Walgreens: Capitalism May Yet Rescue Americans From Obamacare

Capitalism is doing what it does best: finding and filling the voids between supply and demand.  And, let's be honest, The Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare has more voids than a black hole.

We are mere months away from losing the two things President Obama said we could keep under ObamaCare: our doctors and our insurance.  Both will soon be gone.  Our insurance will be replaced by a significantly more expensive model guaranteeing care most Americans neither want or need.  Meanwhile, our doctors are either retiring or being placed in the untenable position of seeing far more patients that he or she can possibly manage.

But your local drug store, Walgreens, is coming to our rescue! They are going to take over a significant portion of Primary Care at low cost, affordable rates.  Of course you won't see a doctor, but will see either a nurse practitioner or a physician's assistant (whatever that might be) who will diagnose illness, prescribe medicines and order additional tests, x-rays, etc.  Somewhere out in the cloud, probably right next to your mp3's, will be a real medical doctor that will oversee and review the actions of these first caregivers.

This is all actually quite a good thing.  The biggest beneficiary will be Hospital Emergency Rooms.  At a tiny fraction of the cost, people, especially the uninsured, will receive treatment for most minor illnesses that they previously couldn't receive outside of emergency rooms.

And, let's face it, the rest of us will get care for chronic illnesses we won't be able to receive from our previous doctor.

Walgreen's will benefit by filling most of the prescriptions they prescribe and they will be paid between $65.00 and $135.00 per visit.  Some of that cost may or may not end up being paid by the insurance policy you will be forced by law to obtain.

This is good.  At least until my fellow government loving liberals decide that they simply cannot allow a "Company" to make a profit off people's illnesses.

I for one, would prefer to get medical care from Walgreen's rather than the a medical version of the DMV.

Here is a review of the Walgreen's Announcement from Kaiser Health News: Walgreens Becomes 1st Retail Chain To Diagnose, Treat Chronic Conditions

You Want the Slow Death or the Quick Death?

"...we are now seeing weekly examples of this Administration’s inability to govern."
                                                                     ---Joe Klein From the article
                                                            ObamaCare Incompetence
                                                            Time Magazine, April 2, 2013

Is Barack Obama the worst President in History? Of course not. There are numerous examples of more dishonest Presidents and more incompetent Presidents.  None-the-less it is President Obama who is doing the most damage to this country and who just might bring our current era to an abrupt and very unpleasant end.

It is the perfect storm where the government's gross incompetence, the President's massive ego and faltering world economy all meet at once.

I've outlined in numerous articles including the one just a few days ago that the massive debt and continuing deficit spending will destroy both the government and our nation's economy in just a few years.  That's the slow death.

The quick death is coming courtesy of ObamaCare, The Affordable Care Act, the worst single piece of legislation in the history of government.  It was poorly conceived and horribly written with mercurial attention to a thousand details but no understanding of how today's medical industry actually works.  It was written in the back rooms by bureaucrats mostly under the influence of special interest groups and industry lobbyists   It was passed by a Congress where not one member ever read the 1,900 page bill and I believe that NONE have read it to this very day.

If you support UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE, as I do, you have to be terrified of this act which will accomplish just the opposite.

It will abruptly increase the out-of-pocket cost of medical care for virtually every person, reduce the number of people receiving care, bankrupt large portions of the medical industry, drive up costs and explode the national deficit.

You will not be able to keep either your current insurance (it will no longer exist) or your doctor, who will likely retire or be stretched so thin he or she will rarely see patients.  Most care will fall to Nurse Practitioners, or Registered Nurses of other less well trained members of the medical establishment.

Hospitals will become overcrowded ad under financed.  Some clinics will close. Others will be forced to operate on a cash only basis, refusing to take insurance.

It's going to get very ugly in a matter of months.  Read DEMOCRAT Joe Klein's Time Magazine article, ObamaCare Incompetence, to start. It's short and it's scary.  And it's the tip of the iceberg.

A Cautionary Tale: Detroit on the Verge of Bankruptcy

If you've got 5 minutes and 41 seconds I'll scare the heck out of you.

I realize it's Easter and Passover, not Halloween, but NPR put this horror story on the air Thursday anyway. Click it if you dare.

>>>> Bad Bets, Costly Promises Put Detroit On The Brink Of Bankruptcy <<<<

Of course this story is a tragedy.  A great city has fallen onto despair and large portions of the city are in ruin.  

