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Uproar over Trump-themed ‘Julius Caesar,’ but none for Obama version at Guthrie 5 years ago


The divide is alive and well in America.MA

Blog 427990033
Artcetera
Uproar over Trump-themed ‘Julius Caesar,’ but none for Obama version at Guthrie 5 years ago

By Rohan Preston June 12, 2017 — 1:25pm

While Delta Air Lines and Bank of America have dropped their sponsorships of New York’s Public Theater over a President Trump-inspired staging of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” corporate sponsors at the Guthrie Theater had no public reaction to a 2012 staging that featured a black actor in the role of Caesar.

That production, part of a national tour done in collaboration with the Acting Company of New York, starred Bjorn DuPaty, a tall basketball aficionado who resembles then-President Barack Obama (pictured above).
Caesar is stabbed to death in the middle of the play.
The New York production, staged by Twin Cities-born director Oskar Eustis, was questioned in a tweet by the president’s son, Donald J. Trump, Jr.
“I wonder how much of this ‘art’ is funded by taxpayers?” he asked. “Serious question, when does ‘art’ become political speech & does that change things?”
The reaction from corporate sponsors was swift.
“No matter what your political stance may be, the graphic staging of ‘Julius Caesar’ at this summer’s free Shakespeare in the Park does not reflect Delta Air Lines’ values,” Delta said Sunday in a statement.
Delta and, before it, Twin Cities-based Northwest Airlines, which merged with Delta in 2009,  is a longstanding supporter of the Guthrie. It is the theater’s official airline, and the title sponsor of the Guthrie’s summer musical, “Sunday in the Park with George.”
“I haven’t seen the Public’s production of the play, but I know the conversation is not about whether it’s a good production or not, or whether Caesar is a hero or villain,” said Guthrie artistic director Joseph Haj. “I feel for Oskar [Eustis] and the Public, because it’s complicated. Corporate sponsors have been vitally important to the health of the American theater — they’ve been extraordinary partners over many decades. But there’s also been a firewall there. I’ve never had a conversation with a sponsor that has been around the art-making itself.”
Haj worries that the retreat of the sponsors in the face of a tweet by the president’s namesake son will have a chilling effect on the field.
“The idea of supporting a theater can’t be limited to an idea that I only support he work I like most,” said Haj. “It has been based on that organization’s values, commitment, vision and mission as we serve our community.”
Advertisers sometimes abandon hot-potato TV programs, as evidenced recently with Fox shows hosted by Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly. But it’s unusual for a corporate sponsor, let alone two, to bail on a performing arts institution over a show.
Haj recently directed Shakespeare’s “King Lear” in modern dress. That tragedy, about a mad ruler surrounded by fawning sycophants, did not make any overt nods to contemporary American politics although audiences reacted audibly at lines that spoke to the moment.
But Full Circle Theater’s recent Twin Cities production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ “365 Days/365 Plays” did feature an insecure character in a blond wig who spoke like Trump and wanted to be famous just to be famous. His mother yells at him to get off the stage, drawing approving laughter from the audience.
“The job of art is to speak truth to power and stand up to authoritarianism,” said director and theater scholar Stephanie Lein Walseth, who staged the Parks playlet, written 15 years ago.” In this moment, things are happening on so many fronts, it’s overwhelming. Doing something through art to preserve our democracy — that’s what I’m called to do.”
Haj said that he’s not sure if there will be a residual effect for this episode. But he hopes that artists will continue to be brave and courageous.
“Arts funding is always, in one way or another, under assault,” he said. “It’s the easiest political football in the world. When Donald Trump called for the defunding of the NEA and the NEH, that’s not a budget decision. The funding is pennies per every American every year. But we don’t get to line-item veto things we don’t like or don’t use. I don’t get to say, ‘I don’t want to fund schools or roads we don’t use.’ We, as a nation, value art and culture. We value the protected space, the freedom of thought and expression.”

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IRS warns of new twist to old phone


Just because it’s summer doesn’t mean that scammers are taking a break. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a warning about a new telephone scam

In the scam, callers posing as IRS representatives advise potential victims that two certified letters were sent to the taxpayer in the mail but were returned as undeliverable. The callers then threaten to arrest the potential victim if a payment is not immediately made through a prepaid debit card. The scammer also tells the victim that the purchase of the card is linked to the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) system: it is not.
To ensure that the potential victim doesn’t back out, the caller warns the taxpayer not to contact their tax preparer, an attorney or their local IRS office until after the tax payment is made. This should be a red flag. You should always have the opportunity to contact your tax professional before resolving a tax dispute. Additionally, if you’re not sure that you owe taxes, you always have the opportunity to hang up and call the IRS directly (1.800.829.1040) for more information. Don’t be pressured into making a spur of the moment decision.

