US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7138

On March 17 2017 12:51 Orome wrote:


My biggest consolation then is that at least I don't have to look at the world and my part in it in this way.

On March 17 2017 16:46 LegalLord wrote:

I would like to note that hacking and leaking are two different things and this seems to be the latter.

And while the confirmation isn't official that the CIA stuff is real... well important people have acted in ways that basically confirm that the stuff comes from the CIA. Trump offers no new insight and I genuinely wonder if he's even told about all that classified stuff he's apparently not supposed to leak.

Autonomous vehicles are already a common sight on the streets of Silicon Valley, an international hub for self-driving technology. But this month, California set the stage for the next phase of innovation that could dramatically alter transportation and mobility across the globe. The state has proposed regulations to allow fully autonomous vehicles to drive on public roads – meaning empty cars with no steering wheels and no backup driver inside.

The new rules are a game-changer for the nascent industry, opening the doors to a host of complex questions about legality, ethics and safety. The regulations, which could go into effect this year, pave the road for a deployment that could revolutionize modern society.

“This is like the smartphone transition times ten as far as the potential to change our existence on the planet,” said Karl Brauer, senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book, an automotive research company. “There’s a sense of almost panic and certainly a frantic pace that all these industries are going through to try to position themselves in this new world.”

The race to dominate the market is rapidly accelerating in California, where major technology corporations, traditional automakers and artificial intelligence startups are engaged in aggressive competition. In an industry that could be worth $26bn by 2025, with potentially millions of vehicles on the road in just a few years, there’s a lot at stake.

California recently overtook the UK to become the fifth largest economy in the world, and there are a total of 27 companies that now have permits to test autonomous cars on the road, though current rules require a human behind the wheel. With a total of 180 vehicles approved for operation, there are already six times as many vehicles permitted on public streets here compared to 2014 – and probably more than the rest of the US combined.

“The technology itself will perform a lot better than we perform now as humans,” said Bernard Soriano, deputy director of the Department of Motor Vehicles. “We needed to provide a clear path to completely driverless vehicles, because of the safety benefits.”

Waymo is Google’s recently renamed self-driving car operation. Seated in the passenger seat of a Waymo on a sunny afternoon in Mountain View, Jaime Waydo, head of systems engineering, recited a string of alarming statistics – 1.2m people die on the road each year, equivalent to a 747 plane falling out of the sky every hour. In 94% of the cases, the cause is human error.

“It’ll be life changing once we get this technology,” she said, after the push of a button in the car prompted a voice inside to declare “auto driving”, leading the car to maneuver itself out of the Google parking lot.

The Waymo cars depend on a Lidar system, which are the “eyes” of the cars that allow them to detect a small object two football fields away as well as pedestrians, vehicles and other objects all around them.

In a move that has dramatically intensified the contest to corner the market, Waymo recently sued Uber, accusing the San Francisco-based taxi startup of a “calculated theft” of its trade secrets, and alleging that former Google employees brought the proprietary Lidar tech to Uber. The case could be disastrous for Uber, which has stated that autonomous vehicles are critical to the company’s future and now faces an injunction request from Google to block its self-driving program.

The lawsuit is moving forward just as Uber has received a permit to test its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco. The company rolled out a pilot program without obtaining permits last year, later canceling it under threat of legal action and after its vehicles were caught running red lights and making dangerous moves in bike lanes.

Uber declined to provide a demo for the Guardian and did not respond to requests for comment.

In yet another indication of how fierce the competition has become, chip-maker Intel also recently announced the $15.3bn purchase of Mobileye, a firm that manufactures cameras and sensors for autonomous cars.

On March 17 2017 19:58 farvacola wrote:
Frankly, I love seeing Uber squirm and I wish them nothing but misfortune. That said, when its cheaper than Lyft and I desperately need a ride.....

Many in Texas are keeping a close eye on the Republican bid to replace the Affordable Care Act. One of the big changes is how it would affect low-income people, seniors, and people with disabilities who get help from Medicaid. And people on both sides of the political spectrum say the Lone Star State is not going to fare well.

As the GOP bill, the American Health Care Act, works its way through Congress, Anne Dunkelberg with the left-leaning Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin says she's a little stumped.

"I have worked on Medicaid and uninsured and health care access issues in Texas for well over 20 years," she chuckles. She says this bill leaves the fate of some current funding streams unclear and there's one pot of money she's particularly concerned about. Texas has struck deals with the federal government to help reimburse hospitals for the cost of caring for people who don't have insurance. And Texas has more uninsured residents than any other state.

"About half of what Texas hospitals get from Medicaid today comes through payments that are outside from the regular Medicaid program," she says, which adds up to $4 billion in federal funds every year.

But even if Texas gets to keep all that money, there's another whammy — the GOP plan caps how much money states get for Medicaid from the federal government for every person they cover. It's called a per-capita cap, and the payments under that formula would start in 2020, but would be based on how much the state spends this year.

Adriana Kohler with Texans Care for Children, an advocacy group based in Austin, says Texas already leaves too many people without care.

