smartertoday

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An amazing record.

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99.9%

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Told you so.

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Though the headline statement is accurate, some context is warranted. First, the NHTSA crash worthiness tests rank Teslas high.

Second, individual Tesla models are not the most fatality prone. Here is what the iseecars.com analysis concluded:

“The top five most dangerous cars are the Hyundai Venue, Chevrolet Corvette, Mitsubishi Mirage, Porsche 911, and Honda CR-V Hybrid, with fatal accident rates nearly five times higher than the average vehicle

Two Teslas, the Model Y and Model S, make the [23] most dangerous cars list despite Tesla’s advanced driver-assist technology. Tesla also has the highest fatal accident rate by brand, followed by Kia, Buick, Dodge, and Hyundai

“New cars are safer than they’ve ever been,” said Karl Brauer, iSeeCars Executive Analyst. “Between advanced chassis design, driver assist technology, and an array of airbags surrounding the driver, today’s car models provide excellent occupant protection. But these safety features are being countered by distracted driving and higher rates of speed, leading to rising accident and death rates in recent years.”

“Automotive safety has improved dramatically over the past two decades. But according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the last five years have seen a higher rate of accidents and fatalities on America’s roads than the previous 12 years. The fatal accident rate is now 2.8 per billion miles and the Hyundai Venue is the car with the highest fatal accident rate, while Tesla has the highest fatal accident rate of all car brands, according to the latest study by iSeeCars.”

[smartertoday]

Well put.

Doh! That's who I meant defense contractors/individuals who are in the military industrial complex, sorry for the confusion! In my defense I have known several intelligence analysts who believe things like Edward Snowden is/was a Russian plant, or for that matter Tulsi Gabbard is also one. I am no fan of hers but doesn't it do a disservice by saying people you disagree with who are just wrong/crazy are which she is, are part of some foreign plot?

Not necessarily. Edward Snowden has been reciting Kremlin talking points for years, and was even given Russian citizenship recently. Back when I was on Twitter, he even blocked me as part of a Russian blocklist. So it isn't off-base to say that Snowden, by this point, is a full-on Russian shill.

Similarly, Gabbard's publicly-professed reason for her stances doesn't really hold water. She's "anti-war," but eagerly repeats long-debunked Russian justifications for their invasion of Ukraine - it makes no sense on its face but does make sense if instead, she's trying to advocate for US withdrawal from Europe, and why would she advocate for that? She's "anti-war" but tries to shield Bashar al-Assad from criticism when he gasses his own people. Someone who was "anti-war" would criticize that (any decent human being would criticize it), but does make sense if you believe she's trying to stop US support of Syrian rebels, and why would she advocate for that? She's criticizes Japan's re-arming itself but is quite mum on Chinese militarism. Even US isolationism doesn't really justify that stance, but being a supporter of China does. So with so many contradictions in her stated policies, it isn't wrong to ask "what's the actual story here?" I'm the first person to say that most contradictions in policy are the result of competing priorities, but if you ask cui bono? about her foreign policy positions, the consistent throughline and clear beneficiary is Russia. So why is she so pro-Russia?

Much as how before, I explained that the Soviet Union's "anti-imperialist" position was better explained as opposition to France and Britain in light of their own imperialism, Gabbard's positions don't even cohere sensibly purely as an anti-war US isolationist. So what the actual reason is for her positions would be something of significant interest - especially as a director of national intelligence. I will agree that throwing the label out recklessly serves to cheapen the term, and it's entirely possible that Gabbard is just an idiot rather than an actively supported by the Kremlin the way much of the fringe political groups in Europe are financed by Russia (both De Linke and AfD receive Russian support). But whether she's an idiot, a useful idiot, or an actual Russian supporter, she's unworthy of the position.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

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The (current count) 41,000 notes to this post are extraordinary. (Confession: at least the 50 or so that I’ve read). So much on social media is ignorantl bile. This, in contrast, is definitely worth a read and point by point consideration.

hi any life advice for 21yo

Don't date thirty-year-olds until you are at least 25.

