But, no one reads minds. The shooter was LIMITED in his killing, but, nothing PREVENTED it.

July 17, 2022
By Chloe McGowan and Arika Herron

Three people are dead and two others are injured (click here) Sunday after a man with a rifle opened fire inside a Indiana shopping mall and an armed civilian shot him, authorities said.

The man entered the Greenwood Park Mall with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition and began firing in the food court, said Greenwood Police Department Chief Jim Ison at a news conference. Ison added that an armed civilian killed the suspected gunman.

"It appears that he had a rifle with several magazines of ammunition, entered the food court and began shooting," Ison said. Police believe an armed bystander "observed the shooting in progress and shot the shooter."

The shooting happened in the Greenwood Park Mall's food court around the mall's 6 p.m. closing time; the first emergency calls were received at 6:05 p.m. The mall, located about 10 miles south of Indianapolis, has more than 130 indoor and outdoor restaurants and shops....

Here again is a good guy with a gun. He limited the killing and maiming, but, he couldn't prevent it. The entire paradigm by the USA laws regarding guns is wrong. It simply is wrong. Everyone believes in self-defense. But, what ever happened to prevention. Are Americans supposed to be grateful for someone ending a rampage? That isn't what we are about.

Life, according to the political right wing, is ever so important? Their very loose standards for guns on the streets of the USA would not validate that either.

Abortion bad - Guns good. 

Some folks are really missing the value of life in a way that Americans live.

American life expectancy is falling. It is due to COVID and it's variants, but, guns are getting a bigger piece of the causes of death, especially in children. This simply is not who we are. 

HOW EASY SHOULD IT BE TO BUY A GUN?

The Endangered Species Act has been reinstated by a judge who cared.

July 7, 2022
By Olivia Rosane

...Earthjustice (click here) represented the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, National Parks Conservation Association, Wild Earth Guardians and the Humane Society of the United States in a lawsuit to block the Trump regulations passed in 2019. The lawsuit targeted five regulations in particular, according to AP News.

These regulations did the following, according to EcoWatch and the Sierra Club:

- Removed the “blanket rule” giving threatened species the same protections as endangered species.

- Made it harder to protect species from the climate crisis by giving the            government more wiggle room in how it interpreted the phrase                    “foreseeable  future.”

- Made it easier to delist species.

- Allowed regulators to consider the economic impact of offering protections    to a species.

- Made it harder to list new species and protect their critical habitat.

When President Joe Biden took office, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service said they would work on new regulations, according to AP News. However, this process can take months to years. In the meantime, the services asked the court to remand the case in December of 2021, according to the plaintiffs. However, the judge decided to vacate the Trump regulations instead.

“Regardless of whether this Court vacates the 2019 [Endangered Species Act] Rules, they will not remain in effect in their current form,” Tigar wrote in his ruling, as CNBC reported....

What is surprising to me is the medical professionals response to the Supreme Court decision.

Obviously, the medical profession does not agree with the Supreme Court. The medical professionals are more than willing to save women's lives. It seems that medical professionals trust women.

July 15, 2022
By Angie Leventis Lourgos

U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (click here) and Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul participate in a roundtable discussion about the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and severely restricting abortion rights across the country on June 30 in Chicago.

Wisconsin medical providers (click here) are traveling across state lines to provide abortions in Illinois, expanding access to the procedure after the recent fall of Roe v. Wade.

Several new abortion clinics are also expected to open soon in Rockford and Carbondale, parts of the state with a dearth of abortion providers. Two new clinics are planned for Rockford — which hasn’t had an abortion provider in about a decade — and a third clinic could begin providing medication abortions as soon as next month in Carbondale, the home of Southern Illinois University.

Reproductive rights advocates hope the new clinics and additional medical providers will help Illinois handle the recent influx of out-of-state abortion patients, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which had established the right to terminate a pregnancy nationwide since 1973.

Abortion opponents, however, lament that Illinois is becoming an “abortion mecca,” said Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League....

This is the slime that Putin wants in a prisoner exchange.

July 14, 2022
By Jim Heintz and Larry Neumeister

Viktor Bout

Moscow - A Russian arms dealer (click here) labeled the “Merchant of Death” who once inspired a Hollywood movie is back in the headlines with speculation around a return to Moscow in a prisoner exchange.

If Viktor Bout, 55, is indeed eventually freed in return for WBNA star Brittney Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, as some published reports suggest, it would add to the lore around a charismatic arms dealer the U.S. has imprisoned for over a decade.

Depending on the source, Bout is a swashbuckling businessman unjustly imprisoned after an overly aggressive U.S. sting operation, or a peddler of weapons whose sales fueled some of the world’s worst conflicts.

The 2005 Nicolas Cage movie, “Lord of War” was loosely based on Bout, a former Soviet air force officer who gained fame supposedly by supplying weapons for civil wars in South America, the Middle East and Africa. His clients were said to include Liberia’s Charles Taylor, longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and both sides in Angola’s civil war....

