States with the Most Gun Nuts

Here's some numbers the NRA can't spin;



The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tracks the number of gun-related fatalities — including homicides, suicides, and accidents — in each state. The frequency of firearm-related deaths varies widely across the U.S. Firearms were associated with just 3.0 deaths per 100,000 residents in Rhode Island in 2011, the lowest gun-related fatality rate of any state. Louisiana, on the other hand, reported 18.8 firearm-related deaths per 100,000 residents, the most of any state. 


24/7 Wall St. examined the 10 states with the highest gun-related death rates.


24/7 Wall St. discussed the CDC’s figures with John Roman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, an economic and social policy think tank. Roman explained the probability of accidents, suicides, and domestic violence goes up in homes with guns. Americans are “three times more likely to have a suicide in a home with a gun than [they] are in a home without a gun.”

According to Roman, “The overwhelming trend is that strong gun law states have seen dramatic declines in violence. Weak gun law states have not seen the same decline.” 

While stricter gun laws lead to less violence, Roman noted, this relationship is not exactly straightforward, because people may purchase a gun in one state and bring it into another. “As long as there are weak gun law states, even strong gun law states will see gun violence.”
Federal law controls some aspects of firearm regulation, but for the most part, state legislatures choose to what extent firearms are governed. None of the states with the most gun violence require permits to purchase rifles, shotguns, or handguns. Gun owners are also not required to register their weapons in any of these states. Meanwhile, most of the states with the lowest rates of gun deaths require a permit to purchase a handgun.
 States with the Most Gun Violence

MAN MISTAKES PENIS FOR "BAD GUY"

Georgia Man Accidentally Second Amendments His Penis | FreakOutNation

A man in Macon, Georgia, was treated at a local hospital after he accidentally shot himself in the penis. The penis shooter was parked at the gas station at about 9:30 p.m. on June 12th when he attempted to holster his .45 caliber gun.

DRUG INDUCED STUPIDITY

It's no wonder the US continues to slide into chaos and dysfunction given the number of Americans who drug themselves just to be able to cope with their lives. This approach to life is a fools quest and self defeating since the more we become detached from reality the less we are able to cope with it.

A survey of prescription drug trends among 2.5 million insured Americans from 2001 to 2010, found that one in five adults is currently taking at least one psychiatric drug. Americans spent more than $16 billion on antipsychotics, $11 billion on antidepressants and $7 billion on drugs to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in 2010. And according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control, 87 percent of people who visit a psychiatrist’s office leave with a prescription.


To make matters worse we are now projecting our dysfunctional behaviors on to our pets and the drug manufacturers are jumping on it like a dog on a bone.


Do our pets need Prozac? Are we making them feel better, or ourselves?


The U.S. market for pet pharmaceuticals is large and growing, from $6.68 billion in 2011 to a projected $9.25 billion by 2015. Zoetis Inc. is the world’s largest maker of animal medicines. Once a subsidiary of Pfizer, it went public in January of 2013 and raised $2.2 billion in its initial public offering, the largest IPO deal for an American company since Facebook. Elanco, a pet pharma company owned by Eli Lilly, has $1.4 billion in annual sales and is the fourth-largest animal health business in the world. Growth in Lilly’s animal division recently outpaced its general pharmaceutical division for humans. Yearly sales of Pfizer’s animal pharmaceuticals are worth roughly $3.9 billion, with companion animal meds representing 40 percent of the total.


There are those that benefit from this;

Why Does the Right Embrace Ignorance as a Virtue?

This mentality, in its modern form, can be traced back to the Bush White House. In 2004, Ron Suskind of the New York Times interviewed an unnamed Bush official who famously pooh-poohed what he believed to be the shortcomings of journalists who insist that the truth matters more than fantasy:

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

LATE NIGHT CHILD ABUSE

How pathetic. Americans actually sit around their flat screens and entertain themselves watching a child be put on display by her parents and abused.

