A thread for Democrats Only by THGRRI

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

A thread for Democrats Only

POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Monday, October 21, 2024 20:59
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Sunday, August 12, 2018 8:48 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Trump administration shocked scientists earlier this week when it admitted that its plan to gut vehicle fuel economy standards would help take the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 to 790 parts per million, which is almost double current levels. www.eenews.net/stories/1060092895/print

The new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, however, warns that the path to such a catastrophic collapse isn’t so much a steady descent fueled by burning ever more fossil fuels. Rather it is a cliff that once you cross, you trigger a rockslide or an avalanche that brings ruin quickly. www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115

“Human emissions of greenhouse gas are not the sole determinant of temperature on Earth,” explained lead author Will Steffen in a Stockholm Resilience Center news release. “Our study suggests that human-induced global warming of 2°C may trigger other Earth system processes, often called ‘feedbacks,’ that can drive further warming,” even if emissions were to start to slowly decline. www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2018-08-06-planet-a
t-risk-of-heading-towards-hothouse-earth-state.html

One of the most dangerous feedbacks the study talks about is the release of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane (CH4) from the melting Arctic permafrost.

Earth’s thawing permafrost threatens to unleash a dangerous climate feedback loop because the northern permafrost contains twice as much carbon as the atmosphere does today. www.nature.com/articles/ngeo1573

So we have the possibility of a runaway catastrophe — where 2°C warming thaws half the permafrost, and the resulting carbon emissions create, say, another 1° C of warming that in turn releases yet more greenhouse gases from the permafrost.

We’re getting dangerously close to a climate death spiral. And Trump’s reelection? Oh, he will promise to fix the climate. And he wouldn't lie about that.

More at https://thinkprogress.org/why-trumps-reelection-may-lead-to-a-climate-
death-spiral-136fcf81c1b7/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, August 12, 2018 8:50 AM

Oh well.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, August 12, 2018 8:58 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Oh well.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Remember it is all about your personal preferences, 6ixStringJack. It does not matter which party wins because if you elect the GOP, Trump will save the climate. If you elect the Democrats, they will save the climate. You said there is no reason to prefer one over the other party.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, August 12, 2018 9:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Oh well.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
Remember it is all about your personal preferences, 6ixStringJack. It does not matter which party wins because if you elect the GOP, Trump will save the climate. If you elect the Democrats, they will save the climate. You said there is no reason to prefer one over the other party.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

There isn't. It doesn't matter either way and there's nothing I can do about it.

You're a 1%'er with all the power. Get to work buddy.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, August 12, 2018 9:05 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Oh well.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
Remember it is all about your personal preferences, 6ixStringJack. It does not matter which party wins because if you elect the GOP, Trump will save the climate. If you elect the Democrats, they will save the climate. You said there is no reason to prefer one over the other party.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

There isn't. It doesn't matter either way and there's nothing I can do about it.

You're a 1%'er with all the power. Get to work buddy.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I suddenly realized that Trump in the past has said there is no such thing as climate change, but he certainly is the one man in a billion who will admit he was completely wrong, go against the entire Republican establishment, and save the climate. Reelect Trump in 2020 to save Earth from climate change!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, August 12, 2018 9:08 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I am from Texas and we ain't taking any petroyuan for our natural gas or crude. China will pay in U.S. dollars or else we are not selling to them. Obviously the day will come when Texas reservoirs run dry, but until then no petroyuan, only dollars.

Well, of course, that's your prerogative. But if you want to buy a cargo-ship of iPhones from China, they just might insist in yuan. Then what?

There are three "futures" oil markets ... Brent, WTI, (West Texas Intermediate) and now the Petroyuan, which is beginning to pick up business ...

SECOND, you would probably know more about that than I do ....

So, just to get back to the thought process on "the dollar" ... If you want to know which currency is being used in international trade, you need to look at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Right now, the dollar accounts for roughly 64% of world reserve currency. (It used to be easy to get this figure from the BIS site; now I have to go to some skeezy Cayman website)

Quote:
U.S. dollar-denominated assets comprised 63.79 percent of disclosed foreign exchange reserves; euro-denominated assets, 19.91 percent; yen-denominated assets, 4.64 percent; pound-denominated assets, 4.41 percent; Canadian-dollar-denominated assets, 1.95 percent; Australian dollar-denominated assets, 1.77 percent; renminbi-denominated assets, 1.07 percent; Swiss franc-denominated assets, 0.17 percent; and assets denominated in other currencies, 2.30 percent.

http://www.caymanfinancialreview.com/2018/01/22/the-worlds-reserve-cur
rency/

What I was looking for was percent trade settlements in the dollar; I guess I'll have to ... ah ... settle for this stat. The BIS, by the way, recently released a statement that some international banks have engaged in Lehman-like accounting, which means that some banks aren't as stable as they should be. I'll try to find a link.

Anyway, the one problem with this form of accounting is that it doesn't include trade settlements that take place OUTSIDE of the BIS (Central Bank to Central Bank) system, and that would include bilateral trade deals in the form of barter, or monetary exchange outside of the SWIFT, so even if the "dollar world" may be shrinking the percent of dollar settlements remains the same.

One LAST thought ...

Each time the United States pulls the "sanctions" trigger or slaps a fine on a bank (like BNP Paribas) it makes the dollar a less-and-less attractive currency for anyone to deal in. The current list of sanctioned/ embargoed nations includes ...

Cuba, Iran, Syria, Belarus, Eritrea, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia.
And now Turkey

Burma, Code d'Ivoire, Congo, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Somalia, The Republic of the Sudan Crimea, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Vietnam, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Cyprus, Central African Republic, Balkans, Liberia, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

If you'll notice, some of the sanctioned countries ... Iran, Venezuela, and Russia .... are significant oil producers, and two of the others .... Syria, Turkey ... are pipeline transit nations.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Sunday, August 12, 2018 9:43 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

This is from 21 years ago about sanctions: "Since 1970, unilateral US sanctions have achieved foreign policy goals in only 13 percent of the cases where they have been imposed. In addition to whatever effect repeated failure may have on the credibility of US leadership, other recent research suggests that economic sanctions are costing the United States $15 billion to $19 billion annually in potential exports. This, in turn, translates into 200,000 or more jobs lost in the relatively highly compensated export sector."

https://piie.com/commentary/testimonies/evidence-costs-and-benefits-ec
onomic-sanctions

I'm sure the success rate today is lower than 13% and the cost is much more than 200,000 jobs. Presidents are over-using sanctions.

From this week: "Given current oil market conditions, US policymakers need to better guard against the risk that their sanctions squeeze on Iran could precipitate a new oil shock."

https://piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/iran-sanctions-r
edux

If the oil shock arrives, it will cost America jobs and money. How much? Who knows? Since the voters and the White House staff don't know, Trump acts as if it is cost free.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, August 13, 2018 7:06 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Dec 29, 2000:

The Clinton administration handed a parting gift to President-elect George W. Bush today, projecting that the federal budget surplus would swell substantially, to nearly $5 trillion, over the next decade.

