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
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 471949
PAGE 43 of 139

Monday, November 26, 2018 11:50 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:
Yeah yeah. Whatever, SECOND.

Your constant bellyaching about "all Americans" is grotesque.

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

About a 110,000,000 Americans approved wholeheartedly of the Vietnam War. Only 2,709,918 Americans served in Vietnam. Fewer volunteered. Even fewer did more good than harm to America. I don't place all the blame on the 110,000,000. Most of the blame goes to Presidents, Generals, Admirals, Secretaries of Defense, Captain Ernest Medina and Lt. William Laws Calley Jr. for that fiasco. But if hundreds of millions of Americans weren't fearful of Commies, there would not have been a Vietnam War. Neither would there be a War on Terror nor an Iraq War if hundreds of millions of Americans weren't fearful of terrorists. The fearful American majority have a BIG influence on which wars get fought.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, November 27, 2018 5:06 AM

SECOND

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

In many ways, climate denialism resembles the tobacco industry’s cancer denialism. Businesses with a financial interest in confusing the public — in this case, fossil-fuel companies — are prime movers. As far as I can tell, every one of the handful of well-known scientists who have expressed climate skepticism has received large sums of money from these companies or from dark money conduits like DonorsTrust — the same conduit, as it happens, that supported Matthew Whitaker, the new acting attorney general, before he joined the Trump administration.

But climate denial has sunk deeper political roots than cancer denial ever did. In practice, you can’t be a modern Republican in good standing unless you deny the reality of global warming, assert that it has natural causes or insist that nothing can be done about it without destroying the economy. You also have to either accept or acquiesce in wild claims that the overwhelming evidence for climate change is a hoax, that it has been fabricated by a vast global conspiracy of scientists.

Why would anyone go along with such things? Money is still the main answer: Almost all prominent climate deniers are on the fossil-fuel take. However, ideology is also a factor: If you take environmental issues seriously, you are led to the need for government regulation of some kind, so rigid free-market ideologues don’t want to believe that environmental concerns are real.

More at www.nytimes.com/2018/11/26/opinion/climate-change-denial-republican.ht
ml

Big Oil & the GOP aren't the problem when it comes to enacting climate change legislation. The problem is American voters who don't want to pay more for energy. Every poll backs this up. The GOP is simply reflecting the desires of their constituents. The point of legislation was always to have oil, coal, and natural gas prices higher than clean energy to force consumers to switch to clean.

Are the majority of Americans willing to pay higher taxes on fossil fuels? No. Will they leave coal and oil assets worth trillions in the ground? No. The GOP and Trump have figured this out. The Democratic Party has not. Technology is an escape from this energy prices vs climate change trap for Democrats. Clean energy prices have to drop to much less than coal and oil, but how likely are hundreds of thousand engineers and scientists able to create that new low price? Probably more likely than hundreds of millions of voters willing to pay higher prices for coal and oil. Let us all pray for the necessary technological miracles and scientific breakthroughs because we ain’t getting a political miracle, except in, maybe, California. It is not yet Zero Carbon day in 2045 and the GOP might return to power in California before then.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/aug/29/california-electricity-fossil-
fuels-wind-solar-vote (CA goes part way.)
www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/9/11/17844896/california-jerry
-brown-carbon-neutral-2045-climate-change (CA goes all the way. Maybe.)

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, November 27, 2018 5:27 AM

SECOND

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

Conservative “trade-offs” are almost never anything but thinly-veiled excuses for not doing anything to upset the current order. The modern Republican Party, in particular, is almost entirely committed to the propositions that tax cuts pay for themselves, wars don’t cost anything, social welfare hurts the poor, climate change doesn’t exist, and the unregulated free market magically solves all problems. If there’s ever been a political party more dedicated to selling itself to the electorate on the basis of no trade-offs or sacrifices ever being necessary, it’s the contemporary GOP.

