11 essential facts about guns and mass shootings in the United States
America is a land of guns. It was true when twelve people died in Aurora, Colo., when a gunman opened fire in a movie theater. It was true when a gunman killed 27 people, including 20 children, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Conn. And it remains true this morning, as police search for the gunman who is accused of killing nine people at an historic African American church in Charleston, S.C.
In this post, adapted from previous versions* that we released after mass killings in the past, we explore America's unique role among advanced countries as a place where support for guns is widespread -- and violence involving firearms is equally widespread. There are some perhaps surprising findings -- gun ownership in the United States is declining overall, for instance. But despite mass killings -- which have occurred with increasing frequency in recent years -- support for gun rights is still resolute in America.
Here are answers to a few questions you might have about guns and mass shootings, including:
How common are mass shootings in this country?
How many people own guns?
Are mass shootings becoming more common?
When were deadliest shootings in U.S. history?
Is the United States an especially violent place, compared to other countries?
Where is violence most common in America?
Is the number of guns related to the number of homicides?
Is gun control?
Is there public support for gun control?
What about for particular gun control policies?
How do mass shootings affect public opinion on this issue?
How many people own guns?
Are mass shootings becoming more common?
When were deadliest shootings in U.S. history?
Is the United States an especially violent place, compared to other countries?
Where is violence most common in America?
Is the number of guns related to the number of homicides?
Is gun control?
Is there public support for gun control?
What about for particular gun control policies?
How do mass shootings affect public opinion on this issue?
Mother Jones tracked and mapped shooting sprees over the three decades from 1982 to May of last year. They counted "at least 61 mass murders carried out with firearms across the country, with the killings unfolding in 30 states from Massachusetts to Hawaii," they found.
A Congressional Research Service report published in 2013 counted 78 incidents over roughly the same period, in which 547 were killed. Definitions of mass shootings vary. The report excludes those for whom terrorist ideology or criminal profit was a motivation. The Mother Jones staff limited themselves to indiscriminate killings of at least four people in public places by lone shooters.
Since we don't know what drove the gunman in Charleston, it's too early to speculate on how this latest incident would alter these counts.
In most cases, the Mother Jones staff found, the killers had obtained their weapons legally:
Since they published their analysis, five people were killed in a shooting spree in Las Vegas that authorities said was driven by anti-government views. In February, a man named Joseph Jesse Aldridge killed seven people in Texas County, Mo., including several of his relatives, before taking his own life. His motivations remain unclear.
2. Gun ownership in the United States is declining overall, but nearly a third of households still have a gun.
The General Social Survey has been asking Americans about whether they have a gun in their home for decades, and last year essential tied the record low level of gun ownership reached in 2010. As you can see the chart below, 31 percent of adults reporting having a firearm in their household in 2014. That is 17 percentage points below the peak gun ownership from 1977 to 1980.
Survey data released last year by the Pew Research Center broke down the demographics of gun ownership more broadly. They wrote:
Overall, about a third of all Americans with children under 18 at home have a gun in their household, including 34% of families with children younger than 12. That’s nearly identical to the share of childless adults or those with older children who have a firearm at home.The new research also suggests a paradox: While blacks are significantly more likely than whites to be gun homicide victims, blacks are only about half as likely as whites to have a firearm in their home (41% vs. 19%). Hispanics are less likely than blacks to be gun homicide victims and half as likely as whites to have a gun at home (20%).
Pew found that gun ownership is concentrated among older adults, rural residents, and whites, especially white Southerners. Whites in the South are more likely to own guns than whites in other regions.
3. Active shooter events have become more common in recent years.
3. Active shooter events have become more common in recent years.
A report published by the FBI last year, studying active shooting situations between 2000 and 2013, found that these kinds of incidents were happening more and more recently. The first seven years of the study found an average of 6.4 active shootings per year, while the last seven years of the study found that number jumped up to 16.4 incidents per year.
Active shooting incidents are defined by federal agencies as "an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area." (This is different from mass killings, which are episodes where three or more people are killed; while many active shooting incidents wind up being mass killings, more than half of the episodes in the FBI study did not meet that definition.)
As this map by The Washington Post shows, several of the deadliest shootings ever in the United States have happened in just the past few years -- including the massacres at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. and at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg. These were the two shootings that claimed the most lives, and the third deadliest shooting was in 1991 in Killeen, Tex.
Wednesday's incident in Charleston would not be among this group of the deadliest shootings in modern American history.
Kieran Healy, a sociologist at Duke University, made this graph of deaths due to assault in the United States and other developed countries. We are a clear outlier -- along with Estonia and Mexico. Yet this country is a far less violent place than it was 40 years ago, with the rate of deaths due to assault declining by roughly half.
As Healy writes, "The most striking features of the data are (1) how much more violent the U.S. is than other OECD countries (except possibly Estonia and Mexico, not shown here), and (2) the degree of change—and recently, decline—there has been in the U.S. time series considered by itself."
As Healy writes, "The most striking features of the data are (1) how much more violent the U.S. is than other OECD countries (except possibly Estonia and Mexico, not shown here), and (2) the degree of change—and recently, decline—there has been in the U.S. time series considered by itself."
In a subsequent post, Healy drilled further into the numbers and looked at deaths due to assault in different regions of the country. Just as the United States is a clear outlier in the international context, the South is a clear outlier in the national context:
7. More guns tend to mean more homicide.
7. More guns tend to mean more homicide.
The Harvard Injury Control Research Center assessed the literature on guns and homicide and found that there's substantial evidence that indicates more guns means more murders.
This holds true whether you're looking at different countries or different states. Citations here.
In 2011, economist Richard Florida dove deep into the correlations between gun deaths and other kinds of social indicators. Some of what he found was, perhaps, unexpected: Higher populations, more stress, more immigrants, and more mental illness were not correlated with more deaths from gun violence. But one thing he found was, perhaps, perfectly predictable: States with tighter gun control laws appear to have fewer gun-related deaths. The disclaimer here is that correlation is not causation. But correlations can be suggestive:
"The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state," Florida said in 2012. "It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place - assault weapons' bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements. Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48)."
"The map overlays the map of firearm deaths above with gun control restrictions by state," Florida said in 2012. "It highlights states which have one of three gun control restrictions in place - assault weapons' bans, trigger locks, or safe storage requirements. Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. Though the sample sizes are small, we find substantial negative correlations between firearm deaths and states that ban assault weapons (-.45), require trigger locks (-.42), and mandate safe storage requirements for guns (-.48)."
9. Gun control, in general, has not been politically popular -- and its popularity has been declining lately.
Since 1990, Gallup has been asking Americans whether they think gun control laws should be stricter.
The answer, increasingly, is that they don't.
"Less than half of Americans, 47%, say they favor stricter laws covering the sale of firearms, similar to views found last year," Gallup says. "But this percentage is significantly below the 58% recorded in 2012 after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, spurred a nationwide debate about the possibility of more stringent gun control laws. Thirty-eight percent of Americans say these laws should be kept as they are now, and 14% say they should be made less strict."
