DECEMBER 6, 2018

NEWS AND VIEWS


I’M BEGINNING WITH BERNIE STORIES TODAY OF WHICH THERE ARE THREE (ONE FROM WIKIPEDIA.) HOW DOES A PRESIDENTIAL DRAFT WORK? WHAT ABOUT A WRITE IN CAMPAIGN? A DRAFT IS ACTUALLY A REQUEST FOR THE CANDIDATE TO RUN AND A LIST OF VOTERS WHO SUPPORT SANDERS OR ANOTHER POLITICIAN FOR PRESIDENT, WHICH IS SENT TO THE CANDIDATE TO ENCOURAGE HIM TO RUN. I THOUGHT IT WAS TO BE PRESENTED AT THE CONVENTION. IT WOULD ALSO PROBABLY BE USEFUL AS INFORMATION FOR THE PRESS TO USE. THAT’S THE IMPRESSION I HAVE FROM THE WRITINGS BELOW. IT ISN’T APPLIED (ACCORDING TO WHAT I SEE HERE) AS A PRESSURE WEDGE AT THE PARTY CONVENTION – OR THAT ISN’T SPECIFICALLY MENTIONED -- AND IS POSSIBLY INDEPENDENT OF ANY PARTY. THE WRITE IN VOTES, THOUGH, ARE APPLIED TO THE PAPER BALLOT ITSELF. I DON’T REMEMBER SEEING ANYTHING LIKE THAT AS A CHOICE ON COMPUTER BALLOTS.

MAYBE IT IS POSSIBLE TO ASK FOR A PAPER BALLOT EVEN IF WE AREN’T GIVEN ONE. AT MY POLLING PLACE PAPER BALLOTS ARE GIVEN OUT, BASED ON DECLARED PARTY, BUT RUN THROUGH A MACHINE TO ADD THE INFORMATION TO THE COMPUTER RECORD. MAYBE IF A NAME WERE WRITTEN IN, IT WOULD BE COUNTED AUTOMATICALLY BY HAND. WRITING IN A CANDIDATE’S NAME ISN’T DONE VERY OFTEN, OR I HAVEN'T SEEN NEWS REPORTS ON CAMPAIGNS TO DO IT AS IT IS HERE. MAYBE THAT ISN’T A GOOD THING. I WOULD LIKE THE FREEDOM OF WRITING IN THE NAME NO MATTER WHO IS CHOSEN BY THE PARTY AS THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE. OF COURSE IF ONLY A FEW PEOPLE DO THAT IT WOULD MAKE NO DIFFERENCE TO THE OUTCOME.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/419683-group-launches-to-draft-bernie-sanders-to-run-for-president-in-2020
Organizing for Bernie group launches to draft Sanders as 2020 White House candidate
BY ARIS FOLLEY - 12/04/18 02:32 PM EST

A new group called Organizing for Bernie launched this week to draft Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to run for president.

The group's goal is to build an organizational structure for Sanders so he can begin campaigning immediately if he declares his candidacy.

“We have two goals,” Rich Pelletier, one of the group’s main organizers, told Rolling Stone in an article published Monday. “One, we want to show the support is there. The second is to begin to do the organizing that is going to need to happen for him to hit the ground running, by the time he announces — if he announces."

Pelletier, who was deputy campaign manager for Sanders in 2016, is one of several senior campaign staffers from the senator’s previous White House bid who will be leading the Colorado-based group.

The group also reportedly includes Sanders’s former campaign director for Colorado and Washington state, Dulce Saenz, and former Colorado Caucus Director Mandy Nunes-Hennessey.

Sanders’s 2016 campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, told Rolling Stone he was aware of the draft campaign.

“I’ve been contacted by a number of people who are wondering, how do we demonstrate to Bernie that he’s got the support of people across the country?” Weaver told the magazine. “Without talking about any particular conversation I’ve had — because I’ve had many — I’ve tried to be encouraging to people and to give whatever advice I can that will help them move forward.”

Weaver said he’s been contacted by groups supporting the Vermont senator’s potential 2020 bid because “they know I’m supportive of him running,” while adding that there’s also “a tremendous amount of grass-roots energy for him.”

Pelletier told the magazine that the aim behind the group is to build the framework for a national organization in “each state, territory and city.”

