What if the treatment is worse than the symptom?

So the House Democrats unveiled their proposal to reform our nation's gun safety laws. As usual, the other side cried foul, save for some vague promise to provide better mental heath services.

We've seen this play out before. After a mass shooting rampage, the NRA and its cohorts express sympathy for the victims, express that guns are not the problem, and we as a nation must work on providing mental health for those who need it.

You'll take away my right to lose insurance from my cold, dead hands!

I have two problems with this single-minded, overly simplistic, vague solution to the scourge of mass shootings and everyday gun violence that plague America today.

First, when Barack Obama called on Congress to pass the Affordable Health Care Act, aka "Obamacare," these same assault-rifle wielding, bed-wetting, "Tea Party" types were carrying guns to health care rallies and calling for armed insurrection if insurance companies were to be forced to provide services that customers paid for. Oh, the humanity!

The second problem cuts right to the core of the gun culture. These "Second Amendment Enthusiasts" don't view treatment from mental health professionals as the solution to gun violence in America. No, they think that guns are the solution! That's right. If you hear voices in your head, don't see a psychiatrist ASAP, go to the shooting range and pop off a few rounds.

Think I'm being naive? I wish I were, but I'm going off of the information that we have concerning Adam Lanza at this time. This was reported by the Associated Press, and it cannot be repeated often enough:

"Friends told NBC's Today show on Monday that Lanza was a devoted mother, especially to her son Adam, and that shooting guns was simply a hobby for her. Russell Hanoman said Adam Lanza was 'clearly a troubled child.'

"Hanoman said Nancy Lanza told him she introduced guns to Adam as a way to teach him responsibility. 'Guns require a lot of respect, and she really tried to instill that responsibility within him, and he took to it. He loved being careful with them. He made it a source of pride.' Hanoman said."

In less time that it takes Wayne LaPierre to say,"But wait! That was an isolated incident!" We can examine the murder of ex-Navy Seal Chris Kyle. Yes, he did take Ray Routh, a person who described his own behavior as "psychotic," to a gun range. Yes, Kyle was trying help Routh with his mental ailments.

And if we do get mental health care, we're gonna shoot up the place!

And no, this isn't a recent development. Before Sandy Hook, and even before Columbine, high school sophomore Kip Kinkel murdered both his parents, drove to Thurston High School in Springfield Oregon, and unloaded 50 rounds of ammunition on his classmates, killing four and wounding another 24.

Kip's father had taken the boy off Prozac and had allowed his son to collect guns as a mature hobby. Seriously. Just a reminder that medication has more stopping power than a Glock.

Tuesday's election results expose myths of right-wing America--opposition continues to waste oppurtunities

America the Conservative. The Country where Patio Man steps out on his deck and warmly embraces an impending foreclosure notice on his underwater mortgage. Anything less, argue the Rick Santelli's of the world, would be tyranny.

Looks like somebody forget that Arizona used to be part of Mexico.

Not exactly. Case and point was the Mississippi "personhood" amendment. Anyone with a decent memory can recall a similar voter-initiative to outlaw abortions in South Dakota back in 2008, and even carved out exemptions for cases of rape, incest or the health of the woman. That bill failed by a similar margin.

Ohio shouldn't have been a surprise either. Governor John Kasich was elected with 49 percent of the vote, and is currently tied with Rick Scott as the most unpopular governor in America. The assume that any of Kasich's policies have even snowball's chance in hell of passing a ballot initiative is laughable.

And then there's Arizona, where Russell Pearce became the first state lawmaker recalled in Arizona history and the first time a state Senate president has been recalled anywhere in the United States. It's also amusing that these Phoenix-area citizens didn't vote a Democrat, they chose another Republican.

And what has the opposition party taken away from all this? Probably nothing. HuffingtonPost has gathered word that the "Super Congress" may extend the Bush Tax cuts--permanently. And today, President Obama released another press release containing Hoover-esque talking points: "The American people deserve to have their leaders come together and make the tough choices necessary to live within our means," said the release. "Just as American families do every day in these tough economic times. The President urged the leaders to get this done."