Having a glass of water for every glass of alcohol will give you a 50% reduction in hangover viciousness.

Bad people will use your willingness to be quiet as a weapon against you. If someone's being awful to you and trusting you'll be quiet to keep from making waves, surprise them.

There is no physical object in the world that is worth as much as your honor.

Honor is not the same as dignity. Retaining one sometimes means leaving the other aside.

Don't have any sex you don't want to have; have as much as you want of the sex that you do, whether that's a lot, a little, or none at all. Nothing you can do to your own body is immoral, unless you're doing it as an act of self-punishment.

Food is morally neutral. You do not have to earn the right to eat calories. Fat and sugar keep your brain from eating itself.

Learning to sit still and breathe--in, in, in, hold, hold, hold, out, out, out, out, out, out--can give you five feet of clear space around yourself in a maelstrom.

Find out how to make three good meals: A comfort meal you can make for just yourself relatively easily, a fancy meal you can use to wow a date, and a meal you can feed a bunch of people. All the other cooking can come later, but you can build a community on those three meals.

If you ever get to the point that things are so bleak you can see no other way forward but to die, make any other choice. If that means leaving everything you own and being a beach bum, or quitting your career, or taking up or leaving a religion, or deciding to bicycle across the country, so be it; living means more chances, dying means everything stops and you don't get to see any more interesting things. As you have not yet seen all the things that can interest you, it is better to live.

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This couldn’t be more clear, except that our currently hyper partisan, self-destructive, and unethical SCOTUS says this cannot be enforced until Congress passes a law to implement it. Says that right there in the text. Let me know when you find it.

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Yes, and Wisconsin’s Sen. Ron Johnson is ready to support this abdication of the Constitutional responsibility to be a check on presidential power.

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I’m not sure what the economic value of the infowars website and trademarks is without Jones. Perhaps the Onion should also bid for exclusive use of his name, image, and likeness, just like college athletes.

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Trump's Anti-Worker Record

At every turn Donald Trump has made increasing the power of corporations over working people his top priority. The list of the damage done to working people by the Trump Administration is long. Here are a few examples.

Trump has encouraged freeloaders, made it more difficult to enforce collective bargaining agreements, silenced workers and restricted the freedom to join unions:

During a live conversation on X with Elon Musk on August 12, Donald Trump said striking workers should be fired.1

Trump packed the courts with anti-labor judges who have made the entire public sector “right to work for less” in an attempt to financially weaken unions by increasing the number of freeloaders.2

Trump stacked the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees who side with employers in contract disputes and support companies who delay and stall union elections, misclassify workers to take away their freedom to join a union, and silence workers.3

Trump made it easier for employers to fire or penalize workers who speak up for better pay and working conditions or exercise the right to strike.4

Trump promised to veto the PRO Act and the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, historic legislation that will reverse decades of legislation meant to crush private sector unions and shift power away from CEOs to workers.5

Trump has restricted overtime pay, opposed wage increases, and gutted health and safety protections:

Trump changed the rules about who qualifies for overtime pay, making more than 8 million workers ineligible and costing them over $1 billion per year in lost wages.6

Trump reduced the number of OSHA inspectors so that there are now fewer than at any time in history, and weakened penalties for companies that fail to report violations.7

Trump threatened to veto legislation that would raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour.8

Trump’s Secretary of Labor, Eugene Scalia, is an anti-worker, union-busting corporate lawyer who aggressively defended Cablevision’s decision to fire 22 workers when they tried to win a contract with CWA.9

Trump has helped insurers reduce coverage and made it easier for pharmaceutical companies to inflate drug prices:

Trump supports an ongoing lawsuit that would eliminate protections that ensure that health insurers can't discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.10

Trump threatened to veto legislation to reduce prescription drug costs, even though last year the prices of over 3,000 drugs increased by an average of 10.5%.11

Trump’s made protecting the profits of pharmaceutical companies a priority in NAFTA renegotiations.12

Trump's proposed FY2021 budget would cut funding for Medicare.13

Trump has encouraged outsourcing and offshoring:

