Common Ground

The details are just coming out on the TV news about another mass shooting in Portland, Oregon, so we know little about this except that it apparently follows the same crazed path of several other similar shootings in the United States (it seems since the massacre at the University of Texas in 1966).  Of course, it's past time for Congress and the Administration to institute limitations on assault weapons that would be similar to the ones during the Clinton Era.  This and our other blogs haven't said too many fond things about former President Bill Clinton, but at least he had the courage to put limitations on assault weapons, the type of guns that have practically no civilian purpose.  Clinton's exceptional legacy on guns didn't last, because the feckless Hastert Congress of the Zeroes Decade didn't reinstitute Clinton's ban when it expired.  Regarding Portland, our condolences to the families of the deceased and our prayers for the quick recovery of the injur

Our condolences to the families of the American officials killed in the indefensible and ugly violence taking place overseas, particularly in North African and SW Asian countries. So any scoundrel or two, or a handful, can stir up major trouble in the world with nothing more than a computer or a stunt, and Uncle Sam can do nothing more than say "tut-tut," because the government is so respectful of free speech rights? Really? That would be news to a lot of non-scurrilous, respectful and humane American peace and environmental activists, or American political dissidents and minor party activists, or whistleblowers who have been jailed, arrested, spied-on, or otherwise hounded and harassed by Uncle Sam for excercising their free speech rights -- not to mention the Australian citizen, Julian Assange, who has been hounded and threatened, basically, for being a pesky journalist. However, if extreme rightists can all but ignite wars in far away lands -- or conceivab