He also added the group is “an unaffiliated candidate PAC” and is able to “raise money as any other federal PAC can.”

Sanders has appeared near the top of numerous polls for potential 2020 Democratic candidates. In the last presidential election, he lost the Democratic nomination to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Sanders said last week that he will "probably" run if he believes he's the best candidate to defeat President Trump in the general election.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft_(politics)
Draft (politics)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In elections in the United States, political drafts are used to encourage or pressure a certain person to enter a political race, by demonstrating a significant groundswell of support for the candidate. A write-in campaign may also be considered a draft campaign.



https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/elizabeth-warren-bernie-sanders-foreign-policy-authoritarianism.html
Now
The neocons are gone. These days, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are the ones talking about fighting tyranny.
By JOSHUA KEATING
DEC 05, 20184:51 PM

PHOTOGRAPH -- Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Alex Edelman/Getty Images and Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

It feels much longer than 14 years since President George W. Bush declared that the U.S. should have “the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world … by force of arms when necessary” in his second inaugural address. The “freedom speech” was something of a mission statement for the neoconservative moment in its moment of political primacy, before subsequent events in Iraq tarnished Bush’s foreign policy and turned the “freedom agenda” into a punchline.

Donald Trump, who has defended and even praised the violent tactics of leaders like Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Rodrigo Duterte to crack down on critics and control their citizens, clearly does not see “ending tyranny,” by force of arms or by any other means, as a priority. That has been more evident than ever in recent weeks as the administration has worked to brush off the Saudi government’s apparent murder of a U.S.-based journalist in the name of protecting arms sales. Trump is not the first president to value weapon deals over even the most basic human rights principles, but he’s the first to come out and say it so nonchalantly.

The death of Sen. John McCain in August felt like an inflection point, a sunsetting of the era when the Republican Party touted itself as the one pushing to make the world safe for democracy. The party’s voters have followed Trump’s lead. A recent Pew poll found that only 20 percent of Republicans thought “promoting and defending human rights in other countries” should be a major U.S. foreign policy priority; only 11 percent supported “promoting democracy in other nations.”

So perhaps it’s not surprising that, with the 2020 campaign season fast approaching, it’s liberal and left-wing Democrats who are speaking the language of freedom and democracy. On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave a much-advertised foreign policy speech at American University in Washington. The law professor turned financial regulator turned senator hasn’t traditionally been thought of as a major voice on foreign policy, but as she gears up for a likely presidential run, she’s been burnishing her credentials with an appointment to the Senate Armed Services Committee and several trips to the Middle East and Afghanistan.

There’s reason to think that this new “freedom agenda” is going to find a place in the messaging of prominent Democrats.

Warren began her speech last week on a stark note: “Around the world, democracy is under assault. Authoritarian governments are gaining power. Right-wing demagogues are gaining strength. Movements toward openness and pluralism have stalled and begun to reverse.”

She argued that the “combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world” and said that “President Trump’s actions and instincts align with those of authoritarian regimes around the globe. He embraces dictators of all stripes.”

A version of Warren’s speech was published as an essay in Foreign Affairs and corresponded with her co-introduction of a bill meant to curb Trump’s nuclear buildup. While she has not formally announced her candidacy, these actions taken together seem aimed at establishing her as a player on the world stage.

Warren isn’t the only candidate burnishing her foreign policy bona fides lately. During his 2016 primary run against Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders was criticized by many, including me, for his seeming lack of interest in international issues, falling back on criticism of Clinton’s 2002 Iraq war vote or friendship with Henry Kissinger whenever current concerns beyond U.S. borders came up.

But lately, Sanders has been finding his voice on international issues. Most recently, he co-sponsored the bill to cut off U.S. support to the Saudi-led war in Yemen, which advanced to the full Senate floor by a surprisingly strong majority last week. In 2016, Sanders missed an opportunity to criticize Clinton’s hawkish foreign policy from the left—leaving an opening for Trump to do so from the isolationist right—and he seems determined not to do so again.

Sanders laid out his own grand foreign policy vision in a speech at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in October and an accompanying essay in the Guardian.