More at www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/11/human-nature-sucks-become-a-lef
ty/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 8:17 AM

SECOND

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

Trump lied when he sold himself as a human hand grenade to blow up a society that isn’t working for big swatches of America. He will tweet, but not explode:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Very disappointed with General Motors and their CEO, Mary Barra, for closing plants in Ohio, Michigan and Maryland. Nothing being closed in Mexico & China. The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, including for electric cars. General Motors made a big China bet years ago when they built plants there (and in Mexico) - don’t think that bet is going to pay off. I am here to protect America’s Workers!
11:05 AM - 27 Nov 2018
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1067494680416407552

The Business Idea that Led to Trump

In the summer of 2017, Lynn Paine and Joseph Bower, two Harvard Business School professors, published a piece in the Harvard Business Review arguing that the idea that profits are all that should matter to a company’s leadership is a relatively new one. They trace it to an essay by the free-market economist Milton Friedman, which ran in the Times Magazine in 1970. In the piece, Friedman outlined what he called the “Friedman business doctrine,” which holds that ideas of corporate social responsibility, which had become popular in the business world, were undermining the American way of life. “The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned ‘merely’ with profit but also with promoting desirable ‘social’ ends; that business has a ‘social conscience’ and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoiding pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers,” he wrote. Instead, he went on, “They are preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these last decades.” The article caused a sensation, and Friedman’s idea that managers of companies were nothing more than “agents” of shareholders was taken up by economists and business school professors, who helped build it into the dominant attitude in the United States and beyond. In their article, Paine and Bower argue that this theory is “rife with moral hazard.” Stock owners have no public accountability for what the company does, and no responsibility, as executives do, to place the company’s interests above their own. The costs of prioritizing shareholders’ interests are borne by the company, and by society as a whole, which is robbed of innovations, jobs, and tax revenue.

The tension between long-term and short-term economic interests has become a favorite topic in policy circles in recent years, but the election of Donald Trump, in 2016, brought the implications into clearer focus. Much of Trump’s base is made up of white, rural voters; many of them have seen jobs disappear from their communities, while wages have stagnated for those still working. In the midterm elections, Republicans performed better than many people expected; high-school-educated voters came out, once again, strongly in favor of the party of Trump. According to Shaich, the resentment that these voters feel is a direct result of the quick-profits-over-all ethos that dominates economic thinking. “When we live in a world where we view stockholder value creation as the end, and not as a by-product, which is what short-term thinking lends itself to, we end up doing great damage to every other constituency, and that’s what ultimately drives back to the kind of ‘let’s rip down the establishment’ nihilism that in my view is at the core of Trumpism,” he said. “A Trump voter says, ‘Hey, this isn’t serving me. I’ve been sitting here in Michigan and Wisconsin and Ohio, I thought I’d have a middle-class life if I went to work, and my kids can’t pay their student debt. I lost my manufacturing job and I’m making twelve dollars an hour in a service job. And these guys are closing every plant and squeezing every nickel out of the thing, and Wall Street gets rich. And I’m still living a tough life.’ ”

More at www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-founder-of-panera-bread-explai
ns-the-economic-forces-that-led-to-trump

Firefly clothing: "A regular dork and a girl one!" says Homer. The.Simpsons.S30E08.Krusty.the.Clown

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 11:13 AM

SECOND

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

Trump’s full Washington Post interview transcript, annotated
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/27/president-trumps-full-washi
ngton-post-interview-transcript-annotated/

In an interview published Tuesday evening, Trump simply said: “I’m not happy with the Fed. They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.” I could walk him through some arguments in favor of this position. That way, the next time he’s asked about this by reporters he could say something that makes some kind of sense.

The entire interview is littered with pronouncements that are bizarre (“oceans are very small”), nonsensical (“We lose $800 billion a year with trade.”), or so incoherent that when he comes out and just tells a lie (like that in the past there were many articles worrying about global freezing) it comes almost as a relief. Reality has fundamentally outpaced satire in the Trump era.

