The change in state laws regarding guns is working. It is decreasing the demand and making gun sales a bad use of inventory.

Guns for Sale (click here) - Squires Bingham Model 20 -- Semi Auto 22 LR Semi Auto Clip Feed Kmart Corp

Kmart stop selling ammunition after their brand was used at Columbine.

August 26, 2015
By Daniel Kreps

...According to Quartz, Lundberg downplayed the stoppage of assault rifle sales, noting, "This happens to get more attention because of what the product is. The decision was completely based on what customers are buying and what they want." Walmart had already been in the process of phasing out high-powered firearms like AR-15 and modern sporting rifles, and they'll discontinue stocking modular sniper rifles (MSRs) in the coming weeks. The retail chain had long stopped selling handguns and high-capacity magazines.

While Walmart calls the move a business decision, the country's biggest firearms dealer pulling their most dangerous weapons comes at a time where the debate over strengthening gun control measures and lessening gun violence continues to divide Americans and political parties.

It can be you tomorrow!

That is not an exaggeration.

There is no predicting gun violence in the USA. 

I don't want to hear, "OMG, the news media this time, we'll never hear the end of it." 

What was that? 

According to "Gun Violence Archives" there are 11 gun deaths on August 27, 2015. (click here) There is also 12 injured today.

The last 72 hours in the USA (click here)

The story untold.

Ivor van Heerden (click here) was haunted by the knowledge that a major hurricane would devastate New Orleans. He is deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, and since 2001, he has led a team studying the public health impacts of hurricanes on the city. Photo credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation

"A slow-moving Category 3 hurricane or larger will flood the city. There will be between 17 and 20 feet of standing water, and New Orleans as we now know it will no longer exist."
—Ivor van Heerden, October 29, 2004

Those lost during Katrina should be alive today. '

The pump system existing today that won't let New Orleans to be underwater again; could have been built previous to the deaths of Katrina. The US government knew exactly what was going to happen when "The Big One" hit. It was a matter of IF, it was a matter of WHEN. The federal government wouldn't spend the money to protect the people of the Ninth Ward. No matter who advocated for these people, the government wouldn't spend the money.

The hopelessness became so clear to New Orleans, it was Mayor Ray Nagin that told the people to put axes in their attics. It was those very axes that saved lives. The people hacked through their roof and climbed out to cry for help. The US government could have saved lives and property if they acted as soon as the danger was known. The cost at that time would have been infinitely less.

Yes, indeed. Projects to save lives are never funded while cronies such as the petroleum industry receives subsides. That is where the priority of serving the people lies. The people are the votes while the US Treasury belongs to Wall Street.

Winner: (click here)
The “J” Award, the highest Department of the Army journalism honor, 2000 and 2003. 

Authorization: The New Orleans District Riverside is an unofficial publication authorized under the provisions of AR 360-1. Views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Corps of Engineers or the Department of the Army. Comics reprinted by permission of United Features.  

Submissions:
Articles and story ideas are welcome; publication depends on the general interest as judged by the editor. Direct queries to the editor by calling (504) 862-2201 or e-mailing amanda.s.jones@mvn02.usace.army.mil. 

Circulation: 2,150 copies per issue.

The Port of New Orleans (click here) and surrounding areas were closed Sunday after a barge collided with a tow boat, causing oil to spill into the Mississippi River. The boats were located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans when the collision occurred, and investigators are trying to determine what happened. Luckily no one was injured and the area’s drinking water supply is safe, but officials were forced to shut down 65 miles of the Mississippi River while crews worked to clean the spill. By Sunday afternoon, a line of vessels had formed, waiting to get up and down the river while the cleanup was underway.
August 6, 2015
By Ryan Alexander 

...We set out to document the federal tax rate of oil and gas industry (click here) leaders because we knew the claim made by the American Petroleum Institute – that the industry pays an income tax rate of 44.3 percent – is misleading. The claim is misleading because the institute uses it in the context of reforming the federal tax code, but the figure includes all foreign, state and local taxes, as well as federal. When we looked at the financial statements of 20 of the largest oil and gas companies, we found this group paid an average federal tax rate of 24 percent on its U.S. income.... 

