Crash and Burn, the Republican Story

Because of the nature of their coalition, the Republican party's constant lying--compared to the Democrats' lying-- has long been astonishing to witness. The goal of today's Republican party is to use the government to drain money from the poor and middle class and ship it to the super-rich. That's easy. You start a war and then send billions of tax dollars to a plutocrat who owns the mashed potato industry. You feed the soldiers, who now include women,  African-Americans, gays, etc. That's excellent. But enriching mashed potato billionaires doesn't lend itself to winning political slogans in an election, so the Wall Streeters arrange their campaigns around issues that mean nothing at all to them but a lot to voters who are stupid or bigoted. The campaigns attack women, African-Americans, gays, etc.

Wall Street doesn't hate abortions or fear undocumented Mexicans. In fact, it finds both quite useful. But Wall Street promises Republican voters it will end abortions and fence out people of color, because the promises (lies) help get out the KKK vote. The problem today is that the stupid and bigoted voters have finally come to understand they have been lied to for a hundred years. The Republicans never really deliver.  

Abortion remains legal, and lynching remains illegal. The teabaggers, as mindless as inchworms, have taken a century to feel this out. Like worms who crawl out to die on cement after a rain storm, they have suddenly become disoriented. They back Trump, Fiorina and Carson. They bring down the Speaker. They want to stop the nation in its tracks, which would accidentally slow the surge of wealth to the donor class. No way, says Wall Street. The teabaggers hope to burn down the place and put up a new rotting white house. My guess, though, is that it will be the Wall Street wing that does the rebuilding. They have insurance. Maybe a steel house next time.

The Right to Die

I'm 80, so of course many of the people I love have died after long, painful, useless struggles that served only to torture them. In my father's last hours, he was in such discomfort that he signaled to his children to kill him. It was too late--we were taken by surprise--and we couldn't help. 

Today Gov. Brown signed a right-to-die bill, making physician-assisted death legal in California, and I take back every negative remark I ever made about the man, a devout Catholic. Now, when the time comes, each of us can choose, if we wish, to die with dignity. That's an enormous gift.

Death by Gun

 The following is from Market Watch

 

SilviaAscarelli

Senior news editor

You’re most likely to die because of a gun if you live in Alaska.
Deaths by firearms in Alaska totaled 19.6 per 100,000 people in 2013, the most recent data available, according to the Health Indicators Warehouse, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Center for Health Statistics.
That is almost double the national rate of 10.6 deaths per 100,000 people, according to its data. The national rate has generally risen over five years, although the 2013 rate was a touch below the 10.7 deaths per 100,000 recorded in 2012.
A separate measure of shootings, the crowdsourced Mass Shooting Tracker, lists the Umpqua shooting as the 295th mass shooting in the U.S. this year. It defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot—but not necessarily dead—in one event.
That is an average of more than one a day.
Following Alaska are in firearm mortality rates are Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Wyoming, all with 17 or more deaths by firearms per 100,000 people.