By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Jan 3, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET
I just found out my identity has been stolen and there are over a dozen fraudulent charges on my credit card that are now being investigated.
Thankfully, I’m not as frantic as I thought I would be if my identity got stolen. I am covered by insurance and should be reimbursed for the fraudulent charges within the next 30 days.
But what really got to me is the notion that my identity was stolen nearly 3 weeks ago. That’s 21 days. And no one. Not friends, not family, and not a single colleague ever noticed.
I’ll eventually recover the money. But my confidence has been shattered beyond repair.
And here’s the kicker. I fully recovered my identify about 15 minutes ago with a new card being issued. And I deliberated but casually struck up a conversation with my wife to see if she even noticed my identity was back. Well, guess what? She never said a word. And sthe still hasn’t commented on my haircut which I got nearly a week ago.
Whoever stole my credit card identity thought they were stealing money from me. Maybe they did. But what they really stole was something much deeper than that. Or apparently, based on the lack of notice by others, they stole something much shallower than money.
My identity.
As soon as I get my new card, I’m not only checking charges daily. I’m also considering developing a loud, over-the-top and obnoxious new identity.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Dec 26, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
The two parties seem even farther apart these days, between the fiscal cliff negotiations falling apart and all the other standard political standoffs. But the sort-of-good news is that there’s finally an issue on which there is some bipartisan agreement. Once the NRA came out with its ludicrous ‘solution’ to school shootings, there were several moderate Republicans joining in the call for the type of things that even most NRA members agree on (more effective background checks, enforcing current laws, banning high-capacity ammo clips and assult-style weapons). Of course, the NRA has subsequently refused even to discuss anything relating to guns – but I am heartened by the number of politicians on both sides who are standing up to the gun lobby and saying, whoah, hold on, banning terrorist watch-list suspects from buying a gun is not an assult on your 2nd Ammendment rights (and that’s presuming the founding fathers meant not just muskets, but semi-automatic assult rifles?)
So I’m heartened by the beginning signs of bipartisanship – even though it may be more like becoming friends with that co-worker you’re not crazy about, but you’re united in your mutual loathing of the boss. Still, it’s a start. However, I’m also terrified at the prospect of a society in which we need armed guards in every classroom. (Of course, I’m a wimp – I can’t even watch mildly scary movies) So here’s a song imagining how we’d explain this to our kids . . . )
Former Republican National Committee chairman and MSNBC commentator Michael Steele on Friday said he found the press conference led by National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre “very haunting and very disturbing.”
Asked by MSNBC anchor Thomas Roberts for his immediate response to the NRA presser, Steele initially appeared speechless.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” Steele said. “As a supporter of the Second Amendment and a supporter of the NRA, even though I’m not a member of the NRA, I just found it very haunting and very disturbing that our country now, that are talking about arming our teachers and our principals in classrooms. What does that say about us? And I do not believe that’s where the American people want to go. I do not believe that is the response that should be coming out of the tragedy in Newtown.”
By Nancy Slotnick, on Mon Dec 24, 2012 at 8:30 AM ET
I’m from Newton, Mass., which is not the same as Newtown, Conn. But as President Obama put it, Newtown is a town that could have been any town. It could have been any school. So it is the same. Our president also remarked that when he hears about these horrific events, he experiences them as a parent does. I did too. And besides the unspeakable grief that I allowed myself to feel but for an instant (it would have been too painful otherwise), I also felt wrath and indignation. (I may have gotten that from the Passover Haggadah — It did feel like a plague of the worst proportions.)
My indignation first went to all the usual suspects — the shooter himself, the card-carrying members of the NRA, even the inept mental health professionals who cannot identify a human ticking bomb when they see one. But then my wrath settled in on the root cause, the one that no one is talking about. I blame the mom.
I blame the mom for not knowing her son. I blame her for not seeing the signs. I blame her for not getting him help. I blame her for leaving guns in his reach. But most of all, I blame her for how he turned out. It is my belief, from what I know about psychology and what I have seen in four and a half decades of life, that a positive parental experience will not yield a suicidal psycho killer. Period. End of story.
My husband is a psychoanalyst in private practice and a clinical social worker and this is actually his theory, not mine. I have just tested it out in the real world as an anthropologist and it holds true.
