Morality is not determined by the church you attend nor the faith you embrace. It is determined by the quality of your character and the positive impact you have on those you meet along your journey
Hundreds of local election workers have been trained to spot and resist foreign influence. The country’s biggest media outlets have teamed up to combat false news. Political parties scour their email systems to close hacker-friendly holes.
The goal: to Russia-proof Sweden’s political system so that what happened in the United States in 2016 can never happen in this Nordic country of 10 million people.
Although the general election isn’t until Sept. 9, officials say their preemptive actions may already have dissuaded the Kremlin from interfering. In Washington, meanwhile, the FBI says it has received no White House orders to secure the 2018 midterms against Russian influence.
The ONLY reason that an administration would not push to protect the country from interference by foreign agents, is because their interference benefited them directly.
The Trump Administration, and the Republican party itself, is trading our election security for the possibility that foreign interference will elect more of their people.
During emotional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, the father of a first grader slain at Sandy Hook Elementary School fought back tears as he stressed the need to ban weapons like the assault rifle that a gunman used to kill his son, 19 other children, and 6 educators in Newtown, Conn.
Neil Heslin described how his son Jesse "was brutally murdered at Sandy Hook school on December 14, 20 minutes after I dropped him off."
"He said 'It's all going to be OK'," Heslin recalled his son saying as he was dropped off at school. "And it wasn't OK."
"Jesse was the love of my life. He was the only family I have left. It's hard for me to be here today, talking about my deceased son," Heslin said. But he added, "I have to. I'm his voice. I'm not here for the sympathy...I'm here to speak up for my son."
"There's many changes that have to happen to make a change effective," he continued. "Mental health issues, better background checks, bans on these weapons, bans on high capacity magazines - they all have to come together and they all have to work effectively...common sense tells you that."
I have watched this testimony about three times now but I still cannot get through it without tearing up. And I doubt that any person with any feeling of empathy toward their fellow human beings could.
Around the 5:50 mark Mr. Heslin makes a very important point about the 2nd Amendment:
"They warn you about the 2nd Amendment. Well the 2nd Amendment says a well regulated militia. Bear arms, freedom of state...It HASN'T been well regulated. It's not being well regulated."
That is a very important observation. The 2nd Amendment may provide the right to "keep and bear arms" but it does NOT afford that right free of government regulation.
And that is all anybody is asking for here. The right to protect our babies from the fanatics who stockpile weapons and may someday use them on their fellow citizens, or worse yet, a classroom full of innocent children.
And if you don't agree with that then perhaps you need to watch Mr. Heslin's testimony again.
In the end your right to bear arms is secondary to our right to protect our children. Period!
"While there is no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence completely, no piece of legislation that will prevent every tragedy, every act of evil," Obama said at a mid-day announcement at the White House, "if there's even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there's even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try it."
Acknowledging the difficulty of the Congressional fight ahead, Obama appealed for public support, slamming - as he did in a press conference earlier this week - conservative commentators and the most vocal pro-gun activists for "ginning up" opposition to gun reforms for political reasons.
"I will put everything I've got into this and so will Joe [Biden], but I tell you, the only way we can change is if the American people demand it," he said.
Some of the main legislative proposals backed by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are:
requiring criminal background checks on all gun sales, including private sales
banning "military-style" assault weapons
limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds
strengthening penalties for gun trafficking
"The most important changes we can make depend on Congressional action," Obama said. "They need to bring these proposals up for a vote and the American people need to make sure that they do."
The president also signed a series of 23 executive actions - free from a Congressional blockade -- intended to strengthen existing laws, augment mental health measures and promote federal research on gun crime through the Centers for Disease Control.
Personally I was very heartened by this announcement. And though we have far to go, as Vice President says, this is a start.
I was very touched by the inclusion of the children that came to show their support. They have already been attacked by the Right Wing who is calling them "Obama's shields." (Yeah like we don't know WHO was the person most famous for using children as human shields to deflect criticism.)
Of course while damning the President for including children in the debate, the NRA had no qualms about using the protection provided to the most threatened President in history's children to make a ridiculous and shameful point of their own.
Apparently the NRA's solution to gun violence is to assign every child in America Secret Service protection.