"Last legislative session there were cuts to pediatric therapies for kids with disabilities enrolled in Medicaid," she says. The cuts caused some providers to shut their doors, which left some children without services, she says. "That's why these cuts coming down from the ACA repeal bill are very concerning to us."

She says in Texas, children, pregnant women, seniors, and people with disabilities will bear the brunt of any belt-tightening. These populations make up 96 percent of people on Medicaid in Texas. That's why Dunkelberg says the program as is should not be the baseline for years to come.

"They could lock Texas into a lot of historical decisions that were strictly driven by a desire to write the smallest budget possible," she says.

Some on the right agree Texas is getting a raw deal. Doctor Deane Waldman with the right-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation says there are things he likes in the bill. But in general he says, "It's bad deal for Texas. It's a bad deal for the American people."

He says it was the right thing for Texas not to expand Medicaid, but this bill punishes Texas for it. Under the GOP bill, states that expanded Medicaid would get more money. And because the Republican bill leaves the door open for states to expand Medicaid before 2020, he thinks more states will do that to get in on the deal.

"It's going to be a huge rush — an inducement to drag in as many people as they can drag in, because the more they can drag in, the more federal dollars they can get," he says.

That, in turn, will make Medicaid spending skyrocket, he says. But if Texas still refuses to expand, it will have to share a pot of $10 billion over five years with other non-expansion states, per the GOP bill. And that would be just a drop in a bucket for a state as big as Texas.

On March 17 2017 16:46 LegalLord wrote:

I would like to note that hacking and leaking are two different things and this seems to be the latter.

And while the confirmation isn't official that the CIA stuff is real... well important people have acted in ways that basically confirm that the stuff comes from the CIA. Trump offers no new insight and I genuinely wonder if he's even told about all that classified stuff he's apparently not supposed to leak.

On March 17 2017 22:11 MyTHicaL wrote:
I think they should pass a law that bans him from twitter. Or at least it needs to go through some sort of (even completely non-independent) review panel before being published.. I only look at his twitter for comical value but sometimes it hits me that he is one of the most powerful people in the world with borderline tourette sydrome

On March 17 2017 22:01 LightSpectra wrote:
Just wondering about something: would it be possible for Congress to pass a law that restricts the president's capability to do a first-strike (nuclear or otherwise) on North Korea?

On March 17 2017 22:19 LightSpectra wrote:
That has nothing to do with First Amendment rights. Okay, sure, it does if we're talking about strictly personal issues like "I would date my daughter", but there are actually LOTS of restrictions on what, when, and where office-holders and businessmen are allowed to say.

Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY), who was the first member of Congress to endorse President Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign, said on Thursday night that he does not support the administration's proposal to cut funding for the Meals on Wheels program.

"This is the President's budget, I'm not sure where the details came from. But when we get into appropriations, Meals on Wheels is a wonderful program. It is one I would never vote to cut even one dollar," Collins told CNN's Van Jones.

Trump's budget blueprint release on Thursday eliminates the Community Development Block Grant program, which gives states money for projects like Meals on Wheels, a program that provides food to poor, elderly Americans.

During a press conference on Thursday, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney defended the cuts and suggested that the program doesn't show "results."

"The CDBGs have been identified as programs since the second Bush administration as ones that were just not showing any results. We can't do that anymore," he said. "We can't spend money on programs just because they sound good. Great, 'Meals on Wheels' sounds great. That's a state decision to fund that particular portion."

The neutering of the National Security Council by White House adviser Stephen Bannon continues.

Not only has Bannon established a shadow NSC, known as the Strategic Initiatives Group in the White House, but he has also blocked National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster from naming his own staff.

Last week McMaster, a three-star general brought in to replace Gen. Michael Flynn, told Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the NSC's intelligence director, to look for work elsewhere after CIA officials reportedly “expressed reservations about the 30-year-old intelligence operative and pushed for his ouster,” according to Politico.

Less than a month after much-admired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster took over from Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as national security adviser, Trump’s alter-ego Steve Bannon appears to be more in control of U.S. foreign policy than ever.

There is little sign McMaster will be able to restore traditional U.S. foreign policy commitments to NATO and the European Union, and every indication that Bannon’s shadowy Strategic Initiatives Group, denounced by two national security experts as “dangerous hypocrisy,” is driving U.S. policy.

McMaster, a lieutenant general with a reputation as an intellectual, was perhaps the last-gasp hope of Washington’s foreign policy professionals against the radical ambitions of the Trump administration. He was seen as a man who could speak unpopular truths to Trump and block Bannon’s improvisations while restoring a degree of continuity to U.S. foreign policy under Obama and Bush.

On March 17 2017 22:35 ShoCkeyy wrote:
What are your guys thoughts on Salon articles?

On March 17 2017 22:39 Plansix wrote:

Like Vice and Mother Jones, completely depends on the author of the article. They work with a reasonable number freelance writers, so their quality is all over the place.

On March 17 2017 22:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:


What I figured, I included the article anyways.