BRING THE AMERICANS HOME!!!

Women in the USA are not respected. They are not trusted to make their own decisions. Survey Monkey.

I do not believe we have seen all the backlash of a hostile Supreme Court. One of the biggest reasons for divorce and single parents are financial issues. Having a large family is a financial issue.

Just half of Americans say women are respected in the U.S. (cick here)

Three-quarters of Americans (76%) say men are well-respected in the U.S., but barely more than half (53%) say the same for women, according to our new poll from July 3-12, 2022. Despite a continued fight for women’s rights and a push for gender equality, women still see the U.S. as more of a “man’s world”: 

• Just 42% of women say that women are well respected in the U.S. – far less than the number of men who say the same (65%) 

• Women are more likely than men to say that men are well respected in the U.S. (81% vs. 72%) 

A 2018 Gallup poll showed similar results: a record-low 59% of Americans said women in the country are treated with respect and dignity, down sharply from 68% the previous year and dropping notably among women (just 48% felt women in the U.S. are treated with respect).  

In addition to gender, there’s a heavy partisan split: 75% of Republicans agree that women are well respected in the U.S. – nearly double the 37% of Democrats who say the same – yet Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to say men are well respected in the U.S. (87% vs. 69%)....

Not everybody dies.

July 15, 2022
By Laura Rodriguez

Cooper Roberts, (click here) the 8-year-old boy paralyzed from the waist down after being wounded at the Independence Day parade shooting in Highland Park, was in “very critical” condition after undergoing his seventh surgery on Wednesday, a family spokesman said.

Though his condition after the surgery initially seemed positive and the boy was breathing over the ventilator, as the day progressed Cooper’s fever returned. A CT scan also revealed fluid building in his esophagus, lungs and now around his pelvis, the family said through their spokesman, Anthony Loizzi....

But, hey, there is the Americans with Disability Act, right? He'll be okay.

FANTASTIC!!!! Make the kids proud. Out with the old, in with the new.

July 15, 2022
By Elena Shao

Mayflower Wind plans to link its offshore wind farm to the electrical infrastructure at the old Brayton Point plant in Somerset, Mass

Across the country, aging and defunct coal-burning power plants (click here) are getting new lives as solar, battery and other renewable energy projects, partly because they have a decades-old feature that has become increasingly valuable: They are already wired into the power grid.

The miles of high-tension wires and towers often needed to connect power plants to customers far and wide can be costly, time consuming and controversial to build from scratch. So solar and other projects are avoiding regulatory hassles, and potentially speeding up the transition to renewable energy, by plugging into the unused connections left behind as coal becomes uneconomical to keep burning.

In Illinois alone, at least nine coal-burning plants are on track to become solar farms and battery storage facilities in the next three years. Similar projects are taking shape in Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Maryland. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, two retired coal plants along the coast are being repurposed to connect offshore wind turbines to the regional electrical grids....

The coal station in Baldwin, Ill., will retire in 2025 and then be used to connect 190,000 solar panels to the grid.

Celebrate this stuff. These are climate victories. People should feel good about these massive change. The children will be happier to know their future is valued.

This is a really big deal!
Credit...

Guns and Booze don't mix.

July 15, 2022
By Shanzeh Ahmad

Whether it was several hundreds of people (click here) gathered together in a church to pray, a few hundred showing up to see him at the hospital, neighborhood children selling “Golden lemonade” to raise money for him, or videos of encouragement from the likes of Vince Vaughn and Tom Brady, there’s no shortage of support for a Chicago police officer and U.S. Army veteran who was shot and injured while off-duty last weekend, as he tried to break up a bar fight in the Beverly neighborhood.

The outpouring of love and well-wishes helped Danny Golden, 31, keep a smile on his face after doctors told him he was permanently paralyzed from the waist down and would never walk again....

Bars serving alcohol need to put metal detectors at any entrance with bouncers to enforce the sign that says, "Private property, no guns allowed." Bars should be held responsible if violence breaks out. 

Ya don't see this everyday.

It is a Chinese restaurant that was being toed to a new location. (click here) The real problem in moving this resturant was the fact it was a flat bottom boat with no sincere water displacement to maintain it's upright posture. It was top heavy without enough water displacement to compensate for the weight. It was a boat only by the fact it was floating when a restaurant. There was nothing else that made it a boat. In actuality, it wasn't really a boat so much as a restaurant over water.

Here is something to fear. The Climate Crisis.

17 July 2022

More than 1,200 firefighters (click here) backed by water-dumping planes were battling two fires burning near Bordeaux in southwetern France. Images shared by authorities showed flames racing through large tracts of pine forest. Regional prosecutors suspect the main fire, which started in the town of Landiras, may have been deliberately lit.

Southwest Europe (click here) endured a sixth day of a summer heatwave on Saturday that has triggered devastating forest fires as parts of the continent braced for new temperature records early next week.