The scammers are hoping that you’ll recognize the EFTPS: it’s a real government system used for paying your federal taxes electronically. Paying taxes through EFTPS is free through the U.S. Department of Treasury and does not require the purchase of a prepaid debit card, so don’t be fooled. Also, the EFTPS is an automated system, which means that you won’t receive a phone call from the IRS. It’s one of a number of ways that you can pay what you owe (you can find out more about how to pay your taxes here).
If all of this sounds familiar, it is. Scammers have been targeting taxpayers by phone for years. In the most popular version of the scam, IRS impersonators call and demand payments on iTunes and other gift cards.
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said about the latest scam, “This is a new twist to an old scam. Just because tax season is over, scams and schemes do not take the summer off. People should stay vigilant against IRS impersonation scams. People should remember that the first contact they receive from IRS will not be through a random, threatening phone call.”
Other IRS and tax-related scams involve the nonexistent “Federal Student Tax” and scams targeting tax professionals.

As a reminder, the IRS will never:
– Call to demand immediate payment over the phone, nor will the agency call about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill (this is true even with the use of private debt collectors).
– Threaten to immediately bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.
– Demand that you pay taxes without giving you the opportunity to question or appeal the amount they say you owe.
– Require you to use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card, gift card or wire transfer.
– Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.
Don’t engage or respond with scammers. Here’s what to do if you receive a suspicious phone call or message:
– If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, and you do not owe tax, or if you are immediately aware that it’s a scam, don’t engage with the scammer and do not give out any information. Just hang up.
– If you receive a telephone message from someone claiming to be from the IRS, and you do not owe tax, or if you are immediately aware that it’s a scam, don’t call them back.
– If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be with the IRS, and you owe tax or think you may owe tax, do not give out any information. Call the IRS back at 1.800.829.1040 to find out more information.
– You can also contact TIGTA to report scam calls by calling 1.800.366.4484 or by using the “IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting” form on their website. You may also want to report the scam to the Federal Trade Commission by using the “FTC Complaint Assistant” to report persons pretending to be from the government; please add “IRS Telephone Scam” in the notes.
Don’t fall for the tricks. Keep your personal information safe by remaining alert. For tips on protecting yourself from identity theft related tax

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How Prejudice Can Harm Your Health


Prior to my reposting this article a disgruntled and troubled  individual opened fired on Legislators on a baseball field in Virginia. This resulted in injury and death including the gunman. Since then several “activists” of meanest sort have publicly announced their decision to stop using Racist and mean spirited language (why now?). What changed? Is it fear, regret or something else? The change in tone of these high profile individuals hopefully will affect some of the others and perhaps all of us.MA.

Dhruv Khullar JUNE 8,
Long before the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King declared health inequity the most shocking and inhumane form of injustice, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that “the Negro death rate and sickness are largely matters of condition and not due to racial traits and tendencies.” Before Du Bois made his case, James McCune Smith — the nation’s first black doctor — carefully detailed the health consequences of freedom and oppression. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote that “the Negro death rate and sickness are largely matters of condition and not due to racial traits and tendencies.” These men grasped an insight that modern researchers and policy makers often fail to make explicit: Discrimination, especially when chronic, harms the body and the mind. How we treat one another, and how our institutions treat us, affects how long and how well we live.
We tend to think of discrimination as a moral or legal issue, and perhaps, in the case of immigration, an economic one. But it’s also a medical issue with important public health consequences. A growing body of evidence suggests that racial and sexual discrimination is toxic to the cells, organs and minds of those who experience it.
Research suggests that discrimination is internalized over a lifetime, and linked to a variety of poor health markers and outcomes: more inflammation and worse sleep; smaller babies and higher infant death rates; a greater risk of cancer, depression and substance use. The cumulative burden of discrimination is linked to higher rates of hypertension and more severe narrowing of important arteries in the heart and neck. Even the telomeres at the end of our chromosomes, which act as a sort of timer for aging cells, can shorten.
Discrimination, of course, is only part of the health equation. Individuals are not doomed to disease because of their circumstances. Health and illness are the result of a complex interplay between genetics, behavior and environmental conditions. But experiencing persistent bias can tip the scale. In one study, researchers asked black women to complete questionnaires on how often they experienced minor “everyday” discrimination, as well as major instances of unfair treatment in housing, employment or with the police. They then followed the women for six years, and found that those who had reported more frequent discrimination were more likely to develop breast cancer. The more pervasive the reported discrimination, the higher their risk.
This remained true even after adjusting for more than a dozen other factors like family history, education level, physical activity and use of hormonal supplements or oral contraceptives. Similar work has found that discrimination is a strong predictor of lower back pain in black patients — but not in white patients, who were less likely to report discrimination and for whom discrimination was unrelated to pain. Those who endure chronic discrimination not only experience more stress, but may also process it differently. To test this theory, researchers used surveys to assess the extent of lifetime discrimination that black and white patients had experienced. They then injected patients with phenylephrine (a chemical similar to adrenaline) and found that black patients had a larger temporary increase in blood pressure than white patients. Those who had experienced more discrimination had the largest rise of all. There may also be something particularly sinister about racial stress: People have a bigger spike in blood pressure when talking about racial stressors (being accused of shoplifting) compared with nonracial stressors (experiencing delays at the airport).These effects start early. By fifth grade, black and Hispanic children are already more than twice as likely as white students to say they’ve experienced discrimination at school. (About 7 percent of white children also reported discrimination, and online bullying is a growing problem for students of all backgrounds.)Children who experience discrimination have higher rates of depression, A.D.H.D. and other behavioral problems. And teenagers who endure more discrimination — racial slurs, physical threats, disrespectful behavior, false accusations — are more likely to have disrupted cortisol levels, elevated blood pressure and higher body mass index years later.