Administration officials said they expected the surplus to total $4.996 trillion in the 10 years beginning with the start of the next fiscal year, on Oct. 1, 2001. That amounts to an increase of just over $800 billion from the administration's previous projection, of $4.193 trillion for the 10 years that started this October.

from www.nytimes.com/2000/12/29/us/10-year-estimate-of-budget-surplus-surge
s-once-more.html

To understand why the debt has exploded since the start of the century, when there were projections that then $3.4 trillion debt could be paid down or even paid off, it’s necessary to review in detail how this development was fostered by Republicans every step of the way. Three major factors are to blame.

1) The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003

The Bush administration used the budget surplus to reward its rich contributors with tax cuts. Never mind that the stock market had steadily fallen since Bush’s election, signifying that the tech bubble was over and that revenues were contracting.

The 10-year tax cuts, according to most estimates, cost between $2 and $2.5 trillion. When those cuts began to expire during the Obama administration, all but a small portion of the cuts on the top earnings bracket were renewed. Therefore, the total national debt impact of the Bush tax cuts from enactment until 2018 is close to $4 trillion.

2) Never-ending war

Bush, having been caught flat-footed by the 9/11 attacks, could have responded by treating the tragedy as a critical but solvable problem with limited military counterterrorism actions. Instead, he massively militarized the problem, ladled money to the Pentagon, and invaded the wrong country, setting us up for an even more expensive eight-year occupation of Iraq. The occupation served as an incubator for ISIS and created the rationale for massive DOD spending ever since (to be sure, continued through the 8 years of the Obama administration).

The cost? DOD estimates direct costs at around $1.5 trillion, but that’s a laughable lowball. It excludes debt service, but more important, it leaves out the Pentagon’s spending bonanza that wasn’t direct war funding, but which they would not have received absent the hysteria accompanying the War on Terror. And of course, the newly created Department of Homeland Security became a bottomless money pit. A more realistic estimate of all direct and indirect one-time and recurring costs comes to an eye-watering $5.6 trillion.

3) The 2008 financial meltdown

Republicans typically blamed homebuyers who signed their mortgages, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, or anything under the sun for the housing bubble and resulting economic collapse. But they refused to condemn the main cause: lax financial regulation. A GOP president and Congress—granted, with help from far too many Democrats—set the stage for the blowout: Chris Cox, Bush’s Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, couldn’t find financial irregularities with a seeing-eye dog. And Alan Greenspan, the supposedly independent Fed chairman, became a shill for adjustable rate mortgages.

Once the economy fell off a cliff, tax revenues from both wages and investments plummeted and government expenditures (such as unemployment, food stamps, and economic stimulus, in addition to the direct cost of government bailout measures) soared. No one has attempted a comprehensive estimate of the effect on the debt of the Great Recession, probably because the uncertainty is so large. But simply by calculating the rapid rate of increase of the debt-to-GDP during the recession period, the housing bubble’s national debt impact of roughly $4 trillion is not far off the mark.

More at https://washingtonmonthly.com/2018/07/21/will-republicans-ever-stop-ly
ing-about-the-debt/

To summarize points 1, 2, and 3:

$4.0 trillion
+$5.6 trillion
+$4.0 trillion
___________________
=$13.6 trillion

Today the debt is $21.3 trillion
Federal Debt per person is about $65,407
www.usgovernmentdebt.us

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, August 14, 2018 6:14 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Congressmen are always running scared.

Painfully often the legislation our politicians pass is designed less to solve problems than to protect the politicians from defeat in our never ending election campaigns. They are, in short, too frightened of voters to govern.

Politics and government in the United States are marked by the fact that U.S. elected officials in many cases have very short terms of office and face the prospect of being defeated in primary elections and have to run for office more as individuals than as standard-bearers for their party and have continually to raise large sums of money in order to finance their own election campaigns. Some of these factors operate in other countries. There is no other country, however, in which all of them operate, and operate simultaneously. The cumulative consequences, as we shall see, are both pervasive and profound.

Americans take the existence of their never-ending election campaign for granted. Some like it, some dislike it, and most are simply bored by it. But they are all conscious of it. In Great Britain, France, Italy, and Canada the constitutional or legal maximum for the duration of the lower house of the national legislature is five years. In Germany and Japan the equivalent term is four years. Only in Australia and New Zealand, whose institutions are in some limited respects modeled on those of the United States, are the legal maximums as short as three years. In having two-year terms the United States stands alone. The fact that the terms of a third of the Senate end every two years means that even if individual senators do not feel themselves to be under continuing electoral pressure, the Senate as a whole does. Despite the Founders' intentions, the Senate's collective electoral sensibilities increasingly resemble those of the House.

Most Americans seem unaware of the fact, but the direct primary -- a government-organized popular election to nominate candidates for public office -- is, for better or worse, an institution peculiar to the United States. Neither primary elections nor their functional equivalents exist anywhere else in the democratic world. It goes without saying that their effect is to add a further dimension of uncertainty and unpredictability to the world of American elective politicians.

To a visitor to America's shores, the never-ending campaign presents a largely unfamiliar spectacle. In other countries election campaigns have both beginnings and ends, and there are even periods, often prolonged periods, when no campaigns take place at all. Other features of American elections are also unfamiliar. In few countries do elections and campaigns cost as much as they do in the United States.

America's permanent election campaign, together with other aspects of American electoral politics, has one crucial consequence, little noticed but vitally important for the functioning of American democracy. Quite simply, the American electoral system places politicians in a highly vulnerable position. Individually and collectively they are more vulnerable, more of the time, to the vicissitudes of electoral politics than are the politicians of any other democratic country. Because they are more vulnerable, they devote more of their time to electioneering, and their conduct in office is more continuously governed by electoral considerations. American politicians' constant and unremitting electoral preoccupations have deleterious consequences for the functioning of the American system. They consume time and scarce resources. Worse, they make it hard for the system as a whole to deal with America's most pressing problems.

Much, much more at www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/01/running-scared/376754/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, August 14, 2018 9:22 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Trump administration is dismantling financial protections for the military

Predatory lenders disproportionately target military members. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will no longer supervise them.

The bureau’s supervisory staff offices have typically conducted proactive checks that make sure lenders aren’t charging military members exorbitant interest rates, pushing them into forced arbitration, or otherwise not following guidelines outlined in the Military Lending Act, a 2006 law that protects active duty military members and their families from financial fraud, predatory loans, and credit gouging.

Now the agency, under interim director Mick Mulvaney, is planning to end its use of these supervisory examinations of lenders.

The Trump administration has also proposed changes that could open service members up to predatory practices when they buy cars. The administration has proposed easing restrictions on “gap insurance,” an add-on to car insurance that covers the difference between the amount a car owner owes on the car and the car’s actual cash value.

Gap insurance is typically available from regular insurance companies for a very low price, as little as $20 to $30 a year, but car dealers often mark it up by hundreds of dollars. Current rules effectively block auto dealers from tacking on overpriced gap insurance to military service members, but the administration has sent a proposal to the Defense Department looking to revise the rules. (If the proposal does eventually make it out of the Defense Department, it will ultimately require the approval of the Office of Management and Budget, which Mulvaney also heads.)

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/14/17684810/military-lending-ac
t-mick-mulvaney-cfpb-loans

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, August 14, 2018 9:37 AM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The Trump administration is dismantling financial protections for the military

Predatory lenders disproportionately target military members. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will no longer supervise them.

