Prevent school shootings! Main Stream Media must report real news.

Maine Stream Media is obsessed with creating news about supply shortages, but without proof of a life or death crises resulting from some shipping delays. Yet, the news about the horrible increase in deadly school shootings is ignored!

Echo opinion - a research report by Jillian Peterson, published in the Montana newspaper Missoulian, and in The Conversation:

A vigil at LakePoint Community Church in Oxford, Mich. At least two students who were injured in the shooting remain in critical condition.Credit...Nick Hagen for The New York Times

What began as an ordinary Tuesday at Oxford High School in Oakland County, Michigan., was punctuated by the sound of gunfire as students settled in for fifth-period classes. A gunman had opened fire in a hallway. A 15-year-old student has since been charged with murder and terrorism in the attack, which killed four teenagers and wounded seven other people, including a 47-year-old teacher.

At least two of the injured students, ranged in age from 14 to 17, remained in critical condition on Wednesday (Dec. 1st).

Echo research opinion:  Whenever a school shooting takes place like the tragedy at Oxford High School in suburban Detroit on November 30, 2021, it is typically followed by a familiar chorus of questions.

• How could such a thing happen?
• Why doesn’t the government do more to stop these shootings from occurring?

Those questions are even more urgent in light of the fact that the shooting at Oxford High School was one of 222, school shootings in 2021, an all-time high, according to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s K-12 School Shooting Database. 

That’s over 100 more school shootings in 2021 than in 2019 or 2018, respectively the second- and third-worst years on record.

In the Oxford High School case, a 15-year-old boy armed with a semiautomatic handgun is accused of killing four students, and injuring six others and a teacher.

As shown in our 2021 book, “The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic,” school mass shooters tend to be current or former students of the school. They are almost always in crisis of some sort before their attack, as indicated by a noticeable change in behavior from usual. They often are inspired by other school shooters, and they also tend to leak their plans for violence in advance to their peers.

And school shooters usually get their guns from family and friends who failed to store them safely and securely.

News reports suggest a lot of this holds true for the Oxford High School shooter. For instance, the suspect’s father allegedly purchased the handgun used in the shooting just four days prior. The shooter reportedly exhibited “concerning” behavior at school and posted pictures of the gun alongside threats of violence on social media.

The question now is how to translate these findings into policy and practice in order to prevent the next school shooting.

Trouble from the start

The data we use to track school shootings is a comprehensive database that includes information on “each and every instance a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time of day, or day of week” going back to 1970.

Working with its co-creator, David Riedman, a record 151 school shooting threats were recorded in the “back-to-school” month of September 2021, up from a three-year average of 29. Actual school shootings also more than doubled during September 2021 compared with the same month in previous years.

There were 55 school shootings in September 2021, up from 24 in September 2020 and 14 in September 2019. But the school carnage began well before the 2021 school year got underway for most students, as evidenced in the Aug. 13 fatal shooting of 13-year-old Bennie Hargrove at Washington Middle School in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

These trends are part of an overall rise in shootings and murders in 2020, and 2021, tied in part to record gun sales. More guns in more hands increases the likelihood that a firearm will find its way into a school.

Local responses: Schools are struggling to respond to the overwhelming number of shootings and shooting threats. There have been a staggering 30 shootings just at high school football games so far this year.

A “State of Emergency” meeting was held after nine teens were shot in two separate shootings in Aurora, Colorado, in November 2021. Public schools in the area are prohibiting students from leaving for lunch in an effort to keep them safe.

One school in Phoenix, Arizona, banned backpacks and food deliveries after a student was shot in the bathroom on Nov. 29. The Newburgh Enlarged City School District in New York State offered remote learning following two separate shooting incidents near its schools on Nov. 22. Schools across the country are increasing safety measures, canceling classes, even using police escorts for students coming onto campus.

These localized responses stand in stark contrast to the national legislative action taken in Finland, Germany and other countries when they experienced deadly school shootings.

