2016 July
2016 July 1
CIA Report Admits Agency Had Wrong Man, But Imprisoned Him Anyway
The people directly responsible for extending his stay in prison while knowing that he was innocent, should be very heavily punished. Khalid El-Masri should be compensated for every hour of confinement, plus additional costs.
2016 July 2
Bangladesh attack: Twenty hostages killed, army says
While education is the best way to avoid these kinds of crimes, education is hardest in the poorest countries. That is way the world needs to work fairly with everyone so that all countries have the ability to develop and escape the poverty that consumes so much of their time and resources, that they have virtually nothing left over to dedicate to higher learning and advancing their civil behavior.
2016 July 3
Biggest private coal company could cut up to 4,400 jobs
This is good news because the environmental costs of coal have never been truly factored in to the price of the coal to the consumer.
2016 July 4
China puts finishing touches to world’s biggest radio telescope
With so many potential projects to collaborate in, it is unfortunate that so much money and resources are spent on military expenditures. We need to create an international military organization that would lift from humanity the scourge of globally redundant spending on military affairs. We just need a group of nations committed to certain principles to come together and agree to combine their military forces to defend those stated principles and to agree to a representative mechanism to settle disputes.
2016 July 5
Red, white and extra blue as tight security marks U.S. July 4th celebrations
With amount of money that is spend on increased security, high resolution video cameras should be installed everywhere so that evidence of crimes could be gathered and be of a high enough quality (better than spending hours in court interviewing eyewitnesses) that more rapid capture and convictions could be obtained.
2016 July 6
Red, white and extra blue as tight security marks U.S. July 4th celebrations
With the amount of money spent on increased security at all these places, we could be spending that money on high resolution video cameras that would be able to provide surveillance information much faster than humans in court.
2016 July 7
Scathing report on Blair’s Iraq War role prompts contrition, defiance and a reckoning
It may very well have been a mistake, but people at such high levels of policy making are not allowed to make mistakes of such grand proportions. They should have had more checks and balances build in to their systems that guided their policies. Tony Blair, George Bush and several others within their organizations that plays key roles in developing and guiding these policies should be held accountable.
2016 July 8
Fmr. Rep. Joe Walsh Tweets Declaration of “War” Against Obama
Any person who even thinks that the actions of one or a few people (the black shooter) represent the opinions of the whole group (black lives matter) needs a lot more education. Anyone who writes on any medium that, “3 Dallas Cops killed, 7 wounded. This is now war. Watch out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after you.”, especially if it is a police officer who writes it, needs to be reprimanded at least. This just shows ignorance to the fact that such comments lead to inflammation of the situation and is definitely not helpful. People often write dumb things, especially on media that is designed to capture people’s thoughts at that second, without encouraging any real degree of reflection. At any given moment, a person could be in any one of a wide variety of states of mind, and any thought captured at any one of these moments cannot be used as an accurate reflection of a person’s true feelings. So this tweet cannot be used as an authoritative snapshot of a person’s character, but this tweet is sufficiently illuminating to definitely justify putting him in the spotlight for greater scrutiny as to his other behavior or writings.
2016 July 9
Ramsey Orta, Who Filmed Eric Garner’s Death, to Serve 4 Years in Jail
This headline was misleading, although technically accurate. To determine whether this headline is too misleading to justify a fine against the authors at ‘Democracy Now!’, it should be submitted to a diverse panel to determine if it is misleading. (The definition of misleading would be if the majority of the readers think that, at a glance, the headline means something significantly different than what is actually the truth.
2016 July 10
With Sanders Endorsement Looming, Hillary Clinton Reaffirms Support for Public-Health-Care Option
Simplifying the whole healthcare system would make it far easier for everyone to see what their options are. People should be required to fund their own healthcare needs. They should not rely on employers or the government to provide health insurance. However, the government should require that everyone have at least minimal health insurance, otherwise they must pay a fine.
