Death Sentences in Egypt -- It is beyond time for the U.S. to speak up and take action.

How can President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry not be more vocal on this issue concerning the rule of law? Where are the media opinion articles on this?

• BBC -- Egypt: Brotherhood’s Badie among mass death sentences.

  "A judge at a mass trial in Egypt has recommended the death penalty for 683 people - including Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Badie.

  The defendants faced charges over an attack on a police station in Minya in 2013 in which a policeman was killed."

• INYT -- Egypt sentences hundreds to death.

  "An Egyptian court here on Monday sentenced to death the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and more than 680 other people after a swift mass trial on charges of inciting or committing acts of violence that led to the destruction of a police station and the killing of an officer."

A Barometer for the 2014 and 2016 Elections

At the present time, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, and New York are all in the bottom 10 States when measured for long term solvency.

A Barometer for the 2014 and 2016 elections will be a comparison between the different economic results in comparable Democratic and Republican states; for example, California and Texas, Illinois and Ohio, Florida and New York, and Massachusetts and Indiana. Yes, this is the laboratory of federalism concerning different economic policies and politics. The comparative economic success or failure of these states will affect primarily the congressional elections. At the present time, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, and New York are all in the bottom 10 States when measured for long term solvency.

WSJ April 15th -- Whats the matter with Illinois?

Update - Building Tensions in Ukraine

• May 3, 2014 - Russia says it is weighing its response

  "The Kremlin’s announcement came after weeks of declarations from Russian officials that if Russian-speakers in restive eastern Ukraine came under threat, they would consider intervening in a conflict that has left several cities in the hands of pro-Russian separatists. On Friday, nine people were killed when the Ukrainian army launched its first major assault on a rebel stronghold and 34 died in clashes between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian mobs in the Black Sea port city of Odessa."

• Diplomats announce deal on Ukraine

  "Top diplomats from Ukraine, Russia, the European Union and the United States have agreed on a set of measures to ease mounting tensions in eastern Ukraine."

• Bloody Clashes breakout in Slovyansk

  "Pro-Russian activists and militants extended their grip across eastern Ukraine, prompting the government to mobilize the military as it struggled to prevent a replay of Russia's takeover of Crimea."

• Crimea won, Putin tries not to lose Ukraine

  "Vladimir Putin looks likely to go down in history as the Russian leader who won back Crimea, but he is fighting to avoid also being remembered as the man who let Ukraine escape from Moscow's sphere of influence."

• CNN -- Ukraine Crisis

  "Slightly north, in the town of Slaviansk, gunmen in camouflage stormed and seized a police building early Saturday, authorities said."

• Ukraine accuses Russia of “Aggresssion”

  "Interior Minister Arsen Avakov's evaluation appeared on Facebook Saturday, shortly after armed militants with Russian weapons seized more government buildings in the Russian-speaking east, including police headquarters in Donetsk and Kramatorsk."

• Ethnic groups in Ukraine

  "The majority of Crimea's 2.3 million population identify themselves as ethnic Russians and speak Russian - a legacy of Russia's 200-year involvement in the region."

• US Faces Reluctant Partners in Sanctioning Russia

  "Economists say the U.S. risks appearing weak without support from Europe, which is Russia's largest trading partner and therefore has huge sway over Russia's already shaky economy. But Europe is far from ready to issue sanctions on Moscow that would undercut its own financial stability while risking its main source of energy."

Election News Updates

• ABC NEWS -- Pace of Presidential Prep Picks Up
• WP -- Politics
• Real Clear Politics -- 2014

  RealClearPolitics Election 2014
  Senate 2014 Polls · Generic Congressional Ballot · House 2014 Polls · Governor 2014 Polls · Election Calendar · Election 2016 Polls

Update on Migrants at the Mexican Border

• Poverty and Violence Push a New Wave

  Border Patrol agents in olive uniforms stood in broad daylight on the banks of the Rio Grande, while on the Mexican side smugglers pulled up in vans and unloaded illegal migrants...

• Jeb Bush: Many Illegal Immigrants come out of an act of love

  Former Florida governor Jeb Bush said Sunday that many who illegally come to the United States do so out of an "act of love" for their families and should be treated differently than people who illegally cross U.S. borders or overstay visas...

Range War in Nevada

• Feds back down from Bundy siege after infowars exposure of Chinese land grab.

  Last night, we revealed how the feds were using the Bureau of Land Management to bully and intimidate ranchers like Bundy, pushing them off public land in order to pave the way for lucrative “green energy” projects backed by the Communist Chinese government and linked to Nevada Senator Harry Reid.

• ABC -- Nevada rancher wins range war

  Cliven Bundy went head to head with the Bureau of Land Management over the removal of hundreds of his cattle from federal land, where the government said they were grazing illegally.

  Bundy claims his herd of roughly 900 cattle have grazed on the land along the riverbed near Bunkerville, 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas, since 1870 and threatened a "range war" against the BLM on the Bundy Ranch website after one of his sons was arrested while protesting the removal of the cattle.

• Clive Bundy to meet with Clark County sheriff.