Response in the United Kingdom:

Twenty-five years ago, in March 1996, a gunman walked into Scotland’s Dunblane Primary School and opened fire, killing 16 children and a teacher. A successful campaign for gun regulation followed, laws were changed, handguns were banned and the United Kingdom hasn’t had a school shooting since.

Yet in America, active shooter drills to rehearse for a real shooting incident and armed guards to respond to them are the best children can hope for. There is a US$3 billion “homeroom security” industry, and some parents send their children to school wearing bulletproof backpacks.

Searching for solutions:

In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in November 2021, we searched public records on 170 mass shooters who killed four or more people from 1966 to 2019 for any communication of intent to do harm. That includes posting a threat on social media or telegraphing future violence to a loved one in person. We found that 79 mass shooters – nearly half of them – leaked their plans in advance. Communication was most common among school shooters and younger shooters. The fact it was most strongly associated with suicidal tendencies or attempts, as well as prior mental health counseling, suggests it may best be characterized as a cry for help.

Threats of violence circulated on campus before the Oxford High School shooting, with some students staying home out of an abundance of caution. There will be questions now about whether threats were disclosed to authorities and handled appropriately, in ways consistent with best practices on threat assessment or what we like to call “crisis response” systems. Our research is clear that all threats must be investigated and treated seriously as an opportunity for real intervention.

There are further implications from our research. If school shooters are nearly always students of the school, educators and others who work with them need training to identify a student in crisis and how to report something they see or hear indicative of violent intent.

Schools also need counselors, social workers and other resources so they can respond appropriately and holistically to students in crisis. This means not unduly punishing students with expulsion or criminal charges – things that could escalate the crisis or any grievance with the institution.

And for parents of school-age children, safe gun storage at home is paramount.

School shootings are not inevitable. They’re preventable. But practitioners and policymakers must act quickly because each school shooting feeds the cycle for the next one, causing harm far beyond that which is measured in lives lost. We believe the steps outlined above can help address that harm, promoting school security while safeguarding student well-being.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/school-shootings-are-at-a-record-high-this-year-but-they-can-be-prevented-173027.

James Densley
Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University
Jillian Peterson
Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University

American fear culture caused by guns

Keeping track of gun death incidents at this link*

2 killed at Central Michigan University, gunman 'armed and dangerous' still at large

Reported by Lucia I. Suarez Sang in ClinkOn Detroit

Students at Central Michigan University received text alerts this morning reporting shots had been fired on the fourth floor of Campbell Hall, an on-campus dormitory.

9&10 News reports students are advised to avoid the area. The subject is still at large, but further details are not available. 

All Mount Pleasant schools are currently on lock down at this time. 

The CMU's College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences is advising students to "hide and stay alert." 

A manhunt has been underway for a gunman who fatally shot two people inside a Michigan university dorm building early Friday morning. 

Mount Pleasant officials are searching for James Eric Davis Jr.
*Although a "mass gun violence shooting" is supposed to be defined as four people killed not counting the shooter, this is the roster of people killed by guns since March 1, 2018 in just one two days, counting deaths in Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Indiana, Louisiana, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, Rhode Island and New Mexico.

This counts as a mass shooting when all 19 deaths reported in this list are totaled.

• March 2, 2018 Florida Vero Beach 200 block of Mallard Rd
• March 2, 2018 North Carolina Kings Mountain Canterbury Rd
• March 2, 2018 Michigan Mount Pleasant 1200 S Franklin St
• March 2, 2018 Indiana Lafayette 900 Virginia St
• March 2, 2018 Indiana Indianapolis 800 Birch Ave
• March 2, 2018 Louisiana Baton Rouge 5700 block of St. Gerard Ave
• March 1, 2018 Ohio Columbus 1500 block of Elaine Rd
• March 1, 2018 Iowa Cresco 700 S Elm St
• March 1, 2018 Virginia Sandston I-64 and S Airport Dr

S Brandon Ave

• March 1, 2018 Louisiana Lake Charles 2000 block of Medora Street
• March 1, 2018 Louisiana Lafayette 800 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive
• March 1, 2018 Louisiana Metairie 4800 block of Loveland Street
• March 1, 2018 Louisiana New Iberia 900 block of Mississippi Street
• March 1, 2018 Rhode Island Providence 208 Jewett St
• March 1, 2018 New Mexico Albuquerque 601 86th St SW

Americans and our treasured children are living in a culture of fear, caused by guns. All gun violence is preventable.