The folks over at Manhattan Mini Storage understand what's going on.

It's nothing short of phenomenal that presidential candidate could advocate a lower standing of living and come out on top of the polls, but here we are.

Well, I can't take it. If we can't persuade George McGovern to come out of retirement and help save this country yet again, we had better start telling Elizabeth Warren to set her sights a little higher.

The Seven Most Important Things to consider know that Bin Laden has Received the Hot Lead of Justice

Good riddance. Now that Osama Bin Laden's gone, he's all over the news again. In the flurry of talking heads, twits making tweets, and written words, here are the seven most important things to consider now that Bin Laden has met his fate:


The "Biden" Doctrine has succeeded where the Bush Doctrine has failed.

"We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.[emphasis mine]. George W. Bush's policy of overthrowing governments--by pre-emption if necessary--to stop terrorism should be viewed as a complete failure. It could be weeks or months before we know how much the Pakistani government knew of Osama Bin Laden's whereabouts, but it seems incredibly dubious that the Pakistani government made any good faith effort to capture the man. Does that mean we should have overthrown the Pakistani government as well, only to let Bin Laden escape yet again?

Bottom Line: Joe Biden's vision of a narrow, focused attack on counter-terrorism is more effective at bringing specific terrorists to justice than trying unilaterally attacking countries to spark a wave of democracy and therefore, stem terrorism.

This should accelerate the splintering of Al-Qaeda.

The Obama administration should not downplay the strategic significance of one man. Fred Kaplan and Daniel Byman over at Slate.com probably have the best analysis based on actual facts of what will happen without the star power of Bin Laden. In the long run, Al-Qaeda's recruiting will likely suffer with the loss of its figurehead, and affiliate groups in Somalia and Yemen are likely to be wary of each other, perhaps creating a power struggle with Al-Qaeda's main branch in Pakistan. Which brings us to point number three:

Justice has been served, but the most effective way to reduce/eliminate the terror threat requires non-military solutions.

For what these polls are worth, Al-Qaeda does not register a majority level of support in any country. Richard Clarke hits the nail on the head with his analysis in Monday's New York Times. Clarke describes the difficult situation in countries like Egypt, Syria, and Yemen, where governments are unpopular due to catastrophically high levels of unemployment:


"Moderate, tolerant and even some secular groups exist, but they often do not have a comprehensive alternative vision, know how to communicate it or have the organizational skills to promote it. American and European experts can assist them in building politically viable organizations, but to succeed these new groups must be homegrown and tap into the Arab and Islamic traditions that speak to many Muslim youth.
"Moreover, without investment to create jobs, new governments in these countries will fail under the weight of youth unemployment. Unless corruption is replaced with efficiency, investment will either not materialize or be wasted"

Osama Bin Laden was Hitler without an army: a man of evil without conscience who had the ability to deceive otherwise decent human beings into doing horrible things. Hitler became popular because he was right when he said that the Treaty of Versailles unfairly punished Germany after World War I. After World War II, the United States and Britain resolved not to make the same mistake again, and would allow their defeated foe to rebuild. Preventing another Osama Bin Laden requires diplomacy and a commitment to global economic prosperity. In other words, we can't just give $1.3 Billion annually to someone like Hosni Muburak. We need to make sure that economic aid goes directly to the people, and not some dictator who turns a blind eye to high unemployment and citizens who become terrorists. Speaking of dubious allies:

With friends like Pakistan, who needs enemies?


The U.S. State Department needs to be more selective when determining who is really "a valuable ally" of the United States. Osama Bin Laden was living in a large mansion with 12 foot high walls not far from Pakistan's military training facility. Neighbors noticed that the building did not have telephone service and that the occupants burned their trash. This did not arouse the suspicion of the Pakistani military? Whether Pakistan was blissfully unaware of Bin Laden's presence or knowingly sheltered him remains to be discovered.

