There does not appear to me to be the same kind of effort on the part of law enforcement to indict and incarcerate those responsible at GM then there are to indict and incarcerate Dzhokhar.

Neither is there a similar fervor on the part of the media.

It just got my attention this morning during the NPR obituary...rarely hear those towns mentioned. and made me wonder about all the other lives there and how chance determines so much.

On September l, 2013, President Obama was ready to bomb Syria with or without Congressional approval "to punish and send a message" to  Bashar Assad for use of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war.  Secretary Kerry re-assured the nation that the bomb would be "unbelievably small", but the President reminded the nation and world that the "US military does not do pinpricks."   This was the debate: the size of the bomb. (Sort of like parents  telling children that we are having hot dogs; your choice is mustard or catsup, but we are having hot dogs so get over it.)

September 9, 2013,  President Obama changed course and engaged with Russia to arrive at "something."  But, of course, we needed a credible threat of military pressure to get what we wanted.  

Like Inhofe wasn't enough?

"Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill Monday that would allow regulated electric utilities to establish a new customer class for users of rooftop solar panels or small wind turbines.
In signing Senate Bill 1456, Fallin also took the rare step of issuing an executive order directing its implementation."

The Obama administration is beginning an aggressive new effort to foster equity in criminal sentencing by considering clemency requests from as many as thousands of federal inmates serving time for drug offenses, officials said Monday.

The initiative, which amounts to an unprecedented campaign to free non­violent offenders, will begin immediately and continue over the next two years, officials said. The Justice Department said it expects to reassign dozens of lawyers to its understaffed pardons office to handle the requests from inmates.

"Once these reforms go into effect, we expect to receive thousands of additional applications for clemency," Holder said. "And we at the Department of Justice will meet this need by assigning potentially dozens of lawyers -- with backgrounds in both prosecution and defense -- to review applications and provide the rigorous scrutiny that all clemency applications require."

White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler said Obama has directed the department to improve its process for clemency recommendations and try to recruit more applicants from the federal prison population of low-level drug offenders.

"When a worthy candidate runs out of other options," she said, "the president has the power to correct an injustice that no one else has."

But it's not. Since the 1970s, 33 states have created Putative Father Registries, designed as a way to link unmarried men to the mother of their child. States expect men to report--voluntarily and honestly--information about all their sexual partners; otherwise, they forfeit their right to be contacted if a partner pursues adoption. The registry is not a petition for custody or a determination of paternity--only a right to notification. Without registry, the wishes of the biological father are irrelevant.

SNIP

State governments see this as the simple solution to the logistical problem of keeping track of unwed fathers. The Supreme Court agrees--in 1983, it ruled in Lehr v. Robertson that registering is as easy as "mailing a postcard." Most states also have free registration, so cost shouldn't prohibit any man from participating. So when a man fails to register and subsequently loses a child, courts uniformly respond, "Your loss."

But this system has some big flaws. For one thing, it's relatively unknown. In Florida, only 47 people registered in 2004, but there were 90,000 nonmarital babies born. And even for the few people who seem to be aware of their right to register, the process can be hard to navigate. Some states require men to indicate their partners' height, weight, social security number, and more. You had a one-night stand? Don't wait three days to call--better to register, and quick. New relationship? Verify her identity and get a social security number. Just moved in with your girlfriend? Bed, Bath, and Beyond isn't the only place you should register. As Michael Higdon, a law professor at the University of Tennessee has argued, the burdens of registering are rooted in suspicion and mistrust. `Lest the mother get out of his sight," he writes, "nonmarital fathers are being sent the message...to keep tabs on where she is at all times."