Republicans need Yoga class to learn civility

At least, practicing Yoga has some purposeful outcomes. Republicans have yet to find a purpose in this 2016 presidential election year.

Yoga is preferable to the political street fights witnessed in the Republican implosions

In Thursday night's Republican debate "slug fest", comic relief broke the rising tensions between candidates Senator Ted Cruz and the street fighter Donald Trump.  At one point, Senator Rubio asked if he could interrupt the "yoga class" when the Evangelical's darling Cruz and the anti-establishment GOP candidate Trump were advising each other about anger control."When they're done with yoga, can I answer a question?", Rubio quipped. Indeed, this light moment might have been the only substance in the political street fight. In fact, the entire Republican party might consider hosting a weekend yoga retreat!

In fact, Politico reports how the Grumpy Obstructionist Party (GOP) is now engaged in political civil war.

With Donald Trump barreling toward the 2016 nomination, despite an establishment desperate to stop him, the Republican Party is now in open conflict, reports Glenn Thrush and Alex Isenstadt.

On Super Tuesday primary day, a cocky Donald Trump vanquished the Republican establishment by winning the Southern states where the idea had been to lock up the nomination and laser beam focus on winning against the Democrats.  Well, a Yoga excercise would've been a better strategy because instead of creating calm, focus, purpose and resolve in the election, the Super Tuesday primaries have, instead, fractured the Republican party.

Therefore, on "Payback Thursday", two days after the implosion of Super Tuesday, the Republican establishment mounted a serious counterattack that undercut Trump’s chances in November and pushed the party into open civil war.

Politico continues:  Telling his fans “We’ll have so much winning, you’ll get bored with winning” is a bombastic staple of Trump’s stump speech – he repeated it during a rally in Maine on Thursday – but his historic winning streak has created an intense and increasingly coordinated backlash against his candidacy, one aimed at undoing what the GOP’s fed-up voters have done in recent primaries.

“The party will not fracture but will likely splinter,” says former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, a senior party strategist. “The question is: How big will the piece that splinters off actually be?”

Matt Dowd, George W. Bush’s chief strategist in 2004, cast the day’s events in equally dramatic terms. “I think the GOP as a national party will have to be reconstituted,” he said. “There doesn't seem a good way to put this all together. If Trump is the nominee, there will be a third-party establishment conservative running. If he gets taken out, he will run.”

A winner like Trump who enjoys a commanding lead this late in the nominating process should be transitioning to a general-election strategy against his likely opponent Hillary Clinton. Trump wants to, but he can’t. He tried to make that pivot this week, releasing his health care plan and defending Planned Parenthood, but was forced to battle a growing insurrection in his own ranks – led by the party’s 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who labeled him “a fraud” and “a phony” who represented “a brand of anger that has led other nations into the abyss.”Obviously, Donald Trump is a genious at capturing every news cycle, so in a rambling, often hilarious, often savage, often defensive 50-minute speech carried live by the cable networks, Trump dismissed Romney as a “failed candidate” who “was begging for my endorsement” in 2012.

“I could have said, ‘Mitt, drop to your knees,’” added Trump in a crass wisecrack that had his audience hooting in Portland, Maine.
(Unfortunately, Donald Trump was introduced in Portland by the state's equally divisive Governor Paul LePage.)

