Trump Transition: Conservative Christmas

Energy secretary nominee Rick Perry, a former Texas governor and a longtime conservative government standard-bearer, visits Trump Tower in New York during the president-elect's Cabinet hiring spree in December. /Getty Images photo by Drew Angerer

Conservative Americans found an unexpected haul of presents under the Christmas tree this year: a bigly box bursting open with a business-tycoon president-elect and a Cabinet stuffed with billionaires and plutocratic ideologues.

Several of the executive-department nominees are more akin to a wolf pack guarding the whole farm than a fox guarding the hen house.

Trump's nominee for Housing and Urban Development secretary, Ben Carson, is a retired neurosurgeon and former Republican primary-season rival of the president-elect. He has no public housing experience and a self-help ideology that seems ill-suited to providing an essential safety-net service. /Getty Images photo by Andrew Burton


Trump's nominee for Education secretary, Michigan Republican Party bigwig billionaire Betsy DeVos, has no experience in public education, including with her own children. She favors private-school vouchers and charter schools as solutions--and likely poison pills--for struggling public schools.

Trump's nominee for Energy secretary, two-time GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, has advocated dismantling the department. While calling for the agency's demise in an epic 2011 debate gaffe, he forgot the department's name.

Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, U.S. Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, favors a free-market approach to medicine that includes slashing HHS regulations and privatizing Medicare.

Trump's nominee for Environmental Protection Agency administrator, E. Scott Pruitt, has been a fierce critic of the EPA in his current role as Oklahoma attorney general. Pruitt is among the named petitioners in a 25-state lawsuit against the EPA over greenhouse gas regulations.

As the country embarks on Republican government in the White House, both houses of Congress, and a majority of statehouses, a host of hurdles that require united effort confronts the apparently partisan Trump administration: healthcare reform; national governments that threaten global security such as North Korea; external economic threats from powerful competitors and volatile global markets; internal economic challenges including a dilapidated infrastructure, an aging population, a skewed concentration of wealth, and disruptive waves of automation that upend the workforce; roiled race relations; immigration reform; and climate change.

Tackling these hurdles from the right, or any single-minded approach, is doomed to failure measured in blood and national treasure.

Russian hacking: Putin winner in U.S. election

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin gained multiple advantages in the U.S. election that elevated Donald Trump to the White House, including the defeat of a potentially formidable adversary: Hillary Clinton. /image via itv.com

Evidence and logic show the Russian Federation government was involved in hacking efforts that were designed to impact the 2016 U.S. election.

The evidence of Russian meddling is compelling, and it was convincingly presented last week by Eugene Kiely for FactCheck.org:

• All U.S. intelligence agencies and at least three companies have investigated election-related hacking such as the cracking of John Podesta's email account and concluded that the Russian government was involved
• CrowdStrike, the company hired to investigate the May 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee, concluded that "two separate Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries" were responsible for the electronic espionage
• Fidelis Cybersecurity, another Internet security firm, not only concurred with CrowdStrike's findings but also declared "this settles the question" of Russian government involvement in the DNC hack
• On Nov. 17, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before a House committee, stating the utmost care was taken before the U.S. intelligence community identified the Russian government as the source of election-related hacking: "We gave considerable thought to diming out Russia."

Logically, the case is just as convincing. Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin had powerful motives to push for a Donald Trump victory:

• Hillary Clinton, who had foreign policy experience as secretary of state, would have likely been an adversary on the world stage if she had become president.
• Donald Trump, who has no foreign policy experience beyond financial dealings, has signaled willingness to cooperate with Putin, including openness to recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea and fighting in tandem against ISIS in the Middle East.
• The chaotic spectacle of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, including Clinton winning the popular vote, is a huge PSYOP victory for Putin. The hacking exposed dirty tricks and fueled unsubstantiated suspicion of vote rigging.

On Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security reported the agency was "confident" that the Russian government was involved in hacking attacks on the U.S. election. /www.dhs.gov 

Dakota Access Pipeline: Photography from frontline

Editor's Note: There has been little in-depth coverage of the opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Reservation in North Dakota. Recent images from Cannon Ball, N.D., where "water protector" demonstrators are camped near the pipeline's path, shine light on the struggle over completion of the 1,172-mile oil artery.

