U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High
“Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates had been stable or falling since the 1950s.”
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
We need to abolish the death penalty as a matter of foreign policy.
USA TODAY - Kim Hjelmgaard
Dramatic rise in number of global executions
"At least 1,634 civilians were executed by governments last year using various methods, an increase of 50% compared to the year before, Amnesty said. Although 90% of those killings took place in just three countries: Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia."
"The numbers exclude China, where these data remain a state secret, although Amnesty said thousands were almost certainly killed there in 2015 by the government."
"The top five places where executions occurred last year — in order by volume — were China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States."
See also an older article on Abolishing the Death Penalty in Ohio
WSJ -- DANIEL HENNINGER
Obama’s Greatest Triumph
He is six months away from destroying both the Republican Party and Reagan’s legacy.
“Today, the last men standing amidst the debris of the Republican presidential competition are Donald Trump, a political independent who is using the Republican Party like an Uber car; Ted Cruz, who used the Republican Party as a footstool; and John Kasich, a remnant of the Reagan revolution, who is being told by Republicans to quit.”
USA Today
Kirsten Powers: The Republican blame game
“The dissatisfaction among a large cohort of GOP voters is directly attributable to their unhappiness with a party that they believe does not represent their interests. In exit polls, high percentages of GOP voters registered displeasure with their leadership. In Tennessee, 58% of Republican voters said they felt “betrayed” by their leaders, as did 47% in New Hampshire, 52% in South Carolina and 54% in Ohio.”
Hubris was one of the tragic flaws of the characters in the Greek plays.
It often led to individual or communal tragedy.
WP -- Attacking Cruz’s wife could hurt Trump with female voters
In a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 70 percent of women had a negative opinion of Trump. Nearly three quarters of women overall, and 39 percent of Republican women, had an unfavorable view of him in a recent CNN poll.
How the Epidemic of Drug Overdose Deaths Ripples Across America
The number of these deaths reached a new peak in 2014:47,055 people, or the equivalent of about 125 Americans every day.
How to kill: America's death penalty dilemma
With supplies of lethal injection drugs running low and new sources increasingly difficult to come by, states are grappling with alternatives. Virginia is the latest.
Its solution: Bring back the electric chair.
The first precedent for judicial review.
In his Second Institutes and as a judge and eventually chief justice of the King’s Bench, Coke attempted to extend the “common right and reason” of natural law and common law to include procedural concepts of due process (Forkosch 1973). In Dr. Bonham’s Case (1610), for example, he stated that the Royal College of Physicians, which had been incorporated by Parliament, could not act as judges, ministers, and the recipients of fines. In what was to become known as Coke’s Dictum he declared an Act of Parliament void: One cannot be judge in his own case.... And it appears in our books that in many cases the common law will control Acts of Parliament, and sometimes adjudge them to be utterly void. For when an Act of Parliament is against common right and reason, or repugnant, or impossible to be performed,the com- mon law will control it and adjudge such an Act to be void.
She prefers the hidden authoritarianism of the vast and growing administrative state.
In the American iteration, at least, this often means the same federal agency that writes the rules also enforces and adjudicates them—a confluence of powers Madison once called the “very definition of tyranny.”
The Atlantic -- Jeffrey Goldberg
The Obama Doctrine
A very long but illuminating article on Obama’s perspective on foreign policy
If you are a supporter of the president, his strategy makes eminent sense: Double down in those parts of the world where success is plausible, and limit America’s exposure to the rest. His critics believe, however, that problems like those presented by the Middle East don’t solve themselves—that, without American intervention, they metastasize.
WSJ -- Brett Stephens
Barack Obama Checks Out
A critical review of the article.
“In his place, an exact look-alike of Mr. Obama is giving interviews to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, interviews that are so gratuitously damaging to long-standing U.S. alliances, international security and Mr. Obama’s reputation as a serious steward of the American interest that the words could not possibly have sprung from the lips of the president himself.”
The president of ICANN should not have any conflicting interest and indeed there should be a financial disincentive for him to support any new international entity.
TheHill.com -- Mario Trujillo
Internet domain handoff takes major step forward
A major step was taken Thursday in the U.S. government's plan to hand off oversight of the Internet domain name system.
A nonprofit international group approved a plan and forwarded it to the Obama administration Thursday for review and approval.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and some others have continued to resist the transition, however. He has said Congress should have to vote before the administration signs off, but he has not succeeded in requiring that. Recently, he has accused the outgoing president of ICANN of having conflicts of interest.
International New York Times
Democracy’s Disintegration in Turkey
If there was any doubt about why the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seized the newspaper Zaman last week, consider this: Within 48 hours after the takeover, the paper began publishing pro-Erdogan propaganda.
CNN - Dana Ford
North Korea threatens nuclear strike over U.S.-South Korean exercises
North Korea warned it would make a "preemptive and offensive nuclear strike" in response to joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began Monday.