The real Honey Boo Boo: What reality TV did to the pint-size pageant queen

So this edited version of Honey Boo Boo becomes what we celebrate. We laugh at this kid with the funny catchphrases, the quirky dances, the affinity for go-go juice, but I suspect that she might not actually exist. The Honey Boo Boo we know is a compilation of shticky moments in what has clearly been a strange, tough childhood. The Alana I saw on “The Tonight Show” set was visibly troubled: disrespectful, defiant, entitled. Of course, with a bit of editing, “disrespectful” becomes “precocious,” “defiant” becomes “sassy,” and “entitled” becomes “confident.”

THEY'RE BACK!

William Rivers Pitt | They Belong in Prison, Not on TV



Tony Blair: "We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that 'we' have caused this. We haven't."

Paul Wolfowitz: "Look, it's a complicated situation in which you don't just come up with, 'We're going to bomb this, we're going to do that.'"

Doug Feith: "This is the education of Barack Obama, but it's coming at a very high cost to the Syrian people to the Iraqi people [and] to the American national interest."

John McCain: "What about the fact that General Petraeus had the conflict won thanks to the Surge and if we had left a residual force behind that we could have - we could, we would not be facing the crisis we are today."

Karl Rove, when asked about the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq: "Yeah, that's an old argument that we waste time on."

Dick Cheney: "He (Obama) abandoned Iraq and we are watching American defeat snatched from the jaws of victory."

THE HYPOCRITE OATH; DO HARM

The problem is not the good doctor who easily sells out to marketeers. The bigger problem is the millions of Americans who are so dumbed down actually buy into the crazy hype.





Watch Dr. Oz attempt to defend his weight loss “miracles” before Congress



In what’s commonly known as the “Dr. Oz Effect,” products that the cardiologist endorses on his show — or that advertisers claim to have been endorsed by him — fly off the shelves. “People want to believe they can take an itty-bitty pill to push fat out of their body,” McCaskill scolded. “I know you know how much power you have. I know you know that.”

STERLING DOING NBA'S LAUNDRY

Leave it to and old rich demented white guy to drop the curtain down on a bunch of other demented old rich white guys. 

Sterling Hires Team of Investigators to Dig Up Dirt on NBA

Sterling has returned to true litigious form, deciding to fight the NBA—and fight dirty if necessary. The AP reports that Sterling has hired investigators to "dig up all the dirt they can find" on the other 29 NBA owners and the current and former commissioners, David Stern and Adam Silver. The investigators’ objective: to look for any evidence of any discriminatory conduct, inappropriate comments, or questionable financing and compensation practices.

37 Political Whores (Senators) Who Voted For Millionaires Over Students

These politicians are bought by, and pander to, the rich with little or no regard to the damage it may inflict on the country or it's citizens.



Senate Republicans today sided with 22,000 millionaires over 40 million Americans with student debt by blocking the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act.

The 56-38 vote fell shy of the 60 needed to prevent the bill, sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), from being filibustered. The bill would have allowed existing student loan borrowers the chance to refinance their debt at today’s lower interest rates and would be fully paid for by enacting the “Buffet rule,” which ensures billionaires and millionaires pay their fair share of taxes.

Sen. McConnell continues to obstruct democracy in the name of special interests. Today these 37 senators joined him:

Lamar Alexander (Tenn.)Saxby Chambliss (Ga.)John Cornyn (Texas)Michael Crapo (Idaho)Michael Enzi (Wyo.)Charles Grassley (Iowa)Orrin Hatch (Utah)James Inhofe (Okla.)John McCain (Ariz.)Mitch McConnell (Ky.)Pat Roberts (Kan.)Jefferson Sessions (Ala.)Richard Shelby (Ala.)Roy Blunt (Mo.)John Boozman (Ariz.)Richard Burr (N.C.)Jeff Flake (Ariz.)John Isakson (Ga.)Mark Kirk (Ill.)Robert Portman (Ohio)Patrick Toomey (Pa.)David Vitter (La.)Roger Wicker (Miss.)John Thune (S.D.)Thomas Coburn (Okla.)Daniel Coats (Ind.)Dean Heller (Nev.)John Barrasso (Wyo.)Mike Johanns (Neb.)James Risch (Ind.)Marco Rubio (Fla.)Rand Paul (Ky.)John Hoeven (N.D.)Mike Lee (Utah)Ron Johnson (Wis.)Deb Fischer (Neb.)Ted Cruz (Texas)

The 37 Senators Who Today Voted For Millionaires Over Students

MUBARAK II - THE SEQUEL

This is democracy at it's worse. US endorsed and supported. Freely elected dictators.