While many Americans strongly support the right to bear arms, they also support specific restrictions, such as background checks, assault weapons bans and a federal database to track guns. Here's 2013 data from Pew Research Center.
That is what the Pew Research Center found after polling Americans after mass shootings in the United States. In fact, Pew reported late last year that for the first in more than 20 years, Americans showed more support for gun rights than gun control. That's what Pew found after Newtown.
And before other mass shootings, as well:
In fact, more people say gun ownerships protects people from a crime.
*Earlier versions of this post were authored by Ezra Klein, and in places some of the original language is retained. Mark Berman contributed to this post.
This post has been updated to correct the number of children killed in the Sandy Hook massacre.
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ReplyDeleteWell how can you comment? The article pretty much says it all.
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The absurd is born out of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.
ReplyDelete- Albert Camus
DeleteAt some point in being alive you are struck by the wonder and awe of everything and quit trying to make sense of any of it.
ReplyDelete- Deuce
DeleteSometimes it's just your turn in the barrel.
Delete- Rufus
CASE IN POINT:
ReplyDeleteHezbollah’s television station, al-Manar, is reporting that their forces launched two separate attacks on ISIS forces along the Lebanon-Syria border, killing nine fighters including two who they identified as ISIS commanders.
The fighting took place on the outskirts of the border town of Arsal, where ISIS and al-Qaeda have repeatedly launched attacks on Lebanese forces. Hezbollah says they overran a “meeting” being held between the ISIS leaders in the area.
Hezbollah claims the meeting was to plan an offensive against Baalbek, a major Lebanese city in the area, and identified the two slain ISIS commanders as Abu Akrama al-Zouhouri and Ahmad al-Mohsen. The others slain were not identified.
Since Hezbollah joined the Syrian Civil War on the government’s side, they have fought repeatedly against ISIS and other rebel factions. The fighting has mostly been inside Syria, but has also brought attempts from the Islamist factions to attack Shi’ite targets in Lebanon.
AND FROM OUR INDISPENSABLE ALLY - ALWAYS SUPPORTING US INTERESTS:
ReplyDeleteHezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah says his group is currently involved in an "existential battle" against insurgents inside Syria. While reports maintain that Hezbollah is currently winning the decisive battle in Qalamoun, on the Lebanese eastern border, analysts believe they are showing signs of being stretched thin. This situation can only worsen, as the group plans to expand and intensify its operations deep inside Syria, from the Lebanon-Syria border as far as Aleppo.
Against this backdrop, there are several indications that Israel may take the opportunity to conduct a preemptive surprise attack on an overstretched Hezbollah in the Syrian war, hoping to destroy its military capability.
....
Israel’s contribution to stability:
“If we have no choice, we have to evacuate 1 million, 1.5 million residents in Lebanon, and act,” IDF sources told the Jerusalem Post.
The army of The Jewish State Of Israel, pride of The GOP Likuds Force is prepared to make refugees of 1.5 million Lebanese.
ReplyDeleteNeed I say it? Disgusting bastards.
ReplyDeleteMy arse.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the Iranian backed Hezbollah doing in Lebanon in the first place ? The disgusting bastards.
Fighting for civilization ?
Too tired now, and got to work tomorrow, but will try to put up my Thought Experiment for all you Israel bashers sometime in the next few days.
And there you go again with your silly GOP Likuds Force non sense.
Cheers !
By the way the crops all over the countryside out this way are really looking nice this year.
Add to that the wonderful sliver of a moon last night.....who'd think the moon could pare itself so thin ?......and there's a lot to be thankful for.....
P.S. - Even Rufus has said without the 2nd Amendment we got nothing.
DeleteDid I miss it, or was there nothing in your article about the number of crimes foiled, the number or rapes prevented, etc by guns each year ?
Get one of those Protected By Smith and Wesson signs for your front yard. You will likely sleep undisturbed.
Have you turned in all your guns and ammo, Deuce ?
DeleteAnd by the way, your Limo is a global warming making nightmare.
Where's your Mini -Cooper ?
http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/MINI_Cooper/
Nice photo of the Mini
out
"An armed Bar is a polite Bar"
DeleteDeuce
"An armed Bible study group can grin back at the Devil"
Idaho Bob
UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – A horrific year of war, humanitarian crises, human rights violations and persecution has caused a sharp rise in global forced displacement.
DeleteThe United Nations Refugee Agency (UNCHR) released Thursday its annual report of global trends on refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and the internally displaced. The report makes for sober reading two days before World Refugee Day on June 20.
The report states that global forced displacement reached unprecedented levels in 2014, with 59.5 million people fleeing their homes worldwide. An estimated 13.9 million individuals were newly displaced due to conflict or persecution.
_______
The IDF, favorite of American Billionaire Zionists and the GOP Likuds Force, wants to invade Lebanon and add 1.5 million more.
Since February 2013, the Jewish state has provided medical care to injured Syrians. So far, 1,600 of them—most badly injured—have been treated in hospitals in northern Israel. The effort has produced uplifting stories of injured Syrian children saved by Israeli doctors. But the majority of patients have been young men of military age, and as the al-Makt trial shows, their affiliation with the various rebel groups remains shrouded in secrecy.
DeleteSince 1974, a United Nations peacekeeping force has been stationed in the Golan Heights to monitor the cease-fire between Israel and Syria. For the past year, most of the peacekeepers have been stationed on the Israeli side after Nusra abducted a U.N. battalion from Fiji in Syria (they were later released). In their latest report to the U.N., the peacekeepers mentioned several meetings along the border between armed Syrian rebels and Israeli soldiers. They saw the Israelis take injured Syrians into their vehicles and load rebel trucks with sacks. What was in those sacks remains unclear, but Israeli sources, speaking in an off-the-record briefing, say the contents included food and blankets for the winter.
Our most staunch ally:
DeleteThe State Department's report on international terrorism released Friday contained a subtle rhetorical shift toward the United States' most staunch Middle East ally.
The annual Country Reports on Terrorism analysis was dominated by the rise of the Islamic State group and incidents of worldwide terrorism. But it also contained an unusual implied criticism of Israel, a longtime friend that has seen its relations with the U.S. strained in recent months.
In an overview describing activities in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and Jerusalem, the State Department detailed the 50-day conflict last summer dubbed Operation Protective Edge in which Israel conducted 5,240 airstrikes in Gaza and carried out a 20-day military ground operation.
"According to publicly available data, the conflict led to the deaths of 2,205 Palestinians and 74 persons in Israel, among them 67 soldiers, six Israeli civilians, and one Thai civilian," the State Department report said. "The Israeli government estimated that half of those killed in Gaza were civilians and half were combatants, while the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) recorded 1,483 civilian Palestinian deaths – more than two-thirds of those killed – including 521 children and 283 women."