But what's really frightening how many times the city leaders, mayor, city council and city fathers were warned of this apocalypse and how they always turned a deaf ear.  They steadfastly ignored the crisis and did absolutely nothing to prevent it.

FROM THE TRANSCRIPT:

HULETT: ...Joe Harris spent a decade as Detroit's auditor general. Shortly before he quit in 2005, he asked an outside consultant to look at the city's pension and retiree costs. 

 JOE HARRIS: This is his presentation to the council. 

 HULETT: The consultant's report was a shocker. It said the city was looking at more than $7 billion in retiree health care and fringe benefit costs it had not projected, let alone budgeted for. Seven billion dollars, seven times the city's annual operating budget. So, what was the response to this bombshell of a report? 

HARRIS: There was no response. There was no follow-up. There was no concern. There was no - not only by the council, there was no response by the administration either.

That's the trouble with government.  They always put off the tough decisions.  They don't listen. They never react. They deny there is a disaster and always proclaim that even IF a disaster is coming it's always dozens of years away.  They'll be plenty of time to fix the problem..... tomorrow.

This is, of course, what President Obama and the Democrats are doing today in Washington.  President Obama is kinda, sorta, maybe confident that the oncoming debt disaster won't happen until after he is out of office.  So he's ginning up the denial machine of loyal party legislators and pundits to echo his "do absolutely nothing" position. 

His position is all the more curious because only a few short years ago (before he was President) he and his fellow Democrats saw the disaster clearly and DEMANDED President Bush take instantaneous action!  In fact, Senator Obama and every single Democrat VOTED AGAINST RAISING THE DEBT CEILING.  

Of course Republicans all voted to raise the debt ceiling when George Bush was President but now that Barack Obama is President, they're all against it.

Politics rule, reality takes a back seat.  But the downfall is coming and all America is about to face a crisis that makes the current Detroit disaster look like.... an old fashioned Halloween horror story.

Addressing the Single Parent Epidemic

I've discussed my fellow Liberals desire to avoid the assignment of personal responsibility in several blog posts, most notably last December 29th in my post titled "Solving Gun Violence."  Here's what I had to say then: 

".....we avoid any assignment of personal responsibility.  We do not, under any circumstances blame personal lifestyles, personal choices or personal decisions. We never allow any blame that would insult or hurt an individual or the choices they have made or failed to make.

[For example] ....if a person drops out of school, that's the school's fault....  ...we never blame the teachers, or even dare to measure a teacher's ability or success.  That's personal and we don't do personal......"

One of the recent heroes today's liberals (in part because of his bizarre desire to ban large sugary sodas), Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, has dared to take on the single largest and most important issue in our society today, single parent families.  And he's dared to break the cardinal rule of liberals I outlined in the December 29th essay, he's daring to actually place some of the blame on today's youth!

The liberal communities response against Bloomberg has been overwhelmingly negative and very vitriolic.  According to nearly all my fellow liberals, young people who become pregnant outside of a stable family environment are totally blameless!  And they must never be shamed, slandered or made to feel the least bit bad!  Instead they are to be supported, nurtured, even praised for their bravery.

The New York Times' Michael Powell, writing a highly critical essay in the New York Times this week states categorically "Teenage pregnancy is a problem of poverty."

This level of stupidity from today's liberals and progressives is disastrous and is destroying lives and the very fabric of our society!

What Bloomberg is trying to do is to educate young people into making better, more reasoned decisions.  He is not advocating abstinence.  He is not eliminating sex education from public schools. Far from it! But he is trying to actually show young people the seriously negative outcome that arises from single parent child rearing.

In addition to teaching youth the mechanics if sex and methods of birth control Bloomberg is daring to teach them the dangers of failing to use that knowledge in their personal lives.

Wouldn't we have a problem is the teachers in wood shop taught students how to use a circular saw but then failed to teach them that they might lose a limb is they don't use the saw carefully?

Once again I am forced to turn to someone really brilliant to outline what ought to be obvious, the incomparable Ann Coulter who addresses this issue in this week's column, "In Fighting Teen Pregnancy, The Folly of Shame and Blame."  Read her whole essay, it's funny and insightful, as usual.

Coulter points out that the popular liberal causes from banning soda's to restricting guns will have virtually no impact of the health or welfare of children compared to the horrific damage inflicted by single family child rearing:

Liberals seem to believe that drinking soda is voluntary, but getting pregnant is more like catching the flu.