Peter Beinart contrasted the Warren and Sanders visions in the Atlantic last week, writing, “Warren’s vision is more conventional; Bernie Sanders’s is more radical.” That’s true to an extent. Sanders is more critical of America’s history of military interventions and human rights violations abroad. He’s also more willing to criticize Israel and puts a much greater emphasis on building solidarity with left-wing movements in other countries. Warren’s rhetoric is far more hawkish on both China and Russia.

But the similarities between the two may be more interesting than the differences. Sanders, too, uses anti-authoritarianism as the leitmotif of his foreign policy agenda. In his Johns Hopkins speech, he described a new “authoritarian axis” whose leaders share key attributes: intolerance toward ethnic and religious minorities, hostility toward democratic norms, antagonism toward a free press, constant paranoia about foreign plots, and a belief that the leaders of government should be able use their positions of power to serve their own selfish financial interests. Interestingly, many of these leaders are also deeply connected to a network of multibillionaire oligarchs who see the world as their economic plaything.

For both Sanders and Warren, the struggle against international authoritarianism led by an unaccountable political and economic elite is closely tied to the struggle to address economic inequality at home. The same unaccountable elites that rig the U.S. political system, they argue, also keep leaders like Vladimir Putin in power.

While it’s far from certain or even likely that either Warren or Sanders will be the 2020 nominee, there’s reason to think that this new “freedom agenda” is going to find a place in the messaging of other prominent Democrats. Both senators’ speeches bear some resemblance to a September report by Kelly Magsamen, Max Bergmann, Michael Fuchs, and Trevor Sutton of the Center for American Progress, a prominent liberal think tank, which called for the next president after Trump to embrace a “values-based foreign policy” that is “rooted in faith in democratic self-government, not just as being better than all the alternatives but also as a value in and of itself” and that aims to combat the spread of illiberalism in both the U.S. and around the world.

A new progressive foreign policy advocacy group, National Security Action, founded by Obama’s former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes and former White House deputy assistant Jake Sullivan, has a similar message. In a recent New York Times op-ed following the midterm elections, Rhodes and Sullivan wrote that the first priority of the newly elected Democrats should be to:

send a clear message to the world that we stand by our allies and our democratic values. Congress can make its voice heard in reaffirming our alliance commitments, increasing funding for the State Department, pressing the administration to admit more refugees and providing both tangible and moral support for independent civil society and media around the world. Mr. Trump may not see American values as a part of our strength and influence, but Congress should.

The Yemen bill currently making its way through the Senate—all 49 Democrats and 14 Republicans supported it in a key procedural vote last week—and the larger congressional backlash against U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia since the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi could be viewed as something of a test case for the new freedom agenda. The bill is unlikely to pass, and a major shift in the U.S.-Saudi relationship is unlikely as long as Trump is president, but it’s a sign that Democratic leaders—in cooperation with libertarian-minded Republicans—are becoming skeptical of the notion that autocratic regimes in the Middle East are the best safeguards for either regional stability or U.S. interests.

It’s not a huge surprise that the opposition party would adopt this message at a time when the sitting president is openly contemptuous of these values, but all the talk of freedom and democracy also feels like a repudiation of the last Democratic president. Barack Obama’s early candidacy was defined by his opposition to the Iraq war and rejection of neoconservatism, namely, his willingness to engage with hostile authoritarian governments. “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,” he promised in his first inaugural address.

To a large extent, Obama followed through on this promise. While he often spoke about human rights, his administration’s signature foreign policy achievements—the first-term reset with Russia, the Iran nuclear deal, the diplomatic opening to Cuba, breakthrough climate change diplomacy with China—demonstrated Obama’s determination to find common ground with some of the most repressive governments.

Advocates of the new Democratic freedom agenda usually take pains to distinguish their vision from the militarized, unilateral, neoconservative one. “Military force should always be the last resort and only employed to address severe or acute security crises—not to advance a preferred political system,” reads the CAP* paper. All place a great emphasis on strengthening and acting through multilateral institutions like the U.N. and NATO.

From the center to the far left, no one is calling for a return to a strategy of regime change, but this rhetoric about confronting tyranny is still going to raise some eyebrows after the debacles of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. The same recent Pew poll found that Democrats today are more interested in spreading freedom abroad than Republicans, but the numbers aren’t exactly impressive: 39 percent agree that promoting human rights should be a U.S. priority, 22 percent for promoting democracy.