2016 July 11
Black Lives Matter protesters sprayed with tear gas in Phoenix as rally spirals out of control and thousands demonstrate against police brutality, with cops on high alert following Dallas massacre
All law enforcement officers should have body cameras that are on all the time so that they capture all interactions with the public. Officers should not have the ability to shut off these cameras and should be punished if the cameras are not working for whatever reason (within their control). The trust between police and the community obviously need some serious rebuilding.
2016 July 12
In landmark case, court rules China has no claim to South China Sea
China has said that it will ignore this tribunal’s verdict. This is why we need an effective international military organization with teeth that could actually enforce this decision. Otherwise, the strongest country, regardless of validity, will get its way.
2016 July 13
North Carolina law blocks release of police recordings
Camera footage should never be freely available publicly available. There should naturally be safeguards for privacy. Any individual who is captured on such cameras and is the subject of or significantly involved with the footage, should be allowed to both view and have copies of the footage. They should not be required to go to court for such footage.
2016 July 14
Fresno police release dramatic body-camera footage of fatal shooting of unarmed 19-year-old
This is probably one of the more justified shootings of an individual who was clearly not obeying officer’s orders, although the officers should probably have gone to him and physically controlled his hands before shots number 3 and 4. Officers should have another effective non-lethal option and they should be trained far more on developing their psychological negotiation skills.
2016 July 15
At least 84 killed in ‘monstrous’ terror attack on holiday crowd in Nice, France
This is just another crime. It should not be treated as an attack by another country (and I don’t think it will). But each attack of this nature inevitably will take any population closer to the point of just giving in to some future proposal to invade another country because of just being fed up.
2016 July 16
Qandeel Baloch strangled to death by brother in suspected honour killing
The death penalty should be applied to the killer or at least life in prison under forced labor to pay the family compensation and for punitive payments. For the cleric to have only lost his job on an official committee is laughable. The double standard is deafening because men in such societies face punishments that are so less severe than females. These societies will never advance when such discrimination is so blatant against women.
2016 July 17
Anti-Trump delegates consider several attempts to upend convention
How so many people could support a presidential candidate who is so blatantly and unapologetically a liar, womanizer, exaggerator, etc., is beyond the pale of what has been considered acceptable politicking for decades, if not centuries, in this country. Yes, we need someone to shake things up in Washington so that calcified policies and procedures could be torn down and modernized to allow for easier progress, but a controlled demolition rather than a carpet bombing would be preferable. This is the way we need to choose our leaders.
2016 July 18
Baton Rouge officer posted emotions online days before gunman killed him
Policies aimed at naturally creating more mixed neighborhoods need to be implemented so that different people learn to live side by side with each other. So long as people look significantly different from each other, there will always be social tensions. Until cultural assimilation, and then even physical assimilation occurs, such racial strife will undoubtedly continue. However, it will lessen if we take measure to effectively encourage the mixing of our society so that people are forced to rub up against different peoples of different colors and backgrounds. The first step is to get a handle on immigration (both legal and illegal) to reduce the numbers and types of immigrants we let through.
2016 July 19
Melania Trump Speech Used Same Passages as Michelle Obama’s 2008 Address
If it is true that a sizable panel of fair observers think that this qualifies as plagiarism, then a fine should be imposed and a notice should be broadcast at around the same time and visibility, If it is true, then Melania Trump should face fines that are representative of the number of people who heard her original speech.
2016 July 20
Turkey formally requests extradition of cleric from U.S. as purge widens
Extradition should be done if the requesting country is trustworthy to fairly impart justice. Turkey is a questionable country in this regard, so transferring Gulen over to Turkey may not be justified.
2016 July 21
Trump aide offers resignation in Melania Trump plagiarism incident
Now that the plagiarism has been proved, ideally, the fines should set per plagiarized phrase and multiplied by the number of people who has heard it. This price should be set by the courts, but the total fine should be not less than several hundred thousands of dollars.
