Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
STEPHAN A. SCHWARTZ, Columnist - Explore - Schwartzreport
Stephan:
When Benjamin Franklin-the only founder who drafted and signed all three of the documents that brought the United States to life, the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Paris (September 3, 1783), and the Constitution-dreamed of the America he would like to see develop, the imagery that came to his mind was of a middle-class, largely urban culture made up of immigrants who were technologically sophisticated, family oriented, joyful, and upwardly mobile. And when he thought about how they might happen to become that society, it wasn’t just the people he thought about. He also understood the importance of infrastructure as a factor in creating a middle class. He felt so strongly about this that he used his will to continue to support his plan for America beyond his death. He left specific bequests for public works and created the microlending model that has proven such a powerful transformative force, leaving what today would be several hundred thousand dollars each to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia.1
The infrastructure money was to be used specifically to build such an infrastructure and nurture such a middle class. He explained his intent was to create that ‘Which may be judged of most general […]
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Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
RICHARD FLORIDA, - The Atlantic
Stephan: Richard Florida is the author of The Creative Class and founder of the Creative Class Group. Click through to see the charts and graphs that illustrate this article.
Terrible tragedies like last week’s mass shootings in Tucson cause us to search for deeper answers. Many were quick to blame America’s divisive and vitriolic political culture for the violence; others portray the shooter as an unhinged, clinically deranged person with his own unfathomable agenda. Arizona has been ground zero for the battle over immigration. Were the state’s political and economic travails a contributing factor? There has been some talk about guns, too. Might tighter gun control laws have made a difference?
The map above charts firearm deaths for the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Note that these figures include accidental shootings, suicides, even acts of self-defense, as well as crimes. As of 2007, 10.2 out of every 100,000 people were killed by firearms across the United States, but that rate varies dramatically from state to state. In Hawaii, at the low end, it was 2.6 per 100,000; in New York and New Jersey it was 5.0 and 5.2 respectively. At the high end, 21.7 out of every 100,000 residents of the District of Columbia were killed by guns, 20.2 in Louisiana, 18.5 in Mississippi, and 17.8 in Alaska. Arizona ranked eighth nationally, with 15.1 deaths per 100,000.
With these […]
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Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
DAVID EDWARDS, - The Raw Story
Stephan: I have decided to dedicate today's issue to one aspect of the effects fear is having on our society: the obsession with guns. And, more than the guns, the almost pathological fear that underlies this obsession. Other countries also have guns, but our death and injury rate from firearms is orders of magnitude greater than any other country in the world without an active war. First, a story so mad I thought it must be a parody when I initially read it: A proposal to permit college faculty to go around carrying concealed arms on campus. The next two stories provide some real data showing where this leads, and the effects it produces. I can tell you one thing with large numbers of people in Arizona now carrying concealed weapons you won't find me in a bar anywhere in that state.
In the interest of full disclosure I was a competitive shooter from the age of 12 to 23. When I was actively competing and training I was shooting about 100 rounds a day. Hunting never interested me, because there was no sport in it, and I really didn't care that much for eating game, so why kill it? I can still appreciate why someone enjoys target, skeet, or trap shooting, and know that for many rural families a deer in the freezer represents significant protein in a family diet. But for me, if you are trying to make a group of five shots fit inside of a quarter or less, shooting a deer was like shooting one of our Angus cows in the field. When I got out of the Army, where I had been a medic, I sold my 17 long arms, shotguns, and handguns. Taking care of a friend shot in the gut with a VC AK-47 round, I found, left me uninterested in weapons.
Gun rights advocates aren’t letting a shooting that left six dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) in the hospital slow them down.
Republicans in the Arizona State Legislature are planning to move forward with several bills that would expand gun rights.
One bill aimed to allow college and university faculty to carry concealed weapons on campus. Utah is currently the only state to currently allow concealed weapons on campuses. The National Conference of State Legislature noted that 24 states have outright bans.
Arizona Republicans also wanted to expand laws allowing gun owners to display a weapon for purposes for self defense. Another proposed law would prevent landlords and homeowner associations from ‘restricting the right to bear arms in self defense,’ the Associated Press observed.
‘There are going to be some nervous nellies, so to speak, but I think that it will be overcome,’ John Wentling of the gun advocacy group Arizona Citizens Defense League told AP. ‘We still have an obligation to protect constitutional and civil rights.’
‘I don’t think [the tragedy] really changes anything,’ Republican state Sen. Ron Gould said. ‘I don’t see how gun control could have prevented that shooting unless you take guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens.’
But an armed […]
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Tuesday, January 18th, 2011
ABHAY ANEJA, JOHN J. DONOHUE, III, and ALEXANDRIA ZHANG, - Stanford Law School
Stephan: Here are facts instead of rhetoric and assertions. It gives the lie to claims that if more people were armed gun violence must necessarily go down.
For over a decade, there has been a spirited academic debate over the impact on crime of laws that grant citizens the presumptive right to carry concealed handguns in public – so-called right-to-carry (RTC) laws. In 2005, the National Research Council (NRC) offered a critical evaluation of the ‘more guns, less crime
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Monday, January 17th, 2011
ROBIN BRAVENDER, - Politico
Stephan: The saga of the EPA is Climate Change Denierism playing out as public policy. Here is a hard truth for each of us to consider: If you voted for a climate denier Representative or Senator you signed a death warrant for life as we have known it. You will watch it happen and will have to learn to live with the choice you have made, and be haunted by what it is going to do to your children and grandchildren. The debate will go on for a few more years until the changes are so devastating and obvious they cannot be ignored. By then it will be too late to do much about any of it.
The Environmental Protection Agency is desperate for some friends in the Senate.
Republicans have made unraveling the Obama administration’s climate rules one of their top priorities this year, and with the GOP-led House expected to easily pass a measure to handcuff EPA’s authority, the rules’ fate may be determined by how hard the agency’s champions in the Senate will fight.
At least 56 senators - just four short of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster - will most likely support measures to hamstring climate rules, and an additional eight votes may be in play this Congress, a POLITICO analysis shows.
Any congressional attempt to limit regulatory authority is always difficult to achieve, an industry lobbyist told POLITICO. But given the sluggish economy and the long list of moderate Senate Democrats up for reelection in 2012, ‘the chances are better than ever
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