While there’s widespread agreement that Democrats need a new approach to foreign policy that goes beyond just opposition to Trump, some are arguing for a much different direction. The Hell of Good Intentions, a new book by Harvard professor and Foreign Policy columnist Stephen Walt, a leading proponent of the realist school of foreign policy, argues that liberal internationalism and neoconservatism are simply two sides of the same coin—an arrogant belief in America’s ability to remake the world that has led the U.S. into one catastrophe after another and opened the door to Trump’s brand of belligerent cynicism. Beinart, once a leading liberal internationalist himself, now advocates a far more modest vision of Democratic foreign policy that accepts the existence of spheres of influence for rival powers like Russia and China—an alarming prospect for U.S. allies like Ukraine or Taiwan but a vision that’s certainly compelling after decades of military overreach and chaotic interventions. It remains to be seen whether any 2020 candidate will take up such a realist foreign policy vision.

It is worth asking how new any of this is: Leading Democrats have called for a U.S. foreign policy that’s more, well, democratic since Woodrow Wilson’s time, if not earlier. And the new calls for fighting authoritarianism are likely to face the same challenges and dilemmas as earlier ones.

Democrats across the political spectrum are increasingly demanding an end to runaway defense spending and a reining in of the post-9/11 militarization of U.S. foreign policy. But any future Democratic president is likely to face the thorny problem of humanitarian intervention: What happens when an authoritarian leader’s human rights abuses become so egregious that there’s a groundswell of support for the U.S. and its allies to put an end to them, by force if necessary? No modern president has been entirely consistent on this issue—it’s not called a “problem from hell” for nothing—but it’s something the next president must prepare for.

The new Democratic proposals also fall short in explaining how a values-based foreign policy can make progress on the most pressing global issues. You need not be as cynical as Trump to concede that America’s interests and values are sometimes in conflict. For instance, both Warren and Sanders (rightly!) rank climate change solutions near the top of America’s global priorities. But any serious proposal to address climate change is going to require the world’s largest carbon emitter, China, to play a leading role. Would a Warren or Sanders administration be willing to downplay China’s near-genocide of its Muslim population if that’s what it took to get Beijing’s agreement to binding CO2 targets? Would it let North Korea’s abuses slide in exchange for nuclear inspections? Could it work toward Middle East peace without the help of Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and yes, even Saudi Arabia?

The answer is that any administration will take these issues on a case-by-case basis. Speeches by potential candidates or reports by think tanks today are a poor guide to how a future Democratic administration would govern or respond to a crisis. But still, it’s been a long time since the Democratic Party had much of a coherent foreign policy vision, and efforts to begin formulating one now are welcome.

What’s more interesting than how the new freedom agenda would be implemented with respect to any particular foreign policy issue is how it ties together foreign and domestic concerns. A foreign policy message built around anti-authoritarianism may be well-suited for a time when voters are concerned about the rise of far-right nationalism, abuses of power by law enforcement, the influence of money in politics, partisan gerrymandering and voter suppression, and the meddling in America’s elections by foreign powers.

This may be what ultimately separates the new freedom agenda from the ones both parties have espoused in the past: It no longer takes America’s own freedom for granted.


WHAT IS CAP?

ASIDE FROM THE FACT THAT THIS ARTICLE BY www.activistfacts.com IS CLEARLY RIGHTIST – AMONG OTHER THINGS IT CALLS THE PROGRESSIVE WING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THE PROGRESSIVE “MACHINE” AND DEMONIZES GEORGE SOROS, WHICH IS GETTING DOWNRIGHT BORING TO ME -- IT DOES HAVE THE GOOD GRACE TO STATE FULLY THE NAME REPRESENTED BY “CAP.” FOR SHAME, SLATE. IT IS “CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS,” A GOOD PROGRESSIVE THINK TANK.

NO MATTER HOW FAMILIAR A NAME MAY BE, IT SHOULD STILL BE SPELLED OUT FULLY THE FIRST TIME IT IS MENTIONED, WITH THE ABBREVIATION IN PARENTHESES. NO GOOD LEGAL DOCUMENT WILL HAVE THAT MISTAKE IN IT. I DO HATE HAVING TO GO THROUGH POSSIBLE CHOICES ON THE INTERNET FOR “CAP,” AND FINDING ONLY REFERENCES TO HEADGEAR.