Most important, even for students who experience similar levels of discrimination, there is considerable variability in whether or not they go on to develop health problems. Many negative health effects seem to be mitigated — and in some cases eliminated — for those who have robust emotional support from family and friends. And some research even suggests that low levels of adversity can promote resilience.
Most studies have focused on the health effects of what researchers call interpersonal discrimination, including harassment, “micro-aggressions” or even just the anticipation of prejudice. But an emerging literature is also exploring the role of structural discrimination — the social and economic policies that systematically put certain groups at a disadvantage.
Researchers have tried to calculate structural bias by using racial differences in four domains — political participation, educational achievement, employment and incarceration. Blacks, for example, are 12 times more likely to be imprisoned than whites in Wisconsin, but only twice as likely in Hawaii. In Arkansas, the unemployment rate for blacks is 3.6 times higher than for whites; in Delaware, they’re employed at similar rates.
These unequal social conditions foster unequal health outcomes. Blacks in states high in structural discrimination are more likely to have heart attacks than blacks in low-discrimination states, and black women are more likely to give birth to babies too small for their gestational age. (Data is mixed on whether whites in these states do better or worse.)
In a revealing study of historical data, researchers found that before the abolition of Jim Crow laws, the black infant death rate was nearly 20 percent higher in Jim Crow states versus non-Jim Crow states. This disparity declined sharply after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, such that the gap had essentially closed a decade later. Still, the caustic effects of segregation persist: Blacks in segregated neighborhoods remain at higher risk for hypertension, chronic disease, violence and exposure to environmental pollutants.
Research is also identifying harmful inequities for white Americans along geographic and socioeconomic lines. Whites living in rural areas, compared with those in metropolitan centers, now contend with many of the same structural challenges that worsen health: less education, lower incomes, higher unemployment rates and poorer access to medical care. They increasingly feel that they, too, face significant discrimination. In some counties in the Midwest and South, the death rate for white women in their 40s has doubled since 2000.
Other work has found that gays and bisexuals living in states that institute policies restricting their rights — like same-sex marriage bans or lack of workplace protections — are more likely to develop depression, anxiety and substance use disorders. And a recent study suggests that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, conferred large mental health benefits to eligible Hispanic adults, who were nearly 50 percent less likely to report symptoms of major depression compared with noneligible people at risk of being deported.
As important as specific policies may be, the general social and political climate probably has broader and longer-lasting effects. Even if they haven’t experienced bias themselves, members of minority groups may develop a hyperawareness for cues of mistreatment, and this sustained vigilance can lead to chronic stress, mood problems and poorer health outcomes. For example, amid a sharp rise in anti-Arab sentiment after the Sept. 11 attacks, women with Arabic names — but not other women — had an increased risk of preterm birth and low-birth weight babies.
If Dr. King’s moral arc does in fact bend toward justice, it still has a long way to go. When people are marginalized, even unintentionally, it inflicts a toll. Discrimination raises many moral concerns — but also, it seems, many medical ones.

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Ex-GOP Congressman: Ryan Would look into impeachment if a Democratic President acted like Trump


My Comment: In America free speech is protected so our Elected Officials are free to say almost anything since the advent of Donald Trump’s Presidency. “Telling it like it is” has been the rallying cry for this Presidency along with the rise of seemingly Administration sanctioned Racism and bias. The  majority  party is using the out of touch Presidency to work it’s own agenda for its own gain , not it’s constituency. The article below states what many Americans and possibly politicians feel about this and administration’s actions and lack of action by the majority party. MA

Julia Munslow
Yahoo News June 9,2017

Former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis fired off a series of tweets Friday challenging a claim by House Speaker Paul Ryan that Republicans wouldn’t try to impeach a Democratic president accused of the same actions as President Trump.
Inglis, who served on the House judiciary committee that impeached former President Bill Clinton, wrote to Ryan: “You know that you would be inquiring into impeachment if this were a D.”

Inglis told Yahoo News on Friday that he hoped that Ryan and his party would put country over party and take the investigation seriously.
“We just need to be honest and … call it like it is,” Inglis said, describing the allegations against Trump far more serious than those against Nixon or Clinton. “It’s beyond a break-in at the Watergate. It’s beyond sex with a White House intern. It is the substance matter is really serious. … This investigation deals with the interference of an American election by a hostile foreign power.”
Inglis’ tweets followed former FBI chief James Comey’s testimony Thursday that included a number of explosive allegations, including that Trump fired him because of his agency’s probe into whether any Trump campaign associates colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.
During a press conference, Ryan said after the testimony that Republicans wouldn’t point to impeachment if Comey had been testifying about a Democratic president. Meanwhile, some Democrats have already called for Trump’s impeachment, claiming that Trump obstructed justice.
Ryan, who called Trump’s alleged request for Comey’s loyalty “obviously” inappropriate Wednesday, had told reporters Thursday, “No. I don’t think we would [pursue impeachment], actually. I don’t think that’s at all the case.”
Trump’s lawyer denied that Trump sought to influence any FBI probe and claimed that the president never demanded Comey’s loyalty.
But Clinton was sent to trial in the Senate in 1998 for “matters less serious than the ones before us now,” Inglis tweeted.
Inglis, who had voted in favor of all four articles of impeachment against Clinton, which included allegations of perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power, nevertheless said on Twitter that Ryan should focus on the Russia probe rather than “draft articles of impeachment.”
It’s not yet clear whether Trump obstructed justice and should be impeached, Inglis said.
“[The investigation] should sound like very serious lawmakers who are looking into very serious allegations at the heart of our republic. That’s not what I’m hearing yet [from my party],” Inglis told Yahoo News. Inglis now runs RepublicEN.org, a group that pushes conservative policy solutions to climate change.
Inglis concluded his tweets with a final message to Ryan and the rest of his party: “Put the country first.”