Cry The Beloved Country
ReplyDeleteThe Ongoing Tragedy of Post-Apartheid South Africa
June 19, 2015 by Arnold Ahlert
Few things are more disturbing than the collaborative media silence that attends the ongoing disintegration of post-apartheid South Africa. The nation’s ruling African National Congress (ANC), led by President Jacob Zuma, is the essence of corruption in a nation with one of the highest rates of rape in the world, and a murder rate best described last September by MP Dianne Kohler Barnard of the Democratic Alliance, the nation’s second largest political party. “We have 47 murders a day,” she said. “That sort of figure is what one would expect in a war zone.”
In her book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot” author Ilana Mercer cuts through the tyranny of political correctness that surrounds the ostensible improvement that was supposed to have emerged in that nation, following the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in 1990, and the subsequent adoption of a new constitution in 1994, enfranchising blacks and other minorities. While she rightly describes the “terrible injustice” of the apartheid regime that produced an average of 7,036 people murdered per year, she reveals the Western-celebrated ANC government saw an average of 24,026 murders annually in the first eight years of its existence.
The South African government currently estimates there are 31 murders per 100,000 people per year, which comes out to about 50 per day. That ranks the nation above drug cartel-infested Mexico, the nation of Rwanda that endured the slaughter of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers in the ‘90s, and Sudan, where the government of Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir precipitated the mass slaughter and rape of Darfuri men, women and children that continues to this day. That would be the very same Omer al-Bashir the ANC allowed to leave South Africa on June 15, ignoring a pending arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had charged him with multiple counts of genocide and crimes against humanity. In doing so, the ANC violated South Africa’s international legal commitments and its own constitution.
The same stench of ANC corruption applies to the aforementioned murder statistics: outside groups believe the murder rate is actually double that total admitted by the government.
Moreover, white Boer farmers remain a primary target. According to the Times of London, over 4,000 of them were murdered since the end of apartheid in a nation rated six on a scale of eight for genocide by Genocide Watch. Of the 50 murders committed daily, 20 percent of the victims are white, and the black on white murder rate is approximately 95 percent.
Some of the carnage is attributable to Zuma himself. In 2013 he led a crowd in a song promoting the murder of the Boers. “We are going to shoot them with machine guns, they are going to run… The cabinet will shoot them, with the machine gun… Shoot the Boer, we are going to hit them, they are going to run,” Zuma chanted. Hence it is no surprise the murder rate of white farmers is quadruple that of the rest of the population.
South Africa’s rape statistics are equally appalling. Approximately half a million rapes occur on an annual basis, of which only one in nine are reported. This amounts to 132.4 rapes per 100,000 people per year, far and away the highest total in the world. Many of those rapes are of the “corrective” variety, precipitated by legions of men who believe that raping a lesbian will “cure” them of their homosexuality. “There is a clear sense of entitlement to women’s bodies which underlies the general rape pandemic, and no doubt the attack of lesbian women or women who read as gender non-conforming,” says Emily Craven, policy and program manager at ActionAid South Africa, one of the first charities to document the use of “corrective rape.” “The notion that women do not need men for either economic support or sexual pleasure is one that is deeply threatening to entrenched patriarchal values.” Those same patriarchal values undoubtedly factor into the reality that for every 25 men brought to trial for rape, 24 will be freed.
ReplyDeleteThey also factor into predictably twisted attitudes. According to research group CIET, an anti-violence NGO, 20 per cent of rapists insisted the victim “asked for it.” A related survey reveals 25 percent of Soweto schoolboys described as “fun” the local term for gang rape known as “jackrolling.” And many so-called corrective rape survivors have reported their attackers wanted to show them “how to be real women and what a real man tasted like.” Furthermore many rapists are not content with that crime: 32 women have been raped and murdered in the last 15 years, but since underreporting of such incidents remains rampant, the number is likely to be far higher. South African charity Luleki Sizwe contends more than 10 women are raped or gang-raped on a weekly basis.
In the economic arena, South Africa’s the primary reasons for a rapidly deteriorating economy are succinctly described by Mercer as “apartheid in reverse.” In an effort to correct the racial disparities of the past, the ANC established the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) program, followed by Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) program. This is a system whereby all enterprises public and private were required to “make their workforces demographically representative of the country’s racial profile,” Mercer explains. In 2013, ANC parliamentarian Mario Rantho described his party’s vision for government. “It is imperative to get rid of merit as the overriding principle in the appointment of public servants,” he declared.
The results were predictable. Black households saw their incomes shrink by 19 percent during the first six years of ANC rule, and the total number of persons of all races living in “absolute poverty” had doubled following the ANC’s ascension to power. Farmland confiscated from whites as part of a land-sharing agreement remains virtually barren. Life expectancy has declined from 64 at the end of apartheid to 56 today. And as The Economist put it, “Public healthcare, the roadways, ports and road infrastructure bear testimony to the insidious effects of racial preference on South Africa.” More recently, economic growth has been anemic, the national debt has grown by 44 percent, the nation’s rand-based currency lost 20 percent of its value in 2013, and the current unemployment rate stands at 25 percent. Moreover, the city of Durban has fallen off the list of the world’s 50 largest container ports.
And with those racial preferences, coupled with de facto one-party rule, came the inevitable corruption. Plum government jobs were given to ANC insiders, irrespective of qualifications, and President Zuma recently spent $24 million of public money to add a pool and amphitheater to his private home. Nonetheless he was reelected to another five-year term in 2014. Think-tank theorist Leon Louw, who helped defeat apartheid, characterizes the crime and corruption in South Africa as “a simple manifestation of the breakdown of the state. The government is just appallingly bad at everything it does: education, healthcare, infrastructure, security, everything that is a government function is in shambles,” he adds.
DeleteAnd it is not likely to get better. The Communist-aligned ANC has a vise-like grip on the corridors of power, getting 62 percent of the vote during the 2014 election. The second place Democratic Alliance, won a paltry 22 percent of the vote. Thus, it’s no surprise that the nation’s justice system as described by the Daily Maverick’s Ruth Hopkins is “broken beyond imagination.” South Africans are battling a dysfunctional court system “where lengthy delays put presumed innocent suspects behind bars for years, where overworked state-funded lawyers do not bother to question glaring inconsistencies, shoddy evidence and lying police officers,” she writes.
Politically-driven favoritism abounds as well. Richard Mdluli, former head of the South African police’s crime intelligence section, was charged with murder, attempted murder, intimidation, the kidnapping of a man who married his former lover, money laundering charges, fraud, theft, and corruption. All charges were dropped and he was re-instated after he sent a letter to Zuma and his police bosses promising to help Zuma win reelection in 2014. It was one of many cases where connections to Zuma have have influenced judicial proceedings conducted—or dropped—by the nation’s official prosecutorial body, known as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). Zuma himself had an astonishing 783 counts of corruption against him dropped a few years ago. “There is no political will to subject politically-connected people at the highest levels of government to the criminal justice system when there are allegations of wrongdoing,” wrote Gareth Newham, head of the Crime and Justice Program at the Institute of Security Studies in early 2014. Mdluli was suspended in 2012, but continues to live a lavish lifestyle underwritten by South African taxpayers. And despite renewed calls to push criminal proceedings against him, that effort remains in politically-influenced limbo.