Instead of supporting CWA’s bipartisan legislation to help save call center jobs, Trump pushed for a corporate tax cut bill that gives companies a 50% tax break on their foreign profits - making it financially rewarding for them to move our jobs overseas.14

On two separate occasions, a group of Senators wrote Trump asking him to issue an executive order preventing federal contracts from going to companies that send call center jobs overseas, and CWA President Chris Shelton even asked him to do so during an in person during a meeting in the Oval Office. He never responded.15

Trump has broken his campaign promise to take on companies that move good jobs overseas—instead, he's given over $115 billion in federal contracts to companies that are offshoring jobs.16

Trump failed to prepare the nation for the COVID-19 pandemic, opposes hazard pay for essential workers, and has given employers a free pass to lower safety standards:

Trump failed to secure enough Personal Protective Equipment for essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis and has weakened protections for workers who are concerned about working in unsafe environments.17

Trump refused to use the Defense Production Act to get our IUE-CWA manufacturing members back to work producing ventilators or PPE and instead used it to force meatpacking plants to open despite thousands of workers getting infected on the job in unsafe working conditions.18

Trump promised to veto the Heroes Act, which would give essential workers premium “hazard” pay and expand paid leave and unemployment insurance for those impacted by the Coronavirus.19

Trump opposed providing aid to help state and local governments continue providing services and keep workers on payroll—he suggested instead that it might make sense to allow states to declare bankruptcy.20

Trump’s OSHA has lowered standards meant to protect workers from getting sick at work and given employers a free pass if they fail to follow even those minimal requirements.21

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This is false, misleading and debunked 14 years ago. See factcheck.org:

“FULL ANSWER. We briefly addressed rumors about the status of the Obamas’ law licenses back in January 2010 in an Ask FactCheck titled “Clueless ‘Columbo.’ ” But a steady stream of questions about them has continued to flow to our inbox ever since.

… But it’s not true that President Obama “surrendered his license back in 2008 in order to escape charges he lied on his bar application,” or that Michelle Obama “ ‘voluntarily surrendered’ her law license in 1993 after a Federal Judge gave her the choice between surrendering her license or standing trial for Insurance fraud,” as the chain email claims.

Lawyers who voluntarily change their registration status to inactive or retired “may not practice law based upon their Illinois license or hold themselves out as being so authorized,” according to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois. But James Grogan, deputy administrator and chief counsel for the ARDC, said that the Obamas were “never the subject of any public disciplinary proceedings.”

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The real power move would be to leave Trump in office for 2 years under tight control before removing him under 25th Amendment so Vance can be president for ten years.

We must stop this NOW.

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Fascism always begins by blaming “them.” Crushing “them,” and then finding a new “them” to blame, demean, and crush:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

— German Lutheran Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1946

To Jewish Americans supporting Trump:

An essential read from

Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, Park Avenue Synagogue, NYC:

“As a matter of principle and policy, I do not endorse candidates. But as a matter of principle and policy, when I see the behavior of any person, presidential candidates included, threatening the well-being of the Jewish people, I have to speak out.

So let me not mince words. President Trump is trafficking in the most base form of antisemitism. As far back as Pharaoh, as far back as Haman, there have been leaders who have accused Jews of dual loyalty, of being a fifth column, of being a threat to the well being of the general population. And that’s what Trump did on Thursday night.

The suggestion that the only consideration an American Jew has when approaching the ballot box is Israel reeks of accusations that American Jews are somehow suspect citizens. The suggestion that blame for a prospective loss should lay at the feet of less than 2% of the electorate — our 2% — puts the Jewish people in grave danger.

This is beyond dog-whistle. It is a form of preemptive scapegoating aimed to scare Jews into voting for Trump. Under the rhetorict, cover and guise of being a defender of the state of Israel, President Trump has endangered the Jewish people. It is abhorrent, it has no place in our national discourse, and it must receive blanket condemnation from every person of conscience.”

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Dictator or democracy is the choice.

“What OUR movement will do.”

Trump is Project 2025