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House Passes Bill To Replace Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Law


If the banks and insurance companies were more trustworthy there would be no need for Dodd Frank or Volcker. Our Dupublicans do not have the interests of the oft quoted American people in mind when the legislate.MA

WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday voted largely along party lines to replace the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, a move that is expected to die in the Senate but open the door to revamping or eliminating regulations that came out of the 2007-09 financial crisis.
The bill, called the CHOICE act, was approved by a vote of 233-to-186. Authored by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, a Republican, it gives banks a choice between complying with Dodd-Frank or holding onto more capital.
It also restructures the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created under Dodd-Frank to guard individuals against fraud in lending. Democrats are fiercely opposed to restructuring the CFPB.
The U.S. Senate is not expected to take up the bill in its entirety, even though it has the backing of President Donald Trump, a Republican, largely because of the threat that Democrats will use a filibuster to stall it.
The Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan evaluator of legislation, estimates the bill would save the federal government $24 billion over a decade, mostly due to the lifting of the government’s authority to step in and unwind failing institutions.
The legislation also rescinds the Volcker rule that limits the type of trading banks can do with their own money and the ability of government regulators to designate non-bank institutions, mainly insurance companies, as “systemically important,” which triggers increased oversight and requirements to hold more capital.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Trump’s fight with London mayor baffles his critics


You would think that President of The United States had higher priorities than tweeting about other world leaders.MA

6 / 30

The Washington Post
Jenna Johnson
6 hrs ago

Neighbor: Attacker asked about rented moving van

© Reuters/Reuters President Trump has been critical of London Mayor Sadiq Khan following the terrorist attacks on Saturday.
President Trump has reignited a year-long public battle with London Mayor Sadiq Khan, one of the most prominent Muslim politicians in Western Europe, drawing criticism for reviving the feud in the wake of a terrorist attack.
In the two days since a group of terrorists killed seven people and injured many others on London Bridge on Saturday night, Trump has tweeted several times about the attack and used it to promote his travel ban, which is being blocked by the courts.
Among the president’s barrage of tweets have been two pointed messages directed at Khan.
“At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terrorist attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’ ” Trump tweeted Sunday morning, misrepresenting a comment the mayor made over the weekend when he told the city’s residents to not be alarmed by an increased police presence in the coming days. Trump was criticized for the tweet, but Monday morning he dived right back into the controversy: “Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his ‘no reason to be alarmed’ statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!”
Although Khan has responded to past attacks from the president, he has refrained from doing so this week, with his office saying on Sunday that the mayor “has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet.”
Khan, a human rights lawyer and practicing Muslim whose parents are from Pakistan, has repeatedly challenged Trump’s calls to ban Muslims or people from majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States, saying the president has an “ignorant view of Islam.” Trump, meanwhile, has said that “it is ignorant for him to say that” and has raised questions about London’s approach to confronting terrorism.
During the White House briefing Monday, a reporter asked deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders if the president went after Khan because he’s Muslim.
“Not at all,” Sanders said, “and I think to suggest something like that is utterly ridiculous.”
The president’s tweets come as London grapples with the aftermath of the attack and Khan tries to explain that the religious beliefs of the terrorists involved are not the same beliefs embraced by him and most of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims.
“The action of these three men on Saturday night was cowardly, was evil,” Khan said at a news conference Monday. “And I’m angry and furious that these three men are seeking to justify their actions by using the faith that I belong to. . . . The ideology they follow is perverse, it is poisonous, and it has no place in Islam. And I condemn this terrorist act but also the poisonous ideology these men and others follow.”
The president’s decision to lash out at the London mayor was widely questioned, with several critics asking why Trump was picking a fight with Khan as his city attempts to recover from Saturday’s attacks. Some noted that after a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando in June 2016, Khan tweeted: “I stand with the City of Orlando against hate and bigotry. My thoughts are with all the victims of this horrific attack #lovewins.”
Trump’s tweets were widely mocked in Britain, where the overwhelming mood is one of unity against terrorism and praise for security services. Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition Labour Party, accused the president of lacking “grace” and “sense.” British Prime Minister Theresa May, who has tried to foster a productive relationship with Trump, came to Khan’s defense Monday, telling journalists that the mayor was “doing a good job, and it’s wrong to say anything else.”
Lewis Lukens, the acting ambassador at the U.S. Embassy in London, tweeted Sunday: “I commend the strong leadership of the @MayorofLondon as he leads the city forward after this heinous attack.”
Suhaib Webb — an imam who leads Center DC, which has a large online youth following — said he is angry that the president and those close to him are “quick to pull the trigger on anything that has to do with Islam or involves a person of color.”
“I think it’s also extremely embarrassing as Americans that our president is engaged in a Twitter war with the mayor of a city in a sovereign country,” Webb said. “It’s shameful that we’ve reinforced a bully personality. . . . We have someone who is unhinged.”
Khan, a member of the Labour Party, took office in May 2016. Much of last year’s mayoral race focused on Khan’s religion and family background, and his then-rival Zac Goldsmith accused him of having “repeatedly legitimized those with extremist views.”
“What I think the election showed was that actually there is no clash of civilization between Islam and the West,” Khan said in an interview with Time magazine. When asked about Islamist extremists, he said: “What better antidote to the hatred they spew than someone like me being in this position?”
Soon after Khan became mayor, then-candidate Trump told the New York Times that he would make an exception to his proposed ban on foreign Muslims for Khan — an offer he turned down.
“I think Donald Trump has ignorant views about Islam. It’s not just about me. I don’t want to be the exception to be allowed to go to America,” Khan said in an interview on a British morning show in May 2016. “You can be a Muslim and you can be European.”
Trump wasted little time firing back. “He doesn’t know me, never met me, doesn’t know what I am all about,” he said. “I think they are very rude statements. Frankly, tell him I will remember those statements.”
Abigail Hauslohner and Samantha Schmidt in Washington and Griff Witte in London contributed to this report.

