amount of counter examples that can prove it to be false, such as the skill level of the shooters ability to change magazines, etc. You can find counter examples all over the internet.

The original statement, not this false one, is the only argument required, in my opinion, to remove these magazines from the market. If even one more life could be taken using high round magazines, if even one persons liberty could be taken away at the expense of the freedom of their shooter, than this argument is enough to ban this high capacity magazine.  If you disagree, tell me how many people is your limit? Is it ok if only 5 more people could be killed? 10? I say 1, just one life, is enough to ban these magazines.

You see, I am pro-life.

“Don’t Retreat, Instead-RELOAD!” ?? Sarah Palin clearly inciting violence

In an article appearing in “Politics Daily,” Matt Lewis is said:

First, it is sad to see folks immediately politicize such a tragedy. If your first response to such an event is to think of Sarah Palin, something is wrong.

First of all, politicizing something is when you are using an event in the news, good or bad, for the promotion of a candidate or general political point of view. I am not doing any of that. Sarah Palin could be a Democrat or a Republican, extreme right or extreme left, right up the middle, it just doesn’t matter. What matters is Ms. Palin, and  many others are promoting the rhetoric of violence, and we are now seeing the fruits of that rhetoric.  Many reasonable Americans expressed a particular concern over the map of the U.S. with cross hairs as seen through a rifle, supported by such rhetoric as “‘Don’t Retreat, Instead-RELOAD!’”

Mr. Lewis ends his article by saying,

To be sure, it is possible for a politician to use words to incite violence, but putting a target on a congressional district is clearly not an example of that.

Mr. Lewis, putting a target on a congressional district, with the supported rhetoric of reloading a riffle is the most clear example of that. Although I am not making statements of absolute truth, when an unstable young man such as Mr. Loughtner,  who is know for his anti-government beliefs, carries out the execution of a U.S. Congresswoman who appears under the bulls eye of Sarah Palin’s map, we can at least say that this kind of rhetoric is, at the very least, extremely dangerous.

It would appear that Sarah Palin agrees with that because several hours after the shooting, she pulled down any webpage under her control showing the bulls eye map. She also deleted her tweet shown in this image.

Sarah Palin’s Congressional Target Hit! Gabrielle Giffords Shot

UPDATE: 1/8/11 Sarah Palin’s website “Takebackthe20.com” has been mysteriously taken down, but not before I made a copy of it. Visit Take Back the 20.com to see my copy of this website!

Could this be the first shot fired in the war declared on the American People by the right wing fanatics?

USA Today Reported on September 24, 2010

In a website launched on Thursday, the six-month anniversary of the health care law, Palin puts a bull’s-eye on 20 House districts under a headline that reads,

Included among Palin’s Democratic targets: North Dakota’s at-large Rep. Earl Pomeroy, Southeast Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello.

The map, reproduced here from Sarah Palin’s website, showed a bulls eye as seen looking down the barrel of a rifle. The heading reads “We’ve diagnosed the problem… Help us prescribe the solution.”

Target Map Direct from Sarah Palin's Website. Shows Target on Giffords' district where she was shot

Is this the new culture of politics that the extreme religious right wish to promote?

Timothy McVeigh Wannabees

This is NOT an April Fools joke!  During an interview with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), John Hannity declared that their live audience was “Tim McVeigh Wannabes.”  That remark won big cheers from the crowd  and smiles on the faces of California’s congressional representatives McCarthy and Dreier.

Just to remind you, Tim McVeigh was an anti-government terrorist, convicted of blowing up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, killing 168 people, of which many were babies and young children who were housed in a day care center on the premises. Since then, from 1995 to 2005, over 60 domestic terrorism plots have been foiled.

If McCarthy, Dreier and Hannity support murderer Tim McVeigh, they should be questioned for possible treasonous activities.  Members of the audience should also be carefully scrutinized. John Hannity should be fired.

Don’t take my word for it. See for yourself at: Hannity Calls His Audience “Tim McVeigh Wannabes”! And they Cheer?

Supreme Court voted today: Allow corporations to purchase any candidate

Today, the Supreme Court has ruled to lift restrictions on what corporations and labor organizations may invest to sway voters in federal elections.  This vote means an end to real democracy.