US backing of el-Sissi reminiscent of Mubarak era

With ex-army chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi sworn in as Egypt's president, Washington has promised that it will cooperate with his government. Are US-Egyptian ties returning to the Mubarak-era status quo of military rule?

MUST-SEE: Jon Stewart blasts the Open Carry Texas movement

MUST-SEE: Jon Stewart blasts the Open Carry Texas movement

THE NRA GROWS UP (IF ONLY FOR A SECOND)

NRA releases statement asking open-carry activists to stop being terrible



"Let's not mince words, not only is it rare, it's downright weird and certainly not a practical way to go normally about your business while being prepared to defend yourself. To those who are not acquainted with the dubious practice of using public displays of firearms as a means to draw attention to oneself or one's cause, it can be downright scary.

" ... Using guns merely to draw attention to yourself in public not only defies common sense, it shows a lack of consideration and manners. That's not the Texas way. And that's certainly not the NRA way."

And the gun nuts went nuts;

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

"It is unfortunate that an organization that claims to be dedicated to the preservation of gun rights would attack another organization fighting so hard for those rights in Texas. The fact is that the NRA hasn't been able to get open carry passed in Texas since the right was first taken away from us when Jim Crow laws were passed in the 1860s, making us one of only 5 states where it is still illegal. The NRA has refused to learn for themselves how Open Carry Texas (OCT) conducts itself other than what the liberal media and Bloomberg funded gun control extremists have falsely portrayed. The real ignorance in their statement is that it was completely unnecessary. OCT - along with Come And Take It Texas, Texas Carry andGun Rights Across America - has already changed its methods and the whole world is aware of that. The more the NRA continues to divide its members by attacking some aspects of gun rights instead of supporting all gun rights, the more support it will lose. Already, OCT members are posting pictures of themselves cutting up their life membership cards. If they do not retract their disgusting and disrespectful comments, OCT will have no choice but to withdraw its full support of the NRA and establish relationships with other gun rights organizations that fight for ALL gun rights, instead of just paying them lip service the way the NRA appears to be doing. The NRA should have instead released a statement to the effect that it applauds our groups for coming together and finding new methods to promote safe and responsible open carry."

THE MIDDLE CLASS ON LIFE SUPPORT

Americans fared better after Great Depression than today | Al Jazeera America



The national income pie and how it is sliced.

In 2012, for the first time since data became available in 1917, the 90 percent enjoyed less than half of all reported income, an analysis of IRS data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez shows.

From 1934 to 1980 the vast majority averaged more than 64 percent of all reported income. Since then, their slice of income pie has gotten steadily thinner. In 2012 they slipped to just under 50 percent.

At the same time, the top one-tenth of 1 percent enjoyed on average 4.5 percent of the national income pie from 1934 to 1980. Since then, their slice has more than doubled. In 2012 they got 11.5 percent of the pie.

Most telling: 95 percent of reported income gains between 2009 and 2012 went to the top 1 percent and a third of the gains went to the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent — a mere 16,000 households.

To sum up, there are some tiny improvements in the job and income numbers, but only if you limit the analysis to the last few years. Look back a decade or four decades or even eight decades, and the story changes from an America of growing prosperity to one of falling incomes, not enough jobs and ever fatter slices of the income pie for the elite.

It may be jarring to hear that the vast majority of Americans, the 90 percent, enjoyed bigger income gains in the 1930s than in recent years, but that is what the data show.

The data also indicate tandem increases in both want and wealth, with the vast majority worse off in 2013 than in 2009, while those at the apex of the economy are enjoying a much larger — and growing — share of national income.