CAP* -- https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/528-center-for-american-progress/

Center for American Progress
ORGANIZATION

The Center for American Progress (CAP) and its parallel advocacy arm the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action) are two key cogs in the left-wing policy and message machine. Using the institutional imprimatur of CAP’s “think tank” and CAP Action’s blog ThinkProgress, CAP’s directors and funders — who include left-wing hedge fund titan George Soros — attempt to move national policy debates ever leftward.


SOME SAY BERNIE IS GETTING TOO OLD TO BE PRESIDENT, BUT I CAN’T SEE IT IN HIS ABILITY TO THINK, DISCUSS ISSUES, BE AT A LOSS FOR WORDS AND HANDLE PHYSICAL EFFORTS. WHEN A BUXOM YOUNG WOMAN [TO PUT IT NICELY] APPEARED AT ONE OF HIS EVENTS WITH NOT A STITCH OF CLOTHING ON ABOVE THE WAIST AND POLITICAL COMMENTS WRITTEN ON HER SKIN IN MAGIC MARKER, HE QUIPPED LATER IN AN INTERVIEW THAT HE WAS “TRYING TO SEE EVERYTHING SHE HAD TO SAY.” WHEN HE REACHED OUT AND GRABBED A YOUNG WOMAN WHO WAS ABOUT TO WALK OUT IN FRONT OF A CAR AND THEN POSED WITH HER FOR HER SELFIE, HE GRINNED BROADLY FOR THE PHOTO. HE MAY LOOK GROUCHY A GOOD BIT OF THE TIME, BUT NOT WHEN HE SMILES. WHEN HE WALKS DOWN THE STREET, DOES HE HUNCH OVER AND USE SMALL STEPS? NO WAY. WALKING OUT ONTO THE STAGE WHEN APPEARING ON “THE VIEW,” HE STRODE WITH ERECT BACK AND SMILED BEAUTIFULLY. HE STILL “HAS IT.” WHAT DOES HE HAVE? A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING, I THINK. AGE IS RELATIVE.

WATCH HIM AND THE GUESTS AT THIS TOWNHALL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkpj09n7HhU
BERNIE SANDERS TOWNHALL MEETING ON CLIMATE CHANGE


THIS STORY ON A CHINESE CITIZEN MENG WANZHOU ARRESTED FOR EXTRADITION TO THE USA WILL PROBABLY EXPLODE IN SIZE AND COMMENTARY SOON, IF IT SPARKS CONFLICTS WITH CHINA. WHAT THE CRIME IS WAS NOT STATED. SEE WHAT YOU THINK.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/thursdays-mini-report-12618
Thursday’s Mini-Report, 12.6.18
12/06/18 05:30 PM
By Steve Benen
Today’s edition of quick hits:

* The arrest of Meng Wanzhou carries real international consequences: “China demanded the release of a senior executive at tech giant Huawei Technologies after she was detained in Canada on extradition charges to the U.S.”

* I guess we now know about one of the two redacted investigations Flynn is helping with: “Federal prosecutors in Virginia are investigating a secret Turkish lobbying effort that once involved Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, even as Mr. Flynn’s role in the special counsel’s investigation winds down, according to people familiar with the inquiry.”

* This is exactly the opposite of the result Trump promised: “The trade deficit rose in October to a 10-year high amid a record shortfall with China, keeping the U.S. on pace to record the largest annual gap in a decade.”

* Quite a ride: “Wall Street had a rollercoaster ride on Thursday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average swinging from a session low where it was down 784 points, to end the day with a decline of just 77 points.”

* Not how democracy is supposed to work: “Republicans in the Wisconsin state Senate rushed to approve 82 of Gov. Scott Walker’s appointees, a month after voters chose not to reelect the Republican.”

* A striking op-ed in the Miami Herald calling for Labor Secretary Alex Acosta to resign “immediately.”

* A striking portrait in the New York Times about an undocumented immigrant, who works at Donald Trump’s New Jersey golf course, who’s taking a great risk by speaking up.


* Another probe to watch: “Spinning off from the special counsel’s Russia probe, prosecutors are ramping up their investigation into foreign lobbying by two major Washington firms that did work for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to people familiar with the matter.”