...What was surprising, though, was the extent to which these companies were able to delay or defer the payment of the federal taxes they accrued. Most of the companies in our study deferred more than they actually paid. When the deferred taxes are subtracted from the amount these 20 companies owe, their average “current” tax rate drops to 11.7 percent. The independent oil and gas companies in the bottom half of our list, excluding the ones that recorded losses for the period, deferred almost all of the federal income taxes they accrued during the last five years, reporting an average current tax rate of just 3.7 percent....

...Deferral of taxes functions a lot like interest free loans – companies that get to defer taxes simply choose to use that money for something other than paying that tax obligation, instead putting the obligation off into the future. And, in turn, that deferral increases the size and cost of the federal debt....

... The oil and gas industry maintained their special deal even through the 1986 reform of the tax code, the last time it was overhauled. Let’s hope when Congress gets to comprehensive reform this time these outdated, special breaks for the profitable oil and gas industry are left on the chopping block. 

The story untold.

Ivor van Heerden (click here) was haunted by the knowledge that a major hurricane would devastate New Orleans. He is deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, and since 2001, he has led a team studying the public health impacts of hurricanes on the city. Photo credit: © WGBH Educational Foundation

"A slow-moving Category 3 hurricane or larger will flood the city. There will be between 17 and 20 feet of standing water, and New Orleans as we now know it will no longer exist."
—Ivor van Heerden, October 29, 2004

Those lost during Katrina should be alive today. '

The pump system existing today that won't let New Orleans to be underwater again; could have been built previous to the deaths of Katrina. The US government knew exactly what was going to happen when "The Big One" hit. It was a matter of IF, it was a matter of WHEN. The federal government wouldn't spend the money to protect the people of the Ninth Ward. No matter who advocated for these people, the government wouldn't spend the money.

The hopelessness became so clear to New Orleans, it was Mayor Ray Nagin that told the people to put axes in their attics. It was those very axes that saved lives. The people hacked through their roof and climbed out to cry for help. The US government could have saved lives and property if they acted as soon as the danger was known. The cost at that time would have been infinitely less.

Yes, indeed. Projects to save lives are never funded while cronies such as the petroleum industry receives subsides. That is where the priority of serving the people lies. The people are the votes while the US Treasury belongs to Wall Street.

Winner: (click here)
The “J” Award, the highest Department of the Army journalism honor, 2000 and 2003. 

Authorization: The New Orleans District Riverside is an unofficial publication authorized under the provisions of AR 360-1. Views and opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Corps of Engineers or the Department of the Army. Comics reprinted by permission of United Features.  

Submissions:
Articles and story ideas are welcome; publication depends on the general interest as judged by the editor. Direct queries to the editor by calling (504) 862-2201 or e-mailing amanda.s.jones@mvn02.usace.army.mil. 

Circulation: 2,150 copies per issue.

The Port of New Orleans (click here) and surrounding areas were closed Sunday after a barge collided with a tow boat, causing oil to spill into the Mississippi River. The boats were located between Baton Rouge and New Orleans when the collision occurred, and investigators are trying to determine what happened. Luckily no one was injured and the area’s drinking water supply is safe, but officials were forced to shut down 65 miles of the Mississippi River while crews worked to clean the spill. By Sunday afternoon, a line of vessels had formed, waiting to get up and down the river while the cleanup was underway.
August 6, 2015
By Ryan Alexander 

...We set out to document the federal tax rate of oil and gas industry (click here) leaders because we knew the claim made by the American Petroleum Institute – that the industry pays an income tax rate of 44.3 percent – is misleading. The claim is misleading because the institute uses it in the context of reforming the federal tax code, but the figure includes all foreign, state and local taxes, as well as federal. When we looked at the financial statements of 20 of the largest oil and gas companies, we found this group paid an average federal tax rate of 24 percent on its U.S. income....

I wouldn't challenge Donald Trump about his faith.