Let me be clear about what this means.

If the Supreme Court had done this previously, than the cigarette companies would still be selling cigarettes on the air, in teenage magazines, with no warning on their packaging.  The cigarette companies would have saturated the airways to vote out the candidate trying to tell the truth about the fact that cigarettes were the number one killer of Americans.   Ford Pinto’s would have never had to pull their faulty auto, causing explosions and killing 100′s of people.  Ford would have purchased the candidate which would support Ford.

The implications of this are simple: an end to democracy in America.

This is so new, that I don’t even know yet what we can do about it. The only thing I have heard about is www.savedemocracy.net

DO SOMETHING!

Obama MUST stand firm on Public Option

President Obama, You MUST NOT let go of the public option. When the blue dogs realize what is at stake, they WILL vote with you on this. They are just calling your bluff, but Mr. Obama, but YOUR ARE NOT BLUFFING, because that is what you told us all when we worked hours upon hours calling voters in red states and turning them blue for you.

Anyway, as it would appear that you are in a loose-loose situation, than GO WITH WHAT IS RIGHT.

Stand firm on the PUBLIC OPTION, Mr. Obama, and when news comes flying in that the public option is saving lives, YOU, Mr. Obama, WILL BE EVEYRONE’S HERO.

What has GOP done for workers?

This article was written by Clint C. Gold and originally appeared in the Tulsa World 10/24/99 .  I am republishing this here because it underscores  what I had always thought about the difference between democrats and republicans.

Not too long ago, my wife and I attended a TV football party in south Tulsa. With a lopsided score, the conversation turned to a livelier subject — politics. The crowd was, of course, top-heavy with Republicans. With each point expressed their faces became more flushed, eyes bulging a little more and veins popping in their foreheads as they railed against the liberal programs.

Finally a lone, liberal voice asked: “Will you people name me one bill your party ever passed to help the working man of this country?” The question created much din and clamor, and someone sputtered, “Well, what have the Democrats done?”

The liberal responded with a few programs and was interrupted by howling and disdain. He noted that he had not promised they would like the programs and he asked to complete his statement — a difficult task to ask of Republicans.

He spoke of Social Security; Medicare-Medicaid; Peace Corps; unemployment insurance; welfare (for the poor and corporate); civil rights; student grant and loan programs; safety laws (OSHA); environmental laws; prevailing wage laws; right to collective bargaining (which brought about paid medical insurance, paid vacations, pensions, etc.); workers’ compensation; Marshall Plan; flood-disaster insurance; School Lunch Program; women’s rights.

He spoke of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established a minimum wage, instituted child labor laws, and set up time-and-a-half pay for over a 40-hour week.

He mentioned FHA-HUD with its public housing, urban renewal and 44 million residential homes (before WWII almost 70 percent of our nation were renters; by the 1970s this had been reversed).

And farm-conservation subsidies — USDA programs, Farmers Home Administration (the bankers didn’t want to make rural loans), small flood-control lakes (more than 3,000 in Oklahoma alone), rural water districts, rural electricity (REA).

The GI Bill was passed, which the Republicans at the time bitterly opposed. They were salivating over millions of returning veterans to hire as cheap labor. More than 8 million have used college benefits, creating millions of entrepreneurs; most of us had never dreamed of college. For the unemployed GI, there was $20 a week for 52 weeks to help get started (a lot of money in those days). The Veterans Administration provided more than 2 million home loans.

For the bankers at the football party, it was pointed out that the liberals saved their industry with the creation of FDIC and FSLIC, insuring their deposits, and saved Wall Street with the establishment of the Securities Exchange Commission.

The oil men came on bended knees to FDR at a time when East Texas oil was 4 cents a barrel and begged him to save their industry. He did; prorationing overturned the rule of capture and the days of flush production were over. Prorating has served this great industry (and nation) well.

And the list went on and on, but of course this group didn’t let him get halfway through. He noted they were weary, inattentive, so again he challenged them to offer up any Republican legislation examples.