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Commentary: Second Amendment: An American tragedy


Worth reading. MA.

Fred Decker
Guest Columnist

A year ago, Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives staged a sit-in demanding a vote on federal gun-safety bills following the shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The National Rifle Association’s lobbying was largely blamed for no vote happening. But looking deeper, the Second Amendment with the unique American individualism wrapped around it underlies all. It is America’s fundamental gun problem.
As Michael Waldman at the Brennan Center for Justice suggests in Politico Magazine (2014), the NRA’s construing of the Second Amendment as an unconditional “right” to own and carry guns (a “right” beyond actual constitutional law in Supreme Court rulings) is why it thrives and has clout.
Without clout derived from Second Amendment hyperbole, we might not have, for instance, “stand your ground” laws in more than 20 states starting with Florida in 2005, laws that professors Cheng Cheng and Mark Hoekstra report in the Journal of Human Resources (2013) do not deter crime and are associated with more killing.

Fred Decker is a sociologist in Bowie, Md., with a background in health and social policy research. He earned his doctorate from Florida State University.
Pockets of America were waiting for the NRA’s Second Amendment fertilizer.

For many gun advocates, the gun is an important aspect of one’s identity and self-worth, a symbol of power and prowess in their cultural groups. Dan Kahan at Yale University with co-investigators studied gun-safety perceptions and wrote in the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies (2007) how those most likely “to see guns as safest of all” were “the persons who need guns the most in order to occupy social roles and display individual virtues within their cultural communities.”
Or, as the essayist Alec Wilkinson writes more starkly on The New Yorker’s website (2012), although “the [gun] issue is treated as a right and a matter of democracy” underlying all is “that a gun is the most powerful device there is to accessorize the ego.”
A gun owner carrying his semiautomatic long rifle into a family department store, like Target, in a state permitting such if asked why will likely say because it is his “right.” He is unlikely to reveal the self-gratification gained from demonstrating the prowess and power of his identity, gained from using the gun “to accessorize the ego.” The Second Amendment here is convenient clothing to cover deeper unspoken needs, needs that go beyond the understandable pleasures and functions of typical hunting, for instance.
Australia is often mentioned as an example of nationwide gun-safety legislation reducing gun violence. Following the 1996 massacre of 35 people in Port Arthur, Australia, the government swiftly passed substantial gun-safety legislation. And as Professors Simon Chapman, Philip Alpers and Michael Jones wrote in JAMA’s June 2016 issue, “[F]rom 1979-1996 (before gun law reforms), 13 fatal mass shootings occurred in Australia, whereas from 1997 through May 2016 (after gun-law reforms), no fatal mass shootings occurred.”

But Australia also has nothing akin to the Second Amendment.
Anthropologist Abigail Kohn studied gun owners in the U.S. and Australia who were engaged in sport shooting. She describes in the Journal of Firearms and Public Policy (2004) how “it is immediately apparent when speaking to American shooters that they find it impossible to separate their gun ownership, even their interest in sport shooting, from a particular moral discourse around self, home, family, and national identity.”
And thus, “American shooters are hostile to gun control because just as guns represent freedom, independence — the best of American core values — gun control represents trampling on those core values.”
In contrast, the Australians “view guns as inseparable from shooting sports.” And “perhaps most importantly, Australian shooters believe that attending to gun laws, respecting the concept of gun laws, is a crucial part of being a good shooter; this is the essence of civic duty that Australian shooters conflate with being a good Australian.” While the Australian shooters thought some gun-safety policies were “useless and stupid,” they thought that overall gun-safety measures were “a legitimate means by which the government can control the potential violence that guns can do.”
Unlike Australia (itself an individualist-oriented country), America has the Second Amendment. And that amendment has fostered a unique individualism around the gun, an individualism perpetrating more harm than safety.
Maybe someday the Second Amendment will no longer reign as a prop serving other purposes and, thus, substantive federal gun-safety legislation happens. But as Professor Charles Collier wrote in Dissent Magazine: “Unlimited gun violence is, for the foreseeable future, our [America’s] fate and our doom (and, in a sense, our punishment for [Second Amendment] rights-based hubris).”
The Second Amendment, today, is a song of many distorted verses. A song of a uniquely American tragedy.
Fred Decker is a sociologist in Bowie, Md., with a background in health and social policy research. He earned his doctorate from Florida State University.
Copyright © 2017, Orlando Sentinel
National Rifle Association of America Yale University Florida State University