This is Trump’s answer to a question about whether it’s appropriate for him to blame the Fed for the GM layoffs announced this week:

"And I’m not blaming anybody, but I’m just telling you I think that the Fed is way off-base with what they’re doing, number one. Number two, a positive note, we’re doing very well on trade, we’re doing very well — our companies are very strong. Don’t forget we’re still up from when I came in 38 percent or something. You know, it’s a tremendous — it’s not like we’re up — and we’re much stronger. And we’re much more liquid. And the banks are now much more liquid during my tenure. And I’m not doing – I’m not playing by the same rules as Obama. Obama had zero interest to worry about; we’re paying interest, a lot of interest. He wasn’t paying down — we’re talking about $50 billion lots of different times, paying down and knocking out liquidity. Well, Obama didn’t do that. And just so you understand, I’m playing a normalization economy whereas he’s playing a free economy. It’s easy to make money when you’re paying no interest. It’s easy to make money when you’re not doing any pay-downs, so you can’t — and despite that, the numbers we have are phenomenal numbers."

I’m pretty sure Trump doesn’t have any idea what he is talking about here.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 12:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump’s full Washington Post interview transcript, annotated
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/11/27/president-trumps-full-washi
ngton-post-interview-transcript-annotated/

I’m pretty sure Trump doesn’t have any idea what he is talking about here.

Written by:

Aaron Blake

Senior political reporter, writing for The Fix
Education: University of Minnesota

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Hill newspaper.

No mention of economics credentials. I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't have any idea what he's talking about either.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 1:49 PM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No mention of economics credentials. I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't have any idea what he's talking about either.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Trump is so in the tank for the House of Saud that he thinks the Saudis are doing us a favor when they sell us oil, and doing us another favor when they buy our military equipment.

Trump said, "We have an ally that’s investing billions and billions of dollars in our country. They could very easily invest $110 billion, $450 billion overall over a period of time, fairly short period of time. $110 billion in military. Russia and China would love to have those orders and they’ll get them if we don’t. They’ll have no choice, but they’ll get them if we don’t. So I take everything into consideration, and again, he totally denies it, and he denied it to me on three different occasions, on three different calls, and a lot of other people deny it, too. Did he do it? As I said, maybe he did and maybe he didn’t, but in the meantime Saudi Arabia’s spending billions and billions of dollars in the United States, and I want them to spend it here."

Trump's economics are incredibly shoddy. He is making up baloney numbers as he goes along in the interview. But it’s also just extraordinary crass to say that it’s okay for the Saudis to murder a US resident who is a father to US citizens because the Saudis give us money.

Trump explaining that he’s not taking Saudi bribe money:

"But they’ve been a great ally. Without them, Israel would be in a lot more trouble. We need to have a counterbalance to Iran. I know him. I know him well, the Crown Prince. And, by the way, never did business with them, never intend to do business with them. I couldn’t care less. This is a very important job that I’m doing right now. The last thing I care about is doing business with people. I only do business for us. Somebody said, well, maybe they’re an investor in one of his jobs. The answer is no. But I just feel that it’s very, very important to maintain that relationship."

Trump is not, of course, prepared to demonstrate that his hands are clean by releasing tax returns or any other personal financial information. He just has this huge network of opaque business interests that he has repeatedly broken promises to provide transparency about and he wants us to just trust that there’s nothing shady happening there. His reasons for wanting to keep it all totally secret are completely above board. As Trump says, "Believe me" all the time.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 1:50 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No mention of economics credentials. I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't have any idea what he's talking about either.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Here was my post that you quoted.

If you're going to make a relevant reply, I invite you to try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 5:36 PM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No mention of economics credentials. I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't have any idea what he's talking about either.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Here was my post that you quoted.

If you're going to make a relevant reply, I invite you to try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, you weren't going to be convinced by economics credentials because there is nobody you trust. But do you trust yourself? If do trust yourself, and if you do read what Trump said, I think you could decide that Trump's economic knowledge and judgment can't be trusted.

At one point during his latest interview with the Wall Street Journal, President Trump mixes up tariffs (a kind of sales tax imposed on imported goods) with interest rates, which are the extra money you owe when you take out a loan. Bob Davis, the journalist conducting the interview, corrects the president. It’s the kind of verbal slip that could happen to anyone. Except that Trump, after acknowledging the error, flips back around and makes it again later in the interview.