(RNS)  Donald Trump, (click here) the New York rich guy/reality television star/conservative news commentator/real estate mogul/hair disaster, announced he will run for the Republican Party nomination for president of the United States on Tuesday (June 16). To the Faith Fact Machine!

My father was a very faithful Catholic. He couldn't recite the Bible either. If Donald Trump was running for President of the Presbyterian Congress, I'd be worried about his ability to recite passages from memory. I am confident the next time he appears before a large group of people he'll be carrying his Bible and not the New York Times.

1. He’s a Presbyterian.

“First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, is where I went to church,” he told Christian Broadcasting Network in 2012. “I’m a Protestant, I’m a Presbyterian. And you know I’ve had a good relationship with the church over the years. I think religion is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion.” Other famous Presbyterians who have run for the highest office and won include Andrew Jackson, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan (who grew up in the Disciples of Christ but joined the Presbyterian Church).  Trump has also been a member of Marble Collegiate Church, a Reformed Church in America congregation and once the pulpit of Norman Vincent Peale, author of the mega-best-seller “The Power of Positive Thinking.”
Bonus faith fact: Trump’s paternal grandmother’s maiden name was “Christ....

... In the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election, Trump told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly that there is a “Muslim problem.” “I don’t notice Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center,” Trump said, and then moved on to the so-called Ground Zero mosque. “I came out very strongly against the mosque being built virtually across the street.”...

...In the same 2012 CBN interview, Trump said fans often send him Bibles and he keeps every one of them “in a very nice place.” “There’s no way I would ever throw anything, to do anything negative to a Bible,” Trump said. “I would have a fear of doing something other than very positive, so actually I store them and keep them and sometimes give them away to other people but I do get sent a lot of Bibles and I like that. I think that’s great.”...

I find his views on bibles and faith very main stream and rather middle class actually.

...“Not only do I have Jewish grandchildren I have a Jewish daughter and I am very honored by that,” he told The Jewish Voice.

Both Senator Sanders and the former Secretary Clinton have the Jewish faith within their lives. These two very fine Democrats probably carry similar views regarding the Iran agreement.

Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (click here) is a Jewish American politician and the current junior Senator from Vermont. He is married to Jane O'Meara Sanders; they have four children. 

I think it's okay to talk to candidates about their faith, but, to question their faithfulness isn't the best way to find out they are moral and good people. Faith and spirituality is personal. 

If someone is deliberately deceiving people about faith and god, (ie: John Oliver's exposure of 'perpetual exemption') that is a different issue, but, I don't see that level of deception with any of the current candidates. 

She 'get's it.'

Just thought I'd remind Americans about her depth of knowledge regarding the decisions she will make as President.

I think she is fine. The Republicans are chronically degrading women. She has a right to be annoyed.

I think she is great. I have always thought she is a great woman. She wants to defend women and return rights and esteem to them. There isn't anything wrong with that and if she is passionate about that issue, then we all should be grateful. The men that love women should be grateful, too. Men who love women should want their wives, girlfriends, fiancee, daughters and grand daughters to be held in esteem by granting them the right to carry out their own decisions and having financial equity to garner a successful life and retirement.

When women were demanding equal right before they were burning bras and holding demonstrations. They mattered. Their vote mattered. Women need a strong and passionate leader that inspires them and moves them to action. Hillary Clinton has been passionate about women and children most, if not all, her professional life. I trust her to bring women to the same camp as she and not alienate them. Women need to feel passionate again rather than accepting their second class citizenship the Republicans want to assign them.

August 27, 2015
By Samantha Lachman

...At a campaign event in (click here) Cleveland, Clinton criticized former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. She pointed out that Rubio said he wouldn't support exceptions to an abortion ban for victims of rape and incest, that Bush said Planned Parenthood should be defunded and that Kasich banned state funds from going toward rape crisis centers because they sometimes refer women to abortion clinics. 
"Now extreme views on women, we expect that from some of the terrorist groups, we expect that from people who don't want to live in the modern world, but it's a little hard to take coming from Republicans who want to be the president of the United States," she said. "Yet they espouse out-of-date, out-of-touch policies. They are dead wrong for 21st-century America. We are going forward; we are not going back." 
She added that she would like Republicans to recognize "the mom who caught her breast cancer early because she was able to get a screening for cancer or the teenager who didn't get pregnant because she has access to contraception." 
Republicans immediately seized on Clinton's remarks, suggesting that they were inappropriate. 
“For Hillary Clinton to equate her political opponents to terrorists is a new low for her flailing campaign. She should apologize immediately for her inflammatory rhetoric,” Republican National Committee Press Secretary Allison Moore said in a statement....