Following their victory in 2014, the ANC promised to embark on “a second radical phase of the national democratic revolution!” that included the “strategic transformation of the ownership and control function of key commanding heights of the economy.” In short, the nation is on the fast track to emulating the disastrous policies of Zimbabwe, a nation destroyed by mass-murdering Marxist despot Robert Mugabe and his minions. And as goes South Africa, so goes the Western-promoted halo surrounding Nelson Mandela: shortly after his death in 2013, the South African Communist Party and the African National Congress both released official statements acknowledging his role as a Communist Party leader who served on the Soviet-backed organization’s Central Committee. Nonetheless, he remains a revered icon among Western apologists—one whose terrorist past of bombing campaigns against fellow black South Africans opposed to his communist predilections has been all but erased.
DeleteSouth Africa had the potential to serve as a great example of the cause of human equality winning out over prejudice and political injustice. Unfortunately, the far-left seized the opportunity to institute their policies of perpetual poverty, violence and race hatred. The failure of South Africa is the failure of the world to acknowledge this reality. Where it might have been a model for other nations, it instead stands as a dire warning — while the toxic seeds of leftist politics grow elsewhere, including in our own backyard.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/arnold-ahlert/the-ongoing-tragedy-of-post-apartheid-south-africa/
Gun control isn't the answer to this.
DeleteIn Rawanda a million or two, give or take, were killed by machetes.
(Imported from France for the occasion)
I don't expect the liberal contingent here, A, D, R, Q, to rush over to South Africa and put all this to right.
The whites are fleeing. Give it a couple more decades the place will look just like Zimbabwe.
Some peoples just can't get along.
An absolute, though amicable, divorce, living in separate countries with a high wall between is often the best option available.
This option is no longer available in South Africa.
Two more decades.....the white presence will be approaching zero.
"In 2013, ANC parliamentarian Mario Rantho described his party’s vision for government. “It is imperative to get rid of merit as the overriding principle in the appointment of public servants,” he declared."
DeleteThe Democratic Party, USA is in the process of adopting this outlook as policy here.
...unlike the meritorious candidacy of JEB Hiding in the Bushes.
DeleteJeb ! wasn't that bad a Governor. In fact, he was a pretty good Governor.
DeleteHe is about last on the Republican list for my wife and I though.
Enough is enough.
Wasn't really being serious about The Donald.
He would stir things up, and make life interesting again, that much is certain.
I always thought he had a hair piece, but he gave Megyn Kelly an opportunity to inspect, and pull the hair, and it seems real enough.
DeleteHe needs a new hair stylist. Or just shave it all off.
make political life interesting again
DeleteSeriously?
ReplyDeleteTerrorist attacks worldwide surged by more than a third and fatalities soared by 81 percent in 2014, a year that also saw ISIS eclipse al-Qaeda as the leading jihadist militant group, the U.S. State Department said on Friday.
In its annual report on terrorism, the department also charts an unprecedented flow of foreign fighters to Syria, often lured by ISIS's use of social media and drawn from diverse social backgrounds.
Taken together, the trends point to a sobering challenge from militant groups worldwide to the United States and its allies despite severe blows inflicted on al-Qaeda, author of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in Washington and New York.
Al-Qaeda's leaders "appeared to lose momentum as the self-styled leader of a global movement in the face of ISIS's rapid expansion and proclamation of a Caliphate," the report said, using an alternate acronym for Islamic State.
Last June, ISIS attacked from its base in Syria and seized vast swaths of Iraq, much of which it still controls.
"The ongoing civil war in Syria has been a spur to the worldwide terrorism events," the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, Tina Kaidanow, told a news conference.
She said that while the United States still worried about al Qaeda, the growing concern was the number of groups aligning themselves with Islamic State across the globe.
“There is an appeal of ISIS globally," Kaidanow added, using another acronym for the group.
---------------------
Then tell our vital ally, the irreplaceable strategic liability on the US Balance Sheet to please not create thousands of more Jihadis by forcing 1.5 million Lebanese into refugee status. Quit supporting ISIS with its new best friend, the humanist Saudis.
That would be a good place to slow the TERROR generating industry provided by the existential mutherfuckers in the Permanent War Cult
Tell your good friends the Iranians to please stop already with the fighting for civilization by arming up Hezbollah and Hamas.
DeleteMore on the Existential Mutherfuckers:
ReplyDeleteIf the 50-month-long civil war in Syria – with its 200,000 fatalities and with unexplained rivalries and alliances – has created a big mess, a more convoluted threat is emerging, a threat to the Druse community, which may drag Israel unwittingly into the killing fields.
On the surface, Israel is closely monitoring the situation. Security officials clarified there is no intention of intervening in the civil war, but could Jerusalem really stand idly by as 700,000 Syrian Druse face an existential threat?
On Saturday night, Druse in Israel and on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights demonstrated in solidarity with their brethren in Syria. Their political leaders, led by Deputy Regional Cooperation Minister Ayoub Kara and spiritual leader Moafaq Tarif, showed responsibility and restraint.
“As a Druse,” Kara said, “I’m making great efforts to ensure the safety of the Syrian Druse and to mobilize every player in the world to help them.”
He was referring to the US, Jordan and Turkey. The concern for the fate of the Druse was discussed last week during a visit by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey.
President Reuven Rivlin called on the United States to protect the Druse community in Syria. Kara last week attended a regional Israeli-Jordanian-Palestinian conference about the rehabilitation of the Jordan River and the Dead Sea basin. But he also used the opportunity to meet with Sheikh Yousuf Jorba, the spiritual leader of his community in the Mount Druse region of southern Syria – the largest Druse concentration in the country.
Kara also met with Jordanian security officials and discussed with them a scenario in which the Druse would seek refuge in the Hashemite Kingdom.
He will visit Turkey next month as a guest of the Turkish mufti and use the opportunity to discuss the possibility that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government would open border crossings if there were mortal danger to the northern Syrian Druse.
But behind the scenes, the secret dealings and messages are even more complicated and intriguing. They create hidden alliances that would be incomprehensible in normal circumstances.
They include Israel, Jordan, the US, the Nusra Front (the Syrian branch of al-Qaida), Hezbollah and, over the horizon, Iran, Hezbollah’s partner in the Shi’ite alliance.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israel-Druse-Syria-alliance-gets-murkier-406067
You can’t make this shit up
Deleteop members of the Lebanese opposition announced a set of political demands today, following their meeting at the ancestral mountain palace of Druse leader Walid Jumblatt. Who are the Druses?