On Nov. 20, law enforcement officers fire a water cannon to douse Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) demonstrators at a state highway bridge in Cannon Ball. The temperature was about 26 degrees F and several protesters were injured, Youth Radio correspondent Avery White reported. /Avery White photo

In late November, musician, author and photographer D. Randall Blythe visited one of the "water protector" encampments in Cannon Ball. He wrote about what he witnessed for Rolling Stone. /David Rollingcloud photo

Blythe volunteered to participate in "direct action" demonstrations involving face-offs with law enforcement. The Lamb of God frontman witnessed a police line stand-off at Turtle Island near the Dakota Access Pipeline's proposed crossing of the Missouri River. The Sioux tribe relies on the river as a water resource. /D. Randall Blythe photo

"The ridge line at the top of the hill became crowded with heavily armed police officers and men in tactical gear staring down at us. I saw rifles, grenade launchers, safety-orange shotguns, large pepper-spray canisters resembling fire extinguishers and a few water hoses that were rolled out. Hooded men with binoculars and video cameras walked the hilltop, filming and scanning our faces constantly."
--Randy Blythe for Rolling Stone

During the clash with protesters on Nov. 20, law enforcement fired water cannons and non-lethal projectiles at protesters. A Native American security guard told Blythe that he collected these non-lethal rounds, which include a buckshot beanbag, from the scene of the confrontation. /D. Randall Blythe photo

Medics have treated several demonstrators for head wounds that are likely the result of law enforcement officers  firing non-lethal rounds at protesters. /August White image

Military veterans observe the police-barricaded bridge near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Reservation that has become a demonstration flash point. More than 2,000 veterans are vowing to serve as human shields to help block eviction of the demonstrators from their camps. /Associated Press photo via voaanews.com

Veteran Trek Kelly of Venice Beach, Calif., is among the veterans supporting DAPL demonstrators facing eviction. /Reuters photo 

With a Dec. 5 eviction deadline from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers looming, DAPL demonstrators also are facing brutal weather conditions as winter bears down on their camps in Cannon Ball. /Reuters image

Dakota Access Pipeline: Sacred Stone Camp stand

CNN reported today that there are thousands of Dakota Access Pipeline protesters hunkered down in frigid winter conditions at the Sacred Stone Camp in Cannon Ball, N.D. /CNN image

This weekend, more than 2,000 military veterans, including U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, are vowing to serve as human shields for Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) protesters at the Sacred Stone Camp, Reuters reported today.

The protest camp is within a couple miles of the energy project's last unfinished segment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has set a Dec. 5 deadline for protesters to leave Sacred Stone Camp or face arrest.

The Corps decided last month to delay the final unfinished leg of the pipeline project, which features tunneling under Lake Oahe, a drinking water reservoir for the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. The Corps said the project pause is necessary because "additional discussion and analysis are warranted" on several grounds, including "the history of the Great Sioux Nation's dispossessions of lands" and the resource value of Lake Oahe to the Standing Rock Sioux.

Despite the delay, the Dec. 5 eviction deadline has set the stage for another confrontation over the 1,172 mile long pipeline, The project price tag is pegged at $3.7 billion.

In August, hundreds of DAPL protesters were based at the Sacred Stone Camp. /KFYR-TV image 

In spring 2016, a Google Maps image shows the barren and sparsely populated landscape at Sacred Stone Camp.

Dakota Access Pipeline another black mark

During a cold late-fall night in Standing Rock, N.D., police target a water cannon at protesters who have been trying to block completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Nov. 20, 2016, clash also included police firing tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, Youth Radio correspondent Avery White reported. /Avery White photo

In the 21st century, there should be no more Native American treaty violations or disruption of natural resources on Reservation land. The Dakota Access Pipeline is an affront to both of these fundamental deal-breakers.

The pipeline cuts through land promised to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in an 1851 treaty. The petroleum project also poses an environmental threat to the tribe's primary water source--the Missouri River--which runs along one side of the tribe's Reservation.

The drumbeat of human rights abuses against Native Americans--muted for a generation since conflict rekindled during the 1970s at Wounded Knee in South Dakota--is back with a vengeance with the Dakota Access Pipeline.