One of the reasons Republicans feel comfortable in removing federal support for women's health clinics is because they have witnessed some Planned Parenthood clinics earning money in supplying products such as fetal tissue. So, when they make their defunding rants as if a radical idea, they are simply throwing Planned Parenthood clinics into the world of Private Non-Profits or at least they believe so. 

It is convenient for Republicans to appear to remove funding from Planned Parenthood as if it is going to destroy any clinic performing abortions. That isn't why they are stating that. They know there is a product within the clinics that can create an income so they don't need government funding. That is all it is. The clinics will continue to exist and practice and provide health care for women, but, it will be through private funding as well as sales of their products. Private non-profits such as Bloomberg Family Foundation will continue to keep women health clinics open. 

Just a word more. Republicans want to change Medicare and Social Security while they deny women laws that insure their pay equity. The Republicans want to make many, many changes to entitlements. The entitlements our retired rely on are always under attack by Republicans. Yet, Republicans won't do anything about the working poor or improving the minimum wage. 

I find it very interesting that Democrats want to uphold the entitlements with fairly simple adjustments to extend their viability for a significant period of time into the future. The Democrats realize retirement with SSI and Medicare at the center of quality of life means Americans have to earn more in their working years to have a comfortable retirement. It is the Democrats that see the 'real world' and not a fantasy of million-billionaires.

Mr. Personality Plus. And reading newspapers to his audience. I thought that was a great idea.

Tuesday, August 25, 2015

By Chuck Goudie

 

LASALLE COUNTY, Ill. (WLS) --

The ABC7 I-Team (click here) has learned of an unusual security breach at the LaSalle Nuclear Plant, southwest of Chicago. Federal authorities are investigating how two guns from the plant's security arsenal went missing.

Employees at the LaSalle Nuclear Plant were informed recently of a security incident but given few details. The I-Team has confirmed that the incident involved guns gone missing. Such an occurrence usually raises concern but at a nuclear power plant, considered a prime terrorist target, guns stolen from within the plant are especially troubling. Now federal investigators and the LaSalle County Sheriff's Department are both involved in trying to figure out what happened.

The missing guns are Sig Sauer 9 millimeter pistols, a popular model with law enforcement.

A spokesperson for Exelon, which owns and operates the nuclear plant, says they were training weapons stolen on July 27.

Officials with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission call it a "discrepancy of equipment" that came up "during license inventory.: The plant reported the problem to federal authorities and to the LaSalle County Sheriff.

Two inspectors from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission are posted full-time at this plant. The security breach is considered serious enough that NRC officials say a senior inspector was sent to LaSalle to coordinate the missing weapons case....

While two journalists lie dead there was hostage taking in a US school.

PHILIPPI, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia preacher, (click here) a teacher and police helped persuade a 14-year-old boy to free 27 fellow students he held at gunpoint in a high school classroom Tuesday, a standoff that ended without a single shot fired, authorities and the pastor said.

No one was hurt in the hostage-taking drama that rocked Philip Barbour High School on the ninth day of the school year in the small Appalachian town of Philippi, home to about 3,000 people some 115 miles south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Ultimately, the boy's pastor convinced the boy to drop the gun and walk away. The pastor said his daughter is a senior at the school, and she had recently stepped in when she saw the boy being bullied.

Guns are the way the people of the USA settle ill will. Guns are the definitive method of revenge for injustice. It is called anarchy, it just doesn't feel that way because most Americans don't own guns.