Now I have no idea of what goes on behind closed doors in a murderer’s family, but I have seen in my coaching practice that torture begets torture. We have to start holding the moms responsible for their sons. I saw a school classmate of the shooter speaking on 60 Minutes. She said that he always kept to himself, he did not speak to anyone, ever. This is what the man-on-street interviews always say about the serial killers. But it’s always after the fact.
I am a conservative who believes that any philosophy is strengthened by reexamination. I do regard theory as a valuable measure of whether a policy has integrity, and the lawyer in me accepts that hard facts make bad law, and worse, can unfurl dangerously unintended consequences: but an ideology that can’t grasp the real-world consequences of its aims is deeply flawed. I am, it so happens, a defender of the Second Amendment who thinks that the right to own guns is privileged by some of the most explicit words contained in the Constitution. I also remember Lincoln’s admonition that a constitution is not a suicide pact that is oblivious to the ways history has reshaped us.
So, in that spirit, I acknowledge that in the last two years the gun debate has turned a corner. The slaughter of children, on top of the massacre of Sikhs in a temple, and moviegoers in a theater, and constituents at a congressional fair, demands that level of humility on the political right; arguably, it’s a corner that should have been turned earlier when bodies of inner city teenagers started piling up in morgues and assault weapons started outnumbering drug paraphernalia in crack houses.
The operative legal and moral question is how to frame a gun policy that reconciles our Constitution and the freedom of law abiding gun owners with the appalling ease of marginal, pathological drifters building a personal arsenal.
Liberals will need to concede that banning firearms altogether is undesirable as well as unconstitutional, and that prohibitionist rhetoric only aids and abets the NRA’s own absolutist stance. They will need to demonstrate a much sharper sensitivity to the fact that handguns do serve the ends of self-defense in both middle class suburbs and urban neighborhoods, and that hunting is part of the national cultural fabric: much too much of the leftwing punditry on this subject overflows with a barely disguised regional and class based contempt. In addition, advocates of stricter gun laws should drop the misleading implication that there are no meaningful barriers to gun ownership: to the contrary, they should be stressing that the Brady Bill’s waiting period and the longstanding prohibitions on gun ownership by felons or the institutionalized demonstrate pathways to strengthening public safety without shredding the liberties of law abiding gun owners.
At the same time, conservatives would do well to recognize that the fact that gun ownership is a right does not immunize it from regulation—no more than speech is shielded from defamation suits, or restrictions against inciting violence or using words to conspire to achieve a crime; no more than the free exercise of religion precludes scrutiny of whether churches are complying with the obligations of their tax exempt status, or of whether government grants to faith based institutions are being validly spent. Similarly, the roots that gun possession hold in our culture surely don’t carry more sociological sway than driving or marriage, both of which require some method of formal registration. Lastly, just as liberals ought to abandon their fictions around existing gun laws, conservatives should also admit that the existing regulations around guns have hardly marginalized gun ownership or created some unreasonable barrier to gun possession.
My own preferred approach would be to avoid outlawing classes of weapons, even the most lethal, semi-automatic versions: whether or not a hunting weapon can be distinguished from a killing machine is debatable, but even skeptics of that proposition must allow that the task of separating firearms based on their mechanical characteristics is too slippery to rely on, and too imprecise to offer gun manufacturers any predictable notice of whether they are crossing the line. But a strategy that focuses on discerning more about the humans who would own the guns (especially high impact firearms) makes sense. To be sure, constructing a licensing regime is a challenging enterprise: a firearms knowledge test would probably have had no impact on the self-taught nutjobs at work in Aurora and Newtown, much less the ex soldier in the Sikh shooting; a background check couldn’t be allowed to devolve into a profile that punishes the unemployed or the dropouts or the socially disconnected.
Read the rest of… Artur Davis: The Emerging Moral Reality on Guns
By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Dec 17, 2012 at 11:00 AM ET
Since the horrible tragedy in Connecticut on Friday, I’ve been seeing the picture above shared by hundreds of my Facebook and Twitter friends.
While I share the sentiment, I’m curious about something: If indeed 42 people were killed “last year” in “West Germany,” what are the figures “last year” for the Soviet Union?