Still, his signature smirk masked a front-runner at an inflection point: Trump has already shown an ability to rhetorically dismantle any single politician who opposes him – including Romney, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. But those individual rivals, like insurgents liberated from the constraints of conventional warfare by defeat, are aligning en masse to oppose his candidacy, less constrained by any one candidate’s desire to win than by a common goal of disposing of a man they deem unfit to lead their party.

Several senior GOP operatives who spoke to POLITICO on condition of anonymity believe that the remaining non-Trump candidates – Cruz, Rubio and John Kasich – are even coordinating their anti-Trump attacks ....beginning with the Detroit street fight debate, in hopes of denying the 1,237 delegates Trump needs to secure the nomination. From there, they say, it would be every man for himself at a contested convention.

“I think camps are coming to the realization that if no one is going to drop, at least let’s not hurt each other and keep him under the 1,237,” said one veteran Republican strategist.

On Thursday cracks were appearing up and down the party’s embattled superstructure. Next month, the Republican Jewish Coalition, a group of powerful GOP donors, will gather at the Venetian Hotel and Resort, which is owned by Republican benefactor and RJC board member Sheldon Adelson, for their annual spring meeting. Attendees are likely to vent their disgust with Trump, who has been slow to disavow support by white supremacist groups. And at the meeting, according to two sources familiar with its planning, the RJC is expected to take up a pressing question: whether to even support Trump if he’s the GOP nominee.

Other strategists tasked with running congressional and gubernatorial races are deep into discussion about what impact a Trump nomination would have on contests up and down the ballot. Some outside groups have already begun polling the question.


Several senior Republicans told POLITICO that many Republican candidates would be forced to run against Trump, especially those running for non-federal offices such as governor. For House and Senate candidates, however, the task will be far more difficult, a problem Speaker Paul Ryan – Romney’s 2012 running mate – and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are known to be grappling with.

GOP legislative candidates would have to walk a shaky tightrope – embracing some of the populist positions that have made Trump popular, while distancing themselves from his flip-flops and most outrageous pronouncements. Trying to run away from Trump entirely, some top party strategists argue, won’t work. They compare a Trump autumn to the no-win situation Democrats faced in 2010 and 2014, when House and Senate candidates – like Arkansas’ doomed duo Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor – tried to run away from Obama, only to lose support from the party’s base of progressives and African Americans.

Within the GOP, there are two emerging Hail-Mary theories about how to deprive Trump of the delegates he needs to seal the deal, according to senior Republicans interviewed by POLITICO.

Theory No. 1 is that two of the three remaining Trump rivals drop out and unite behind the lone surviving contender, allowing that person take on the New York businessman, mano à mano. Proponents of this theory note that Trump has yet to win an outright majority of the vote in any of the states that have held nominating contests so far – suggesting that the anti-Trump vote may be larger.

Theory No. 2 is that the three Trump rivals should stay in the race to collectively rob him of delegates in upcoming primary states, while attacking him as a group.

Proponents of this theory – which Romney hinted at in his speech today – argue that it can work if Kasich wins Ohio, Rubio wins Florida, and Cruz wins some upcoming Southern states and Midwestern caucuses. The key to this strategy is halting Trump in Florida, a winner-take-all delegate honey-pot where polls show the businessman leading Rubio. Three anti-Trump groups – Club for Growth, Our Principles PAC, and American Future Fund – have laid down TV buys in the state over the last few days. The three groups have begun back-channel conversations – coordinating their plans and messages.

All this scheming comes against a backdrop of accelerating criticism of Trump from all quarters of the party. The GOP’s 2008 nominee John McCain – another Trump target – stepped up his criticisms of the front-runner, endorsing Romney’s view that Trump’s inexperience and shoot-from-the-hip style could endanger the country’s already-perilous national security situation. The Arizona Republican endorsed a Wednesday letter, co-signed by former GOP defense officials, warning against Trump’s “vision of American influence and power in the world,” which they said “swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence.” Referring to the missive, McCain dinged Trump for making “uninformed and indeed dangerous statements.”