So what do we do with Pakistan? Do we overthrow this government as well? Or should we continue with the diplomacy that Richard Clarke encourages? If we are going to win the hearts and minds of the opposition, we should engage in diplomacy first.

Our continued presence in Afghanistan is continually harder to justify.

The moral justification for overthrowing the Taliban was because they harbored Al-Qaeda, giving them a "home base" to plot terrorist attacks. So does Yemen. So does Somalia. If we need to do so, our Navy SEALs can track down and kill a high-profile terrorist in hot pursuit, regardless of what government the country has.

Taking that into consideration, the question of supporting the Karzai government deserves more scrutiny than ever before. Is he unpopular because the Taliban hate freedom, or because he probably lost the last election? As our current situation stands right now, the United States will have a continued military presence in Afghanistan until 2014, at which point a withdrawal might take place--or be re-evaluated based on conditions on the ground.

That time for re-evaluation is now. President Obama should listen to members of both political parties, in calling for an exit strategy, rather than the increasingly delusional Joe Lieberman. The U.S. government puts itself at risk by supporting regimes like Muburak. We need smarter diplomacy and fewer wars without clearly defined goals in order to truly fight Islamic extremism.

Now is also a good time to restore the rule of law.

"Wonder what President Obama thinks of water boarding now?" tweeted the twit Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa).

Spare me. Science tells us that Torture doesn't work. Steve King doesn't believe in science, but fortunately, the Obama administration does. The FBI didn't torture underwear bomber Umar Abdulmutallab. They even read him his Miranda Rights. The FBI did, however, bring in Umar's relatives, and from that tactic the FBI was able to extract all the information they needed.

Steve King may not believe in science, but the rest of us do. We don't have all the details yet, but it seems dubious that information leading to Obama's capture came through torture, or because those questioned were held as "illegal combatants" as opposed to Prisoners of War. Legal scholar Dahlia Lithwick says that such claims are unfalsifiable, but I disagree. Holding Enemy Prisoners of War does not mean that such individuals could not be interrogated, it only requires that they be treated humanely. And guess what? Humane treatment yields results. Donald Rumsfeld's tactics yielded the Abu Ghraib. I think it's safe to say which tactic resulted in Bin Laden's death. Which brings us to our final point:

If we're going to thank a former president for eliminating Bin Laden from the face of the Earth, it's John F. Kennedy, not George W. Bush.

Either George Bush's statement of not caring about Bin Laden's whereabouts and subsequent invasion of Iraq was a clever ploy to make it seem like he wasn't interested in bringing him to justice, or he really didn't care all that much about bringing him to justice.  And remember when John McCain criticized Obama for wanting attack terrorist targets in Pakistan without help from the Pakistani government? It was President Obama who made finding and killing Bin Laden a top priorty, and relied on the Navy SEALs to do the job with remarkable efficiency.

For that, we should thank President Kennedy. This Navy veteran and war hero understood the need for a small group of elite forces trained in unconventional warfare and established the SEALs in 1962. Sunday's raid did what predator drones, cruise missiles, or cluster bombs could not. To everyone who has ever been a member of the Navy SEAL program: Thank you.

That's all for now. Undoubtedly, these topics will arise in the future. Hopefully, our leaders will take the right path.

George McGovern--2012

That's right. George McGovern for President. Now.

Soldier, you country calls you yet again!!

Who cares if he'll be 90 years old on election day and currently lives part-year in sunny Florida. There are two very compelling reasons why George McGovern should run for president next year.

First of all, Barack Obama has made a terrible case for his re-election. With economic recovery on shaky grounds and no viable exit strategy from Afghanistan, he has left little room for daylight between him and his predecessor. Rather than run on his accomplishments or what he intends to do during his second term, he merely implores the public to re-elect him because he isn't crazy. That's a terrible metric for success.

Second of all, today's Republican Party is so extreme and frightening in their own policies that candidates like Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney are deemed "too liberal" for the party base. Gallup notes that this is the first time in the history of their polling organization that no front-runner has emerged this late in the game, opening the door for a potential tea-party favorite to take the reigns. Should that happen, any Democrat--even Kucinich--would probably win in a landslide. Example: Barack Obama's approval rating is below 50 percent, and even he would defeat Sarah Palin by double digits.