The bureau’s supervisory staff offices have typically conducted proactive checks that make sure lenders aren’t charging military members exorbitant interest rates, pushing them into forced arbitration, or otherwise not following guidelines outlined in the Military Lending Act, a 2006 law that protects active duty military members and their families from financial fraud, predatory loans, and credit gouging.

Now the agency, under interim director Mick Mulvaney, is planning to end its use of these supervisory examinations of lenders.

The Trump administration has also proposed changes that could open service members up to predatory practices when they buy cars. The administration has proposed easing restrictions on “gap insurance,” an add-on to car insurance that covers the difference between the amount a car owner owes on the car and the car’s actual cash value.

Gap insurance is typically available from regular insurance companies for a very low price, as little as $20 to $30 a year, but car dealers often mark it up by hundreds of dollars. Current rules effectively block auto dealers from tacking on overpriced gap insurance to military service members, but the administration has sent a proposal to the Defense Department looking to revise the rules. (If the proposal does eventually make it out of the Defense Department, it will ultimately require the approval of the Office of Management and Budget, which Mulvaney also heads.)

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/14/17684810/military-lending-ac
t-mick-mulvaney-cfpb-loans

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

I'm trying to think of a single thing he's done that benefits anyone other than himself or the wealthiest Americans. I've seen Trump defenders say they like his policies and I wonder, "what policies exactly?"

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Tuesday, August 14, 2018 11:24 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I've seen Trump defenders say they like his policies and I wonder, "what policies exactly?

Staying out of the TTP and TTIP and stalling NAFTA. Those are unalloyed success stories.

Peace on the Korean Peninsula and bringing the troops home from Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq? Normalizing relations with Russia? Those are success stories yet to be written.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Tuesday, August 14, 2018 11:38 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
I've seen Trump defenders say they like his policies and I wonder, "what policies exactly?
Staying out of the TTP and TTIP and stalling NAFTA. Those are unalloyed success stories.

Peace on the Korean Peninsula and bringing the troops home from Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq? Normalizing relations with Russia? Those are success stories yet to be written.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

And the sun came up in the east every single day since Trump's inauguration. Give Trump credit for that, too, Signym. Except for NAFTA and withdrawing from S Korea, the same would have happened under Hillary. And Trump hasn't actually withdrawn from NAFTA or S Korea. Or denuclearized North Korea.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 6:04 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The state that approves of Trump the most? Wyoming. 63 percent approve of his job and 32 percent disapprove of his job. But even in Wyoming, his approval rating is down 9 percent from a year ago.

In Massachusetts, only 35 percent of residents approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 62 percent disapprove. The difference in those two numbers makes up what pollsters call a net approval rating, which locally is a negative 27 percent.

No state dislikes Trump’s job performance more than Mass. Is that because Massachusetts hates the GOP? No. The most popular governor in America is Massachusetts’ GOP governor Charlie Baker.

www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/08/14/state-dislikes-trump-job-performa
nce-more-than-mass/aPfgPJklptBCtVHfEQQ7uI/story.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 7:04 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump's lawyer confirms that Trump needs placating

White House Counsel Don McGahn did not specify any financial or other penalties for breaking the Non-Disclosure Agreement. Several signees said McGahn made it clear that the agreement was not ultimately enforceable, and was meant only to placate Trump.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/trump-confirms-omarosa-claim-u
se-ndas-west-wing

This whole time we have been dealing with a placated Donald Trump. What's an unplacated Trump? Nuking the Upper West Side?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 7:25 AM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
I've seen Trump defenders say they like his policies and I wonder, "what policies exactly?
Staying out of the TTP and TTIP and stalling NAFTA. Those are unalloyed success stories.

You think most Trump defenders even know what those first 2 are? Me neither. As to their value, hard to say. It means we're left out of the discussion with TTP - that's weak and "not good." TTIP - same. Folding our arms and scowling isn't deal making.

Some form of NAFTA looks like it's coming back btw. It doesn't matter what you call something unless you want to use that as a hot button disruptor (hint).

But seriously - that's it? Like I said... show me anything he's done to enrich even his base of rejects (besides making racism and hatred ok again), or the average US citizen.

"Normalizing relations with Russia" - *gasp!* I can't laugh hard enough.

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 7:34 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

It is Wednesday and Elizabeth Warren has a big idea that challenges how the Democratic Party thinks. I predict that every Republican in Congress will be forever opposed.

Instead of advocating for expensive new social programs like free college or health care, she’s introducing a bill, the Accountable Capitalism Act.

Warren’s plan starts from the premise that corporations that claim the legal rights of personhood should be legally required to accept the moral obligations of personhood. More concretely, citizen corporations would be required to allow their workers to elect 40 percent of the membership of their board of directors.

Traditionally, she writes in a companion op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, “corporations sought to succeed in the marketplace, but they also recognized their obligations to employees, customers and the community.”

In recent decades they stopped, in favor of a singular devotion to enriching shareholders.

More at www.vox.com/2018/8/15/17683022/elizabeth-warren-accountable-capitalism
-corporations

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 11:04 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
You think most Trump defenders even know what those first 2 are? Me neither.

I can't speak for "most" Trump supporters, I can only talk about myself and the ones that I know personally. I had THREE REASONS to vote for Trump, and I was very plain about what they were. This was one of them.

As far as the Trump supporters that I know personally, they are still very much in favor of his immigration policies. And since they are universally well-educated and more than half of them are nonwhite immigrants and the rest are white and nonwhite first generation immigrants, they can hardly be blamed for being "anti-immigrant racists".

Quote:
As to their value, hard to say. It means we're left out of the discussion with TTP - that's weak and "not good." TTIP - same. Folding our arms and scowling isn't deal making.

It's an excellent tactic when presented with a "deal" that should never have been negotiated in the first place.

Apparently, you STILL don't know what was in the TTP/TTIP, or you would immediately understand the "value" pf staying out of them. So let me explain for what seems like the dozenth time, and maybe you'll "get it" this time.

These trade agreements both contained a provision that any government entity at any level .. city, county, state, regional or Federal ... could be sued by any business for interfering with a business's normal and expected profits. Furthermore, these lawsuits would be decided in a secret trade tribunal by a group of corporate lawyers and a corporate judge, not according to the laws of the nation involved but simply according to the provisions of the trade agreement

So, let me provide you with one real-life example and a few theoretical ones:

Australia is sued by Phillip Morris for introducing plain packaging laws for tobacco products, making smoking less attractive, improving Australians' overall health, and cutting into Philip Morris' profits. The case is heard in a secret room in Singapore.

In their bid to fight global warming, San Francisco wants to ban the burning of "dirty" oil ... that is, oil which requires a large amount carbon to extract and process, such as tar sands and "fracked" oil. San Francisco is sued by Suncor, a Canadian tar sands company, for interfering with their normal and expected profits, and the case is heard under TPP in Singapore by corporate lawyers and a corporate-appointed judge.

New Hampshire is very concerned about food safety, and wants to ban all GMO foods. They are sued by Monsanto, and the case is heard in Brussels under TTIP provisions in a secret trade tribunal which is presented and adjudicated by corporate lawyers.

Now. I hope that BY NOW you can see that under TTP and TTIP, all environmental, child labor, food and pharmaceutical safety, worker safety, global warming, equal protection etc laws passed by any government agency would be unenforceable and therefore meaningless if a company objected to it and took that agency to tribunal.

