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NYU Prof. Gilligan: Way More Violence Under GOP Than Dems; Whistleblower Joe Carson Needs Your Help on White House Petition; Will Durst Has Debate Fatigue

James Gilligan, NYU Prof. of Psychiatry and author, Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others;  Joe Carson, engineer and whistleblower, asks you to sign White House petition; Will Durst is tired of Republican presidential debates, and, he sez,  so are the candidates.

Prof. Gilligan has analyzed homicide and suicide data since 1900, and finds 3 periods of marked increases to epidemic levels, all under Republican presidents;  the data also show measurable declines in violence under Democratic presidents.  Gilligan stresses that his observations are primarily about public health, yet his book and comments here are a searing indictment of Republican rule.  He employs the comparison of the top 1% to the 99% that’s been recently popularized by the Occupy movement, and he offers some profound thoughts about the role of shame in the worldview of many Republicans.  And he reports that rates of violence and incarceration are much higher in “red” states.  Prof. Gilligan promises a website here soon, with rich graphics to illustrate this analysis.

At 41:10, Joe Carson returns.  He’s a nuclear engineer with the US Dept. of Energy, and has “blown the whistle” on problems in his agency and still has his job–that’s rare.  He is asking for your support of his petition to the White House to address the 33-year failure to follow the 1978 reform of civil service that created the Merit Systems Protection Board.  It is designed to protect employees from Prohibited Personnel Practices, including whistleblowing.  Carson explains some of the details about how the 3-legged system is supposed to work, but inaction seems to be the only purpose of the MPSB.  He is fighting to change that, and asks you to support his White House petition.