Public Doesn’t Support Trump Actions On Obamacare

found online by Raymond

 
From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

The effect of those orders is that many Americans will lose their insurance, and the others will see their insurance costs rise sharply. Trump’s hatred of Obama (and the insurance plan he passed) has caused him to make the health insurance system in the U.S. significantly worse. Now, he must own the failing system — failing mainly due to his own actions.

And he may have hurt his party in next year’s elections. The public didn’t want his actions.

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The Ethical Knob: Ethically-Customizable Automated Vehicles

found online by Raymond

 
From The Journal of Improbable Research:

Vehicles could be fitted with what they call an ‘Ethical Knob’, under a proposal by Giuseppe Contissa, Francesca Lagioia, and Giovanni Sartor of CIRSFID, at the University of Bologna, Italy. The device might help clarify ethical/legal issues with Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). What for example, should a self-driving car do when it ‘realizes’ (in an impending crash situation) that it could swerve to avoid a large group of pedestrians but in the process kill the driver and passengers?

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David Brooks Says Trump’s Sabotage Might Turn Out Great For Everybody

found online by Raymond

 
From driftglass:

Every now and then a nondescript little man from Wingnut Central Command shows up at Mr. David Brooks’ door to remind him that it is time once again to renew his Conservative credentials. It is a brief but critical ritual upon which Mr. Brooks’ entire professional life literally depends. After all, it isn’t the word “American” or “author” or “political and cultural commentator” in his CV that The New York Times shells out crazy money to slap on it’s op-ed page every week:

David Brooks is a conservative American author as well as political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times.

It’s the word “conservative” they’re renting. It is the word “conservative” which has given Mr. Brooks entree to the corridors of power, gigs on NPR, PBS and NBC, book contracts and a job-for-life at the NYT which pays for Mr. Brooks’ various hearths and homes and travels and book tours.

So every now and then he needs to get his “conservative” card punched again. And of course, given the nature of Conservatism, this means he needs to say something horrible and blatantly untrue in some public forum somewhere. This time around, the forum was The News Hour, and the horrible and blatantly untrue thing was this:

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Danger, Corruption, Rape, Intelligentest, Trump the Symptom, Eminem

Saturday Rate of Exchange:
Should Gun Manufacturers be Liable?

from Raymond

 

Last week’s discussion of Gun Safety produced followup dialogue that ended with some unity of opinion.

Ryan begins with what we thought might become a provocative defense of firearms manufacturers.

From Ryan:

I occasionally hear talk of wanting to hold gun manufacturers liable for the harm that others cause with their products. I don’t know how widespread this desire is, but it’s troubling for the same reason that it would be troubling to hold knife manufacturers responsible for what people do with their knives, car manufacturers responsible for what people do with their cars, drill manufacturers responsible for what people do with their drills, farmers responsible for what people do with their food (one could feed peanuts to someone fatally allergic to them, after all), etc. This sort of policy goes against basic moral principles regarding responsibility. It even comes across as a dishonest attempt to ban guns indirectly by putting gun manufacturers out of business.

Dave Dubya can often be counted on to vigorously advance the progressive side of debate.

Dave Dubya:

Heroin dealers should be held accountable for selling heroin, not for what junkies do.

Gun manufacturers shouldn’t be held accountable for what people do with the guns. They should be accountable for manufacturing and selling weapons of war to civilians. As long as these weapons are legal and pumped into the population more deaths will result. It has become a clear and present danger to the public.

This is why law makers need to be held accountable for the deaths resulting from effectively legalizing weapons of war for civilians.

I won’t hold my breath for accountability on that front.

The propaganda of the NRA and GOP has been more effective than the message of the opposition. While opponents of such weapons proliferation employ facts, reason, and compassion, the NRA and GOP simply wrap the issue in fear, the flag, and freedom.

We know who always wins with this strategy.

We may always be free to salute the flag and invoke freedom, but we will never be free from the threat of mass killings by enraged Militia Amendment enthusiasts. Even the gun-totin’ Good Guys were terrorized and helpless in Vegas.

We will always live under the gun in the “land of the free”.

Ryan reacts, as he often does, with a reasonable exploration of an apparently opposing opinion.

From Ryan:

You clearly don’t support the position I described, so I don’t have much to say in response. But I am curious about how you define “weapons of war” and thereby distinguish them from other guns. What factors come into play besides rate of fire?

But disagreement fades.

Dave Dubya:

I’m not sure where we disagree. I thought I was expanding on your position that gun manufacturers shouldn’t be held accountable for what people do with the guns.

They are operating within the law, therefor I say lawmakers are ultimately accountable.

Both rate of fire and volume of fire are the factors. Bayonets used to be a factor but are antiquated and not relevant in mass killings.

Machine guns are weapons of war. Automatic rifles, essentially machine guns, are weapons of war. They are intended to be effective human-killing machines. The M16 was developed as a weapon of war. An AR15 is essentially the same rifle, and is easily converted into an automatic rifle, thus a weapon of war.

Magazines holding 30 or more rounds are also features of weapons of war.

These weapons are not used for hunting or needed for self defense.

It is not a society’s duty to keep gun manufacturers in business. Their duty is to public safety and public health. Proliferation of weapons and their destruction of life is very much a public safety/public health issue.

Humans are far too often not emotionally stable or morally grounded enough to have such weapons of war.

Confiscation is out of the question, but opening the floodgates wider is not the solution.

And there is peace in the valley.

From Ryan:

There’s no disagreement.

Dave Dubya can often be found at Freedom Rants. Ryan often joins with Dave and other friends of the blog to provide insight – occasionally combined with a bit of heat.

Have a safe weekend.

Everywhere and Nobody Sees It

found online by Raymond

 
From Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged:

I don’t really follow Hollywood stuff, other than watching movies based on comic books or that have other genre appeal to me. I guess I knew/didn’t know there were rumors about Harvey Weinstein because I read Defamer, but that kind of gossipy know/didn’t know state isn’t the same as thinking a person is a predator, because know/didn’t know is the Schrodinger’s Cat of pervert. I might not, based on this information, be alone with a person or would tell a friend not to be alone with that one in a “thing in your teeth” or “toilet paper on your shoe” kind of way, but I wouldn’t necessarily say “This is a guy who needs to straight up be locked up”. I’m not the world’s biggest carceral state backer in the first place, but also, there’s a benefit of the doubt we give men with that reputation, after all. That lady-killer shit. That pimp player. You just don’t exactly know. Do they force themselves, or just have the kind of charm money definitely might/could buy?

The Ronan Farrow investigation about Harvey Weinstein, on the other hand, is the confirmation of rumors that basically doesn’t happen with situational abusers like this often enough. It’s like what happened with Bill Cosby, where there were just too many stories–eventually, after a kind of floodgate opened. Or Roger Ailes. Or Donald Trump, if he didn’t somehow get elected president.

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