A religious group that split from a sect of Shiite Islam a thousand years ago. The split originated with a caliph named Hakim, a religious reformer who ruled from Cairo at the turn of the 11th century. During his reign, some of his subjects began to believe he was an incarnation of God. After Hakim vanished in 1021 (his followers believe he disappeared; others say he died), a preacher named Hamza continued to disseminate his ideas. Today, the faith rejects major principles of mainstream Islam in favor of an eclectic mix of Islam, Christianity, Platonic philosophy, and Gnosticism.
You can't convert to being Druse, and you're not supposed to convert to another religion if you're born a Druse. Details about the religion are kept very secret—even from most Druses. Only certain members of the community (maybe 10 or 20 percent) have access to the weekly religious meetings and are allowed to read sacred Druse writings—these people are called uqqal, the wise (as opposed to juhhal, the ignorant).
Daniel Engber
Daniel Engber is a columnist for Slate.
Top members...
DeleteThe Israelis don’t give a crap about the Druse. The Zionists and the US Neocons will do anything to destabilize the Middle East. A peaceful and prosperous Lebanon is a threat to Israel:
DeleteJune 27, 2013
According to a recent poll, 33 percent of Lebanese want to emigrate. The new statistic, released by the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies as part of their 2012-2013 Arab Opinion Index, ranks Lebanon second in terms of the emigration question, after Sudan’s 45 percent.
Natives of 14 countries were surveyed in the second annual opinion index: Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Sudan, Palestine, Yemen, Kuwait, and Libya.
According to Mohammed al-Masri, supervisor of the Arab Opinion Index, the survey is the largest of its kind in Arab countries. Masri pointed out that data analysis was conducted at provincial and state levels, depending on the country. In Lebanon, data analysis was conducted on the district level.
As to which countries represent the biggest threat to Arab national security, 57 percent of Lebanese pointed to Israel.The survey found that 50 percent of Lebanese respondents consider their familial economic conditions either bad or very bad. As for ways to bridge the fiscal deficit, 48 percent report borrowing from acquaintances, friends, and relatives; 26 percent rely on help from relatives; and 10 percent take bank loans.
On the question of attitudes toward Arab revolutions, 33 percent of Lebanese view them very negatively, the highest percentage of such view of all the countries surveyed. Cumulatively, 61 percent of respondents describe the revolutions as a positive development.
As to which countries represent the biggest threat to Arab national security, 57 percent of Lebanese pointed to Israel; 16 percent the US; and 14 percent Iran. In contrast, 52 percent of the cumulative Arab public stated that Israel presents the biggest national security threat; 21 percent the US; and 6 percent Iran
It's really simple; there's a shit-load of money in War.
Delete.
DeleteIn this case, I doubt money is the issue, The current Israeli government is riddled with far right ideologues and by comparison Netanyahu looks like a leftist pansy. Worse, attitudes of the Israeli public are also shifting to the right.
The idea of a 'Greater Israel' has been the wet-dream of many Zionists since the beginning. The maps of that Greater Israel vary but from the beginning most include all of Palestine, southern parts of Lebanon and Syria, a good chunk of western Jordan, and the Sinai.
From last summer's agitation towards war in Gaza, Bibi has shown that he is willing to manipulate events so as to justify Israeli political objectives. There has been talk of Israel attacking Lebanon for the past six months, much of it coming from IIsrael. With the unrest throughout the region, they could view this as the perfect time to move into Lebanon and possibly Syria. All they need is an excuse and those can be easily generated.
However, just as the US found in Iraq, it is one thing to invade and to 'accomplish the mission'. It is another to stay and hold. ISIS is a cancer and is spreading faster than whack-a-mole tactics can knock them out. It will remain uncertain times in the ME until some effective strategy against the organization is found and implemented. I have suggested that Iran's growing influence and presence in Iraq could end up handing them their own Afghanistan. The same could apply to Israeli ambitions in the region.
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As soon as those three Israeli teens were kidnapped, I predicted Netanyahu would use it as an excuse to attack Gaza.
ReplyDeleteHe will do the same thing with Lebanon by attacking Hezbollah which is fighting ISIS. That will be a twofer for him by causing problems with Iran.
No country in the Middle East is a greater threat to real US security interests than Israel under Likud and their US arm, The GOP Likuds Force.
And, you are bonkers.
DeleteThen tell our vital ally, the irreplaceable strategic liability on the US Balance Sheet to please not create thousands of more Jihadis by forcing 1.5 million Lebanese into refugee status. Quit supporting ISIS with its new best friend, the humanist Saudis.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a good place to slow the TERROR generating industry provided by the existential mutherfuckers in the Permanent War Cult
Deuce
Reply
Replies
Idaho BobSat Jun 20, 11:06:00 AM EDT
Tell your good friends the Iranians to please stop already with the fighting for civilization by arming up Hezbollah and Hamas
>>>>>>>>>>
Islam is in truth a great definition and example of PERMANENT WAR CULT.
That is exactly what it is, from day one.
You are Sooooooo confused.
That did it.
DeleteThe THOUGHT EXPERIMENT is coming your way this weekend.
Don't say you didn't ask for it.
Duty, the real world, work, life and light call......
DeleteOut till I'm not out
Cheers !
This comment has been removed by the author.
Delete.
ReplyDeleteThe THOUGHT EXPERIMENT is coming your way this weekend.
Well, heck. You've certainly scared the bejesus out of me. Any time there is indication that some proclamation is coming out of the Idaho brain trust it is a scary proposition.
But tell me, doesn't a 'thought experiment' require as prerequisite the ability to think?
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Yes, and that is why you will be exempt from The Questionaire, Quirk-O.
DeleteNitwits like you will be given an Official Thinking Disability Pass.
Israel is the US problem in the ME
ReplyDeleteRAMALLAH, West Bank, Jun 16 2015 (IPS) - Israel’s deadly game of divide and conquer against its enemies could be coming home to roost with a vengeance, especially as the Islamic State (ISIS) grows in strength in neighbouring countries and moves closer to Israel’s borders.
Desperate to maintain the calm in Gaza, Israel has been conducting intermittent, off-the-record indirect talks with Hamas through U.N., European and Qatar intermediaries despite vowing to never negotiate with Hamas which it describes as a “terror organisation”.
Israel helped promote the establishment of Hamas in the late 1980s in a bid to thwart the popularity of the Palestinian Authority-affiliated Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) which was then also regarded as a “terrorist organisation” and the most powerful and popular Palestinian political movement.
But Israel’s indirect support of ISIS-affiliated Syrian opposition groups could be an even bigger gamble.
As the Omar Brigades calculated, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) responded by attacking Hamas military targets in the coastal territory because they hold the Gaza leadership responsible for any attacks on Israel.
“Israelis, we learn, are essentially being used as pawns in a deadly game of chicken between Hamas and these Salafist rivals,” said Alison Kaplan Sommer, a columnist with the Israeli daily Haaretz.
“The Salafists refuse to abide by the informal truce that has kept the tense quiet between Hamas and Israel since the Gaza war – and Hamas is not religious and fundamentalist enough for their taste.