It would be hard to make the case that fast food, plastic bags and cigarettes do more damage than single motherhood. 

-- Controlling for socioeconomic status, race and place of residence, the strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison is that he was raised by a single mother. 

-- At least 70 percent of juvenile murderers, pregnant teenagers, high school dropouts, teen suicides, runaways and juvenile delinquents were raised by single mothers. 

-- A study back in 1990 by the Progressive Policy Institute showed that, absent single motherhood, there would be no difference in black and white crime rates. 

It is critical to point out no one, not even Coulter, is advocating forcing unwed mother's to wed or to abort their children.  Instead both Bloomberg, and his unexpected defender Coulter, recommend education, something liberals would normally favor, except, I guess, if that education teaches personal responsibility.

As I pointed out in that December 29th essay, "We liberals don't do personal...."

You Can Have My 32 Ounce Drink When You Pry It from My Cold, Dead Hands

I've already posted, over and often, that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is an ivory tower idiot. His bizarre, unjustified and Orwellian edict to prevent all restaurants, movie theaters and ball parks from serving any sugar sweetened soft drink in containers over 16 ounces was thankfully overturned by the courts.

However, my home state of Mississippi, in a genuine effort to not be outdone in the  unnecessary laws department, has passed "The Anti-Bloomberg Bill" which specifically prohibits any local governmental authority from creating any law or regulation which limits portion size OR requires the posting of calories.

The governor has promised to sign the legislation into law.

Of course it must be noted that Mississippi is the most obese state in the nation.

To paraphrase Charlton Heston, "You can have my 32 ounce soda when you pry it from my cold, dead hands."  And if we don't lose some weight here in Mississippi, that just might be sooner rather than later.

SOURCE: THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Mississippi passes 'anti-Bloomberg bill,' banning local limits on portion sizes and requirements to post calorie counts

The Restless Gun

Here's one little news story from this week I find more than a little disturbing:

7 Year Old Maryland Boy Suspended for Nibbling His Pop-Tart into the Shape of A Gun

A 7-year-old Baltimore boy was suspended Friday for two days after he shaped his breakfast pastry into what appeared to be a gun, his dad said. Josh Welch, who suffers from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, told Fox Baltimore that he was trying to shape the tart into a mountain. “It was already a rectangle, and I just kept on biting it and biting it and tore off the top and it kinda looked like a gun but it wasn’t,” Josh told the station.

“All I was trying to do was turn it into a mountain.” 

Josh said his teacher was “pretty mad.”

Josh’s dad, who was not identified, said he received a phone call from the school, notifying him of the suspension. “I would almost call it insanity,” he said. “I mean with all the potential issues that could be dealt with at school, real threats, bullies, whatever the real issue is, it’s a pastry. … Ya know?” 

A letter was sent home with Park Elementary School students Friday explaining that “a student used food to make an inappropriate gesture,” the station reported.

I wish this was some sort of weird isolated instance, but it's not.  It's happening again and again, all over the country.

- Feb. 8, 2013 - Yep - That's just yesterday, A student had his Birthday Party Cupcakes confiscated because they were decorated with small toy soldiers.

- Feb. 1, 2013 - A 9-year-old student was suspended for bringing a 2-inch toy gun on a key fob to school.

- Jan. 29, 2013 - A 5-year-old student could be suspended for crafting a Lego gun during an after-school program. We're told by school officials he is a repeat offender.

- Jan. 22, 2013 - Yet another 5-year-old is suspended because, well, those damned 5 year old's are so dangerous.  And there is certainly no sex discrimination in suspensions because this one's a girl. Her crime was talking about her Hello Kitty bubble gun.

- Jan. 2, 2013 - A 6-year-old in a Washington D.C. school was suspended for making a gun gesture with his hands.  Fingers and six year old's don't mix.

- August 28, 2012 - A deaf 3-year-old preschooler has been asked to change the American Sign Language hand gesture used to signify his name, Hunter, which he signs by forming a gun with his hands. Apparently, "saying" his name violates the school's weapon policy.

Part of what bothers me here is that our society in caught in a double think mentality that makes George Orwell's most nightmarish scenarios seem tame.  One minute we heap unparalleled praise on Director Quentin Tarantino for his bloodbath movies that glorify gratuitous violence and make heroes out of murderers and terrorists.  