A growing number of prominent leaders – including Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse – are emerging to say they will not support Trump under any circumstances. They are joined by an increasingly agitated of group conservative intellectuals who have taken to the pages of National Review and, more recently, Twitter, to form a “Never Trump” movement.

No matter what happens, a number of senior party strategists are convinced that there will be a fight of some kind at the convention. With so much resistance to him from the establishment, a confrontation of some kind is inevitable – and there are several hypothetical scenarios, including 11th-hour rules changes, that insurgents could use to delay Trump’s nomination.

Others don’t buy it. For all the fretting now, they argue, the GOP has too much at stake – and predict that most of the party will ultimately unite against their common enemy, the hated Hillary Clinton.

“In the end, it pulls itself together to win, and that’s what’s going to happen in the convention and after,” said New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox.

And some senior former Romney aides questioned their old boss’s call to arms. “This is a process that is going to have to work itself out,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s senior campaign adviser four years ago. “For all his faults, Trump is conservative in many of his positions – in his tax policy, his desire for a strong military and his plans to secure the border. Most importantly, Trump has promised to appoint a Supreme Court justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia to fill the current vacancy on the court.”

“I don’t know of any conservative who wants to hand the White House to Hillary Clinton so that she can remake the court in her own image.”

Scott Reed, chief political strategist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – a bastion of the GOP establishment – says Trump’s fate is in his hands, noting the developer’s conciliatory speech after the polls closed on Tuesday.

“Trump needs to continue his election-night message of unity,” Reed said.

But anger at the anger-impelled front-runner seems to be intensifying – and Trump on Thursday reiterated his intention mot to “back down” from any fight.

Romney’s speech – unprecedented in recent Republican history – came in the context of a general establishment backlash but it reflected his personal feelings about the man who seems likely to succeed him as the Republican nominee. He spent months stewing in anger over Trump. He’s been calling top aides, sounding them out on his ideas and telling them he’s been anxious about the businessman’s rise.

In the weeks leading up to the address, Romney’s anger hardened as he watched Trump rack up primary wins across the country – and his disappointment at Rubio’s inability to close the sale with voters grew.

Asked on the morning after Super Tuesday how Romney was feeling about Trump’s big night, one of the governor’s top associates responded: “Not happy.”

(No kidding? Oh well......try yoga.....)

At the end of every Morning Joe segment on MSNBC, the pundits ask, "What have we learned today?"  Perhaps, post Detroit, the Republicans learned about the potential advantages of practicing yoga, rather than political professional wrestling. Otherwise, there has been no identifiable purpose to the GOP presidential primary.

News about Puerto Rico must be more relevant than Greece - who knew?

Just how big a deal is this?

It seems to me, the US Stock Market uses the debt crises in Greece as a crutch, on which to blame the fluctuations in the market. Frankly, I'm sick of hearing about Greece. In my opinion, Greece is irrelevant. Nevertheless, Wall Street investors will use anything to liquidate their assets.

However! Puerto Rico is relevant. Puerto Rico is a US territory and this island colony, says the Christian Science Monitor, is also in big fiscal trouble!  

Wow, So, while the main stream news is immersed in the Greece debt story, our US-Puerto Rico problem is looming on the USA's back door.

In my opinion, our US stock market fluctuations are easier to understand if they somehow relate to Puerto Rico's fiscal crises, than the volatility attributed to Greece.

Puerto Rico’s governor says that the territory’s $72 billion in public debt is unpayable (OMG!) and that large-scale restructuring of the debt is required.

"There is no other option. I would love to have an easier option. This is not politics, this is math," Gov. Alejandro García Padilla told The New York Times.

The comments by the island’s chief executive came as a report was released Monday about Puerto Rico’s economy, laying out a grim picture of the island’s financial health. The report suggests, among other things, debt restructuring through bond exchanges.