“Firing rockets into Israel serves a dual purpose for them. It makes a statement that they are true jihadists, unlike the Hamas sell-outs who abide by truces – and it also happens to be an excellent way for them to indirectly strike back at their Hamas oppressors. Why, after all, go to the trouble of attacking Hamas when you can so easily get Israel to do it for you?”
Israel’s dual policy of covertly supporting ISIS-affiliated Jihadists in Syria in a bid to weaken Israel’s arch-enemy Syria has taken several forms.
U.N. observers in the Golan Heights have released reports detailing cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures including regular contacts between IDF soldiers and Syrian rebels.
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DeleteIsrael is also regularly admitting wounded Syrian opposition fighters to Israeli hospitals and it is not based on humanitarian considerations.
Israel finally responded by saying the wounded were civilians reaching the border by their own accords but later conceded it was coordinating with armed opposition groups.
“Israel initially had maintained that it was treating only civilians. However, reports claimed that members of Israel’s Druze minority protested the hospitalisation of wounded Syrian fighters from the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front in Israel,” reported the Global Research Centre for Research on Globalisation.
The last report distributed to U.N. Security Council members in December described two U.N. representatives witnessing Israeli soldiers opening a border gate and letting two unwounded people exit Israel into the Golan Heights.
The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations also complained of widespread cooperation between Israel and Syrian rebels, not only for treatment of the wounded but also other aid.
U.N. observers remarked in a report distributed last year that they identified IDF soldiers on the Israeli side handing over two boxes to armed Syrian opposition members on the Syrian side.
Despite ISIS ultimately being a threat to Israel, it currently fits in with Israel’s strategy of weakening the military capabilities of Iran and Syria, both enemies of ISIS, the same way a previously powerful Iraqi military had threatened Israel.
When the United States began operations against ISIS, a senior Israeli high command seemed reluctant to give any support and called the move a mistake.
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DeleteIt was easier to deal with terrorism in its early stages [ISIS] than to face an Iranian threat and the Hezbollah, he said. “I believe the West intervened too early and not necessarily in the right direction,” he told Haaretz anonymously.
“Israel is pursuing a policy that in the long term will ultimately be self-defeating. In a bid to divide Syria, Israel is supporting ISIS but this will backfire in that ISIS is growing in strength and destroying societies in its path and it will eventually turn its sights on Israel,” Professor Samir Awad from Birzeit University, near Ramallah, told IPS.
It is possible that ISIS could topple future regimes that Israel is hoping for support from, including Syrian rebels who hinted at a peace with Israel once Syrian President Bashar Assad is toppled.
Jacky Hugi, the Arab affairs analyst for Israeli army radio Galie-Zahal who confirmed on the Al Monitor website that Israel was taking the Syrian rebels side in the fighting, had a warning.
“We should stop with the illusions – the day ‘after Assad’ won’t bring about a secular liberal ruling alternative. The extremist organisations are the most dominant factions in Syria nowadays,” said Hugi. “Any void left in Syria will be seized by them, not the moderate rebels.”
According to political analyst Benedetta Berti of Israel’s Institute of National Security Studies, Israel is closely monitoring its northern front, specifically the Golan Heights.
“Israel believes that there is no current threat from the rebels as they are too busy with the Syrian war,” Berti told IPS. “However, if we extend the time frame, then the situation could change when Syrian rebels may want to attack Israel from the northern borders.”
Edited by Phil Harris
Israel’s Deadly Game of Divide and Conquer Backfiring
By Mel Frykberg
http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/06/israels-deadly-game-of-divide-and-conquer-backfiring/
Israel does nothing that is in the interest of 97% of the US population. It never has and it never will. It causes serious damage to US interests in the ME and the US Congressional Castrato flutist section has never held Israel accountable for anything including the attacking of the US Liberty.
DeleteThat is a liability.
Who was the better leader?
ReplyDeleteIn 1863, Lincoln issued an Executive Order as a wartime measure freeing the slaves in the ten states that were in rebellion.
It freed about three quarters of the four million slaves in the United States at the time. The remainder were not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1865. The order did not outlaw slavery and did not confer citizenship on those freed. It was merely a strategic measure, not a humanitarian gesture. Nevertheless, Lincoln has become known in American history as the Great Emancipator.
The war during which the order was issued resulted in the deaths of approximately three quarters of a million people, a twenty year depression and the freedmen, as the former slaves were called, were left to fend for themselves. No doubt, the war itself caused an enduring legacy of racial hatred on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. No reparations were paid to the freed slaves. Many joined the army, became Buffalo Soldiers to kill Indians.
Some Emancipation Proclamation. 700,000 killed. Slaves freed so they could kill Indian Indians. What a great man Lincoln was!
Iin 1861, two years before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, Tsar Alexander II, a brutal Russian Autocrat, abolished serfdom in Russia by merely signing a document. Lincoln’s order freed about three million slaves; the Tsar’s edict freed 23 million without firing a single shot.
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ReplyDeleteAnd now for some good news.
BEIJING — In the whirlwind of growth that is modern China, the loss of ancient traditions often provokes dismay and outrage.
But people across the country cheered recently when officials in eastern China said they were doing away with a 600-year-old local custom: the slaughter of thousands of dogs to be eaten at an autumn festival.
The Jinhua Hutou Dog Meat Festival, as it is called, was abruptly canceled last week after local officials were shamed by an online campaign begun by animal rights advocates. Gruesome photographs taken at past festivals that show canine carcasses, some bloody and others cooked, circulated on Chinese microblogs, creating popular pressure against the festival, which was set for October.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/30/world/asia/dog-meat-festival-is-canceled-in-china.html?mabReward=A5&_r=0
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So types Quirk, as he munches on his new improved McDonald's Steak Burger Super Sized Dinner Meal.
DeleteThe steak having just been shipped in day fresh from the Stockyards in Chicago.
By the way, Quirk, just had an hour long talk with Wayne this very morning.
DeleteHe thinks we have a wolf/coyote hybrid mix out there now.
Smaller than a Canadian wolf, much larger than a coyote.
An odd critter.
This is unusual. Usually the wolves just run the coyotes off, or kill them outright.
Since the wolves have so many elk in the area on which to feed now, they probably don't eat the coyotes after killing them.
The killing just being a natural reaction to thin the perceived competition.
DeleteHe thinks we have a wolf/coyote hybrid mix out there now.
Did Wayne ever think it might be a young wolf not full grown? Or, the runt of the litter? By the way who saw this strange brew? Wayne? Was it in a dream? A vision? Looking through the wrong end of his binoculars?
An odd critter.
You can say that again. Sounds like another Idahoian excuse to me.
"Ida got em sure, Bob, but he was so damn small."
Wasn't Wayne the guy who caught that 4 foot long perch that almost tipped his canoe?
Since the wolves have so many elk in the area on which to feed now,...
Feed on? I thought they just ripped out their guts and played with them. Well, anyway maybe it will shut you up about there not being 'enough' elk now.