In October 2016, armed soldiers and law enforcement officers move in formation during the eviction of protesters who had camped on private land in the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Associated Press reported at least 117 protesters were arrested and at least one was injured. /AP photo by Mike McCleary

American indigenous people have been on the receiving end of violence on a societal scale since the arrival of the first European colonists in the early 1600s. Accounts and accusations of germ warfare against Native Americans begin in the Colonial period, with war crimes including mass executions and concentration camps accelerating through the 1800s, then closing with The Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.

The U.S. government has been signing treaties with American indigenous people since the founding of the country, reaching a pact with the Delaware Nation in 1778. Many thousands of Native Americans were segregated into Reservations under hundreds of these treaties, which grant the right of self government to indigenous people, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

Ever since the first treaties were negotiated, Native Americans have variously staved off or succumbed to incursions targeting treaty-protected territory. Greed is always the motive: land grabbing and resource robbing have driven the exploitation for centuries.

The Dakota Access Pipeline traverses more than 1,100 miles of environmentally sensitive terrain, including two dozen river crossings: full illustration. /New York Times graphic, above; Washington Post graphic, below

In September 2016, thousands of protesters march to a burial ground site that bulldozers disturbed during construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. /Robyn Beck photo via Getty Images

During the Nov. 20 clash, police fired tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets on protesters near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota. With the temperature around 26 degrees, hundreds of protesters were treated for hypothermia, tear-gas inhalation, and rubber-bullet injuries including head wounds, according to sacredstonecamp.org. One tribal elder went into cardiac arrest; but medics performed CPR and resusitated him, the website reported. /ABC News image

Child abuse and neglect: The full story

Rachelle and Bella Bond shown in an image posted on Facebook. In June 2015, Bella "Baby Doe" Bond's body was found on Deer Island in Winthrop, Mass. Rachelle Bond has pleaded not guilty to an accessory to murder charge in the killing of her infant daughter. Her boyfriend at the time of the infanticide faces a first-degree murder charge. /Image via bostoncbslocal.com

If there is any job in state government harder than police officer, it is child-protection service worker.

In news story after news story, even reputable journalism organizations tell only part of the sad tales of the neglected and abused children whose lives are entrusted to state agencies entrusted to protect at-risk kids. An overly simplistic narrative is repeated like a mantra in the media across the country: "The state dropped the ball."

Investigation of N.H. child-protection agency: Swollen case loads are key driver of child-protection service worker turnover and under-staffing. /N.H. Department of Health and Human Services graphic

Here is what the public does not hear or learn in most news stories about the parent-betrayed innocents who have no hope other than the assistance and protection provided by state departments of child and family services:

• Personal responsibility: Every one of these children belongs to A FAMILY, not just their biological parents. The front line of defense for neglected and abused children is their family: parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other adult relatives. The next time you see a news story about state officials failing to protect neglected and abused children, two of the top questions begging answers are, "Who failed these children in the first place? And how many family members are willing to step to the plate and start swinging to protect their kids?" In nearly every family tormented with violence, sexual abuse and neglect involving a child, there is at least one relative who could intervene decisively.
• Collective responsibility: The general public gobbles up the incomplete and misleading narrative that media outlets usually publish whenever the state "drops the ball" and fails a child who is harmed or killed. Yet the vast majority of citizens fail to look in the mirror. If taxpayers really care about having state officials intervene to protect neglected and abused children, the agencies assigned to do the job must be fully funded and staffed. A 2003 federal General Accounting Office report listed average case loads for child welfare and foster care workers nationally at 24 to 31 children, twice the case-load level that the Child Welfare League of America recommends. Here in New Hampshire, the Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) has been woefully underfunded and understaffed since the Department of Health and Human Services budget was slashed during The Great Recession. In a staffing report released in October 2016, the average monthly case load for a New Hampshire DCYF protective-service worker was pegged at 54. From December 2015 to July 2016, one third of DCYF's protective-service worker positions were vacant or held by workers in training or on leave.
• Unrealistic expectations: Anyone concerned about their personal safety is unlikely to apply for a child-protection service worker job and unlikely to stay in the role for very long. Police officers hate to go on domestic disturbance calls--for good reason. Emotions run high in domestic disputes, especially when children are involved. Police officers are at high risk of injury or death when they respond to domestic disturbance calls, and they carry several weapons to defend themselves along with body armor equipment. In most states, child-protection service workers are not allowed to carry weapons when they visit a troubled home. Fear of death or serious injury may not be a daily concern for all child-protective services workers, but brutal stress and dealings with evil perpetrated on children is on the daily.
• Social and behavioral determinants: Coming to grips with the roots of child abuse and neglect is the daunting task facing nearly all of American society: every citizen, government agencies, healthcare providers, educational institutions, law enforcement and the courts. Prevention is under-resourced, particularly substance-abuse treatment and mental health services.  

