u.s. politics: now guaranteed to contain no less than 35% u.s. political content

[Ormond]

8 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

That's all according to the brother of the shooter. 

 

Given that we know there was such a bank robber with the same fairly uncommon surname as the shooter who WAS on the FBI most wanted list and who was reported back then as having four children, I see absolutely no reason to doubt this particular bit of information. Why on earth would Stephen Paddock's brother want to claim such a connection at this time if it were not true?

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Fez said:

Oh I still think the odds are in favor of a big tax cut bill eventually passing. But the current plan is a tax *hike* on nearly 1/3rd of the middle class to further cut taxes for the top 5% (really top 1%); which is just nuts.

The preliminary outline of the bill is just astonishingly bad politics.  It is right up there with Trump promising better health care and then delivering a 30% cut to Medicaid instead. 

It's like one group wanted to do a Bush style-across the board tax cut funded by deficit spending, and then the other group said "we need to pay for some of that by eliminating deductions", so they compromised and included the deductions that middle class and upper middle class families use.  The result is this "tax cut" actually increases taxes on a lot of American families, and has only a tiny savings for most of the rest.  Just astonishingly bad politics and a completely mismanaged rollout. 

[Bonnot OG]

Just now, Ormond said:

Given that we know there was such a bank robber with the same fairly uncommon surname as the shooter who WAS on the FBI most wanted list and who was reported back then as having four children, I see absolutely no reason to doubt this particular bit of information. Why on earth would Stephen Paddock's brother want to claim such a connection at this time if it were not true?

I realize my wording made it seem like we should doubt the validity of the statement made by the brother, but it wasn't what I was getting at haha. 

 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

Hahahahahahahahahahaha!

Thanks for the laugh on a grim day!

It's also incorrect math; it's .01%, not .0001%. One in 10,000 Americans will be killed by a firearm this year.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

The preliminary outline of the bill is just astonishingly bad politics.  It is right up there with Trump promising better health care and then delivering a 30% cut to Medicaid instead. 

It's like one group wanted to do a Bush style-across the board tax cut funded by deficit spending, and then the other group said "we need to pay for some of that by eliminating deductions", so they compromised and included the deductions that middle class and upper middle class families use.  The result is this "tax cut" actually increases taxes on a lot of American families, and has only a tiny savings for most of the rest.  Just astonishingly bad politics and a completely mismanaged rollout. 

The only problem is that with a proposed 50% or better cut to corporate taxes, this piece of shit is going to have a fuckton of cash behind it. 

[Rippounet]

4 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's also incorrect math; it's .01%, not .0001%. One in 10,000 Americans will be killed by a firearm this year.

Isn't it closer to one in 20,000? Not trying to be an ass, just checking that I have the right numbers.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

The only problem is that with a proposed 50% or better cut to corporate taxes, this piece of shit is going to have a fuckton of cash behind it. 

Yes, there is a lot of money behind it, and I expect Republicans will pass some sort of corporate tax cut.  Doesn't change the fact that the rollout has been completely botched, they're making what should be relatively easy (passing a tax cut when Republicans control Congress + WH) and making it much harder. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Isn't it closer to one in 20,000? Not trying to be an ass, just checking that I have the right numbers.

30k people die each year in the US, there are a bit more than 300m people in the US. You might be thinking of excluding suicides, which is a significantly lower number - but still just as preventable. 

Also, this is a good read about the inevitability of more of these: two dark truths about Vegas.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

16 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I know that it is unlikely to reasonable gun control to suddenly appear around the country within the next year because of the Las Vegas shooting.

But to say it will NEVER happen is unduly pessimistic.

I thought Sandy Hook settled discussions on gun control for the next few generations. I admire your optimism nonetheless.

19 minutes ago, Ormond said:

As a 66 year old I don't expect to see major changes in national gun laws in the USA in my lifetime. But I think those of you now in your 20s will probably live to see it. But the only way this will happen is for those against the gun-affirming aspect of our present culture to consistently keep protesting it. The research shows the main way minorities change the minds of majorities is simply by being consistent and hanging in there for the long haul. 

Good ol' Moscovici.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

18 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

 Doesn't change the fact that the rollout has been completely botched, they're making what should be relatively easy (passing a tax cut when Republicans control Congress + WH) and making it much harder. 

Yeah, I don't know if you saw Paul Ryan on Face the Nation yesterday, but John Dickerson had him spitting mad by the end of the interview. It was fun to watch.