"He's a child who's been bullied to the point where he just snapped," said Pastor Howard Swick with Haven of Hope Ministry in Philippi. "And I'm watching this 14-year-old child with a gun, crying. He looked completely hopeless and didn't know what to do, and realized he had taken this farther than he had ever wanted to go. He didn't know how to retreat."

After 1 p.m. Tuesday, the boy pointed his pistol at a history teacher and her students during a tense 45 minutes holed up in the classroom....

Oh, it isn't anarchy? 

Hm.

Does a day go by there isn't gun violence in the USA? When 30 thousand people die every year in a country because of gun violence it is called anarchy.

By Henry K. Lee
San Francisco Chronicle

BERKELEY, Calif. — The loaded gun, badge and ammunition taken from a car (click here) at a popular East Bay shoreline park belonged to the UC Berkeley police chief, authorities said Monday.
Margo Bennett, head of the campus police force, lost her gun, police badge, ammunition, department-issued laptop, iPad, cell phone and diamond ring when her unmarked Ford Escape was broken into while it was parked near the Mudpuppy’s dog grooming business at Point Isabel Regional Shoreline in Richmond, officials said.
Bennett had gone for a jog before work Friday morning and returned about 8:15 a.m. to find her left rear window smashed, according to university officials and Carolyn Jones, spokeswoman for the East Bay Regional Park District, which manages the shoreline.
Bennett joined the UC Berkeley Police Department as a captain in 2002 and was named chief two years ago.... 

August 26, 2015
By Dan Diamond

...1. Gun-related deaths in America (click here) wildly outpace our peer nations
More than 32,000 people per year are killed by guns in the United States — at least.
The total number’s incomplete because some gun-related deaths are left out of CDC statistics, Adrienne LaFrance wrote at The Atlantic earlier this year. That’s partly because of privacy concerns, the mystery over some police-related shooting data … and the political consequences of taking on the gun lobby, LaFrance points out.
Notably, the CDC has avoided some research into gun-related injury, and the Washington Post suggests that “fear and funding shortfalls” are to blame....

2. More people now die by guns than by cars (click here)
For decades, the most dangerous piece of machinery was an automobile.
But now, it’s a gun.
That’s according to LaFrance’s article and a Center for American Progress report from 2014 that looked specifically at the mounting burden of gun deaths among young Americans....

The deaths of Alison and Adam is really hitting home with the American media.

If the talk shows are going to discuss gun availability then please make it an honest conversation. CNN had two pro-gun folks debate the issue of guns. Really? If life can't be respected in a debate or conversation then don't do it. Thank you.

August 27, 2015
By ABC News

The father of a Virginia-based reporter slain (click here) during a live television segment Wednesday says he hopes to find purpose in his daughter’s death by pushing for stronger mental health screenings for prospective gun owners.

“I’m not going to let this issue drop,” Andy Parker said during an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. “We’ve got to do something about crazy people getting guns.”

Parker’s daughter Alison, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were killed in the shooting. The victims worked together at WDBJ, a CBS affiliate serving the Roanoke-Lynchburg, Virginia, television market. A former reporter at the station, Vester Lee Flanagan II – known professionally as Bryce Williams – allegedly shot the co-workers. He later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, authorities said.

“I’ve been alternating between the shock and the grief of it,” Andy Parker told Fox News. “I’ve been holding up I guess OK, but I’ve been crying my eyes out all day long. It’s gone back and forth, and now it’s … the anger is starting to creep in there, because this should not happen. It shouldn’t have happened to someone like Alison."...

What is it going to take to legislate for the protection of citizens, a loss in every family? 

The reaction from family of the dead is always the same, "What was I thinking when I opposed gun regulations?" It doesn't matter where the shooting has taken place or who was the victim, the family always wants to end the gun violence in the USA.

Oh here we go, Mayor Bowers wants everyone to pray and believe in god. Right. 

Since when has CNN gotten to be ludicrous? 

Well, they are holding the next debate. It should be interesting for all the wrong reasons. I'd really prefer CNN not bring up gun violence, regulation and/or gun control, it won't go well.