April 7, 2018

Brilliant Dutch comedy sketch on American gun love: "Nonsensical Rifle Addiction" (NRA)

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/9/16448302/guns-nra-sunday-lubach

April 7, 2018

NYT video "I hacked an election. So can the Russians." Voting machine hack by computer science prof.

Finally MSM is paying attention. Video at link - couldn't get it to post - if someone else can, please post.

https://www.facebook.com/nytopinion/videos/2135954899752788/

The New York Times Opinion Section on Thursday

A University of Michigan computer science professor shows just how easy it is to hack an election with voting machines when its archrival, The Ohio State University, wins a mock election.

Edited to add this, thanks to Elleng:

Tune In, Turn Out
I Hacked an Election. So Can the Russians.

It’s time America’s leaders got serious about voting security.
Published OnApril 5, 2018
Andrea Havis

By J. Alex Halderman
April 5, 2018

This video is part of a series on voting in America, which will run until Election Day in November. For more, see:

Part 1: On the importance of voting.
Part 2: On a court case over a Kansas voter registration law.
Part 3: On discriminatory voting laws.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/opinion/election-voting-machine-hacking-russians.html

Edited to add: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210462136
Hillary 2004: "Without paper, voting machines could be programmed to help GOP steal elections"

April 1, 2018

Pope Francis: "Dear young people, you have it in you to shout. It is up to you not to keep quiet."

March for Our Lives
Parkland students guest edit Guardian US
'The NRA are fearmongers': students excoriate gun group and politicians' lack of action

Very long snip, then this:

Meanwhile the pope seemed to refer to the demonstrations on Sunday when he addressed tens of thousands for a Palm Sunday service in St Peter’s Square.

“The temptation to silence young people has always existed,” Pope Francis said.

“There are many ways to silence young people and make them invisible. Many ways to anesthetize them, to make them keep quiet, ask nothing, question nothing. There are many ways to sedate them, to keep them from getting involved, to make their dreams flat and dreary, petty and plaintive.

“Dear young people, you have it in you to shout,” he said, without mentioning the anti-gun protests in the US directly. “It is up to you not to keep quiet. Even if others keep quiet, if we older people and leaders, some corrupt, keep quiet, if the whole world keeps quiet and loses its joy, I ask you: will you cry out?”

The young people in the crowd shouted: “Yes!”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/25/march-for-our-lives-parkland-students-excoriate-nra-politicians

April 1, 2018

The Parkland Teens Are Winning the Culture War

snip

Ingraham’s swift retreat is just the latest sign that, six weeks after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the gun reform movement is winning the cultural battle that must precede any sweeping political change.

snip

As the media-savvy students blanketed the airwaves with their eminently reasonable arguments, the big questions were whether the momentum they created could actually last, and, if it did, whether it might actually result in major changes to the country’s gun laws, a goal that has eluded activists for decades.

snip

Public opinion polls have emphasized this new reality, showing a marked trend toward more robust gun laws. As Vox’s Dylan Matthews notes, the polling shifts immediately after school shootings have traditionally been ephemeral. But, while it’s still early and surveys have varied, there are signs that Parkland may really be different. The surge in gun reform sentiment hasn’t faded as much as in previous instances, while some of the transformations in public opinion have been dramatic. One particularly striking Gallup poll, conducted in early March, showed that support for stricter gun laws stood at 67 percent, its highest level since 1993, and that 13 percent of Americans mentioned guns as the most important problem facing America, the highest number since the issue was first included in that question in 1994.

Another clear sign that the winds of opinion are changing is that right-wing commentators have largely abandoned their well-rehearsed talking points about guns themselves in favor of ad hominem attacks against the Florida students.

As conservative websites peddle outrage and easily disprovable conspiracy theories about the students, commentators like Ben Shapiro and Erick Erickson have adopted a strangely aggressive attitude toward David Hogg. Lesser residents of the fever swamps have followed suit with the insults. On Saturday, gun zealot and White House guest Ted Nugent said that the Parkland student activists are “soulless” liars, and Hollywood also-ran Frank Stallone called Hogg a “pussy.”

These brutal tactics seem likely to backfire, as they already have in the case of Ingraham. As the old political maxim goes: “If you’re personally attacking the survivors of a school shooting, you’re losing.”

In the past, the NRA has been able to exert so much sway not because of its money, but because of the passion it stirs among members, which in turn terrifies Republican lawmakers nationwide. Taken together, the shifts in culture since February 14 show that the Parkland students have supercharged the gun reform movement that gained steam after the shootings at Sandy Hook in 2012. For the first time in recent memory, gun reform advocates have a clear advantage on the raw emotional terrain of America’s gun debate. Given the country’s entrenched gun culture and the natural advantages its political system hands rural voters, it was always going to take this kind of deafening, concerted outrage to seriously challenge a gun-rights movement that has expertly redefined what it means to own a firearm.

More:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/the-parkland-teens-are-winning-the-culture-war.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fintelligencer+%28Daily+Intelligencer+-+New+York+Magazine%29