“I’m sure your party has authored one or two comparable bills from time to time, but I can’t think of any, and apparently you can’t either. What it boils down to is this: the liberals dragged you into the 20th century scratching and screaming with your heels in the mud, fighting anything that’s progressive, everything that’s made this country great. You Republicans have never understood that the spending power of blue-collar workers, obtained through Democrats and unions, is what really made this country great. You really believe “The Good Life” was obtained from your own endeavors. You cloak your greed in religion and patriotism, railing against any form of tax, never comprehending that these programs have benefited all of us and our country.”

Well, I almost didn’t make it out of the house. My wife and I didn’t even get to see the end of the football game.
If Reps. Steve Largent or J.C. Watts had been there, perhaps politics would never have come up, only the game plan … pity.

Clint C. Gold is former mayor of Moore, OK and a retired savings and loan executive.

Country gains momentum against Healthcare Reform based on Lies

The major media outlets have now been reporting that the momentum for Obama’s Healthcare Reform has been decreasing. This is true. But, if you do not ask the question why, then it is a very misleading truth.

The media has been showing town halls from across the United States. These town halls do not reflect the thinking points of the American people, but rather the talking points of the republican operatives. These operatives have bussed volunteers into the town hall meetings with a packet containing the talking points, including tips on how to disrupt a meeting and prevent the speaker from even getting started. These points are all lies: Obama will create “death panels,” the government is going make decisions about our health care, you will be bogged down in government paperwork, etc. This was designed to change the thinking of the American people to withdraw any support they might have had for President Obama’s healthcare reform. But this new thinking was based on the LIES they see and hear on their T.V.!

We cannot allow the lies of the republican party to mislead the American public into believing that Obama’s health care plan would “kill” seniors, or come between you and your doctor. How absurd!

The common shout out at these town hall meetings “Keep the government out of my Medicare!” demonstrates how little the health care opponents actually know. Just in case, I will state here that Medicare is a public option for seniors. They get excellent care! Seniors get the care they need to continue living, even if their quality of life has deteriorated. I have seen it in my own family. Care was never, ever denied to our grandmother even though she had no quality of life. Medicare is not a profit driven company. It is designed to take care of our citizens who have retired and have no private health insurance. And, by the way, there is no paperwork!

Do you know who is killing people? Do you know who comes between you and your doctor? The private health care companies!! Currently, THEY decide, NOT YOUR DOCTOR, what care you should have, what care is critical or life threatening. The CEO’s of private national health care companies, making billions of dollars, keep their profits high by withholding health care wherever possible. The more claims they deny, the more money in the pockets of these billionaires. Health Care is a profit driven business.

Now, who do you trust? The private companies? Remember, their only concern is profit! Or the United States government, who is taking criminal action against those companies for denying coverage that are causing people to die or loose everything.

These lies have started with Betsy McCoy, who is a part of the Hudson Institute. They are the source of ResistNet.com. These are the people organizing and bussing people to the town halls. This website posts death threats to President Obama and compares Obama to Hitler. We cannot allow these fringe groups to control the national dialog on health care.

Fight back against health insurance lies

What is really at stake?

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No quality in education? It’s a no Brainer!

Everybody seems to have there ideas about why the quality of our education in this country is so poor.  I cannot list here all of the reasons, but as an educator myself, I can tell you about one very solid reason. Of course it is all about money, but let’s take a closer look.

This week, due to lack of funds and low enrollment, our school had to lay off several teachers.  The members of the school board tell the high school principals which “position numbers” need to be eliminated.   These are the newest teachers who don’t have tenure and have the lowest seniority. They are fresh, motivated and dedicated. They are excellent teachers, and everybody knows it.    They are not jaded or faded in routines just waiting to retire. These young teachers are among our absolute best educators, and yet, these are the teachers  we are loosing.  We watch them go while we keep on these teachers that cause students to loose precious time every day.

We do have many seasoned teachers who are also very motivated and dedicated and they are great teachers. Sadly, however, we have some tenured teachers who are, simply put, just bad teachers.  Over time, you really get to know who these teachers are without any teacher testing, or student score reviews or any other “accountability” program. It is quite clear to the teachers around them who really needs to get out of teaching.

It is so, so frustrating to watch these great teachers loose their jobs,  while teachers that are completely incapable of providing a good education just stay on, and on, and on.

Does this promote quality in education? Clearly not!