I thought, GSTRING, that you were all for environmental protections, equal rights, worker safety, food and pharmaceutical safety; government regulation under democratic control etc. How can you possibly "not know" the "value" of staying outside of the TTP/TTIP unless your commitment to democratically-controlled government regulation is paper thin? (Like MOST of your commitments, it seems!)

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 11:39 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I'm just going to make a general comment here ...

It seems to me that I spend a lot of posts repeating the same things over and over. I have a general understanding of what I think is good for Americans and how I think we can get there. It's certainly not 100% correct, but at least I took some time to think it through to its fundamental principles ... what am I "for" more? Corporations or democracy? Foreign money or peace? Efficiency or robustness? Globalism or nationalism? Meritocracy or privilege?

Many of you OTOH just endlessly splatter the board with undigested, contradictory bits and pieces of ghafla. As soon as one of your (mostly) stupid points is dispatched, you bring up another (mostly) stupid point. Quite often, you'll recycle a (mostly) stupid point from a previous post without, apparently, even realizing that that point has already been eliminated several times by some of your other (mostly) stupid posts.

It would be nice if you would, some day, sit down and THINK. Yanno, track down what you feel, and - especially - WHY you feel that way. What or who are you defending? Why?

Bird-dog the essential principles that are driving that reaction. Look at how that principle behaves at the extremes; whether or not it conflicts with other essential principles (most likely it does); and resolve that conflict.

I know ... thinking. It's hard work. So best get to it; sooner is better.

****

I just gave GSTRING a[nother] run-through on the conflict between "government regulation" and "free trade"; I hope it sticks this time, and maybe he will (finally) resolve the contradiction between his own two positions and decide how much of each he wants.

Let me give you another quick example: Say that you sympathize with illegal immigrants. You think their influx should be unlimited. Therefore, you're an advocate of "open borders". How does that work at the extremes? What if we had 40 million people crossing our borders next year? How does that work? How could we MAKE it work? Do we WANT to make it work? What does this position conflict with? How do we resolve the conflict(s)?

Give it some thought. Stop reacting: Think.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 4:48 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Let me give you another quick example: Say that you sympathize with illegal immigrants. You think their influx should be unlimited. Therefore, you're an advocate of "open borders". How does that work at the extremes? What if we had 40 million people crossing our borders next year? How does that work? How could we MAKE it work? Do we WANT to make it work? What does this position conflict with? How do we resolve the conflict(s)?

Give it some thought. Stop reacting: Think.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

I think that Trump should deport as soon as possible all illegal aliens living long term in America. I think he should keep a monthly total estimate of how many are still in American. I think he is not doing that. Instead, he is concentrating on captures along the border. I think Trump is not serious about reducing the number of illegal aliens from 11 million to zero as soon as possible. I'll be generous and define "soon as possible" as meaning before the 2020 November election. That means he needs to remove at least a million between today and the 2018 election. I think he could do it if he really meant what he said and wasn't simply pandering to his base.
www.factcheck.org/2018/06/illegal-immigration-statistics/
www.statista.com/topics/3454/illegal-immigration-in-the-united-states/

I think Trump should shutdown the government if he doesn't get the Texas/Mexico wall authorized by Congress. He said, “We come up again on September 28th and if we don’t get border security we will have no choice, we will close down the country because we need border security.”
www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-government/trump-threatens-govt-s
hutdown-in-sept-if-no-funding-for-wall-idUSKBN1I0018

As you asked for it, Signym, I gave it some thought. I stopped reacting. I told you what I think. But I predict Trump won't do it. He is all talk and no do.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 8:46 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
As you asked for it, Signym, I gave it some thought. I stopped reacting.

Liar.

And I'll prove it ...

Quote:
I think that Trump should deport as soon as possible all illegal aliens living long term in America.

If you've thought about this, as you SAID you did, then you should be able to answer this question: What do you hope would be accomplished by this policy? After all, there must be a purpose or benefit from proposing such action.

I think that you'll evade the question because we both know that yours was a ridiculous proposal to begin with, and if you should try to support it you'll soon walk yourself into a wall.

Quote:
I think Trump should shutdown the government if he doesn't get the Texas/Mexico wall authorized by Congress.

But you just said that

Quote:
Instead, he is concentrating on captures along the border.

as if border captures were AGAINST your proposal. So, now you WANT him to do what you DIDN'T want him to do a few sentences earlier? Isn't this an example of exactly what I posted? That people often [thoughtlessly] contradict themselves from one post to the other?

Well! you managed to do that in a single post, so congrats!

****

Seriously, SECOND, I imagine you pouting and drinking.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, August 15, 2018 10:08 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
As you asked for it, Signym, I gave it some thought. I stopped reacting.
Liar.

And I'll prove it ...

Quote:
I think that Trump should deport as soon as possible all illegal aliens living long term in America.
If you've thought about this, as you SAID you did, then you should be able to answer this question: What do you hope would be accomplished by this policy? After all, there must be a purpose or benefit from proposing such action.

I think that you'll evade the question because we both know that yours was a ridiculous proposal to begin with, and if you should try to support it you'll soon walk yourself into a wall.

Quote:
I think Trump should shutdown the government if he doesn't get the Texas/Mexico wall authorized by Congress.
But you just said that
Quote:
Instead, he is concentrating on captures along the border.
as if border captures were AGAINST your proposal. So, now you WANT him to do what you DIDN'T want him to do a few sentences earlier? Isn't this an example of exactly what I posted? That people often [thoughtlessly] contradict themselves from one post to the other?

Well! you managed to do that in a single post, so congrats!

****

Seriously, SECOND, I imagine you pouting and drinking.

Signym, why would I want illegal aliens living in America? They are illegal. They should go – to jail, to their home country, whichever the law says. Trump says he wants no illegal aliens living in America. Congratulations to Donald! He and I agree. There were 11 million illegals when he was inaugurated. There are still 11 million. When will he start reducing that number to zero? In what year does he reach zero? Trump has not said. Trump did say he needs a Texas/Mexico wall and he says he will shutdown the government to get that wall. Congratulations again to Donald! He and I agree. I expect him to either get a Congressional appropriation for the wall or else he vetoes the appropriation bill, shutting down the government. That is how a President gets what he wants. There is no third way where he does not get the wall and signs the appropriation bill despite that . . . unless Trump was lying all the time about the Texas/Mexico wall. I disapprove of lying.

Congress might override Trump's veto. Sometimes Presidents lose, but there will be another appropriation bill next year and another chance to add the Texas/Mexico wall to that bill. I expect Trump to be persistent, not give up. Giving up would indicate he was lying all the time about the wall.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 2:55 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, why would I want illegal aliens living in America?

You said it yourself: They work hard and they're cheap.

Quote:
They are illegal. They should go – to jail, to their home country, whichever the law says.

Why? I know MY issues with illegal immigrants, and it has nothing to do with "brown". So, aside from what Trump says, what'r YOUR reason for not wanting 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA? Stop using Trump as your sockpuppet. Speak for yourself, man! Show us that you've done some thinking!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 6:04 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Signym, why would I want illegal aliens living in America?
You said it yourself: They work hard and they're cheap.