Someone fix this with PhotoShop, please!

I say we take advantage of this opportunity by ending the myth of "conservative" America once and for all. Democrats have won the popular vote in four out of the last five presidential elections. McGovern and Mondale ran against popular incumbents and lost badly, and Michael Dukakis made several moronic decisions that doomed his candidacy. The Democratic Party has been scared of its own shadow ever since. What better time--and who a better person--to win the presidency and re-establish a government that actually works for the people than McGovern himself?

I say let's make this idea go viral as quickly as possible. We need a draft McGovern movement. Someone with access to FinalCutPro should put together some promo videos and post them on YouTube. McGovern may not ultimately run, but I sure would like to see his name come out on top against hypothetical opponents in public opinion polling. It would certainly send a powerful message to our flaccid leader on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Think about it: A president with the moral decency to end tax cuts for the super-wealthy and corporations, restore sanity to foreign policy, and reform our entitlement programs so that the reigns of populism are firmly rooted in the political left once and for all. If he wins, we all win! Sow how 'bout it! Tell your friends to spread the word! McGovern 2012!

President Obama's flawed address casts shadow over noble action

Let's be clear from the beginning. Yes, stopping a murderous tyrant like Qaddafi is the right thing to do. It is in the interest of free world to prevent genocide and the potential displacement of millions of people. If it must come by force, than so be it. What I can't understand is why Barack Obama continues to be so condescending, contradictory and almost comically illogical when he explains his actions. Last night's televised speech is his latest exercise in this endeavor.

Problem number one is that no matter what, President Obama will use terrible logic to insulate himself from criticism. Eliot Spitzer's article "Last Chance for Libya," summarized quite well that the Libyan rebels had nearly been quashed in Benghazi--and waiting any longer would have enabled Qaddafi to extinguish the torch of freedom. In making his case for intervention, Obama himself spelled out the disaster that was unfolding in human terms:

In the face of the world’s condemnation, Qaddafi chose to escalate his attacks, launching a military campaign against the Libyan people. Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted, and killed. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. Water for hundreds of thousands of people in Misurata was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assaults from the air.

Pretty terrible, huh? I guess waiting for a month before acting was a failure that you should own up to, eh Mr. President?

Not exactly. Demonstrating that his arrogance knows no bounds, Obama congratulated himself for acting so quickly. "When people were being brutalized in Bosnia," he reasoned, "it took the international community more than a year to intervene with air power to protect civilians. It took us only 31 days."

Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt had waited until February 7th, 1942, to declare war on Germany and Japan. Extrapolating on Obama's timeframe, Roosevelt could have reasoned, "It took Woodrow Wilson two years after the sinking of the Lusitania to confront the German Menace. I only waited two months!"

Perhaps more important was Obama's omission of Congressional approval. If we take him at his word that he "consulted with bipartisan members of Congress," why didn't he follow Constitutional procedure and schedule a vote? It took George W. Bush less than one hour to get Congressional approval concerning Terri Schiavo. No approval after 31 days for a noble cause such as this is nothing to boast about.

Why was a vote in Congress not necessary? And if it wasn't necessary in the case of establishing and enforcing a no-fly zone, why should the President ask for Congressional approval for upgrading our dilapidated infrastructure? Or funding our public schools? Or hiring more police officers in high-crime areas? These are are all noble goals as well, eh, Mr President? The same president who refuses to sign virtually anything into law unless he has 60 Senate votes--regardless as to how popular the legislation is with the general public.

And he didn't bother to mention any sort of exit strategy. It's not like the general public has over 100,000 reasons to be skeptical on that one.


I wish I had some sort of witty punch line to sign out, but I don't. I guess the take-away is that doing the job poorly is better than utter failure. I'm glad he's not Donald Trump, but the President needs to understand that he's not Abraham Lincoln either.