* The new shutdown deadline is two weeks from tomorrow: “An extension of temporary appropriations for nine Cabinet departments and dozens of smaller agencies through Dec. 21 is on its way to the president’s desk after the House and Senate passed the measure Thursday.”

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.


THESE STATISTICS ARE SHOCKING. I WISH THE ARTICLE HAD REPORTED SUSPECTED REASONS, AND CONTRASTED EVENTS WITH THOSE IN 2007. WHAT FACTORS CAUSE SOMETHING LIKE THIS?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-homicide-rate-female-victims-of-homicide-rose-by-21-percent-according-to-study-2018-12-6/
By KATE SMITH CBS NEWS December 6, 2018, 5:30 PM
Number of women killed by homicide grew by 21 percent, says new study

The number of women who were victims of homicide in the United States grew by 21 percent in 2016 compared to the previous year, rising to the highest recorded level since 2007, according to a new report shared with CBS News. The male homicide victim rate increased by 6.5 percent over the same time period.

In 2016, the most recent year for which data was available, 12.2 out of every 100,000 women were victims of homicide -- up from 10.2 out of every 100,000 in 2015, according to the report by Security.org*, a San Diego-based research group.

Death by homicide among all genders increased by 8.8 percent from 2015 to 2016, according the report, which was compiled using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Multiple Causes of Death database.

Recent studies suggest that female homicide victims often die at the hands of men they know. More than half of the women who were murdered in 2017 worldwide were slain by an intimate partner or family member, according to the United Nations' recent Global Study on Homicide. Eighty-two percent of homicide victims targeted by intimate partners are women.

The Security.org report, however, doesn't outline the victims' relationships to their killers or possible reasons for the homicide rate increases.

Overall when it came to homicides, men accounted for about three quarters of all homicide victims in the United States. Of the 19,362 homicides that the CDC reported in 2016, 3,895 of the victims were women, according to Security.org's report. Men were also much more likely to be perpetrators; men were the aggressors in nine out of ten homicides, according to the report.

All races saw a rise in homicide victim rates, but no increase was as dramatic as that seen for women across all races, according to the report. The number of black homicide victims rose by eight percent. The number of American Indian and Alaskan native victims rose by nine percent, and the number of caucasian victims increased by nine percent. Among Asians, including those from India, the rate grew by 16 percent.

The data shows that the numbers of caucasians and blacks who were killed in 2016 were roughly the same. But it also shows that homicide occurred more frequently among blacks. For every 100,000, 43.2 were victims of homicide in 2016, compared to 7.1 for every 100,000 caucasians, according to Security.org's report.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


https://www.security.org/resources/american-homicides/
THE STATE OF HOMICIDE
MAPPING AMERICA’S HOMICIDE RATES FROM 1999 TO 2016

Homicides have long produced fear and fascination, but recent years have brought additional public scrutiny to the way in which homicides are measured. On the national stage, President Trump has made inner-city killings a central component of his tough-on-crime rhetoric. In state-level political contests, savage debates have emerged around the presentation and manipulation of homicide statistics. And in the country's ongoing battles about gun control, advocates for change and opponents of restriction have each marshaled their own homicide statistics.

In this project, we set out to create a clear and unbiased account of homicides in America, using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 1999 to 2016, the most recent years on record. Our findings present the demographics of victims over time and the geographical distribution of killings nationwide. Additionally, our analysis reveals the most frequent homicide methods, both for specific segments of the population and throughout the entire country. Read on to understand the true nature of homicide in America and the troubling pattern of slayings in the 21st century.

Killings Across the Country

If we studied raw homicide totals in each state, our figures would reflect differences in population: States with the most residents, such as California and Texas, would naturally top our rankings. Accordingly, we analyzed a more balanced measure of killings occurring in each state – age-adjusted homicide rates per 100,000 people.

In this metric, homicide rates proved distressingly high in the heart of the South: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama each averaged over 12 homicides per 100,000 individuals. It's worth noting these states possess some of the nation's highest poverty rates, suggesting a connection between violence and financial insecurity. Indeed, many experts point out that violent crime and poverty are intertwined in a vicious circle: Crime grows in communities that lack economic opportunities, causing the remaining homeowners and businesses to flee.