Firefighters in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece battled forest blazes that have ravaged thousands of hectares of land and killed several personnel since the start of the week.
sp
It is the second heatwave engulfing parts of southwest Europe in weeks as scientists blame climate change and predict more frequent and intense episodes of extreme weather.

At least 360 people have died due to the heatwave in Spain with temperatures far above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees fahrenheit), newspaper La Vanguardia reported on Saturday citing the state-run Carlos III Health Institute....

A little change of pace.

This is just bizarre in a way nothing else is. A bunker in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I figure this could be Zuckerberg's most private residence or the best place for USA insurgents.

July 15, 2022
By Mary K. Jacob

In what looks (click here) like a scene out of Martin Scorcese’s “Shutter Island,” a decommissioned World War II fort in the middle of the ocean is being auctioned off for first time, starting at just $60,000.

Located in the Humber Estuary of Northern England, the concrete vessel was initially constructed between 1915 and 1919 for naval defense during World War I, though it wouldn’t go into use until WWII.

Considered a historic listing, the property is defined by the United Kingdom as a “grade II” building or structure that is “of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve it.”

Savills National Auctions will present the unique marine dwelling for bidding on July 19....

No guns, no gun deaths.

Conclusion: (click here) Mass-shooting related homicides in the United States were reduced during the years of the federal assault weapons ban of 1994 to 2004.

Any loopholes that allowed weapons to be obtained can be addressed. The article above is what Bill Clinton read when he made the following statement.

“How many more people have to die before we reinstate the assault weapons ban & the limit on high-capacity magazines & pass universal background checks? After they passed in 1994, there was a big drop in mass shooting deaths. When the ban expired, they rose again. We must act now.”

— Former president Bill Clinton, in a tweet, Aug. 5, 2019

Both the article and Clinton's statement come from a roller coaster ride article in the Washington Post (click here) about authors of studies and types of statistical data used.

Let me clarify this somewhat. The AR-15 is the war weapon of choice to rank amateurs that want to kill. Their success is proven over and over that the choice of the AR-15 will kill even in the hands of amateurs.

As a society we can play with statistics all we want from a variety of authors of studies, but, discussing the right to own a weapon of war as a private citizen in the USA is not a reasonable discussion. THIS IS THE TRUTH. If the war weapons are not manufactured and not sold there are no AR-15s to carry out mass murder. IT IS JUST THAT SIMPLE. If ya ain't got the war weapon, there is no mass killing.

Got that? If there are no weapons of war on the streets of the USA there are no mass shootings that kill in large numbers. That is the truth. No debate. it is simply fact.

In the Washington Post article there was a data chart. It doesn't matter which method was used to make it, the data across the chart was all treated the same way, so there is some degree of truth in this graph. The black line shows the trend of the mass killings. I want to emphasize the increase in these killings since 2014.

It was June 17, 2015 when Donald John Trump announced his race for the presidency. The numbers of mass shooting deaths increased that year and continued to increase the trend ever since.

How many deaths is the Supreme Court going to be responsible for?

When a Supreme Court cause problems for ideological reasons, it is time to do something about the Supreme Court.

July 17, 2022
By Matt Stout

The Boston Police Department (click here) says it has moved to lift restrictions on hundreds of existing gun licenses, with potentially thousands more to come in the city and elsewhere, as police departments pivot in the face of a Supreme Court ruling that is quickly reshaping Massachusetts gun law.

The effort to remove limits on existing licenses to carry in Boston, Springfield, and other communities comes after state officials told police they should no longer place restrictions on people who fail to cite a “good reason” for carrying a concealed firearm. Some police say that even if the limits on someone’s license have yet to be formally lifted, they may be unable to enforce the restrictions anyway....

No one wants to end school violence if they aren't willing to end assault weapons in the USA.

 ..."systemic failures and egregious poor decision making"...

In the US Army, 400 personnel is the equivalent of 2 companies of soldiers (click here). This will happen again. These are the 400 good guys with guns. They failed to save lives. Police officers are not combat trained with AR-15s. This is happen again and again until those lousy weapons of war are removed from the streets of the United States of America.

It is just the one truth no one wants to talk about.

Legislators don't want to make the gun lobby angry and there are all those right wing insurrectionists that want to run the country their way without a constitution. The insurrectionists love their guns.

400 police officers or to be politically correct, 400 law enforcement officials were at Uvalde. They are as worried for their own lives no matter what any piece of paper from a legislature says.

July 17, 2022
By Jake Bleiberg and Paul J. Weber

Uvalde - Nearly 400 law enforcement officials (click here) rushed to a mass shooting at a Uvalde elementary school, but “systemic failures” created a chaotic scene that lasted more than an hour before the gunman who took 21 lives was finally confronted and killed, according to a report from investigators released Sunday.

The nearly 80-page report was the first to criticize both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities in the South Texas town for the bewildering inaction by heavily armed officers as a gunman fired inside a fourth-grade classroom.

“At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety,” the report said....