Quote:
They are illegal. They should go – to jail, to their home country, whichever the law says.
Why? I know MY issues with illegal immigrants, and it has nothing to do with "brown". So, aside from what Trump says, what'r YOUR reason for not wanting 11 million illegal immigrants in the USA? Stop using Trump as your sockpuppet. Speak for yourself, man! Show us that you've done some thinking!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Congress passed laws defining who is illegal. In my opinion, these are perfectly reasonable laws. I have no desire to rewrite these laws. The laws weren't enforced perfectly by Obama because the laws required deportees to go before a judge and there were not enough judges. Trump also is required to send the deportees to a judge, but does not want to do that.

There is an article explaining the steps that Trump refuses to take, steps required by law:

Fact Checker Analysis
President Trump’s misconceptions about immigration courts and law

www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/26/president-trump
s-misconceptions-about-immigration-courts-and-law/?utm_term=.211957f78f07

“Hiring many thousands of judges, and going through a long and complicated legal process, is not the way to go – will always be disfunctional. People must simply be stopped at the Border and told they cannot come into the U.S. illegally. Children brought back to their country…… ….If this is done, illegal immigration will be stopped in it’s tracks – and at very little, by comparison, cost. This is the only real answer – and we must continue to BUILD THE WALL!”
— Trump, in a pair of tweets, June 25, 2018

I don't know what game Trump is playing. Maybe he is simply pandering to his base when he talks about illegals. Maybe he does not want to reduce the number of illegal aliens from 11 million down to zero, but he can't say it to his base. Whatever his game is, he is not doing the work necessary by law to deport those 11 million.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 7:24 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm just going to make a general comment here ...

It seems to me that I spend a lot of posts repeating the same things over and over. I have a general understanding of what I think is good for Americans and how I think we can get there. It's certainly not 100% correct, but at least I took some time to think it through to its fundamental principles ... what am I "for" more? Corporations or democracy? Foreign money or peace? Efficiency or robustness? Globalism or nationalism? Meritocracy or privilege?

Many of you OTOH just endlessly splatter the board with undigested, contradictory bits and pieces of ghafla. As soon as one of your (mostly) stupid points is dispatched, you bring up another (mostly) stupid point. Quite often, you'll recycle a (mostly) stupid point from a previous post without, apparently, even realizing that that point has already been eliminated several times by some of your other (mostly) stupid posts.

It would be nice if you would, some day, sit down and THINK. Yanno, track down what you feel, and - especially - WHY you feel that way. What or who are you defending? Why?

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

There is an assumption that the 2020 presidential election will be business as usual: Donald Trump will run on the economy, social issues and immigration, and the Democratic candidate will run on income inequality, Democratic socialism and Trump’s character — the 2020 version of right-left U.S. politics.

But I believe there’s a sleeper issue out there that could force its way into the election. What if Mother Nature is on the ballot?

What if all the extreme weather this year — linked to climate change — gets even worse and more costly? What if the big 2020 issue is not left-right — but hot-cold or wet-dry? What if the big 2020 issue is not “Who lost Russia?” or “Who lost North Korea?” but “Who lost planet Earth?”

If in 2020 we’re in the midst of even more damaging droughts and storms than we are today, Democrats may be able to run against Trump’s make-America-polluted-again environmental strategy and his refusal to either acknowledge the threat of climate change or seize the incredible opportunity it offers America to become richer, healthier, more secure and more respected by leading the world in clean energy technologies.

More at www.registerguard.com/opinion/20180816/democrats-should-put-mother-nat
ure-on-2020-ballot

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 10:22 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Congress passed laws defining who is illegal. In my opinion, these are perfectly reasonable laws.

What aspect is "reasonable"? Is it the limits and allowances on immigration? The kinds of visas available? The deportation process? What kinds of laws would be "UNreasonable"?

What is it about the presence of so many "illegal aliens" that's the problem? Is it an economic one? A cultural one? Or are you simply objecting to the fact that the first thing that these immigrants did is to break our border laws? If THAT's the basic issue, what is it about the presence of these lawbreakers that you find troubling? After all, every American has broken the speeding limit and not gotten caught ... how is that different from this? Do you feel that they represent a large population which has no allegiance to the USA or fundamental respect for our laws? Do you feel that indicates basic criminality which presages further criminality? In other words, what SPECIFICALLY is your problem with the presence of so many illegal aliens living here?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 11:03 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Congress passed laws defining who is illegal. In my opinion, these are perfectly reasonable laws.
What aspect is "reasonable"? Is it the limits and allowances on immigration? The kinds of visas available? The deportation process? What kinds of laws would be "UNreasonable"?

What is it about the presence of so many "illegal aliens" that's the problem? Is it an economic one? A cultural one? Or are you simply objecting to the fact that the first thing that these immigrants did is to break our border laws? If THAT's the basic issue, what is it about the presence of these lawbreakers that you find troubling? After all, every American has broken the speeding limit and not gotten caught ... how is that different from this? Do you feel that they represent a large population which has no allegiance to the USA or fundamental respect for our laws? Do you feel that indicates basic criminality which presages further criminality? In other words, what SPECIFICALLY is your problem with the presence of so many illegal aliens living here?

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

You have a lot of questions for me (but this is not about me) and no answers for why Trump is not enforcing the law. Have somebody (but not me) explain to you why Trump concentrates all his speeches on preventing illegals from crossing the border, but at the same time the actual number of illegals living in America stays at 11 million.

On one hand, a few thousand illegals are caught at the border each month and on the other hand a few dozen illegals are deported out of 11 million illegals that have been living in America for years. Trump is not enforcing the law and it is his responsibility to explain why he does not concentrate on the bigger problem, size 11 million. Trump has not explained. I can't. I have no idea why he is spinning his wheels.

I recall that MS-13 are Trump's favorite boogie men among illegals. Why has he not deported them? Breitbart blames the Democrats, but it would be Trump's lack of effort that should take the blame.
www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/17/11-animalistic-crimes-comm
itted-against-americans-by-ms-13-gang/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 11:15 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
You have a lot of questions for me- SECOND

Yes, because this was all about YOU THINKING.

Now, you SAID that you gave this issue some thought. And since you obviously haven't thought about it at all and were just making snarky proposals, you walked yourself into a wall after just a few questions, as predicted. You're just a puppet with strings attached, and all anyone has to do is pull the right strings and you'll react. I've said that your opinions are SECONDHAND and was right.

If at some point you want to stop splattering the board with random bits of undigested schiess, and are ready for an honest discussion, let me know.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 11:58 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
You have a lot of questions for me- SECOND
Yes, because this was all about YOU THINKING.

Now, you SAID that you gave this issue some thought. And since you obviously haven't thought about it at all and were just making snarky proposals, you walked yourself into a wall after just a few questions, as predicted. You're just a puppet with strings attached, and all anyone has to do is pull the right strings and you'll react. I've said that your opinions are SECONDHAND and was right.

If at some point you want to stop splattering the board with random bits of undigested schiess, and are ready for an honest discussion, let me know.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Signym, why is it unimportant to you that Trump is not deporting MS-13? He could do it with an executive order, but he has not. Then there are the other 11 million illegals who aren't murdering Americans. Trump promised to remove them, too. But he also said he wasn't going to spend any money to do it. Quoting him:

Quote:
“Hiring many thousands of judges, and going through a long and complicated legal process, is not the way to go – will always be disfunctional. People must simply be stopped at the Border and told they cannot come into the U.S. illegally. Children brought back to their country…… ….If this is done, illegal immigration will be stopped in it’s tracks – and at very little, by comparison, cost. This is the only real answer – and we must continue to BUILD THE WALL!”