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Trump Effect?


The recent split in the Arab nations seems to be a result of the President Trumps visit. It is remotely possible that that visit was a factor however my opinion is that this split was well under way and Trumps visit is being used as a “hat”

 

Libya and Yemen join four Arab nations in severing ties with Qatar as Gulf crisis deepens

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Yemen and Egypt accused Qatar of supporting terrorism, opening up the worst rift in years among some of the most powerful states in the Arab world.

world Updated: Jun 05, 2017 17:09 IST

Agencies, Dubai

Iran — long at odds with Saudi Arabia and a behind-the-scenes target of the move — immediately blamed US President Donald Trump for setting the stage during his recent trip to Riyadh.

Gulf Arab states and Egypt have already long resented Qatar’s support for Islamists, especially the Muslim Brotherhood which they regard as a dangerous political enemy.

The coordinated move, with Yemen and Libya’s eastern-based government joining in later, created a dramatic rift among the Arab nations, many of which are in OPEC

Announcing the closure of transport ties with Qatar, the three Gulf states gave Qatari visitors and residents two weeks to leave. Qatar was also expelled from the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

Oil giant Saudi Arabia accused Qatar of backing militant groups — some backed by regional arch-rival Iran — and broadcasting their ideology, an apparent reference to Qatar’s influential state-owned satellite channel Al Jazeera.

“(Qatar) embraces multiple terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at disturbing stability in the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS (Islamic State) and al-Qaeda, and promotes the message and schemes of these groups through their media constantly,” Saudi state news agency SPA said.

It accused Qatar of supporting what it described as Iranian-backed militants in its restive and largely Shia Muslim-populated Eastern region of Qatif and in Bahrain.

Qatar said it was facing a campaign aimed at weakening it, denying it was interfering in the affairs of other countries.

“The campaign of incitement is based on lies that had reached the level of complete fabrications,” the Qatari foreign ministry said in a statement.

Iran points at US

Iran saw America pulling the strings.

“What is happening is the preliminary result of the sword dance,” Hamid Aboutalebi, deputy chief of staff of Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani, tweeted in a reference to Trump’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia.

Trump and other US officials participated in a traditional sword dance during the trip in which he called on Muslim countries to stand united against Islamist extremists and singled out Iran as a key source of funding and support for militant groups.

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson told reporters in Sydney on Monday that the spat would not effect the fight against Islamist militants and that Washington has encouraged its Gulf allies to resolve their differences.

A split between Doha and its closest allies can have repercussions around the Middle East, where Gulf states have used their financial and political power to influence events in Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Kremlin and Turkey urge dialogue

The Kremlin commented on the decision by a number of Arab nations to sever diplomatic relations with Qatar and said on Monday it is in Moscow’s interest to have a “stable and peaceful” situation in the Gulf.

Moscow also hopes that the current diplomatic row in the Gulf will not affect “the common determination and resolve” in the joint fight against “international terrorism”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters.

Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he was saddened by a rift between Qatar and other Arab states, and called for dialogue to resolve the dispute.

“We see the stability in the Gulf region as our own unity and solidarity,” Cavusoglu told a news conference.

“Countries may of course have some issues, but dialogue must continue under every circumstance for problems to be resolved peacefully. We are saddened by the current picture and will give any support for its normalisation,” Cavusoglu said.

India not affected

India will not be impacted by some Gulf countries cutting off diplomatic ties with Qatar, external affairs minister Sushma Sara said on Monday.

“There is no challenge arising out of this for us. This is an internal matter of GCC (Gulf Coordination Council). Our only concern is about Indians there. We are trying to find out if any Indians are stuck there,” she told reporters.

Read | The Qatar-Gulf Arab nations conflict is not good news for India

Fall-out

The economic fallout loomed immediately, as Abu Dhabi’s state-owned Ethihad Airways, Dubai’s Emirates Airline and budget carrier Flydubai said they would suspend all flights to and from Doha from Tuesday morning until further notice.

Qatar Airways said on its official website it had suspended all flights to Saudi Arabia.

Qatar’s stock market index sank 7.5% with some of the market’s top blue chips hardest hit.

The measures are more severe than during a previous eight-month rift in 2014, when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE withdrew their ambassadors from Doha, again alleging Qatari support for militant groups. At that time, travel links were maintained and Qataris were not expelled.