Huffington Post -- Paul Slansky President Trump Was "Just Fooling Around"
This hateful and dangerous piece of satire (Can the Muslims in the Middle East understand this out of context and in translation as satire?) was put on the Huffington Post.
President Trump said he was "just fooling around" this morning when he placed two pieces of bacon -- a forbidden food in the Muslim religion -- between the pages of the Quran at the annual National Prayer Breakfast. The action instantly provoked a crisis that threatens to plunge the world into Armageddon.
Report: Nearly 90,000 Illegal Immigrant Criminals Released Last Year
Nearly 90,000 illegal immigrants that federal officials considered to be “criminal threats” were released from custody last fiscal year instead of being deported. The actions were because of Obama administration policies, the Washington Examiner reports.
As of March 2015 more than 347,000 convicted criminal immigrants remained at large in the U.S. And as of September 2015, 918,369 illegal immigrants with final orders of deportation remained in communities across the U.S.
Breitbart.com
Exclusive: On Eve of South Carolina Vote, Nation’s ICE Officers Detail How Marco Rubio Betrayed Them
CRANE: Sen. Rubio never reached out to us. He surrounded himself with big business and amnesty groups, most of which were more interested in cheap labor and their own political agendas, and had no real concern for the welfare of immigrants, public safety, or the security of our nation. This while he ignored boots on the ground law enforcement officers who work within our broken immigration system every day and know better than any what’s needed to fix it. Common sense dictates that law enforcement be at the table when creating a bill like this. I think Sen. Rubio knew that, but actively chose to exclude us because of his own personal agenda.
Breitbart.com
Law Enforcement Sides with Chris Crane After Rubio’s Anti-ICE Tirade
Hodgson confirmed Crane’s account: “I was down there when the Gang of Eight did their press conference. I was standing right next to him,” Hodgson said. “He was definitely removed from the event. He wasn’t doing anything inappropriate or anything—he was just trying to ask a question, but they asked him to leave.”
Sheriff Hodgson similarly echoed Crane’s characterization of Rubio’s amnesty bill as “irresponsible and misleading for the American people.”
The pope wants a death penalty ban during his year of mercy
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official compendium of Church teaching issued under John Paul, states: “If non-lethal means are sufficient to defend and protect peoples safety from the aggressor, authority will limit itself to such means, as these are more in keeping with the concrete conditions of the common good and more in conformity with the dignity of the human person.”
When Hillary Clinton Killed Feminism
International New York Times -- Maureen Dowd
“THE Clinton campaign is shellshocked over the wholesale rejection of Hillary by young women, younger versions of herself who do not relate to her.”
“The interesting thing about the spectacle of older women trying to shame younger ones on behalf of Hillary is that Hillary and Bill killed the integrity of institutional feminism back in the ’90s — with the help of Albright and Steinem.”
“Seeing Albright, the first female secretary of state, give cover to President Clinton was a low point in women’s rights. As was the New York Times op-ed by Steinem, arguing that Lewinsky’s will was not violated, so no feminist principles were violated. What about Clinton humiliating his wife and daughter and female cabinet members? What about a president taking advantage of a gargantuan power imbalance with a 22-year-old intern? What about imperiling his party with reckless behavior that put their feminist agenda at risk?”
Why Donald Trump's vicious attack on George W. Bush was so brutally effective — and brilliant TheWeek.com -- James Poulos
“But Trump is not just running against Bushism. He's running against what it's a symptom of — the certain kind of insider sophistry that he says defines the political class. That's why he was onstage at all last night. That's why he's in first place now. And that's why he's more at home in the GOP than so many want to admit.”
“To understand how that could possibly be, understand what he's not arguing. The typical critique of politics today is that the ruling class has been corrupted by privilege. There's too much money in politics; there's too much of a cult of access; the tropes go on and on. Trump's not saying that. Instead, he's saying, the ruling class has been corrupted by foolishness. The problem isn't that "the politicians" have vanished behind the velvet rope. It's that they've vanished up their own rear ends. Obsessed with themselves, they have forgotten who they are. They have lost their way — and ours.”
NOVA -- Epigenetics
A short video to explain epigenetics
The explosive science of genetics
The Globe and Mail -- MARGARET WENTE
“A good general guess is that genetics explains 50 per cent of the differences in people in terms of personality, vocational interest, depression,”
Gene editing: where medical dreams and ethical nightmares collide
The Globe and Mail -- ANDRÉ PICARD
“CRISPR, which was initially developed to understand how bacteria defend themselves against viruses, has given scientists the ability to delete, tweak or insert genes, even in humans.”
PDR.net -- McGill University News, 01/29/2016
“We found that chronic pain changes the way DNA is marked not only in the brain but also in T cells, a type of white blood cell essential for immunity”
See also Epigenetics in NOVA Science
U.S. exonerations hit record high as more troubled cases probed
Reuters -- By Jon Herskovitz
“There were 149 known exonerations in 2015, where the exonerated defendants served on average more than 14 years in prison, said the report from the National Registry of Exonerations”
“Among those exonerated, 58 had been convicted of homicide, including five people who had been sentenced to death, it said. About three-quarters of the homicide exonerations included official misconduct”
“Texas had 54 known exonerations in 2015, followed by 17 in New York and 13 in Illinois, the report said.”