Or Transjordan?
Or New Amsterdam?
Or Gaul?
Seriously, this country, I hope, approaches a desperately needed and vigorous debate on gun control in the country, let’s make sure that we have our facts straight. I’m confident that the real data is still powerful.
In a week in which rumors were being circulated by well-respected Frankfort political insiders that The RP might be a candidate for U.S. Congress in Kentucky’s 6th District, The Recovering Politician has been leaked an incriminating picture of The RP, photographed next to a dead Hooker.
Hopefully, this will put to rest all rumors of The RP’s candidacy, allowing him next summer to defend his final table finish at the World Series of Poker, be made a fool on on national TV shows such as his recent appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and pontificate on controversial subjects such as marriage equality and marijuana legalization.
We now return to our regular programming…
UPDATE 9:16 AM
The RP (Jonathan Miller) issued an official statement on The Recovering Politician‘s huge scoop this morning:
I furiously deny ever knowingly having a picture taken of myself next to a dead Hooker. Perhaps it was a drug-induced blackmail plot by the Corleone family. More likely, it was a bad photo-shop job of my face on a picture distributed by “Weird Al” Yankovic.
Regardless, under no circumstances will I be running for Congress next year, or for any elected office in the near future. Indeed, the earliest I ever would run would be the later of my turning 60, or my hair turning the “silver fox” gray color of our incumbent Governor. (See picture at right.)
Simply put, while I cherish my nearly two decades in the arena, I have never been happier than in the two years since I left.
The pressure inside the political bubble to constantly prepare for the next campaign is extraordinary — I can remember feeling like my life would have no meaning unless I moved up the political ladder.
Now safely outside, I chuckle at my younger self. There is so much more to life than politics. And there are so many opportunities to serve the public and my community without the burdens of being part of a broken system. And most importantly — the quality and quantity time I spend now with my wife, daughters, friends and family is simply invaluable and deeply cherished.
And all of them believe me about the picture with the dead Hooker. At least I hope so.
Jeff Smith spent a year in prison. But what he discovered inside wasn’t what he expected — he saw in his fellow inmates boundless ingenuity and business savvy. He asks: Why don’t we tap this entrepreneurial potential to help ex-prisoners contribute to society once they’re back outside? (From the TED Talent Search event TED@NewYork.)
Many have written eloquently about Jesse Jackson Jr.’s sad fall. But now it’s time for Jackson to focus on minimizing his penalty and reputational damage in order to preserve future opportunities for himself and his family.
In his letter of resignation from Congress, Jackson eschewed the defiance of Rod Blagojevich, suggesting a guilty plea is likely. Jackson also said he is cooperating with investigators.
But cooperation has a legal meaning far stronger than its common meaning; a defendant can be “cooperative” without cooperating in the legal sense. That is, a defendant may promptly fulfill most of a prosecutor’s specific pre-indictment requests — detailing his crime(s), resigning from office, declining interviews, etc — but that won’t be enough to receive an elusive 5K-1 letter, the government’s reward for defendants who help them make cases against others. A 5K-1 letter is the best way to persuade a judge to depart downward from federal sentencing guidelines.
The public typically associates politicians with ambition. But many investigators are similarly motivated. Law enforcement officials know that people who prosecute Joe Sixpacks aren’t first in line for promotions. The chosen — and those who write books, appear on TV, or even seek office themselves — are investigators who pursue the biggest scalps. (See Congressman-elect George Holding, the prosecutor who indicted John Edwards and then resigned to seek office before the trial.)
Therein lies Jackson’s problem/opportunity. He is surrounded by possible high-value targets: his dad, the famed civil-rights leader who runs Operation PUSH; his wife, Sandi, a prominent Chicago alderwoman; his brothers Jonathan and Yusef, businessmen/activists who own a lucrative beer distributorship purchased after their father had organized a boycott of the brewery’s products; dozens of high-level public officials with whom he mingles.
Sun-Times columnist Mike Sneed reported Friday that Jackson is, in fact, “singing with the voice of an anxious canary” and that the feds are interested in all he knows about a “powerful dem femme” who is not an alderman.
Read the rest of… Jeff Smith: Should Jesse Jr. Cooperate with the Feds?