In September 2015, police were sent to the Manchester, N.H., home of Kaitlin Paquette, 22, and her 21-month-old daughter, Sadence Willott. Paquette is facing second-degree murder charges in the bludgeoning death of the infant. The young mother's troubled life illustrates some of the social determinants that are root causes of child abuse and neglect. /image via patch.com

I loathe apologists, and this post is not intended to make excuses for state officials who are untrusted to protect abused and neglected children. I have witnessed state officials "drop the ball" and put children in harm's way, including a Rockingham (N.H.) County judge who slept through portions of a child-custody hearing in which child sexual abuse was alleged.

But I also loathe overly simplistic journalism that amounts to misinformation, people who shirk personal responsibility, taxpayers who lack the conviction to pay for services they claim are essential, and missed societal opportunities to alleviate the suffering.

In August 2015, Vermont case worker Laura Sobel, left, was shot and killed while leaving her office. The woman accused of pulling the trigger, Jody Herring, was allegedly upset over losing custody of her 9-year-old child and also is suspected of killing three family members. /Image via nbcnews.com

U.S. healthcare lags among industrialized nations

/image via mydcdental.com

U.S. healthcare service delivery is not the best in the world.

This week, the privately funded and nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund (CF) released an international survey that evaluates the delivery of healthcare services and measures of health in 11 industrialized countries, including the United States. The key findings of the international survey should be sobering for Americans:

• Citing unaffordable costs of care, 33 percent of U.S. adults reported going without medically advised care, skipping visits to a doctor when they got sick, and not buying prescribed medications. In contrast, only 7 percent of U.K. and German adults reported similar difficulties linked to cost of care.
• Low-income U.S. adults fared the worst in the CF international survey in terms of foregoing medical care because of cost, with 43 percent of respondents reporting they had skipped getting care because they could not afford it. Low-income adults reporting similar struggles with cost of care in the other 10 industrialized countries surveyed range from 8 percent in the United Kingdom to 31 percent in Switzerland. 
• The United States also is an outlier for poor health compared to other industrialized countries, the CF international survey shows. Americans had the highest rate (28 percent) of suffering from multiple chronic conditions. 

For decades, opponents of attempts to fundamentally improve the delivery of healthcare services in the United States have spewed patriotically correct rhetoric, claiming that American healthcare is the best in the world. These largely false claims have been largely politically motivated.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) has attempted to make meaningful reforms, and opponents of Obamacare have vilified the law as a nefarious example of government over-reach that undermines the American healthcare sector's greatness.

Now, with Republicans in control of the White House and Congress, efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare are at the top of the political agenda in Washington. Brace yourself for a tsunami of bullshit from politicians seeking to score political points.

Brace yourself for false claims that Obamacare is undermining the greatness of U.S. healthcare services. Any such claims will be largely untrue and designed to achieve political gains that are petty compared to the interests of the American people at stake.

While certainly flawed in some areas such as making healthcare services affordable for all U.S. citizens, Obamacare is a leap forward from the status quo when the law was adopted in 2010. For example, Obamacare makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, and it allows families to keep their children covered for medical expenses until they reach age 26.

The politics at play in efforts to reform the U.S. healthcare sector should be sickening for Americans. The economics should be infuriating.

In 2010, when the PPACA was adopted, U.S. citizens spent about $2.6 trillion on healthcare services. Although the pace of ever increasing U.S. healthcare spending has slowed since Obamacare became the law of the land, healthcare spending is projected to account for 20.1 percent of economic activity in the country by 2025.

In a prepared statement accompanying the release of the international survey, CF President David Blumenthal, M.D., highlights the economic bottom line: Americans are getting ripped off.

"The U.S. spends more on healthcare than any other country, but what we get for these significant resources falls short in terms of access to care, affordability and coordination," he says. "We can learn from what is working in other nations. If we're going to do better for our patients, we need to create a healthcare system that addresses the needs of everyone, especially our sickest patients and those who struggle to make ends meet."