2016 July 22
Roger Ailes steps down from Fox News with $40 million exit package
These violations were alleged to have occurred several decades ago. There should not be any ‘statue of limitations’ rules that are applied to any crime. Therefore, these women should be allowed to bring these accusations and should be allowed to receive compensation for being victims. These crimes do not necessitate Roger Ailes resigning from his position, although it is understandable why he would not want to work around people with that stigma. Nevertheless, Roger needs to make restitution for these crimes and these women need to be compensated. Going through a full jury trial would probably be too much for these crimes after so much time having elapsed, but this is where arbitration requirements would be very beneficial towards coming to a relatively quick resolution.
2016 July 23
Feds break up $1 billion Medicare scam in Miami — biggest in U.S. history
Perhaps such fraud would have been easier to detect if more frequent audits, surprise inspections, more streamlined record-keeping, and greater punishments were instituted. This criminal and every other guilty person should be required to pay back every dollar they stole plus a punitive multiple.
2016 July 24
Obama vetoes bill to cut ex-presidents’ pay
Presidents should not have any payments after they leave office. People should only be paid during the time that they work. If they want income afterwards, they would have needed to save up during their working years and arrange their finances so that they get residual returns after they leave office.
2016 July 25
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz Resigns After Emails Leak
Things always get frustratingly messy when people lie. The best single prescription for bettering the world is to make sure people do not lie. When people do lie, especially in important positions, they should be punished severely. This is why it is so important to install a system whereby lies, misstatements, misleading information, etc, are caught as soon as possible, and punished, to dissuade future occurrences.
2016 July 26
Turkey Cracks Down on Journalists, Its Next Target After Crushing Coup
People should have the right to speak and say anything in Turkey, and in any other country. Governmental systems needs to be flexible enough to allow dissent and a somewhat effective communication of the will of the people to the government leadership. Governments need to be responsive to the will of the people, to some extent. On top of the problem or challenge of governing a country, Turkey has the additional challenge that it has astonishingly and needlessly imposed upon itself the task of enforcing the retention of the Kurdish population within itself instead of letting them have their own independent country, which they are entitled to because the Kurds are a people who have a significantly distinct language, culture and history.
2016 July 27
Obama to Allow More Refugees from Central America to Come to U.S.
We should not allow these immigrant to enter because not only is that not a solution, but it actually perpetuates the problem. The young, most talented segment of the population that tends to be the ones that emigrate from their home country, is precisely the segment that needs to stay to help better their society. Furthermore, macro-level factors are also at play here. Fundamentally, unfair trade practices create an economic environment that poorer countries around the world find hard to navigate to rise to a level of functional civil stability. While the global trade regulations are rectified, the wealthier countries should take it upon themselves to individually adopt policies that temporarily give an advantage to these poor countries to better their terms of trade by reducing all tariffs on exports from those countries to zero, while imports to those countries are taxed at regular rates.
2016 July 28
Bill O’Reilly: Enslaved Africans Who Built White House Were “Well Fed”
This statement by O’Reilly should be fact-checked by historians to see if the slaves that build the house were at least relatively better fed and housed than others at the time. If O’Reilly’s statement were false, he should be fined.
2016 July 29
Revealed: the £1bn of weapons flowing from Europe to Middle East
Arms should not be sold to any side of the Syrian conflict. The United States should not be involved in this conflict. The best way to prevent and minimize the destruction and pain and suffering on any population is to educate them. Literacy is the the most important variable that produced the strongest tendency towards civility. Adding arms to the mix only serves to increase the level of warfare and usually extend the amount of time spend conducting war.
2016 July 30
Trump Admits the DNC Hurt His Feelings and Made Him Want to Lash Out
2016 July 31
Feminist writer Jessica Valenti quits Twitter after “rape and death threat” against 5-year-old daughter
The person responsible for this threat should be punished severely and charged with any additional costs associated with taking protective measures towards her daughter and should pay severe punitive penalties.