New York Post -- By Peter Schweizer
Bill Clinton’s pardon of fugitive Marc Rich continues to pay big
Fifteen years ago this month, on Jan. 20, 2001, his last day in office, Bill Clinton issued a pardon for international fugitive Marc Rich. It would become perhaps the most condemned official act of Clinton’s political career. A New York Times editorial called it “a shocking abuse of presidential power.” The usually Clinton-friendly New Republic noted it “is often mentioned as Exhibit A of Clintonian sliminess.”
“Rich’s business partners, lawyers, advisers and friends have showered millions of dollars on the Clintons in the decade and a half following the scandal.”
International NYT -- David Segal
What Donald Trump’s Plaza Deal Reveals About His White House Bid
“He has the ability to imagine what the other party wants him to be and then be that person,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success.” “He presents the Trump that will work in the moment.”
Breitbart.com -- by JARRETT STEPMAN
MLK Day:
The Enduring Power of the Declaration and American Ideas
King explained how equality before the law that Lincoln and the United States stood for had not been accomplished, that a century after the Emancipation Proclamation it was time to fulfill the promise of liberty and equal rights for all Americans.
“In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” King said. “…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
By framing his argument in the natural rights tradition of the United States—and placing it within the context of the long history of American ideas—King was able to reach many who might not be initially amenable to his views. In many ways this was a rebuke to the idea that the American republic was originally founded on racist premises and prejudice.
But as King, Lincoln, and Jaffa argued, the Declaration’s statement that “all men are created equal” really did mean all men regardless of race—that racial equality before the law was a continuity with the American philosophical tradition, not a break from it.
The Far Center -- James Rutherford
Equality as an Affirmation of our Common Humanity
Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much. Public opinion, or any subject, always has a “central idea, from which all its minor thoughts radiate. That “central idea” in our political public opinion, at the beginning was, and until recently has continued to be, “the equality of men.
— Abraham Lincoln 1856
See Also
International New York Times -- Editorial Board
Now there may be an answer in the case of Shonda Walter, a 36-year-old black woman on Pennsylvania’s death row. On Friday, the Supreme Court met to discuss whether to hear a petition from Ms. Walter, who is asking the justices to rule that in all cases, including hers, the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishments.
In the past 14 years alone, the Supreme Court has barred the execution of several categories of people: minors, the intellectually disabled, and those convicted of a crime other than murder. In that last case, decided in 2008, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court, “When the law punishes by death, it risks its own sudden descent into brutality, transgressing the constitutional commitment to decency and restraint.”
Justice Stephen Breyer, in a long dissent from a 5-to-4 ruling that allowed Oklahoma to proceed with its inhumane lethal-injection drug protocol, suggested he would be open to a case challenging the constitutionality of the death penalty itself.
Supreme Court deals blow to Florida's death sentencing system Richard Wolf, USA TODAY
“The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Florida's system of letting judges, not juries, decide whether convicted criminals deserve the death penalty.”
“In Florida, judges can impose the death penalty even if the jury has not ruled unanimously or agreed on any aggravating circumstance. If the jury has issued a recommendation, the judge doesn't have to follow it. No other state gives judges such discretion.”
Courts, States put Death Penalty on Life Support
Richard Wolf and Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
"The imposition and implementation of the death penalty seems capricious, random, indeed arbitrary,'' Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer said in dissenting from the court's June decision allowing the continued use of a problematic sedative for lethal injections. "From a defendant's perspective, to receive that sentence, and certainly to find it implemented, is the equivalent of being struck by lightning."
WP -- Fareed Zakaria
America’s self-destructive whites
“The main causes of death are as striking as the fact itself: suicide, alcoholism, and overdoses of prescription and illegal drugs. “People seem to be killing themselves, slowly or quickly,” Deaton told me. These circumstances are usually caused by stress, depression and despair.”
Drugabuse.gov
National Overdose Death Rates
WP -- George Will
Goodbye to 2015, a year of absurdity and overreach
“The American Council of Trustees and Alumni reported that 48 of the top 52 liberal arts colleges and universities do not require English majors to take a Shakespeare course.”
“A young girl was sent home with a censorious note from her school because her Wonder Woman lunchbox violated the school ban on depictions of “violent characters.” An Oregon eighth-grader, whose brother served in Iraq, was suspended for wearing a T-shirt that depicted an empty pair of boots representing soldiers killed in action. The school said the shirt was “not appropriate.” A Tennessee boy was threatened with suspension from elementary school because he came to school with a military-style haircut like that of his stepbrother, a soldier. A government arbitrator prevented the firing of a New Jersey elementary school teacher who was late to school 111 times in two years.”