...a wolf/coyote hybrid mix...they probably don't eat the coyotes after killing them.
Now, you are saying the wolves are indulging in necrophilia and spawning zombie wolfyotes?
Stop it. This is crazy. Just stop it.
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from my ever growing Iran Fighting For Civilization Files -
ReplyDeleteState Dept: Oh, by the way, our nuclear negotiating partner hasn’t changed its terrorism sponsorship a bit
posted at 4:01 pm on June 20, 2015 by Ed Morrissey
Share on Facebook
Good to know, since the Obama administration has enabled Iran to access billions of dollars more in cash by loosening sanctions during the negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear-weapons development. The supposed rapprochement hasn’t dimmed the mullahs’ appetite for terrorism, especially via its main proxy Hezbollah, but hardly limited to it:
The State Department said Iran’s support for terrorism was “undiminished” in 2014, and the U.S. remains very concerned about the activities of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and its proxies in the Middle East.
The U.S. worries about Iran’s activities were included in an annual report of global terrorism between 2013 and 2014, released Friday.
Of particular concern, the report said, was Iran’s continued support of the powerful Hezbollah militia and political party in Lebanon; and its assistance to fighters supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Iran also hasn’t identified or initiated judicial proceedings against senior al Qaeda leaders it has in custody. …
The report said “Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism worldwide remained undiminished” in 2014 and Ms. Kaidanow said the U.S. continued to be “very, very concerned” about its activities, adding that Tehran hasn’t changed its behavior this year.
Why should they? The US and other P5+1 nations seem desperate to get any kind of agreement in place to let themselves off the hook for vigilance on nuclear proliferation. The West has practically airlifted cash to Tehran in an effort to wheedle them into remaining at the bargaining table. That allows the mullahs to shore up their political strength at home without cutting into the funds that they spend on spreading radical Shi’ite Islam and attempting to gain control of the region. The mullahs get the best of both worlds.
Anyone who understands cash will understand the fungibility of its application here. The Israelis have been warning about this for months, if not longer. The State Department continues to believe that it can compartmentalize the two issues:
“We think it’s essential that we pursue those negotiations,” said Tina Kaidanow, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism. “None of that implies that we would be, again, in any way taking our eye off the ball with respect to what Iran is doing as a supporter of terrorism.”
This is nonsense. Iran does not have separate nuclear-weapons and terrorism programs; they are all part of the same strategy. Iran wants to establish its hegemony over the Middle East, eventually take control of Mecca and Medina, seize control of its oil resources, and most definitely wipe Israel off the map. They are fighting the Shi’ite-Sunni war with every resource they can grab and every proxy they can prop up, from Bashar al-Assad to the Houthis.
The retreat on sanctions has done nothing to deflect Iran from this course. If they can’t get nukes right away, they’ll use cash to build more terror-network proxies. Eventually they’ll have both, and that will give them all the tools they need to extort the West and the Sunni states in the region, and commit genocide against the Israelis.
We had an opportunity to use sanctions to starve the mullahs out of their support for terrorism and force them to comply with non-proliferation pacts — or force the Iranians to act against their oppressors and solve the problem completely. We traded off nukes for terrorism, and we’re certain to end up with both in the end.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/20/state-dept-oh-by-the-way-our-nuclear-negotiating-partner-hasnt-changed-its-terrorism-sponsorship-a-bit/
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Delete:0)
Oh, the irony.
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DeleteOr rather,
:0(
Oh, the irony.
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The cash belongs to Iran. It is their money. Israel has 300 nuclear weapons, all acquired illegally. They get cash that does not belong to them, our money.
ReplyDeleteIsrael has been supportive of ISIS. What kind of organization is ISIS?
On what authority does Israel deserve a nuclear monopoly?
DeleteDid the UN bestow it on them? What other rot and nonsense from the Israeli firsters.
DeleteDid you do a header off the tractor when you were a kid?
DeleteDeuce ☂Sat Jun 20, 05:01:00 PM EDT
ReplyDeleteOn what authority does Israel deserve a nuclear monopoly?
A non sense question.
What authority ?
Makes no sense.
I suppose one could say by the authority of the god's of peace, but you are unlikely to approve the gods or their authority.
Meanwhile The List of Countries on the Thought Experiment's Questionaire having, at over 100, grown unwieldy and confusing, I am working even now to pare The List back a bit.
Deuce ☂Sat Jun 20, 05:09:00 PM EDT
Did you do a header off the tractor when you were a kid?
When did you first determine, and why, to undergo the mental/political equivalent of a sex change operation ?
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DeleteI suppose one could say by the authority of the god's of peace...
Well, I suppose. That is, of course, if the 'one' s a nitwit.
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I wonder what our I, Q ! might think of this Supreme Court ruling -
ReplyDeleteJune 20, 2015
Do minorities disproportionately fail the death penalty IQ test because of test bias?
By Newsmachete
There are a lot of claims about how supposedly objective tests discriminate against minorities. Most recently, there are claims that tests for teachers have too many "white questions." Now the Supreme Court has ruled that killers must have a certain minimum IQ to be executed.
The man convicted of murdering the mother of former NFL running back Warrick Dunn cannot be executed, says the U.S. Supreme Court. It was a narrow 5-4 decision in favor of Kevan Brumfield. The high court decided because Brumfield has an I.Q. below 75, should not be put to death.
Brumfield will instead serve life in prison for the 1993 murder of Cpl. Betty Smothers of the Baton Rouge Police Department. Legal analyst Tim Meche describes the case as far-reaching. ''What they said, essentially, is that Mr. Brumfield met the standards that he is mentally retarded,'' said Meche. ''This is an extremely significant opinion that will cause shock waves not just in Louisiana but around the nation.''
Kevan Brumfeld is black. That started me thinking. If tests are unfairly biased against minorities, then perhaps minority death row inmates disproprotionately fail IQ tests meant to measure if the are suitable to be executed. Perhaps, if Brumfeld had gotten a genuinely fair IQ test, he could have passed it. How fair is it to Brumfeld to give him a racially biased test?
I did some research but could find no evidence for or against racial bias in IQ tests for the death penalty. But with even the possibility of bias, you'd think the NAACP and La Raza would be all over this, but they're not.
Perhaps we should get away from using IQ tests to determine IQ in death penalty cases. Perhaps we should use a more holistic approach, like on college applications. Consider the whole person. We should find out what hobbies and outside interests Brumfeld had, for example (besides killing people). And we should consider diversity as well. Would Brumfeld's execution bring diversity to Louisiana's death row? I don't know the racial makeup there, but if it were overwhelmingly white and Hispanic, a case could be made to admit Brumfeld to death row on diversity grounds despite low test scores.\
If you're a white liberal, are you going to be worried that Brumfeld won't get the same shot at execution as everyone else?
This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/06/do_minorities_disproportionately_fail_the_death_penalty_iq_test_because_of_test_bias.html
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DeleteI am not especially worried about the ruling as it does nothing to affect my opinion of the death penalty. I am against it.