— Trump, in a pair of tweets, June 25, 2018
www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/26/president-trump
s-misconceptions-about-immigration-courts-and-law/?utm_term=.07c0190492c7

Trump cannot deport illegals unless he spends money and follows the law. He refuses to do either of those things. Signym, I think that is a White House/Trump problem you need to explain. And Trump's preferred solution, build the wall, won't be built unless Trump vetoes the appropriations bill in September, forcing Congress to add the wall money to the bill to get his signature.

If I was betting, I'd bet that Trump won't veto the spending bill and he won't get his wall because of that. As Trump says far too often: We will see.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 2:38 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, why is it unimportant to you that Trump is not deporting MS-13?

Do you really think you're going to bait me into an argument by making such a ridiculous statement?

Quote:
NPR: Trump's ICE Deportations Are Up From Obama's Figures, Data Show

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/23/579884642/trumps-ice-deportations-incre
ase-from-obamas-figures-data-show

But let me ask YOU: Why is it unimportant to you that you're such a mindless partisan?

When you're ready not be such a tool, let me know.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 3:12 PM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I'm just going to make a general comment here ...

It seems to me that I spend a lot of posts repeating the same things over and over. I have a general understanding of what I think is good for Americans and how I think we can get there. It's certainly not 100% correct, but at least I took some time to think it through to its fundamental principles ... what am I "for" more? Corporations or democracy? Foreign money or peace? Efficiency or robustness? Globalism or nationalism? Meritocracy or privilege?

Many of you OTOH just endlessly splatter the board with undigested, contradictory bits and pieces of ghafla. As soon as one of your (mostly) stupid points is dispatched, you bring up another (mostly) stupid point. Quite often, you'll recycle a (mostly) stupid point from a previous post without, apparently, even realizing that that point has already been eliminated several times by some of your other (mostly) stupid posts.

It would be nice if you would, some day, sit down and THINK. Yanno, track down what you feel, and - especially - WHY you feel that way. What or who are you defending? Why?

Bird-dog the essential principles that are driving that reaction. Look at how that principle behaves at the extremes; whether or not it conflicts with other essential principles (most likely it does); and resolve that conflict.

I know ... thinking. It's hard work. So best get to it; sooner is better.

****

I just gave GSTRING a[nother] run-through on the conflict between "government regulation" and "free trade"; I hope it sticks this time, and maybe he will (finally) resolve the contradiction between his own two positions and decide how much of each he wants.

Let me give you another quick example: Say that you sympathize with illegal immigrants. You think their influx should be unlimited. Therefore, you're an advocate of "open borders". How does that work at the extremes? What if we had 40 million people crossing our borders next year? How does that work? How could we MAKE it work? Do we WANT to make it work? What does this position conflict with? How do we resolve the conflict(s)?

Give it some thought. Stop reacting: Think.

I spent 2 years easily proving you and Kiki to be frauds & fooligans when it came to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. You obviously learned nothing in those 2 years. You just repeat the same arguments and denial tactics and lies about what others think and mountains of text to make it all seem substantial. A big snooze fest.
Time for you to bitch about sunny days and running water.

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 3:19 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I spent 2 years proving you and Kiki to be frauds & fooligans when it came to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

An "invasion" which didn't use air support, cross-border artillery, lines of tanks visible by satellite, installations, or masses of troops.

I never posted that Russia wasn't involved. But their involvement was with arms, supplies, intel, some troops and trainers, and a porous border but left no permanent footprint in Donbas, and involved no violence in Crimea (maybe a few shots fired, but not by Russians). I would call it a "proxy war" or a "hybrid war", but clearly Russia was not interested in establishing a permanent presence in eastern Ukraine, and was concerned only with their naval base in Sevastopol which they acquired without violence.

Some "invasion"!

When YOU'RE ready to start thinking, let me know!

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 3:21 PM

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
I spent 2 years proving you and Kiki to be frauds & fooligans when it came to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
An "invasion" which didn't use air support, cross-border artillery, lines of tanks visible by satellite, installations, or masses of troops.

Yeah, some "invasion"!

As I have posted probably a couple-dozen times by now, it involved arms, supplies, intel, some troops and trainers, and a porous border but left no permanent footprint in Donbas, and involved no violence in Crimea (maybe a few shots fired, but not by Russians). I would call it a "proxy war" or a "hybrid war", but clearly Russia was not interested in establishing a permanent presence in eastern Ukraine, and was concerned only with their naval base in Sevastopol which they acquired without violence.

And still wrong - you can't hide your idiocy by repeating it!.

And so funny to hear you complain about how many times you've "had to type something!"

You live to type - the only thing you like doing more is reading what you've typed!

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 4:26 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

You're a troll, GSTRING. And a brainless coward.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 5:09 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

But let me ask YOU: Why is it unimportant to you that you're such a mindless partisan?

When you're ready not be such a tool, let me know.

Now you know, Signym. When Trump says he kept a promise but he did not, is it partisan to take note of his failure?

Maybe someday Trump will turn his illegal alien failure into success, but for now he is not admitting he is lying about his failure to remove 11 million illegals. He can't even handle hundreds of MS-13. He is weak. He is confused. He is lying. And I can prove it with Trump's own words:
Stunning admission by Trump
www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/08/16/tapper-monologue-brennan-trump-
reason-security-clearance-lead-vpx.cnn

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 5:27 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Now you know, Signym. When Trump says he kept a promise but he did not, is it partisan to take note of his failure?

DID Trump fail? NPR says not.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 5:45 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Now you know, Signym. When Trump says he kept a promise but he did not, is it partisan to take note of his failure?
DID Trump fail? NPR says not.

Look like failure to me, Signym. That NPR story is 8 months old.

“The Hungarian Embassy put a page up on their website warning Hungarians, the U.S. Immigration Police are out in force. And you overstay your visa at your own peril.”

“The number of deported Haitians soared from 300 in 2016 to more than 5,500 in 2017. They mistakenly thought they could get humanitarian relief. But that wasn't the case. They got locked up and then deported.”

“There's up to 50,000 Irish visa overstays living in the U.S. illegally. So the government of Ireland has actually appointed a special envoy to the U.S. Congress to figure out a legislative fix to find a path to legalization for the undocumented Irish living here and get more work visas.”

Such mighty triumphs for Trump, Signym. More recently, Trump was locking up children. Very impressive work. At the rate Trump is moving, the last of the 11 million illegals will be deported in 10 years after never because "more travelers overstay their visitors' visas - there were more than 600,000 in 2016 - than cross the border illegally." Let's see: 1,200,000 enter by plane or by wetback and 400,000 are deported. That means Trump has 800,000 more illegals every year. Good job!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 6:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, your "point" is stupid and baseless. The reason why criminal aliens are here NOW
is bc Obama didn't deport them, and he had 8 years to do it. Why do you object to Trump's performance when you didn't object to Obama's on the same issue? CLEARLY you don't really care whether criminal aliens are deported or not; if you did you would have said something about it 2008-2016.

