Mental health

Recent mass shootings have reminded us of just how much gun violence has surged since Covid. The record of 45,222 Americans dying from gun-related injuries in the first year of the pandemic could well be topped in 2022, with more than 12,000 fatally shot since the end of April. Many rightly condemn progressive district attorneys in cities for failing to condemn the increased bloodshed. Yet the uptick in violence has been uniform across the nation, plaguing rural counties as much as urban ones, which is why most psychological experts put the blame squarely on the emotional residue of lengthy Covid lockdowns.

This is a public service announcement from Cockburn: the mask mandates have got to go — for everyone’s health. Even America’s most progressive cities have lifted their face mask restrictions after the cresting of the first Omicron wave — but some of their denizens are hooked on the taste of government boot, and are going mad at the prospect of being weaned off it. Cockburn was sent a video by his nephew earlier this week showcasing this phenomenon: a masked Washington local cussing out unmasked teens at a DC Metro station. Masks are, for some unscientific reason, still required on public transport in the nation’s capital — despite not being needed in schools, gyms, stores, bars, restaurants…you get the picture.

Has Joe Biden gone loco over Ukraine? In Warsaw, Biden proclaimed of Russian president Vladimir Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” Biden also called Putin a "butcher." Then, in a meeting with the Polish president, Biden said the US regards NATO’s Article 5 as a “sacred commitment.” Biden called Warsaw a “sacred place” in the history of Europe and in “humankind’s unending search for freedom.” Biden went on to describe the conflict in Ukraine as "a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force.

In the past three weeks, two small communities in two Dairy Belt states have seen tragedy — and, of course, two very different media reactions. In Oxford, Michigan, Ethan Crumbley, a fifteen-year-old student, opened fire with a handgun at his high school on Tuesday. He killed four students and wounded eight and was taken into custody. After a brief search, both of Crumbley’s parents were arrested on manslaughter charges, for purchasing the firearm and gifting it to him. Ethan Crumbley has been charged with twenty-four different felonies including terrorism. Shortly before the shooting, a teacher identified disturbing signals in classroom, including his drawings depicting suicide, mass death, blood and firearms.

Delaware used to be Cale Boggs country, almost as much as Massachusetts belonged to the Kennedys. Boggs served as governor, congressman and twice as Delaware senator, so in late 1972, when he was seeking a third term, the race looked sewed up. But as summer turned to fall, his 28-point lead evaporated. Voters started paying attention to Boggs’s rival, a Democrat youngster with fire in his belly and a spring in his step. Anti-Boggs ads said his best days were behind him. According to his fresh-faced opponent, Boggs was a ‘helluva nice guy’ but, after decades in power, he had ‘lost that twinkle in his eyes’. On election day, Boggs lost by a margin of 3,000 votes. The people of Delaware sent to Washington a 30-year-old thruster named Joe Biden.