President Trump Baits the Hook

Donald Trump is all bait. It is the essence of his existence, his governing principle. Herds of stray cats follow him around because he smells like a bag of musty tuna. He is one of those creepy deep-sea monster fish, all eyes and teeth and dangled glowing lure. Every tweet is a ladle of chum tossed into the water. It takes a special kind of self-control to lay off, but you have to if you want to keep everyone's eyes fixed on what matters, and not on whatever is scrolling across the careening Times Square ticker-tape screen that passes for his mind.

Why is there a law against collecting information about gun use?

Politics of Two parties on a hot button issue.

There's no law against it, but the NRA has successfully lobbied congress not to fund it.

What I don't understand is why people care about firearm related anything when it's such a small portion of what kills people every year. The medical industry as a whole unintentionally kills something crazy like 400,000 people a year. Wrong medications, misused prescriptions, screw ups in treatment.

Cancer kills 600,000
Heart disease another 600,000
Respiratory diseases 150,000
Accidents 150,000 (of which some are firearm related)
Stroke 130,000
Alzheimers 90,000
Diabetes 80,000
Influenza and pneumonia 55,000
Nephritis (No clue what that is) 48,000
Suicide, (of which some are with firearms) 43,000

I just don't see how such a statistically insignificant number is such a hot button with people

Doesn't mean there are no independent studies... for instance
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/04/24/5-facts-about-the-nra-and-guns-in-america/

But as always, the question of who funded the study will always make them suspect...

I am sure the FBI has some compiled data.... but it will take an act of congress to get it.

You're also forgetting Hospital Acquired Infections... MERSA being one.... some nasty ****

35,092 traffic deaths in 2015 (last full year data)

It's because we can put a finger on the cause - we can point to the responsible individual and we know how to eliminate a significant percentage of those deaths if we could find a way to accept the trade-off of some aspect of gun ownership. Gun deaths are such a hot topic because we are able to make a reduction in the undeserved deaths with action. People ARE trying desperately to find a cancer cure, stroke cure, Alzheimers cure....they're getting support, aid, money...nobody is standing there with a cancer cure while somebody else screams at them about their rights to have cancer. The reality of most of the other deaths you listed is that any solution to those is still largely a scary random shot in the dark (pun unintentional) that might or might not work. A solution is unknown. Guns? Keeping guns out of the hands of people likely to murder with them? Researching and investing in ways to prevent needless deaths at the hands of an **** with a gun? yeah...even the table won't survive that conversation about how to get started.

Automotive accident deaths are probably the most comparable scenario - limits on driving require a balance of acceptable limits on speed and maneuvering to the ability of the technology to maintain it safely vs. the convenience and economical considerations of getting to where you need to go in a reasonable time frame and with a reasonable amount of risk. If we all drove at 5mph everywhere, those death by accidents would probably be almost nothing...but that's not very practical. Neither is allowing everyone to drive at 120mph and accepting a huge increase in accidental deaths. Collectively (and through elected leadership) we basically come to an agreement on how many automotive accident deaths are worth the tradeoff in the convenience and economical benefits related to speed and other limits. You can absolutely look at gun technology in the same way. However, it's such an emotionally charged and irrational issue that we can't even start to talk about HOW many deaths from a gun, or type of gun, are acceptable.

BTW, Trump just made it easier for mentally unstable people to own a gun two days ago by reversing a rule that Obama had put in place to tie government disability support for mental conditions be an item that would show up on a background check to own a firearm. (that one was signed without media photos and in the background of a lot of other publicized noise on other topics)

Despite early denials, growing list of Trump camp contacts with Russians haunts White House

The past few days have brought a growing list of confirmed communications between Trump campaign aides and Russian officials, with each new revelation adding to a cloud of suspicion that hangs over the White House as critics demand an independent investigation.

Texting while driving is a supremely stupid way to kill someone or yourself.

How long before we mandate a motion sensor in the car that shuts off the outgoing phone signal when you are moving??

Kidney failure.... major preventative measures. Moderate your drinking..... stay off the protein supplements.

Its a value question. Do you value mitigating individual suffering by progressive taxation funding government managed public health campaigns and restrictive laws or taxes.
Or
Do you value your libertarian sense of personal responsibility and autonomy and tolerate the deaths as necessary cost of your free society.

Middle ground is ????

This.

Thre middle ground is the libertarian approach. The far right approach is no oversight whatsoever, commonly called anarchy.

Jake, I know what you're saying, but the majority of three things on that list can are for the most part avoidable by taking better care of yourself.

Karl... fair try to capture the high ground by suggesting that Anarchy is a viable choice for organizing society. Nope!... 5000 years of civilization has left us with Social Democracy versus Libertarians. You can't imply libertarianism is virtuous because it is in the middle.

No pass. The bounds in this country are between some reflection of libertariansim and some reflection of social democracy.

Interestingly... where does the idea that moderation ... being in the middle is virtuous.... compromise is a moral high ground, if you will come from? I set it up that way... you implicitly agreed.

So, what are your values grounded in so that the middle ground is "good"?

nothing?, might makes right? who has the most money? just the means to an end you want... civil /philosophical principles? theology? which theology?

This inquiry is the foundation for seeing the middle ground as a compromise, ie. a morally superior solution,

OR see the middle ground as a temporary circumstance forced down your throat and you will reverse it ASAP.

Pick an issue..... nephritis... or gun regulations. What are your principles and how do they inform your value that is essentially libertarian.

It's good that you are a libertarian because your ideas will never be tested. 

Despite early denials, growing list of Trump camp contacts with Russians haunts White House

Two days after the presidential election, a Russian official speaking to a reporter in Moscow offered a surprising acknowledgment: The Kremlin had been in contact with Donald Trump’s campaign. The claim, coming amid allegations that Russia had interfered with the election, was met with an immediate no-wiggle-room, blanket denial from Trump’s spokeswoman. “It never happened,” Hope Hicks told the Associated Press at the time. “There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.”

In fact, it is now clear it did happen.

Alternative Facts

President Trump on Saturday angrily accused former president Barack Obama of orchestrating a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to tap the phones at his Trump Tower headquarters last fall in the run-up to the election. Citing no evidence to support his explosive allegation, Trump said in a series of five tweets sent Saturday morning that Obama was “wire tapping” his New York offices before the election in a move he compared to McCarthyism.

Trump, citing no evidence, accuses Obama of ‘Nixon/Watergate’ plot to wiretap Trump Tower

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

You need to seek help.

Take Nixon in the deepest days of his Watergate paranoia, subtract 50 IQ points, add Twitter, and you have Trump today.
---Bruce Bartlett, adviser to Ronald Reagan