The diplomatic broadside threatens the international prestige of Qatar, which hosts a large US military base and is set to host the 2022 World Cup. It has for years presented itself as a mediator and power broker for the region’s many disputes.

A Qatar Airways aircraft is seen at a runway of the Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Athens. (Reuters File Photo)

Kristian Ulrichsen, a Gulf expert at the US-based Baker Institute, said if Qatar’s land borders and air space were closed for any length of time “it would wreak havoc on the timeline and delivery” of the World Cup.

“It seems that the Saudis and Emiratis feel emboldened by the alignment of their regional interests — toward Iran and Islamism — with the Trump administration,” Ulrichsen said. “(They) have decided to deal with Qatar’s alternative approach on the assumption that they will have the (Trump) administration’s backing.”

Qatar used its media and political clout to support long-repressed Islamists during the 2011 pro-democracy “Arab Spring” uprisings in several Arab countries.

Muslim Brotherhood groups allied to Doha are now mostly on the backfoot in the region, especially after a 2013 military takeover in Egypt ousted the elected Islamist president.

The former army chief and now president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, along with the new government’s allies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, blacklist the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.

Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, said on its state news agency that Qatar’s policy “threatens Arab national security and sows the seeds of strife and division within Arab societies according to a deliberate plan aimed at the unity and interests of the Arab nation.”

Oil prices rose after the moves against Qatar, which is the biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and a major seller of condensate — a low-density liquid fuel and refining product derived from natural gas.

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Changes That Could Come From Leaving The Paris Climate Deal


June 1, 20173:36 PM ET
NPR Staff

The main goal of the Paris deal was to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius. Beyond that point, scientists worry that catastrophic impacts of warming become irreversible.
NASA Handout/Getty Images
President Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. will leave the Paris climate deal.
Here are five things that could be affected by the decision.
1. The coal industry
Even coal companies had lobbied the Trump administration to stay in the agreement.
They said they needed a seat at the table during international climate discussions to advocate for coal’s place in the global energy mix. The industry also wants financial support for technology to capture and store carbon emissions, something that could keep coal plants operating longer even as cities, states and other countries work to address climate change.
While President Trump had promised to “cancel” the Paris deal to boost coal, the decision is not likely to create more jobs. The industry is in a long-term decline as it faces competition from cheaper natural gas and — increasingly — wind and solar. Some utilities are also responding to customer demand for renewable power, and the policies of any one administration have little impact on those decisions. “As a utility, we’re trying to plan many years out into the future,” says Ron Roberts of Puget Sound Energy.

2. The climate
The main goal of the Paris deal was to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius (or, aspirationally, even 1.5 degrees). Beyond that point, scientists worry that catastrophic impacts of warming become irreversible. The various Paris pledges by each nation were not actually enough to achieve that target. And even with the environmental regulations passed under President Barack Obama, the U.S. was unlikely to meet its original commitment — to reduce carbon emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels. Now, the U.S. may fall further from that goal.
That said, U.S. carbon emissions will still probably continue to decline, at least for a few years. Market forces are pushing utilities to switch from coal to natural gas or renewable power. “We are on a path to reduce emissions below 2005 levels by about 15 to 17 percent in 2020,” says Kate Larsen of the Rhodium Group.
But the Trump administration is rolling back a host of other climate regulations, and that impact will start to be felt in a few years. Economist Marc Hafstead of Resources for the Future says if economic growth picks up, leaving the Paris deal may mean overall U.S. emissions drop only by 10 percent.
3. U.S. global leadership
Trump’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, warned against leaving the Paris deal. It puts the U.S. in a very small camp; the only other countries not part of the agreement are Syria, which is in the midst of a civil war, and Nicaragua, which argued that the Paris accord did not go far enough to curb global emissions. Former Secretary of State John Kerry calls Trump’s decision “an irresponsible walking back of American leadership.”