No US state has had a large-scale debt restructuring of this type in recent memory. "There is no U.S. precedent for anything of this scale or scope," according to the report, whose lead author is Anne Krueger, a former chief economist at the World Bank.W

While the debt restructuring would be unprecedented, some analysts are taking a measured approach to the situation.

Jose Villamil, a former United Nations consultant and CEO of an economic and planning consulting firm, says he believes that the news will have only a limited effect on financial markets, because it has been known for some time that Puerto Rico has been heading for debt restructuring or default.

"The last four administrations have kicked the can down the road," Mr. Villamil told theAssociated Press.

But the situation is now critical. "At this point, there is no more can to kick. So we're going to take some very strict measures and some very profound measures. It's going to hurt, but there's no way out," Villamil said, according to AP.

News of the crisis comes amid the high-profile economic challenges of Greece. That country’s government is scrambling to prevent a financial collapse.

In the United States in the past decade, a number of municipalities have defaulted – most notably Detroit in 2013. But even in comparison with Detroit, which holds the record for the largest US municipal bankruptcy, Puerto Rico has debt that is staggering. Its bonds have a face value roughly eight times that of Detroit’s bonds.

In his interview with the Times, Governor García Padilla said Puerto Rico would seek concessions from possibly all its creditors, which could take the form of debt deferments or extensions of payment timetables. He called on creditors to "share the sacrifices" of the island’s residents, who have shouldered some of the burden through tax increases.

Additionally challenging for Puerto Ricans, the island's constitution puts its commitment to pay creditors over all other concerns, including pension payments.

"This is a daunting agenda politically, legally, and organizationally," the so-called Krueger report states. "It is also an urgent one: the government’s cash balances can evaporate in the face of delays, reducing the room for maneuver and intensifying the crisis."

Puerto Rico’s problems started in the mid-2000s, when a federal tax subsidy for manufacturing on the island expired, leading to an exodus of employers and workers for the mainland.

Beset with issues like unemployment and revenue shortfalls, the government took to borrowing to balance the budget, until Puerto Rico’s credit level was downgraded to junk status last year. In 2000, its debt was about 63 percent of gross national product, whereas this year, it is projected to be 100 percent of GNP, according to the Krueger report.

In a further challenge, Puerto Rico cannot legally file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection under US rules. The Kruger report looks to the federal government for help in dealing with this particular issue, calling on Congress to lift the exclusion of the island from the nation’s bankruptcy code.

(In my opinion, when Americans routinely become agitated about the needy number of people who, unfortunately, need income assistance, they should, instead, they should, rather, look to the problem of Puerto Rico.  I've maintained for decades- to no avail......the US must sell Puerto Rico! Do I hear a bid....?)

President Obama: optimism drives economic indicators as per NYTimes, David Brooks and Warren Buffett opinions

Like new growth after a forest fire, economic good news and sprouts of optimism are appearing like happy gnomes among dreary world stories consumed by terrorism and disastrous imagery.  

Billionaire philanthropist Warren Buffett said on MSNBC's Morning Joe, broadcast from Detroit, that a child born in the USA today is the most fortunate baby in the world, because of the opportunities available in our country.

"...United States is bucking a spate of weaker overseas growth with the euro zone and Japan slumping, and growth in China slowing as well." (Reuters September 26)

David Brooks is a surprising voice in the "snap out of it" undergrowth, to produce seedlings of what should become a patriotic movement to support the optimism. 

"In recent months, the public has been gripped by a 'mood of pessimism and fatalism,', he writes in a reprint of his column in The New York Times, published in October 3, 2014 issue of The Week.