By John Y. Brown III, on Wed Nov 28, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
The name we dare not speak….because we no longer care.
A few weeks ago, I was in a conversation about who is the greatest running back in NFL history. Names like Gayle Sayers, Walter Payton, and Earl Campbell came to mind as I tried to force away the inevitable name I didn’t want to mention.
And didn’t.
And was glad because the conversation then turned to sports heroes.
40 years ago this NFL season, on the last game of the season, a running back named OJ Simpson did the unthinkable. He rushed for over 2000 yards in one season–200 yards in the 14th and final game. I remember watching the entire game at age 9 entranced…watching football history being made. I have never considered any running back to be OJ Simpson’s equal since.
I’ll say it. OJ Simpson was my sports hero then.
He was in 1973–and perhaps still is today–the greatest ever to play the running back position.
But football is just a game. Games are important…I suppose we are all playing a game of some sort or another. Some construct of competition to make us and our world a little better…or maybe just to provide a reprieve, or form of entertainment, to others.
But in life, OJ, I believe, did something even more unthinkable. And sealed his fate and place in history. Not as one of the greatest athletes of our time but one of our most infamous criminals.
When I was 31 I watched the Bronco chase with even greater intensity than the famous 1973 Bills-Jets game. Few individuals who walk among us have risen higher or fallen farther than OJ Simpson. I don’t hate him. I don’t pity him. I don’t miss the old OJ. I’m not disappointed. I’m not even numb to Simpson and his life and legacy. I am oddly indifferent. Probably more as a defense mechanism because someone I admired so much for excellence in one area of his life disappointed so grievously in a much more important area of his life. And I’ll never be able to understand why. And now no longer even care that I won’t.
OJ has has traveled the bizarre trajectory of being the most celebrated athlete to the most hated alleged criminal to the most unspeakable public personality– to perhaps the most famous irrelevant person of our era (a poetically fitting punishment). And no one even knows how to talk about that.
And maybe there’s nothing else to say. But I thought I’d try. It’s glorious in many ways to go from mere mortal to famous society icon. OJ, for a brief time, was like a mythical god among us. It’s hard being famous, too, of course. But not as hard as going from famous icon back to mere mortal. That is a treacherous path, it seems.
Maybe the ultimate story of OJ Simpson isn’t that he failed to reach his potential greatness as an athlete. But rather that he failed so horribly at finding his way back to himself when it was his turn to leave the stage and return to being just an ordinary human being. In his case that treacherous journey appears to literally have killed a lovely young lady and destroyed her family. And figuratively killed OJ Simpson, both as an icon and human being.
And here’s the kicker. I fully recovered my identify about 15 minutes ago with a new card being issued. And I deliberated but casually struck up a conversation with my wife to see if she even noticed my identity was back. Well, guess what? She never said a word. And sthe still hasn’t commented on my haircut which I got nearly a week ago.
I blame the mom for not knowing her son. I blame her for not seeing the signs. I blame her for not getting him help. I blame her for leaving guns in his reach. But most of all, I blame her for how he turned out. It is my belief, from what I know about psychology and what I have seen in four and a half decades of life, that a positive parental experience will not yield a suicidal psycho killer. Period. End of story.
Liberals will need to concede that banning firearms altogether is undesirable as well as unconstitutional, and that prohibitionist rhetoric only aids and abets the NRA’s own absolutist stance. They will need to demonstrate a much sharper sensitivity to the fact that handguns do serve the ends of self-defense in both middle class suburbs and urban neighborhoods, and that hunting is part of the national cultural fabric: much too much of the leftwing punditry on this subject overflows with a barely disguised regional and class based contempt. In addition, advocates of stricter gun laws should drop the misleading implication that there are no meaningful barriers to gun ownership: to the contrary, they should be stressing that the Brady Bill’s waiting period and the longstanding prohibitions on gun ownership by felons or the institutionalized demonstrate pathways to strengthening public safety without shredding the liberties of law abiding gun owners.
Regardless, under no circumstances will I be running for Congress next year, or for any elected office in the near future. Indeed, the earliest I ever would run would be the later of my turning 60, or my hair turning the “silver fox” gray color of our incumbent Governor. (See picture at right.)