The next minute we praise Kevin Bacon's new television series "The Following" whose hero, Dr. Joe Carroll, is a psychopathic mass murderer with a cult following of hundreds of like groupies who murder upon command.  Each week this new hit series has multiple graphic murders with maximum blood and gore in every episode.  Some murders are actually so graphic they are sickening.

Even shows and movies aimed at children like the Transformer Movies, are filled to overflowing with gratuitous violence.

Ahhhh, but the very next minute next we suspend 7 year olds from school for chewing their breakfast into a gun shaped biscuit.

When I was eight years old there was a hit television series called "The Restless Gun" that starred John Payne.  In this western Payne played a retired law officer, Vint Bonner, with great patience and restraint who always sought a non-violent path out of any confrontation.  Sadly, at least once each week, Payne was forced to use his signature gun, a pistol that could be transformed into a rifle.  it was the original assault weapon."

Since Payne's character, Vint Bonner, was a hero and the gun was so fantastic, I wanted the toy cap gun version!  And my parents bought me one!! It was the neatest toy ever, at least for an eight year old in 1957.

Sadly I no longer have this toy.  Sadly because these incredibly rare toys sell for many hundreds of dollars at auction, often as much as a thousand dollars for what was, no doubt, a ten dollar toy.  There are none available on ebay today or I'd post a link for you.

My point is that children always imitate their heroes from televison and movies.  It's called "playing,"  Doing so is called "using your imagination," a skill once highly prized and cultivated in children.  In fact, John Payne's most famous acting roll was playing the young lawyer, Fred Gailey, in the classic movie "Miracle on 34th Street."  In that movie Payne and the wonderful Edwin Gwenn, who plays Kris Kringle, try to teach a very young Natalie Wood to use her imagination. 

Back in the day I watched an old black and white television.  Today's 8 year olds sit before large screen, 3-D color televisions, especially good at portraying blood red.  Why do we think children won't imitate what they see in TV, good or bad?  

One last note, in 1958, when Vint Bonner always stood for up for what is right and always tried to avoid violence and every child had a toy cap gun, the murder rate in the United States was only about 4.3 murders per 100,000 people.  Since that year the murder rate in the United States has never been that low.

One last, last note, on April 23, 2013 all 78 original episodes of The Restless Gun: The Complete Serieswill be released on DVD.

Making Criminals of Law Abiding Citizens

Real Criminals are tough targets.  They run, they move, they hide.  Criminals cover-up their activities.  And they're good at doing it. Criminals tend to operate in the dark of night, and in the shadows.  They do not report their activities.  Criminals do not fill out forms.  They don't file taxes.  They don't seek out permits for their activities.  They certainly don't worry about compliance.

Law abiding citizens do all of those things and more.  Most go out of their way to obey both the letter and the intent of the law. They're good citizens, dependable and honest.

Government agencies who are charged with enforcing the laws have one hell of a tough time with criminals.  Law enforcement is dangerous work when it comes to criminals.  They are hard to find, harder to catch and it's dangerous to try.  Often it is life threatening work.

Getting law abiding citizens to comply is easy, simple and safe.  They follow willingly.

Laws that regulate activities of the law abiding citizens get excellent results, even if they accomplish no real good for society.  That's why we're seeing so many mayors in troubled cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York turn their efforts away from criminals and instead focus their limited budgets toward passing and enforcing laws aimed solely at law abiding citizens.  

Drug dealers, thieves and even murderers can breathe easier in New York beginning March 12th as the city, under the brilliant leadership of Ivory Tower Occupant and City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, focuses the attention of the entire city on eliminating soft drinks over 16 ounces from NY City streets.

The Mayor's massive bureaucracy has rolled out the details of the new regulations on sugary drinks to all the cities law abiding citizens and they are truly bizarre, indeed.

I'm not sure what frightens me more, the Mayor's regulations or the city's citizens who will willingly follow Bloomberg's yellow brick road all the way to Orwell's Animal Farm.

The New York Post reports:

Take a big gulp, New York: Hizzoner is about to give you a pop.

Nanny Bloomberg unleashes his ban on large sodas on March 12 — and there are some nasty surprises lurking for hardworking families.
Say goodbye to that 2-liter bottle of Coke with your pizza delivery, pitchers of soft drinks at your kid’s birthday party and some bottle-service mixers at your favorite nightclub.

They’d violate Mayor Bloomberg’s new rules, which prohibit eateries from serving or selling sugary drinks in containers larger than 16 ounces.
Bloomberg’s soda smackdown follows his attacks on salt, sugar, trans fat, smoking and even baby formula. 