When you're ready to have an honest discussion ... and really, I doubt that you ever will but who knows ... get back to me on the topic.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 7:33 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

When you're ready to have an honest discussion ... and really, I doubt that you ever will but who knows ... get back to me on the topic.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Signym, now I know you are living in Russia because you don’t remember this happening in America:

Arrests by Trump’s administration's Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2017 were about half what they were during President Barack Obama's peak years, 2010 and 2011, according to a new report by the Migration Policy Institute.

During Obama's first term, when he was laying the groundwork for what he hoped would be a comprehensive bargain on immigration, his administration aggressively enforced immigration law. ICE arrests peaked at more than 300,000 annually in 2010 and 2011. Deportations from the American interior -- in other words, not of people apprehended near the border — surpassed 200,000 in both those years, also about twice the number reached in 2017. Pro-immigrant groups took to calling Obama the "deporter in chief."

The effort severely strained Obama's relations with immigration activists while getting him nowhere with Republican legislators, most of whom stayed true to a policy of bad faith. In 2011, at the height of the deportations, GOP Representative Lamar Smith, a rigid immigration opponent from Texas, lamented what he called Obama's policy of "backdoor amnesty."

After the House GOP killed the immigration deal that had passed the Senate in 2013 with a super-majority, Obama gave up. His final years were marked by a more lenient disposition toward immigrants and minimal appetite for enforcement against non-criminals.

More at www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-05-15/trump-is-deporting-fewer-im
migrants-than-obama-did

What is Trump's excuse for doing half of what Obama did? Obama wanted the law weakened, yet he enforced it more energetically than Trump, who wants the law strengthened. What is going on in Trump's head? Why is he so disorganized about deporting illegals? I do not think Trump could execute a plan to deport all illegals before the 2020 election. Or the 2024 election. Or the 2028 election. Or any election.

Thinking back, I remember the GOP whining about illegals during Ronald Reagan's Presidency. I was tired of hearing about then. It is time for the GOP to finally do what they always promised to do.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 16, 2018 9:28 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
When you're ready to have an honest discussion ... and really, I doubt that you ever will but who knows ... get back to me on the topic. - SIGNY

Signym, now I know you are living in Russia because you don’t remember this happening in America- SECOND

STILL not ready to have an honest discussion???

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Friday, August 17, 2018 6:30 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
When you're ready to have an honest discussion ... and really, I doubt that you ever will but who knows ... get back to me on the topic. - SIGNY

Signym, now I know you are living in Russia because you don’t remember this happening in America- SECOND
STILL not ready to have an honest discussion???

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

When a politician says he kept a promise but he did not, is it partisan to take note of the failure?

Trump wrote this week:
Our Country was built on Tariffs, and Tariffs are now leading us to great new Trade Deals - as opposed to the horrible and unfair Trade Deals that I inherited as your President. Other Countries should not be allowed to come in and steal the wealth of our great U.S.A. No longer!
8:04 AM - 15 Aug 2018
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1029745594540150784

Trump says, "No longer!" But when I check, the trade deficit is $46 billion for June. By the year’s end, it will be $600 billion for twelve months. How long is "No longer!" for Trump? A year? Two years? For ordinary people, "no longer" means "today" or "now".

When does Trump stop the "stealing the wealth of our great U.S.A."? Because $552 billion was stolen in 2017.
www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/current_press_release/ft900
.pdf

Trump identified the reduction of the US trade deficit as one of the key goals for the recent tariffs imposed by the US.

According to research by economists at the New York Federal Reserve, it is unlikely that Trump's tariffs will lead to a reduction of the trade deficit. The New York Fed economists identified two reasons that the deficit will not decline: increased costs will reduce the output of domestic exporters and retaliatory tariffs will reduce foreign appetite for US goods.
www.businessinsider.com/trump-trade-war-unlikely-to-reduce-trade-defic
it-export-import-fall-2018-8

Trump has to prove the economists are wrong. The longer he waits to raise tariffs, the longer "stealing the wealth of our great U.S.A." goes on. How long is "No longer!" in Trump’s opinion? He has not said.

The Trump team argues that the tariffs are giving them leverage in trade negotiations and any short-term pain from the tariffs will eventually be worth it, but they have yet to see results. Top White House officials such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert E. Lighthizer made the television rounds to herald a Korean deal as proof that the Trump trade agenda was working, calling it “historic” and an “absolute win-win.” Trump tweeted it was a “great deal.”

Yet nearly five months later, the deal has not been finalized, a time-frame trade experts say is getting long for what appeared to be a straightforward tweak to an existing deal. “The Koreans learned that even if you reach an agreement with the Trump administration, they might hit you again with something later to get more,” said Troy Stangarone of the Korea Economic Institute.

Deals with other nations remain even more elusive. Negotiations with China and Canada, the two largest U.S. trading partners, have stalled this summer as substantial disagreements endure and foreign leaders say Trump is being unreasonable and they don’t understand what he really wants.

Revising NAFTA has been a top Trump priority since his presidential campaign began, and he’s repeatedly called it one of the “worst deals in history.” Senior administration officials have said an agreement in principle is close between the United States and Mexico, but Canada has been left out of the talks, a major hurdle to getting all three parties to agree.

More at www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/15/trump-boasts-about-great-ne
w-trade-deals-so-far-he-hasnt-finalized-any/?utm_term=.6a4176457270

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, August 17, 2018 6:57 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
When a politician says he kept a promise but he did not, is it partisan to take note of the failure?

That's a dishonest question. If you were being honest (with yourself) you would never have asked that question.

One of these times, you might find a glimmer of truthfulness in yourself somewhere, but this was not that moment.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Friday, August 17, 2018 8:28 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
When a politician says he kept a promise but he did not, is it partisan to take note of the failure?
That's a dishonest question. If you were being honest (with yourself) you would never have asked that question.

One of these times, you might find a glimmer of truthfulness in yourself somewhere, but this was not that moment.

How about this truth? Trump lied his fucking head off about his trade deals and about his intentions to reduce the trade deficit. Was that honest enough for you, Signym?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, August 17, 2018 8:43 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Kevin Williamson’s unhinged attack on Elizabeth Warren’s corporate accountability bill, explained

I’m not sure he actually read it.

As someone who tries to follow progressive policy development trends pretty closely, I was struck to see Thursday morning that Kevin Williamson had an article in National Review describing “Elizabeth Warren’s Batty Plan to Nationalize . . . Everything.”

Williamson turns out to be referring to Warren’s proposed Accountable Capitalism Act, which I wrote about on Wednesday and which does not involve nationalizing anything at all.

Her proposal would, in fact, be a large change in how the American economy works. And the impact of the change would almost certainly be negative for the 10 percent of the population that owns 80 percent of the value of the American stock market. So it’s natural that the plan will provoke intense opposition, and very much worth considering the possibility that it’s a bad idea.

But Williamson, who every conservative I know regards as one of the movement’s top minds, reaches his conclusion based almost entirely on mischaracterizing Warren’s program.

More at www.vox.com/2018/8/17/17698502/kevin-williamson-elizabeth-warren-corpo
rate-accountability

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, August 17, 2018 10:04 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I see that you're back to splattering the board, again.

Seriously, SECOND, does it not trouble you that you're so unhinged and dishonest?