A research paper that features more details and analysis of the CF international survey has been published in the journal Health Affairs.

Trump: Ultimate outsider faces huge challenge

President Jimmy Carter delivers his State of the Union Address to Congress in 1978. /Image via CNN.com

Here we go again.

Forty years ago, Jimmy Carter was elected president after running his campaign as a political outsider. A majority of Americans voted for the Georgia Democrat in 1976, but Carter struggled throughout his presidency to assemble majorities in Congress to support his legislative agenda.

After the 1976 election, the Democrats controlled the U.S. House and Senate, but they did not want to play ball with Jimmy.

Last night, Donald Trump was elected president after running his political campaign as the ultimate outsider, often clashing with prominent members of his own party. A plurality of Americans voted for the New York Republican, but Trump will face a challenge at least as great as the biggest hurdle that hobbled Carter: Governing in Washington after insulting the Washingtonians.

In the 2016 election, Republicans have retained control of the House and Senate. Now, we will see whether GOP lawmakers will play ball with The Donald.

2016 Election: Wounded political warrior vs. playboy showman

/Image via pbs.org

With the broadcast of "The Choice 2016" this week, the PBS Frontline crew has produced yet another outstanding investigative report on the Democratic and Republican candidates for president of the United States.

Presidential Endorsement: Voting for Hillary Clinton

/Image via pbs.org

Editor's Note: Bullwork of Democracy was founded on the firm belief that an informed citizenry is a bulwark of democracy. As much as morally and professionally possible, this one-man-show blog strives to provide information, not advice. Although this post amounts to an endorsement of Hillary Clinton for president, the focus is mainly on why I am voting for the New York Democrat, not advice to other voters.

From the beginning of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, the most redeeming quality of the real estate magnate's candidacy has been his candor.

For millions of voters who are frustrated over a host of unmet challenges such as decades-long economic stagnation for all but the wealthiest Americans, Trump openly sharing his mind has been refreshing.

I am grateful Trump revealed his thoughts during the GOP primary season, rather than reading carefully vetted remarks off a teleprompter. If Trump had been under the influence of Paul Manafort, Stephen Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway from the beginning of his presidential campaign, the public likely would be unaware that the New York Republican is an uninformed and bigoted narcissist with strongman tendencies more fitting for dictatorship than democracy.

(A special thank-you to fellow Granite Stater Corey "Let Trump Be Trump" Lewandowski, who led the Manhattan-based businessman's GOP presidential primary run until he was fired on June 20.)

Elections are about choices.

In November, I will not choose to vote for the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson or the Green Party's Jill Stein. The stakes are high in this election, with policy challenges galore, including racial tensions, crumbling infrastructure, foreign and domestic terrorism, healthcare reform, and North Korea's growing nuclear weapons arsenal. For me, Johnson and Stein represent pointless protest votes compared to the risks associated with a Trump presidency.

Clinton is clearly my best pick.

For a centrist who is admittedly left-of-center, there are many reasons for me to vote for the Democrat. To name a few, I favor finishing the healthcare-reform job President Obama started with the Affordable Care Act, I favor Democratic president's appointees to the Supreme Court, and I favor the Democratic Party's commitment to environmental protection.

There are even more reasons for me to vote against Trump.

A lot of folks are frustrated and angry. I get it. Getting ahead, one of the essential ingredients of The American Dream, has become a struggle for 99 percent of the people in most parts of the country.

But I cannot have a hand in the risky bet of handing the White House keys to Trump.

While it is admittedly hard to peer into the heart and soul of any politician polished enough to seek the presidency, I believe Trump revealed himself during the hotly contested Republican primary:

Trump taints Mexicans

Regardless of whether Trump is racist, he is a race-baiter

Trump maligns Muslims

Trump mocked disabled New York Times reporter

Draft-dodger Trump belittles sacrifice of U.S. prisoners of war

Trump loves himself

Trump's loose nukes policy in Asia

Trump treats women like caveman

Trump banking on ignorance

Trump's view of black people is jaded and faded

Trump is clueless about important topics

Trump tells Big Lies

STOCK UP ON POPCORN: The presidential debates should be revealing, but PBS Frontline's "The Choice 2016" documentary on Clinton and Trump set to broadcast on Sept. 27 at 9 p.m. EST should lay the candidates' shit bare.