Additionally, some states saw crime increase substantially during the period studied: Between 1999 and 2016, Delaware sustained a 153 percent surge in homicides, reflecting recent killings in cities such as Wilmington. In second-ranked Ohio, a similar increase in homicides was also centered in specific places: Columbus, for example, has emerged as a nexus of violent crime, which law enforcement officers associated with a rise in illegal guns on the street.

Homicidal Tendencies

[TO SEE EXACT NUMBERS AND METHODS, GO TO THIS WEBSITE. TOPS ARE FIREARMS, AT 67.9%, “SHARP OBJECTS” 11.2% AND “UNSPECIFIED MEANS” 10.3%.]

In terms of the tools with which homicides are committed, firearms are, by far, the most frequently used. From 1999 to 2016, guns accounted for over two-thirds of all homicides and 213,668 victims. These figures are particularly staggering when compared to equivalent statistics from other developed countries. The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is roughly 15 times higher than in Germany, for example, a trend many experts attribute to the sheer number of guns Americans possess. Homicide may not represent the most pressing public health concern related to firearms, however: In recent years, firearm suicides have become more prevalent than homicides involving guns.

Other leading forms of homicides include assault with a sharp instrument and assault by some means unspecified in CDC records. Assault by hanging or suffocation resulted in somewhat fewer deaths proportionally, but experts assert this form of attack is frequently involved in domestic violence killings. Relatively few homicides (less than 1 percent) resulted from assault with a blunt object, and even fewer stemmed from assault by bodily force or substances. That's not to say human fists aren't thoroughly deadly. In some circumstances, single punches can result in fatal brain injuries.

Firearm Deaths Through the Years

Over the period studied, firearm homicides fluctuated to some extent. Yet, the nation always witnessed at least 10,800 gun homicides annually, and the most recent years in our data were by far the most deadly. In 2015, roughly 13,000 gun homicides occurred throughout the nation, an 18-percent increase over the year prior. In 2016, firearm homicides surged another 11 percent, reaching 14,434 in total. When contrasted to the 10,874 gun slayings that took place in 1999, that 2016 figure is 33 percent higher.

Researchers across the ideological spectrum have offered various explanations for this surge. Some attribute the violence to a breakdown in relations between police officers and the communities in which they operate: Police reduce their patrolling activities in response to community criticism of their conduct, and citizens who distrust law enforcement are more inclined to purchase guns to protect themselves. Another explanation might lie in relaxed regulation. Several states loosened their gun laws around the time of the increase in firearm homicides.

The Age of the Expired

Victims killed by guns are disproportionately young: Nearly two-thirds are 34 years old or younger. Indeed, guns are now the third-leading cause of death among American children, and over 5,700 kids visit the emergency room each year due to injuries from firearms. Frequently, the public discourse around young people lost to gun violence centers around school shootings. While these incidents are overwhelmingly tragic, experts point out that many more minors are killed by guns in other circumstances every year, especially in communities in which gang violence is prevalent.

Deaths and Racial Disparities

When we segment homicide totals by the race or ethnicity of the victim, we found Caucasian and black or African-American citizens were killed in roughly equal numbers over the period studied. Asian and American Indian victims were far less numerous. Yet, the disproportionate impact of homicide on minority communities can only be understood in light of the racial composition of the entire population: 61 percent of Americans are white, whereas 12 percent are black. Six percent of Americans are Asian, and 1 percent are American Indian.

Proportionally, therefore, black and American Indians are killed at substantially higher rates than their white counterparts. In 2016, for instance, homicide rates among black citizens were over six times higher than for white Americans. These disparities were sustained over the period studied, although the rate of homicides for black individuals did dip significantly after peaking in 2006. By 2016, however, the rate had rebounded to prior levels as a part of an increase in homicides across all racial groups.

Homicide: Men vs Women

Homicides of men and women present significant statistical differences, both in terms of quantity and the way in which they are typically committed. Most strikingly, victims are overwhelmingly male: Between 1999 and 2016, more than three-quarters of victims were men. Men are also far more likely to be perpetrators, with roughly 9 in 10 persons who commit homicides being male. Cumulatively, these data suggest killings frequently result from conflict and aggression between men. While a tendency toward violence was once considered a natural byproduct of testosterone, scholars now believe male aggression stems largely from cultural influences instead.