Quote:
Many of you OTOH just endlessly splatter the board with undigested, contradictory bits and pieces of ghafla.

That's you, SECOND. Here's a hint: quantity does not equal quality

Quote:
As soon as one of your (mostly) stupid points is dispatched, you bring up another (mostly) stupid point. Quite often, you'll recycle a (mostly) stupid point from a previous post without, apparently, even realizing that that point has already been eliminated several times by some of your other (mostly) stupid posts.

It would be nice if you would, some day, sit down and THINK. Yanno, track down what you feel, and - especially - WHY you feel that way. What or who are you defending? Why?

Bird-dog the essential principles that are driving that reaction. Look at how that principle behaves at the extremes; whether or not it conflicts with other essential principles (most likely it does); and resolve that conflict.

I know ... thinking. It's hard work. So best get to it; sooner is better.

Honesty is also hard work, but you can't think objectively if you can't even be honest with yourself, and view your own reactions realistically. That's another habit you might want to start developing.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Friday, August 17, 2018 3:32 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I see that you're back to splattering the board, again.

Seriously, SECOND, does it not trouble you that you're so unhinged and dishonest?

Honesty is also hard work, but you can't think objectively if you can't even be honest with yourself, and view your own reactions realistically. That's another habit you might want to start developing.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

US interior secretary's school friend blocking climate research, scientists say:

Prominent US climate scientists have told the Guardian that the Trump administration is holding up research funding as their projects undergo an unprecedented political review by the high-school football teammate of the US interior secretary.

Oh, come on. Just because the guy used to play high-school ball with Zinke doesn’t make his PhD in geophysics worth less than anyone else’s. We should probably cut him some—

Steve Howke, one of Zinke’s high-school football teammates, oversees this review. Howke’s highest degree is a bachelor’s in business administration. Until Zinke appointed him as an interior department senior adviser to the acting assistant secretary of policy, management and budget, Howke had spent his entire career working in credit unions.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/17/interior-secretarys-school-fri
end-crippling-climate-research-scientists-say

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, August 17, 2018 9:04 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, what is really troubling you? I don't ever remember you being engaged in "the issues" until Trump came along, and - all of the sudden- EVERYTHING became a crisis for you!

Did you ever post about "the poor illegal immigrants" when Obama was deporting them by the cargo plane-full?

Did you ever object to aggression against foreign nations when Obama was toppling governments and killing people overseas? Or did this just now become a problem?

Did you ever have heartburn over government-in-service-to-the-wealthy when Obama threw government money at big banks and pharmaceuticals, or do you save your ire for Republicans?

In other words, what REALLY bothers you? Is it the political party? The person? Something else? Why?

I'm sure there is a principle at work somewhere; something that drives you and rankles your sense of right and wrong. If you could figure out what that is ... or at least start down that path ... you could stop shitting all over the board and consolidate your complaints into MEANINGFUL (for you) problems. I would love to discuss what YOU THINK, but I'm not about to put myself in the target range of those undigested bits of schiess that come flying out towards the board every now and again.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, August 18, 2018 7:17 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND, what is really troubling you? I don't ever remember you being engaged in "the issues" until Trump came along, and - all of the sudden- EVERYTHING became a crisis for you!

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Jimmy Carter has been notably quiet about President Trump. But on this night, two years into Trump’s term, he’s not holding back.

“I think he’s a disaster,” Carter says. “In human rights and taking care of people and treating people equal.”

Carter says his father taught him that truthfulness matters. He said that was reinforced at the U.S. Naval Academy, where he said students are expelled for telling even the smallest lie.

“I think there’s been an attitude of ignorance toward the truth by President Trump,” he says.

Carter says he thinks the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has “changed our political system from a democracy to an oligarchy. Money is now preeminent. I mean, it’s just gone to hell now.”

He says he believes that the nation’s “ethical and moral values” are still intact and that Americans eventually will “return to what’s right and what’s wrong, and what’s decent and what’s indecent, and what’s truthful and what’s lies.”

But, he says, “I doubt if it happens in my lifetime.”

More at www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-un-celebrity-president-jimmy-carter-shun
s-riches-lives-modestly-in-his-georgia-hometown/ar-BBM4cY4?ocid=spartandhp

About Carter’s comment on the Citizens United decision:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
"A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold," wrote Justice John Paul Stevens.
It was an extremely partisan issue, along the same dimension as Bush v Gore, a 5 Republicans to 4 Democrats decision. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

Because of that decision they didn't accurately know the actual Florida vote count in 2000, but Texans who were familiar with Bush as Texas governor accurately predicted how bad his major decisions would be in the White House. It was easy to see which direction Bush was bent on following. People familiar with Trump as a casino owner/TV star predicted the same.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, August 18, 2018 4:22 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, you still don't "get it", do you?

I can't have a conversation with Jimmy Carter, so why are you posting his opinion?? It's one thing to link to facts, figures, events, etc but if all you do is transmit other peoples' opinions, what's the point???

I can only discuss this with you. I want to know what YOU think.

DO you think???

Jimmy Carter is the President noted for introducing "human rights" into the American political lexicon. (He also supplied Islamist nutjobs in Afghanistan with weapons in Brzezinski's neverending "war on Russia".) HIS concern is Trump's record on "human rights".

So, at what point did YOU become concerned with "human rights"?

Was it when Madelaine Albright and Bill Clinton killed a half-million Iraqi children?

When GWB killed up to a million Iraqis in his feckless invasion?

When Obama supported jihadists in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, killing hundreds of thousands, displacing millions, and unleashing the worst humanitarian disaster to date in Yemen?

Or is this just another entirely arbitrary "concern" on your part? And if this is just an arbitrary piece of shit flying towards the board, which one ... of the hundred or more "points" that you've posted on the board ... is your MAIN concern? And if NONE of those opinions that you've posted are of any real concern to you, then why the hell are you even posting?

You have a reason. What is that reason? What are you hoping to accomplish, and why?

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, August 18, 2018 5:05 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, you still don't "get it", do you?

I can't have a conversation with Jimmy Carter, so why are you posting his opinion?? It's one thing to link to facts, figures, information, etc but if all you do is transmit other peoples' opinions, what's the point???

I can only discuss this with you. I want to know what YOU think.

DO you think???

Signym, I think you have to be truly fanatical not to see that Trump is every bit as terrible a human being, and every bit as much a menace to the republic, as you were warned when all the cool kids were busy snarking about Clinton’s emails. Signym, you were snarking on the emails this week. And you added Brennan because Trump moved against Brennan http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=62609

Signym, did you lose your mind when making your list of murders ordered by a President? It is your list, not mine, and no URLs did you provide to back it up:

1) Madelaine Albright and Bill Clinton killed a half-million children.

2) GWB killed up to a million.

3) Obama killed hundreds of thousands.

While you are at it, Signym, add #4) 39 million beautiful brown-eyed cows are slaughtered EACH YEAR and it is all the fault of Trump. Oh, actually it is not. And neither are your kill numbers 1), 2), and 3) all the fault of the Presidents. It is just another one of your crazy digressions because you cannot face up to your endorsement of Donald, the Truly Awful Trump, for President.

See, I got a URL for the animal slaughter: https://awfw.org/factory-farms/
"9 billion land animals are killed each year in the U.S. alone." My God! It is a holocaust! Blame Trump!

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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