And consumers, especially families, will soon see how the rules will affect their wallets — forcing them to pay higher unit prices for smaller bottles.

Typically, a pizzeria charges $3 for a 2-liter bottle of Coke. But under the ban, customers would have to buy six 12-ounce cans at a total cost of $7.50 to get an equivalent amount of soda.

“I really feel bad for the customers,” said Lupe Balbuena of World Pie in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Domino’s on First Avenue and 74th Street on the Upper East Side is doing away with its most popular drink sizes: the 20-ounce and 2-liter bottles.

It will also trash more plastic into the environment.

Deliveryman Philippe Daniba said he had brought countless 2-liter bottles of soda to customers over his 19 years at the restaurant. The ban, he said, “doesn’t make sense.”

Dallas BBQ at 1265 Third Ave. will retire its 60-ounce pitchers and 20-ounce glasses, manager Daisy Reyes said.

“We have to buy new glasses,” she said. “We’re in the process.”

Notice in the above excerpts how every one of the city's law abiding citizens are doing their level best to comply even as they protest the silliness of the regulations.

How about a boycott of New York? Perhaps not as much to protest the Mayor's actions as to protest the citizens willingness to go along with this absurdity.  

POST SCRIPT: Doug Powers wryly observes, "Bloomberg is still going to allow pizzas to be delivered?  Unbelievable. It seems like the obesity from the pizza combined with the global warming from the delivery vehicle would be enough to convince The Nanny to put a stop to it. Maybe that’s next."

Prescribing a Placebo

Today President Obama will visit Chicago, ground zero of America's Genocide. Thousands of young black Americans will be murdered this year, many right in the heart of Chicago.

But President Obama will actually ignore the genocide, he will never mention it or the factors behind it. He will offer no solutions, advice or even moral guidance. He will actually pretend the genocide isn't happening. Instead he will go to Chicago to recommend that we make guns that are already illegal in Chicago... illegal.

He will "probably" blame Republicans and the NRA for fighting his efforts to reduce gun violence by making law abiding citizens go through additional steps in purchasing and owning guns. While I have no objections to the President's proposals, they will accomplish NOTHING.

The people Obama wants to further regulate, register and restrict commit no crimes. The are not even remotely part of America's Genocide.  His proposed laws will actually penalize the moist honest and most loyal and most law abiding people in the entire nation.

So what will the laws President Obama propose accomplish? Well, they will allow Doctor Obama to tell folks he is trying to do something. He's offering a prescription to reduce gun violence.

If only it were true.

Doctor Obama ought to be sued for malpractice. He is lying to the patient about the diagnosis. He is not offering the prescription that could potentially save thousands of lives. He should not be practicing medicine ... or governing.

Chicago Mother Loses All Four Children to Gun Violence

Shirley Chambers had four wonderful children.  Like all mothers she had hopes and dreams for every one of them.  Today all four are dead, victims of America's Genocide, the epidemic we lack the honesty or courage to address.

Shirley's oldest boy, Carlos, was shot by a classmate when he was only 18 years old.  The tragedy was almost too much to bear.

Shirley lived in the infamous Cabrini-Green welfare housing development, which thankfully has been torn down.  But not before gang violence in the apartment complex claimed the life of Shirley's daughter, LaToya.  LaToya was caught in the cross fire of gang warfare right in the Cabrini-Green lobby.

Only two months later LaToya's older brother Jerome was shot and killed, likely a victim of gang violence.

Shirley Chambers begged and pleaded for her only remaining child, Ronnie, to abandon the gang lifestyle and chose a different path in life.  Ronnie, who was known by his nickname "Scoobie" did just that and turned into a mentor, helping other young men leave the gangs and explore other pathways, including music.  He became a notable rap performer and recently appeared on Ricki Lake's Chicago television show.

He told Ricki that the murders of his two brothers and sister made him change his life.

"That right there, you know, me in and out of jail, let me know I had to do something different," Chambers said.

Just one month later Scoobie was dead, shot in the head as he sat in a parked car.

Shirley Chambers has lost all four children to gun violence.  None were killed with so-called "assault weapons."   None of the murders would be prevented by the gun control legislation President Obama has proposed.

And, in spite of Rev. Jesse Jackson's pleas yesterday, President Obama has no plans to visit Chicago or to propose any solutions to reduce the real gun violence destroying America.