[Mother Cocanuts]

23 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

30k people die each year in the US, there are a bit more than 300m people in the US. You might be thinking of excluding suicides, which is a significantly lower number - but still just as preventable. 

Also, this is a good read about the inevitability of more of these: two dark truths about Vegas.

Aren't there more suicides than homicides as result of gun use? Doesn't suicide also make up the majority of gun-related deaths? 

[HoodedCrow]

Don't forget gun accidents. Lard brained people keep loaded guns in their drawer or under their pillow. Surprise, (!) their toddler shoots their preschooler, or they shoot their spouse, thinking they are an intruder, demented  grandpa shoots the social worker, or they shoot themselves cleaning their gun for protection.

But at least some crazy guy has the guns and ammo to commit a mass murder. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Given that we know there was such a bank robber with the same fairly uncommon surname as the shooter who WAS on the FBI most wanted list and who was reported back then as having four children, I see absolutely no reason to doubt this particular bit of information. Why on earth would Stephen Paddock's brother want to claim such a connection at this time if it were not true?

As the kids evidently didn't even know their father, as he was gone most of their lives, does their father's criminal history have any bearing on understanding the shooter or giving him the impulse to do such a hideous thing?  I ask, because I have no ideas or opinions about this kind of thing.  I never even took an intro to psychology course.  But the media brings it up in all the reporting now.

[TerraPrime]

36 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

Aren't there more suicides than homicides as result of gun use? Doesn't suicide also make up the majority of gun-related deaths? 

Some graphs of the stats you're speaking of: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

 

 

[Mother Cocanuts]

5 minutes ago, TerraPrime said:

Some graphs of the stats you're speaking of: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/us-gun-violence-statistics-maps-charts

 

 

And this one in particular is immediately relevant to my questions:

9) Most gun deaths are suicides

 

Although America’s political debate about guns tends to focus on grisly mass shootings and murders, a majority of gun-related deaths in the US are suicides. As Dylan Matthews explained for Vox, this is actually one of the most compelling reasons for reducing access to guns — there is alot of research that shows greater access to guns dramatically increases the risk of suicide.

[TerraPrime]

10 minutes ago, Mother Cocanuts said:

And this one in particular is immediately relevant to my questions:

 

 

Compelling to liberals, sure. But anything that supports stricter gun control is compelling to liberals. I don't think I've met a pro-gun and/or conservative who's swayed by the suicide data. 

And if you look at the data, suicide is more than half the gun violence. However, if we take that slice out, we will need to take similar numbers out from other countries' data, too, to make valid comparison. 

[Martell Spy]

The fuckers are coming for the public unions

The Supreme Court’s Blockbuster Term
Get ready for the landmark decisions to start rolling in.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/02/the-supreme-courts-blockbuster-term-215666?lo=ap_e1

[Zorral]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/two-dark-american-truths-from-las-vegas/541692/

Beyond the appalling levels of needless loss of lives and injuries and permanent maimings that are now a feature of life in the USA, there is the ever increasing economic cost to individuals, families, communities and institutions that range from pre K - to 12 K to colleges and universities, the hospitals, staffs and medical personnel, the police departments, the federal government (due to post mortem investigations and the rare occasion when the shooter(s) don't commit suicide as the swat teams roll up.  As the sheer numbers killed in each of these hideous events increases, so do these costs.

Why do we put up with this?  Particularly in an era when the finances of everything and everyone are increasingly impacted by enormous climate crash events?  But then it's also been the feature of the USA economy the constant boom and bust cycle, with the relatively short period between FDR and Nixon.

[Martell Spy]

Rand Paul Comes Out Against Trump’s ‘Middle-Class Tax Hike’

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/rand-paul-comes-out-against-trumps-middle-class-tax-hike.html

Republicans Angry at Economists for Finding Their Tax Cuts Go to the Rich

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/republicans-angry-economists-find-their-tax-cuts-go-to-rich.html
 

[maarsen]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Isn't it closer to one in 20,000? Not trying to be an ass, just checking that I have the right numbers.

I just checked my October issue of Scientific American as they have an article on gun violence in the US in that issue. 36,000 people were killed by guns in 2015 in the US. States that have tougher gun laws have less violent crime crime. An armed homeowner is more likely to be a victim of gun violence. 

James Arryn was right. Americans are doing something wrong.