This is beyond disgusting and I am amazed at the thought that the NRA thinks that this kind of thing helps their agenda in any way. Personally I am repulsed by this and am beginning to think that membership with his lobbyist group might the indication of mental illness that justifies the removal of weapons from your home.
A California teacher's brave conversation with a 16-year-old gunman who had opened fire on his classroom bullies allowed 28 other students to quickly escape what could have been a massacre.
Science teacher Ryan Heber calmly confronted the teenager after he shot and critically wounded a classmate, whom authorities say had bullied the boy for more than year at Taft Union High School.
"I don't want to shoot you," the teen gunman told Heber, who convinced the teen gunman to drop his weapon, a high power shotgun.
Responding to calls of shots fired, campus supervisor Kim Lee Fields arrived at the classroom and helped Heber talk the boy into giving up the weapon.
"This teacher and this counselor stood there face-to-face not knowing if he was going to shoot them," said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood. "They probably expected the worst and hoped for the best, but they gave the students a chance to escape."
One student, who police say the shooter had targeted, was shot. He was airlifted to a hospital and remains in critical, but stable condition, Youngblood said. He is expected to undergo surgery today.
Two other students received minor injuries. One suffered hearing loss and another fell over a table while evacuating. Heber received a wound to his head from a stray pellet, police said.
One student shot, no deaths, and the boy with the gun lives to receive the help that he so desperately needs.
Now just imagine if instead of understanding and compassion, this young man had been met with a hail of gunfire from an armed teaching staff trained to respond to violence with an increased level of violence. Imagine how many dead bodies may have resulted from such a scenario.
EVERY circumstance is different, but in this one perhaps the worst possible choice would have been an armed response. Instead this young man received exactly what he needed, trained professionals who valued HIS life as much as the lives of their other students, and who placed themselves in harm's way to protect both.
By the way I heard on MSNBC that his school indeed HAD an officer on duty, but he was caught in a snowstorm and was not available to deal with this potentially deadly situation. Though the armed student had no way to know that, which should put to rest the argument that people only open fire in places where there are "Gun Free Zone" signs posted.
The list of senior terrorists killed during the Obama presidency is fairly extensive.
There’s Osama bin Laden, of course, killed in May.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader Anwar al-Awlaki as of today.
Earlier this month officials confirmed that al Qaeda’s chief of Pakistan operations, Abu Hafs al-Shahri, was killed in Waziristan, Pakistan.
In August, ‘Atiyah ‘Abd al-Rahman, the deputy leader of al Qaeda was killed.
In June, one of the group’s most dangerous commanders, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in Pakistan. In Yemen that same month, AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa’ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan were killed. In Somalia, Al-Qa’ida in East Africa (AQEA) senior leader Harun Fazul was killed.
Administration officials also herald the recent U.S./Pakistani joint arrest of Younis al-Mauritani in Quetta.
Going back to August 2009, Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan leader Baitullah Mahsud was killed in Pakistan.
In September of that month, Jemayah Islamiya operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top was killed in Indonesia, and AQEA planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed in Somalia.
Then in December 2009 in Pakistan, al Qaeda operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and ‘Abdallah Sa’id were killed.
In February 2010, in Pakistan, Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Beradar was captured; Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani was killed; and Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar was killed.
In March 2010, al Qaeda operative Hussein al-Yemeni was killed in Pakistan, while senior Jemayah Islamiya operative Dulmatin - accused of being the mastermind behind the 2002 Bali bombings – was killed during a raid in Indonesia.
In April 2010, al Qaeda in Iraq leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi were killed.
In May, al Qaeda’s number three commander, Sheik Saeed al-Masri was killed.
In June 2010 in Pakistan, al Qaeda commander Hamza al-Jawfi was killed.
Remember when Rudy Giuliani warned that electing Barack Obama would mean that the U.S. played defense, not offense, against the terrorists?
If this is defense, what does offense look like?
-Jake Tapper
Dayum!
If you click on the link at the top you can read all of the details of Obama's "palling around," which in Obama-speak means "bust a cap in their ass."
Apparently being his "pal "can be quite dangerous.