Support Rev. Jesse Jackson's Appeal to President Obama

Chicago marchers urge Obama to come home to address gun violence

(Reuters) - Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and relatives of victims of fatal shootings in Chicago urged President Barack Obama on Saturday to come back to his hometown and address the gun violence plaguing the city.

Before a march on the city's South Side, Jackson, a former Democratic presidential candidate, said America's third most populous city needed more help than Mayor Rahm Emanuel and police superintendent Garry McCarthy could offer.

"When the president shows up, it shows ultimate national seriousness," said Jackson, a Chicago resident. He also called for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to help patrol the streets of Chicago.

Gun violence in Chicago has been in the national spotlight over the past year, with 506 murders in 2012, an increase of 17 percent from the previous year. As of Thursday, there were 42 homicides and 157 shootings so far this year, according to Chicago police.

The issue received new urgency with the killing this week of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton, an honors student who performed with her high school band at Obama's inauguration on January 21.

The 0.003% Solution

The entirely too painful to watch gun control debate continues in Washington, D.C. and on a cable television news channel near you.  I am beginning to fear that virtually nothing will actually come of any of this.

There are three reasons for this.  First, in spite of the histrionics from Democratic Party stalwarts, there simply is no national will to make this happen.  There is no groundswell of support for gun control as outlined by the President.

Second, the N.R.A. has again proven to be well organized, logical in their arguments and powerful in their lobbying.  It really, really helps them that they are technically correct and often morally correct in many arguments they make.

Lastly, gun control will fail because our leaders, from President Obama on down, lack the courage to address the real issues of violence in our country.

Let's analyze the facts. There are about 30,000 gun deaths in our country every year.  But the facts are that 2/3rds of them are self inflicted gunshots, usually suicides, not gun violence or murder.

Of the remaining 1/3rd the largest chunk comes from gang violence, drug violence and domestic violence.  Virtually all of these deaths are caused by handguns and simple rifles, not so called "assault weapons."

Although Newtown, Connecticut and Aurora, Colorado get all the television coverage and politician's outrage, they account for only 0.003% of the total.  That's not three percent, but three one-thousandths of one percent.  And yet President Obama and the gun control advocates are attempting to push their ill conceived legislation to reduce this tiny percentage of the problem. They ignore the real problems of gun violence and death because it's politically inconvenient.  It would take genuine courage.

No one wants a Sandy Hook to ever happen again, Not Ever.  But the solution to that event is already thoroughly outlined, understood and being implemented.  Wayne LaPierre and the N.R.A. had that one right on day one and everybody knew it.

The tragedy is that no one has the courage to address the really big problem of black on black gang violence.  Our very own national genocide continues every day in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and nearly every major metropolitan area in America: Death... after Death... after unreported and ignored Death.

The most unlikely of activists, economist and conservative firebrand Ben Stein, addressed this lack of leadership in this week's American Spectator in his article   He’s the Biggest Celebrity in the World Below are some of Ben's key points. Please read his entire article.

...deaths by firearms are wildly heavily concentrated in the African-American population of this country. The rate of firearms deaths per 100,000 population is about four times higher in the black population than in the white population. Gang-related killings account for much of this difference. In large cities with mostly black populations — such as Newark, Detroit, New Orleans — the rate of firearms deaths is almost unbelievably high compared with the rate in the mostly white suburbs.

In any given week, on any given weekend, dozens of black youths are gunned down by other blacks in America’s cities. This is a horror show happening in real life. The total number of deaths from this ongoing disaster far outpaces the deaths in mass killings in Aurora or Newtown.

Now, in no way should either of these grim phenomena be used to minimize the other. But it amazes me that the whole country, the whole world, goes berserk about the killings in a charming town in Connecticut, as we should — while the daily slaughter of black youths by other black youths is just part of the wallpaper of modern life.

Obviously, we would like to stop as much gun homicide in any area as we can. But I have not seen any proposal from the White House that would make it a national priority to seriously crack down on gang activity, drug sales turf activity, just plain macho g-thing activity and to take the Glocks out of the inner city.

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. And we pay very little attention to it when the people on both ends of the barrel are black. The national shame of gun violence is not coming from gun shows or guns that look like military weapons. It’s not coming from Idaho or Montana or Wyoming or the duck blinds of Talbot County, Maryland. It’s coming from people who live in a culture of violence and death that we as a nation sometimes worship and more often ignore. Something’s very wrong here.

Empty Words