Certain kinds of killings were more likely to impact women, however: The vast majority of victims killed by bodily force during sexual assaults were female. Women were also more likely to be killed by means of hanging, strangulation, or suffocation. Additionally, experts note that a striking number of women die every year as a result of intimate partner violence, killed either by their lovers or people close to them. Relative to the 1999 figures, however, women were killed at lower rates in 2016.

Killing Chronology

In terms of timing, homicides occurred most often on the weekends. This pattern likely relates, at least partially, to the violence that often accompanies partying: Researchers suggest that a large portion of homicides are caused by excessive drinking, a reality that has led some cities to consider restricting alcohol access to drive down local homicide rates. Indeed, while many do not associate Sunday with heavy drinking or drug use, individuals may begin their partying the night before and commit their crimes in the early morning hours.

Certain months seemed connected to homicide spikes as well. July witnessed the greatest number of homicides during the time frame studied, and homicides generally seemed to decline with the arrival of cooler weather in fall and winter. Experts attribute this trend to the social patterns that correspond with high temperatures: People are more inclined to go outside during warm weather, increasing the odds of violent interactions. In some places, such as Chicago, however, homicides persist unabated in frigid weather.

National Crisis, Personal Precautions

Our data indicate certain segments of the population may be especially vulnerable to homicidal violence: In specific states, age ranges, and demographic groups, homicide rates remain troublingly high. Yet, no part of the American society is entirely insulated from homicide and its far-reaching ramifications. As members of torn families can attest, a single lost life can cause emotional reverberations across multiple generations. When we consider homicide statistics, we must not lose sight of the human pain underlying each recorded death.

It's tempting to regard killing as an unfortunate but inevitable feature of human society – a crime as old as the species itself. But each person can tangibly contribute to a safer country by observing two valuable rules. First, avoid escalating interpersonal conflict whenever possible: You never know when an altercation might turn tragically violent. Second, report incidents or threats of violence to law enforcement at the earliest opportunity. It's better to be safe than sorry when there are human lives at stake.

Methodology

We collected data from wonder.cdc.gov. To use this particular database, we agreed to the following: "to only use this data for health statistical reporting and analysis; to not present or publish death counts of 9 or fewer (in figures, graphs, maps, tables, etc.); to make no attempt to learn the identity of any person or establishment included in the data; and to make no disclosure of other use of the identity of any person or establishment discovered inadvertently and advise the NCHS Confidentiality Officer of any such discovery."

In this study, we used the Multiple Cause of Death database to gain a better understanding of homicide rates from 1999 to 2016 using age-adjusted rates. We used variables such as state, race, sex, age, years, months, and days to grasp how homicide rates have changed between 1999 and 2016.

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THIS ARTICLE APPEARS TO BE ALMOST A DIRECT COPY OF ONE BY A LOCAL OUTLET, https://kfgo.com/news/articles/2018/dec/07/trump-says-without-evidence-arizona-bracing-for-surge-in-migrants/. I DIDN’T EXAMINE EVERY WORD, NO. WHAT IT MEANS TO ME IS THAT TRUMP, AGAIN WITHOUT BOTHERING WITH EVIDENCE, IS ANNOUNCING ANOTHER PUSH IN CONGRESS FOR THE BORDER WALL. YES, THIS IS THE EXTENT OF THIS STORY. I HOPE TO SEE MORE TOMORROW.

https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2018-12-06/trump-says-without-evidence-arizona-bracing-for-surge-in-migrants
Trump Says, Without Evidence, Arizona 'Bracing' for Surge in Migrants
Dec. 6, 2018, at 10:32 p.m.

PHOTOGRAPH -- FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G20 leaders summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, December 1, 2018. REUTERS/Luisa GonzalezREUTERS

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - U.S. President Donald Trump said without evidence on Thursday that Arizona "is bracing for a massive surge" of immigrants along a portion of the U.S. southern border that does not have a protective fence, reiterating his call for Democrats to back funding for his proposed border wall.

"Arizona, together with our Military and Border Patrol, is bracing for a massive surge at a NON-WALLED area. WE WILL NOT LET THEM THROUGH," Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

(Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Tim Ahmann)

Copyright 2018 Thomson Reuters.