North Korea reaches nuclear-tipped tipping point

North Korea tests a ballistic missile in December 2012, deploying "an object" in Earth's orbit, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The three-stage rocket could be capable of delivering a warhead to Alaska or the West Coast of the United States. /Image via AP

City-buster nuclear bomb: Check!

Intercontinental ballistic missile: Check!

Miniaturized nuclear warhead: In development.

With Friday's test of a Hiroshima-scale nuclear bomb, North Korea has firmly staked the totalitarian country's claim to nuclear-power status. The South Korean military estimates the explosive yield of the blast at about 10,000 tons of TNT. The nuclear bombed dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 packed 12 to 15 kilotons of explosive yield, leveled 90 percent of the city and killed 80,000 people in a flash.

The nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945 reduced the city to rubble. Dubbed "Little Boy," the American nuclear bomb had about the same explosive force as the atomic device that North Korea tested last week, according to the South Korean military. /Image via www.nbcnews.com

North Korea has either successfully tested or is actively developing enough elements of a fully capable nuclear-weapons arsenal that the time has come to seriously face the reality that the world's most powerful totalitarian nation will soon be threatening at least half the Earth with atomic Armageddon.

With last week's Earth-shaking blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, the Orwellian regime of Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang has proven the ability unleash Hiroshima-scale destruction with atomic bombs. To become capable of threatening at least half the world with thermonuclear blackmail, all that North Korea has to prove now is the ability to miniaturize atomic bombs to equip nuclear-tipped missiles.

The North Korean military is actively developing and testing missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads to regional neighbors such as Japan, including truck-mounted and submarine-fired ballistic missiles. Just as disturbingly, a North Korean statement on last week's atom bomb test says the outcast country can produce "at will, and as many as it wants, a variety of smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear warheads of higher strike power."

The Kim regime's intercontinental ballistic missile capability ambition is also nearly within grasp, with multiple tests of the three-stage Unha-3 missile, including the successful delivery of a payload into space in December 2012. While it is unclear whether the Unha-3 is presently capable of accurately delivering a warhead to Alaska or the U.S. West Coast, which includes the technological challenge of a nuclear-tipped warhead's fiery plunge into the Earth's atmosphere from space, the Russians proved with Sputnik in 1957 that the ability to place satellites in orbit is a relatively small technological step away from launching nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.

According to North Korea state news agency Rodong Sinmun, these images show a successful test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile in August 2016. The North American Aerospace Defense Command confirmed and assessed the missile's 300-mile trajectory, which was tracked from the North Korean coast east toward Japan. /Image via CNN

The maturation of North Korea's nuclear weapons program begs an existential question: How do you contain a rogue totalitarian regime that is capable of incinerating the cities of its regional neighbors and half the world? The containment policy that most of the international community has relied upon for more than half a century to limit the North Korean regime's threat to the rest of humanity is on the verge of collapsing.

The governments of regional and world powers such as China, Japan, Russia and the United States can either rise to this challenge, or humanity will slip back into the nuclear-weapons-fueled terror of The Cold War.

/BBC graphic and Geoeye image

Divided Americans playing with fire

The bodies of Confederate soldiers are strewn along Hagerstown Turnpike after the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. /Photo by Alexander Gardner

I am uniquely positioned to gaze into the maw of the gaping divide between the law enforcement community and the African American community.

My father, who I love very much, is a retired Marine and arch conservative. He is an unwavering supporter of law enforcement who views the Black Lives Matter movement with disdain and suspicion.

My wife, who I love very much, is is an African American and champion of racial equality. She has experienced racial injustice perpetrated by public officials including law enforcement officers. My wife views the police with disdain and suspicion.

The events of the past week--including the fatal police shootings of two black men and the equally barbaric fatal shootings of police officers in Dallas--reflect divisions in American society that are as deep and wide as they were in the years leading up to The Civil War. 

If America fails to address the legacies of racial injustice such as police brutality directed at people of color, the nation is at grave risk of unleashing a downward spiral into a level of countryman vs. countryman violence at a scale not seen since the Civil War. If America fails to address the country's gun violence problem, law enforcement officers fearing for their lives will continue to kill civilians in unjustified shootings. If Americans do not stand in unity with all of their countrymen regardless of race, gender, sexuality, political partisanship, religious beliefs and a host of other relatively petty sources of divisiveness compared to our essential role as citizens of a great democratic nation, we will have no one but ourselves to blame for the crumbling of our society.