The greatest era in human history  David Brooks

The New York Times

“Snap out of it,” said David Brooks. In recent months, the public has been gripped by “a mood of pessimism and fatalism,” with polls showing many Americans fear the country and the world are unraveling. While it’s true that Washington’s gridlock has created a worrisome “leadership crisis,” our sour despondency is unwarranted. This is an era of incredible progress and spreading affluence, with the nation’s cities brimming with intellectual, artistic, and entrepreneurial energy. Tolerance for and acceptance of people who differ from ourselves is at an all-time high, as a stimulating stew of diverse cultures now adds new flavors to the American melting pot. “We’re living in an era with the greatest reduction in global poverty ever—across Asia and Africa,” and while we obviously still have problems, they are less dire than the “civilization-threatening crises like World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, or the Cold War.” Even compared with the 1970s, which brought us stagflation, Watergate, and rising crime, “we are living in a golden age.” So please stop the hand-wringing. The sky is not falling. In fact, it’s mostly blue.

Even The New York Times is trying to stay ahead of the news, publishing a story about how President Obama will be claiming the credit for increased business spending, export growth and an economic surge.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy grew at its fastest pace in 2-1/2 years in the second quarter with all sectors contributing to the jump in output in a bullish signal for the remainder of the year.

The Commerce Department on Friday raised its estimate of growth in gross domestic product to a 4.6 percent annual rate from the 4.2 percent pace reported last month.

"It increases our confidence that strong growth is obtainable in the second half of this year," said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank in New York.

The United States is bucking a spate of weaker overseas growth with the euro zone and Japan slumping, and growth in China slowing as well.

With the U.S. economy firing on nearly all cylinders, traders are bracing for an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve next year. The dollar, which got a lift from the GDP data, has risen about 7 percent against a basket of major currencies since early July in anticipation.

The data also supported stocks, which were up marginally near midday, while prices for U.S. Treasury debt fell.

A faster pace of business spending and sturdier export growth than previously estimated were the two main factors behind the upward revision to U.S. GDP, which had its best growth performance since the fourth quarter of 2011.

Consumer spending growth was unrevised at a 2.5 percent rate as stronger healthcare outlays were offset by weakness in spending on recreation, other services and durable goods.

Household spending, however, is likely to accelerate, with another report on Friday showing consumer sentiment hitting a 14-month high in September.

BRISK DOMESTIC DEMAND

But the expansion in consumer spending, combined with strong business investment, was nevertheless enough to push domestic demand ahead at its fastest pace since 2010.

That suggests the economy's recovery is becoming more durable after output slumped at a 2.1 percent rate in the first quarter because of an unusually cold winter.

So far, data covering manufacturing, trade and housing suggest that much of the second quarter's momentum spilled over into the third quarter. Growth estimates for the July-September quarter range as high as a 3.5 percent pace.

When measured from the income side, the economy grew at a 5.2 percent pace during the second quarter, while corporate profits rose at their fastest pace in three years.

Business spending on equipment was raised to an 11.2 percent pace from a previously reported 10.7 percent rate. Businesses also invested more in nonresidential structures, such as gas drilling, as well as in research and development.

The trend likely persisted in the third quarter, with data on Thursday showing business orders for capital goods rose in August.

Though trade was a drag for a second consecutive quarter, export growth was raised to an 11.1 percent pace, the fastest since the fourth quarter of 2010, from a 10.1 percent rate.

The dollar's strength, however, could take some of the edge off of export growth in the months ahead.

"The recent appreciation in the dollar will continue and slow export growth in 2015 by driving relative prices for U.S. exports higher," said Doug Handler, chief economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Businesses accumulated $84.8 billion worth of inventory in the second quarter, contributing 1.42 percentage points to GDP growth. The relatively strong pace could result in inventories making no contribution to growth in the third quarter.
(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani,; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

Therefore, Fox New alert, let's hear some truth about President Obama's leadership, instead of propaganda designed to satisfy the hate hunger from right wing political zealots.

Of course, the growth  of truth isn't how right wing media enriches the political environment.  

David Brooks, Warren Buffett and The New York Times are a trilogy of optimism. Americans are uniquely optimistic people. It's time to nurture our patriotic clarion call towards optimism, rather than to fall like stricken timbers into darkness.