Instead of putting America first, Kerry tells NPR’s Morning Edition, Trump is putting the nation last. Kerry accuses Trump of basing his decision on “alternative facts,” calling it “one of the most disastrous, shallow, untruthful decisions a president of the United States has made in my lifetime.”
The European Union’s top climate change official, Miguel Arias Canete, calls it a “sad day for the global community” but adds that the “world can continue to count on Europe for global leadership in the fight against climate change.” China, too, is poised to take a stronger role on climate diplomacy. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is counting on that and argues there are economic benefits to this. “The sustainability train has left the station,” he said earlier this week. “Those who embrace green technologies will set the gold standard for economic leadership in the 21st century.”
4. President Trump’s public support (but maybe not the part that counts)
Most Americans want the U.S. to stay in the Paris climate accord. But in bucking that broad public opinion, Trump is playing to his base.
A Washington Post poll in January found just 31 percent of those surveyed supported withdrawing from the Paris deal, while 56 percent were opposed. But conservative Republicans are far less supportive of the Paris agreement than liberal Democrats, according to the Pew Research Center.
Before taking office, Trump repeatedly dismissed climate change as a hoax and suggested that Obama-era climate regulations put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage. Many conservative Republicans share the president’s climate skepticism. And less than a third support measures like the Clean Power Plan — Obama’s principal tool for meeting America’s Paris climate commitments.
Pulling out of the Paris accords will undoubtedly anger many Americans, but it keeps a promise to Trump’s core supporters. As small-government activist Grover Nyquist told the New York Times, “Everybody who hates Trump wants him to stay in Paris. Everybody who respects him, trusts him, voted for him, wishes for him to succeed, wants him to pull out.”
5. The U.S. economy
President Trump has repeatedly called the Paris accord a “bad deal” for the U.S. and said it will hurt the economy. One big outlay is the Green Climate Fund set up under the deal. Obama had committed the U.S. to contributing $3 billion to the fund, which aims to help developing countries adapt to climate change and develop low-emission energy technologies. Under Obama, the U.S. transferred $1 billion, but Trump’s budget proposal does not include payments for the rest.
Opponents of the Paris agreement also say imposing regulations to reduce carbon emissions is too costly. “It’d be very, very expensive,” Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who has denied climate change is real, told WBUR’s Here & Now. “It’d constitute probably the largest tax increase in the history of America.” It’s not clear whether that is true, but the coal industry has spent many millions installing technology to curb its emissions in recent years.
That said, the White House could easily have stayed in the Paris accord even as it opted not to pay into the climate fund or impose emissions cuts.
Of course, supporters of Paris say if the U.S. withdrawal leads to more severe climate change, that would greatly harm the U.S. economy.
Nate Rott, Chris Joyce, Michele Kelemen, Scott Horsley and Jennifer Ludden contributed to this report.

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Haley: Trump believes ‘climate is changing’


JILL COLVIN and JACK GILLUM,
Associated Press 16 hours ago

President Trump’s climate agreement announcement
WASHINGTON (AP) — Does he or doesn’t he? Believe in climate change, that is.
You’d think that would be an easy enough question the day after President Donald Trump announced he was pulling the U.S. out of the landmark global accord aimed at combatting global warming.
But don’t bother asking at the White House.
“I have not had an opportunity to have that discussion” with the president, responded press secretary Sean Spicer on Friday.
“You should ask him that,” offered White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt dodged the question, too.
The president also ignored it during an unrelated bill-signing.
But his U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, answered the question in a new way this weekend.
“President Trump believes the climate is changing,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” ”And he believes pollutants are part of that equation. So that is the fact.”
If so, it’s quite a reversal for Trump, who spent years publicly bashing the idea of global warming as a “hoax” and “total con job” in books, interviews and tweets. He openly challenged the scientific consensus that the climate is changing and man-made carbon emissions are largely to blame.
“Global warming is an expensive hoax!” he tweeted in 2014.
But Trump has been largely silent on the issue since his election last fall. On Thursday, he made scarce mention of it in his lengthy remarks announcing America’s exit from the Paris accord. Instead, he framed his decision as based on economics.
Here’s what he’s said before:
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TRUMP’S TWEETS:
The president’s twitter feed once was filled with references to “so-called” global warming being a “total con job” based on “faulty science and manipulated data.”
An Associated Press search of his twitter archives revealed at least 90 instances in which he has referred to “global warming” and “climate change” since 2011. In nearly every instance, he expressed skepticism or mockery.
“This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bulls— has got to stop,” he wrote in January 2014, spelling out the vulgarity.
Often the president has pointed to cold weather as evidence the climate scientists are wrong.
“It’s 46 (really cold) and snowing in New York on Memorial Day — tell the so-called “scientists” that we want global warming right now!” he wrote in May 2013 — one of several instances in which he said that warming would be welcome.
“Where the hell is global warming when you need it?” he asked in January 2015.
The same message was echoed in the president’s books.
In “Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America,” Trump made a reference to “the mistaken belief that global climate change is being caused by carbon emissions.”
“If you don’t buy that — and I don’t — then what we have is really just an expensive way of making the tree-huggers feel good about themselves,” he wrote.
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CANDIDATE AND SKEPTIC:
“I’m not a believer in man-made global warming,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in September 2015, after launching his bid for the White House. He bemoaned the fact that the U.S. was investing money and doing things “to solve a problem that I don’t think in any major fashion exists.”
“I am not a believer,” he added, “Unless somebody can prove something to me … I am not a believer and we have much bigger problems.”
By March 2016, the president appeared to allow that the climate was changing — but continued to doubt humans were to blame.
“I think there’s a change in weather. I am not a great believer in man-made climate change. I’m not a great believer,” he told The Washington Post. “There is certainly a change in weather,” he said.
Then-campaign manager, Conway explained Trump’s view this way: “He believes that global warming is naturally occurring. That there are shifts naturally occurring.”
___
EVOLVING PRESIDENT:
In an interview with The New York Times in November, after the election, Trump was asked repeatedly whether he intended to leave the Paris accord and appeared to have a new open-mindedness.
“I’m looking at it very closely,” Trump told the newspaper. “I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully.”
He went on to say that he thought “there is some connectivity” between human activity and the changing climate, but that, “It depends on how much.”
Asked about the comment several days later, Trump’s now-chief of staff Reince Priebus told Fox News that Trump “has his default position, which is that most of it is a bunch of bunk.”
“But he’ll have an open mind and listen to people,” he said.
Stay tuned.

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