The events of the past week are so sad.

The problems facing our country are so apparent.

But like so many Southerners and Northerners in the prelude to The Civil War, most Americans are blind to the bloody carnage that is threatening to explode in their faces as the country careens into the current perilous corner of the nation's history.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -President Abraham Lincoln

Lax gun laws enable lone wolf terrorists

A shooting victim is carried away from the Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016. With 49 killed and more than 50 wounded, the Islamic-extremist terrorist attack in Orlando, Fla., is the most deadly mass shooting in U.S. history.

People on U.S. terrorist watch lists can buy military-style assault rifles.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the most deadly Islamic-extremist terrorist incidents on U.S. soil have been carried out with semi-automatic firearms. These "lone wolf" attacks--including the mass shootings in Santa Barbara, Calif., and Fort Hood in Texas--have emerged as a the primary Islamic-extremist terrorist threat in the United States.

Unless there are commonsense limits on gun ownership, terrorist mass shootings and other gun violence carnage will continue to rage across the country.

Muhammad Ali: Great quotes from The Greatest

In 2002, legendary boxer Muhammad Ali visits Kabul, Afghanistan, as a peace ambassador for the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Food Program. Ali died June 3 at a hospital in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 74. /Reuters photo by Radu Sigheti

Muhammad Ali is the greatest boxer of all time, but he also was a master of the English language. Here are some of his all-time greatest quotes:

"I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'"

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

"I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want."

"If you even dream of beating me you better wake up and apologize."

"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even."

"Age is whatever you think it is. You are as old as you think you are."

"Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change."

"I've made my share of mistakes along the way; but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven't lived in vain."

"To be able to give away riches is mandatory if you wish to possess them. This is the only way you will be truly rich."

"No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room."

"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."

"The man who has no imagination has no wings."

"I am an ordinary man who worked hard to develop the talent that I was given. I believed in myself, and I believe in the goodness of others."

"My principles are more important than the money or my title."

"I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world."

Help Veterans With Mental Wounds of War

Six years ago, drinking alone late at night in his Hampton, N.H., apartment, Amy Spec. Christopher Journeau took his own life. He suffered from PTSD linked to his combat duty during the Iraq War. /Family photo

Help a veteran surmount the psychological impacts of war. Read the PTSD-tinged story of Army Spec. Christopher Journeau.

Call for help: 800-273-8255

Reminder of humanity's evolutionary infancy

More than a dozen skinned cats hang on hooks at the Yulin Meat Festival in China. The People's Republic also has a massive dog meat trade, with as many as 20 million canines slaughtered annually for human consumption. /Reuters image

On the timeline of human evolution, civilization has existed for the blink of an eye.

There may be no better illustration of humanity's relatively brief development of civilization than the Yulin Meat Festival. Humane Society International has documented this horrific celebration of the dog-and-cat meat trade in China. But if anyone wants to confirm the existence of this extreme barbarism in the 21st century, all they have to do is Google search images of the festival. Warning: These photographs are unbearable if you have a semblance of a conscience.

Depending on which distant ancestral species you pick for homo sapiens, the human brain is rooted in an evolutionary timeline about 3 million years deep. Humans have been developing the trappings of civilization such as written language for about 40,000 years, which is a figure that generously considers cave paintings as a form of written communication. In other words, humanity and its bipedal forebearers have spent 99 percent of their time on Earth as savages.

The mass slaughter of humans' primary animal companions in China--and the rest of humanity turning a blind eye to the practice--reflects who we are as a species. It is not a pretty picture.

Reminder of humanity's place in the universe

Astronomer Carl Sagan was one of the most influential scientists and teachers of the 20th century. Millions of people around the world gained insights about the universe, and their place in it, from his television series "Cosmos" on PBS. /NASA image

Genius, compassion and humility are the keys to survival for humanity in the Atomic Era.

Carl Sagan possessed these priceless qualities in enormous quantities. In 1990, he urged NASA to spin Voyager I around to capture an image of Earth before the spacecraft left our solar system. That image of the "pale blue dot" where humanity will stand or fall inspired Sagan's genius, compassion and humility to reach astronomical proportions.