  According to Infowars reporter David Knight, who is on location, the BLM is standing down and will be releasing Cliven Bundy’s cattle shortly. This comes after reports the BLM was announcing they were ready to fire on protesters if they attempted to seize the rancher’s cattle.

The Death Penalty in Egypt -- A Political Tool even as a Threat

“This is not a matter of personal diplomacy, but one of declaring what is appropriate for a constitutional democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and what is not”

It is harder for the United States to have any moral persuasion when we still have the death penalty. There hasn’t, however, been much attention on this issue by the media or our government even concerning the rule of law. This is not a matter of personal diplomacy, but one of declaring what is appropriate for a constitutional democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and what is not.

• VoA - Egypt equates political dissent with terrorism

  Egypt is following the example of Saudi Arabia by “making dissent a terrorist crime,” something Jordan is also planning to do. Indeed Saudi pressure – expressed through billions of dollars in economic aid to Egypt – may have had something to do with Egypt’s decision late last year to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Saudi Arabia has also designated the Brotherhood a terrorist group.

• Egypt Court Sentences 528 Morsi Supporters to Death
• Muslim Brotherhood trials
• Egypt court adjourns Morsi murder trial
• Egypt ajourns Rabaa trial
• A quarter of Rabaa victims shot from behind
• International NYT articles on Muslim Brotherhood
• DEATH SENTENCES IN EGYPT ‘MOCKERY OF JUSTICE’

The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation by David Brion Davis

“The real antithesis of slavery is not freedom but equality”

David Brion Davis is one of the foremost historians of the twentieth century. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation is the third book of a prizewinning trilogy on slavery in Western culture. In his previous works Davis concluded that the real antithesis of slavery is not freedom but equality.

“Moral progress seems to be historical, cultural, and institutional, not the result of a genetic improvement in human nature ”

In The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation he brings appropriate attention and analysis to the Haitian Revolution, the colonization project, and the abolition movement. Davis presents the age of emancipation as a model for reform and as probably the greatest landmark of willed moral progress in human history. Using emancipation as a model he concludes that moral progress seems to be historical, cultural, and institutional, not the result of a genetic improvement in human nature.

Moving toward a more stable world order (understanding equality as our primary moral value)

“This understanding of our primary moral value of equality would better enable dialogue and it is also has at least the capacity for accommodation in a pluralistic global community.”

In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson describes its primary moral assertion that “all men are created equal” to be not a self-evident truth but as sacred and undeniable. Locke has described natural rights as being inherent. Jefferson, Madison, Tocqueville, Lincoln, the women suffragettes, and Martin Luther King, Jr. all considered equality to be the primary moral value of our government.

From the perspective of a physician, the primary moral value of medical ethics is a respect for human dignity and our common humanity. This understanding of equality is inherent, sacred and undeniable, or self-evident in that it is essentially a self-affirmation as well as an affirmation of our humanity. G. K. Chesterton, on the other hand, noted that the belief in human equality is not “some crude fairy tale about all men being equally tall or equally tricky.” Medical ethics also understands human nature to be multidimensional such that this primary moral assertion and commitment does not resolve all of the ethical issues, but it does provide a good framework of analysis that considers the individual, social, consequential, and metaphysical or deontological perspectives. This understanding of our primary moral value of equality would better enable dialogue and it also has at least the capacity for accommodation in a pluralistic global community. This understanding of equality would be a step toward enabling a more stable world order.

Moving toward a more stable world order (abolishing the death penalty)

We now live in a pluralistic global community with relatively easy access to weapons of mass destruction. One of the defining characteristics of a government is that it has a monopoly on the use of coercive power. Governments need enough coercive power to be able to maintain order and security, but the problem then becomes one of also placing limits on the use of that governmental power. As a result of technology, military power has now reached an ironic state of affairs in which that military power cannot be used without the risk of self destruction. For 30 years we had a foreign policy of mutual assured destruction. An exchange of nuclear weapons would also create a “nuclear winter” which would destroy the foundations of most of life on earth.

“If a government does not use its monopoly of coercive power to execute a single individual, it may be more reluctant to consider massive killing and destruction, including self-destruction.”

One of the ways to address the issue of the need for a more stable world order would be to first work toward the global abolishment of capital punishment. If a government does not use its monopoly of coercive power to execute a single individual, it may be more reluctant to consider massive killing and destruction, including self-destruction. Even the global elimination of capital punishment would not be easy as the death penalty is the greatest tool of autocratic and totalitarian governments. The global elimination of the death penalty would also require a liberal interpretation of Sharia Law in those Muslim countries have Sharia Guarantee Causes in their Constitutions.

Unfortunately, the five countries that use capital punishment the most consistently have included the United States. China, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran are among the company that we keep and they all point to the United States to help justify their use of the death penalty. This is one more major reason to abolish the death penalty in the United States. 135 out of 192 countries have already abolished the death penalty. A country can not be a member of the European Union if they have the death penalty. World opinion and collaborative policies based on that opinion can be affective in moving toward a more stable world order.