As is much of the United States. Twenty years ago 80% favored the death penalty. Today it s around 60 % and falling. There are only 18 states and the Feds left that allow the death penalty. The court's ruling merely reflect a trend.
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I have news for you: Bernie Sanders would beat JEB Hiding in the Bushes
ReplyDeleteNDIANOLA, Iowa — Bernie Sanders likes to call it “practicing democracy.” He doesn’t take the stage to a blaring soundtrack. He doesn’t have a teleprompter or a phalanx of Secret Service agents surrounding him. But when his Brooklyn accent booms out at a campaign stop in rural Iowa, heads nod along in approval.
“What I’m doing in this campaign is trying to tell the people the truth – but a truth which is not heard a whole lot in Washington or discussed a lot in the media,” Sanders said recently at a picnic in Iowa’s Warren County, south of Des Moines.
“So let me lay it out on the table for you,” he said. “You’re living in a country today which has more wealth and income inequality than any major industrialized nation on earth.
In a race for the Democratic presidential nomination with Hillary Rodham Clinton, the blunt talk about the economy and the gap between the rich and poor is working for Sanders. The independent senator from Vermont is an unconventional messenger at a time when many politicians test-drive what they want to say in polls and with focus groups.
Sanders is drawing sizable crowds in the early voting states. He’s also gaining against Clinton in very early polls, particularly in New Hampshire, a factor that impresses the political class even though opinion surveys at this point are limited in predicting who will win.
"In the manifesto, Roof writes: “The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words ‘black on White crime’ into Google, and I have never been the same since that day.”"
ReplyDeleteHoly smokes batman that sounds just like our very own Idaho Bob!
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/website-appears-to-show-manifesto-of-charleston-shooting-suspect/article25048483/?service=mobile
DeleteNo surprise there. Bob is consistent in being a moral bankrupt incapable of empathy to any oppressed people anywhere, be they US cops strangling a citizen in the streets, US mercenary armies doing violence anywhere or the IDF running a bulldozer over a young American woman demonstrating against apartheid in Israel.
ReplyDeleteQuite the contrary. I sympathize with truly oppressed people anywhere. They are all over the place. On the other hand there are many groups that claim to be oppressed but are not. I haven't any sympathy for these folks.
DeleteI sympathize with the Iranian people for instance, with the Neda's of the world.
I hope one fine day the Iranian people will once again rise up and finally get the job done and boot out those mullahs who are "fighting for civilization'.
And there you go again with your apartheid in Israel bullshit.
You are embarrassing yourself.
I have pared the the List of Countries to the following for my Thought Experiment -
Israel
Jordan under the Monarchy
Egypt under Sisi
Egypt under the MB
Iran
ISISland
Iraqo/Iranian Shiite Iraq
Saudi Arabia
Gaza
Kurdistan
Afghanistan
Northern Nigeria
Southern Nigeria
Libya
Syria
That is where this Work in Progress stands at this time.
Hope to make more progress tomorrow, though it's going to be a busy day.
You may be looking at next week.
The end of high culture in the US of A has been announced:
ReplyDeleteUPDATE: High school teacher says Shakespeare is not to be in her classroom......Drudge
Not good for ethnically diverse students......Drudge
One high school teacher in a nation of 320 million people cannot end high culture and if you have been paying attention, there has been no preponderance of high culture anywhere in the US for sometime.
DeleteHe believes every lie ever taught to him. He is incapable of mature independent thinking and skeptical analysis of the obvious lies, contradictions and fabrications of the corporate security and surveillance state despite the catastrophic and obvious failures that surround us day in, day out, year after year and decade after decade. Seven decades on and there is not a glimmer of hope he will ever outflank the captors and owners of his mind.
ReplyDeleteI feel sorry for Bob. He is probably a nice man but he is trapped. If he applies some skeptical thinking to any of his deeply held myths, one treasured belief after another will collapse around him.
DeleteIf you intend to criticize Israel, Deuce, and it seem to be your Raison D'être these days - a truly sad state of being in the world - can't you at least try to do it in an intelligent fashion, like this -
DeleteIsrael’s Great Opportunity
June 19, 2015 by Caroline Glick
SYR05_SYRIA-DRUZE-_0917_11Originally published by the Jerusalem Post.
Over the past two decades Israel has managed to destroy its regional reputation.
With our own hands, we have twice shown our neighbors they have little reason to tie their fates to ours. We are unreliable........
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/caroline-glick/israels-great-opportunity/
I intend to pleasantly crucify The New You in a few days.
Please don't take it personally.
Not meant that way. After all, I remember well the old Deuce, capable of good humor, and judicious opinions.
Cheers !
Time to arm up, Ash, Quirk. My wife has done so, as all responsible citizens should do. Get that concealed weapons permit now.
ReplyDelete" An armed Bar is a polite Bar"
Deuce
"Without the 2nd Amendment we got nothin'"
Rufus
If One of the Churchgoers in Charleston Had Been Armed . . . fullscreen (Scott Olson/Getty)
by David French June 18, 2015 11:00 PM @DavidAFrench
While it may be weeks or months before we know the full details of Dylann Storm Roof’s alleged attack on Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., the early reports are both heartbreaking and infuriating. Roof allegedly entered the church, attended a Bible study, sat next to its pastor — state senator Clementa Pinckney — and then opened fire. It’s hard to imagine a more callous and profane act. It appears that the shooting was quite deliberate. He’s said to have reloaded five times during the course of the attack, allegedly even taking the time to talk to his victims. According to the New York Times, he said: “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” If these reports are true (again, it’s early), Charleston, S.C., has just suffered a race-motivated terror attack. As I read the news and watched the coverage, I felt stricken for the victims, fury at the attacker, and more than a little personal conviction. Not because of any silly notions of collective white guilt or other nonsense peddled by the radical Left — and certainly not because I’ve long opposed the Left’s gun-control efforts and supported the individual, inherent right of self-defense, including the right to keep and bear arms. No, I felt conviction because of the numerous times that I’ve walked out of my house unarmed and thus largely incapable of defending myself — and, more important, others — from violent acts. Perhaps I chose not to wear the right kind of clothing — pants that allow me to conceal my carry pistol, for example. Perhaps it crossed my mind to carry, but I thought, “I’m not going anywhere dangerous.” The men and women at the Emanuel Bible study probably didn’t think they were in any danger, either. When we go to the movies, or a political rally, or show up for work — or go to any of the sites of recent mass shootings or other acts of violence — danger is generally the last thought on our minds. Yes, I know the chances of violence on any given day or at any given location are vanishingly small. Yes, I know that even if I’m traveling in higher-crime sections of my community, the odds are overwhelmingly good that I’ll be fine. But I know this: If the unthinkable happens, and I watch as my family, my friends, or even members of my community I’ve never met are hurt or killed when I could have prevented it by carrying the weapon I’ve trained myself to use, I could never forgive myself...................
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420022/carry-weapon-its-your-civic-duty