Sagan's words in the three-minute video below pack more wisdom than most of us will accumulate in a lifetime.

Video adapted from "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey"

Trump vs. protesters: Playing with political fire

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump challenges protesters at a political rally in Kansas City, Mo., on March 12. /Image via Right Side Network

In America, violence and presidential politics make a volatile mixture that bodes ill for the party linked to the brutality, and the country.

The violent response to protesters at Donald Trump's campaign event yesterday in Chicago is a potential history-repeating-itself moment for the Republican presidential candidate. The last time political protesters in Chicago were beaten in front of a national television audience was during the 1968 Democratic Party presidential convention, when Mayor Richard J. Daley unleashed a police riot that injured at least 100 protesters and 100 officers.

In November 1968, Republican Richard Nixon narrowly defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey in the popular vote, 43 percent to 42 percent. Destined for impeachment and disgrace, Nixon posted a much more comfortable margin of victory in the decisive Electoral College vote, 55 percent to 35 percent.

Chicago police officers beat and detain political protesters during the 1968 Democratic Party presidential convention. /Image via unretiring.blogspot.com

Black Lagoon: Sudbury Reservoir tributary tainted

PHOTO GALLERY: The Black Lagoon is a contaminated man-made pond near the corner of Maple and Walker streets in Marlborough, Mass. For more than a century, petroleum-product spills have plagued properties on a mile-long stretch of Maple Street. Toxins from those spills now rest uneasily in The Black Lagoon, mingled in massive silt deposits that pose a threat to the nearby Sudbury Reservoir. Read MetroWest Daily News Special Report

MOTHER OF THE BLACK LAGOON: A state Department of Conservation and Recreation-owned pond along Maple and Framingham streets in Marlborough is filled with garbage and oil-tainted silt. This squalid swamp feeds another contaminated DCR pond about 1,000 feet downstream off Walker Street. /Allan Jung photo for MetroWest Daily News

PETROLEUM POLLUTION: An oily sheen floats on top of water in a drainage ditch at a culvert across from 299 Maple St. This ditch drains into a 6-foot-wide concrete aqueduct that flows to the DCR-owned pond off Walker Street. /Allan Jung photo for MetroWest Daily News

DOUBLE THREAT: Two DCR-owned ponds in the Maple Street neighborhood of Marlborough are filled with oil-tainted silt. The Sudbury Reservoir is about a quarter-mile downstream of The Black Lagoon, which is contained behind an aging concrete-and-earthen dam off Walker Street. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration

NEIGHBORHOOD BLIGHT: Homeowners who live next to The Black Lagoon, including Dionysi McGowan of Walker Street, are calling for DCR to cleanup the pond. About three years ago, McGowan says he saw an alarming oil slick in the pond. "It was every color of the rainbow," he said. /Allan Jung photo for MetroWest Daily News

OIL SPILL LEGACY: An oily substance bleeds from a silt deposit in the center of The Black Lagoon. Most of the volume of the football-field-sized pond is filled with silt. /Christopher Cheney photo

SPILLWAY SPILL: Oil sludge oozes from The Black Lagoon dam's floodgate spillway into the dry floor of the main spillway. /Allan Jung photo for MetroWest Daily News

CONTAMINATION CONDUIT: A quarter-mile-long concrete aqueduct connects The Black Lagoon dam's main spillway to the Sudbury Reservoir. The terminus point of the main-spillway aqueduct pours into the reservoir in Southborough, Mass. /Christopher Cheney photos

TAINTED TERMINUS: The Black Lagoon dam's main-spillway aqueduct, left, and floodgate-spillway drainage stream converge at an inlet to the Sudbury Reservoir that is dotted with silt deposits. /Christopher Cheney photo

PROBLEMATIC PIPE: An oily sheen floats on water at an outflow pipe in the concrete aqueduct connecting The Black Lagoon to the Sudbury Reservoir, which is about 1,000 feet downstream. /Christopher Cheney photo 

POLLUTED RESOURCE: Garbage and other debris float in the Sudbury Reservoir. /Allan Jung photo for MetroWest Daily News

GOING WITH THE FLOW: For decades, tainted silt has been flowing into the Sudbury Reservoir from The Black Lagoon. /Google Earth image and bullworkofdemocracy illustration