It’s the kind of mixup that would get a first-term House member flayed in the right-wing press, but Trump is the president of the United States. See here for example: www.vox.com/2018/8/31/17763462/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-criticism-fact
-check

But it’s not just some random issue where he can’t keep the words straight. Trade policy is, along with immigration, one of his signature issues where he personally has really made a mark. And Trump has made it very clear he does not understand what he is doing. If you want to understand trade much better than Trump does, read about it here: www.vox.com/2018/11/27/18114141/trump-wall-street-journal-interview

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 6:31 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No mention of economics credentials. I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't have any idea what he's talking about either.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Here was my post that you quoted.

If you're going to make a relevant reply, I invite you to try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 7:09 PM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No mention of economics credentials. I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't have any idea what he's talking about either.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Here was my post that you quoted.

If you're going to make a relevant reply, I invite you to try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I can see why your life has been "troubled", 6ix. You want people to answer you the way you want them to, to "respect" your "specialness". They won't do it. The same happens to Trump. He called the CEO of GM, which makes cars in China, and told her to move some auto factories from China to the US and she told him politely to shove his ideas up his ass, knowing that Trump isn't trying to understand why his ideas are bad now and also knowing he will be a useless old fool in the future.

www.vox.com/2018/11/27/18114141/trump-wall-street-journal-interview

President Trump: I spoke with Mary Barra, the head of General Motors, last night. I said: I heard you’re closing your plant. It’s not going to be closed for long, I hope, Mary, because if it is you’ve got a problem.

Mr. Davis: Uh-huh. OK. And did she answer you?

President Trump: She just sort of said we’re trying to get something – you know, it’s being reallocated. You understand that, right?

Mr. Davis: Yeah. Yeah.

President Trump: So she told me: The car’s not selling. I said, so maybe you got to make a better car.

That’s Trump’s solution for Midwestern communities devastated by the loss of auto manufacturing plants. Maybe the bosses should make better cars. Maybe!

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 7:12 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No mention of economics credentials. I'm pretty sure Aaron doesn't have any idea what he's talking about either.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Here was my post that you quoted.

If you're going to make a relevant reply, I invite you to try again.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, November 28, 2018 11:14 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:

I like to make shit up. Like this little tidbit ...

Quote:
About a 110,000,000 Americans approved wholeheartedly of the Vietnam War.

In 1966 there were only 196.5M people in the US, and less than half were adults. And the Vietnam War had it's highest approval rating ever at 48%. Which means only 45M approved of the war. But what's the big deal about me inflating my 'fact' by almost almost 70 million people. Because who doesn't like to lie?

tic tac

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, November 29, 2018 2:54 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
I like to make shit up. Like this little tidbit ...
Quote:
About a 110,000,000 Americans approved wholeheartedly of the Vietnam War.
In 1966 there were only 196.5M people in the US, and less than half were adults. And the Vietnam War had it's highest approval rating ever at 48%. Which means only 45M approved of the war. But what's the big deal about me inflating my 'fact' by almost almost 70 million people. Because who doesn't like to lie?

tic tac

Second was misusing Inflation. He went to the University of Minnesota with Aaron Blake.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, November 29, 2018 9:33 AM

SECOND

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

Trevor Noah on Trump’s Climate Change Jibberish: “Maybe Trump Is So Intelligent That He’s Leaving English Behind”

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, November 29, 2018 10:11 AM

SECOND

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

The House is about to welcome nine new black lawmakers. None are Republicans. It’s about to welcome at least 36 new female lawmakers. Only one is Republican. Among a total count of at least 102 women in the new House, there are nearly seven times as many Democrats as Republicans.
For now, maybe, these numbers don’t spell the Republican Party’s death. But they’re no way to live.
www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/opinion/republican-black-congress-mia-love.
html

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/at-least-123-women-are-headed-to-
congress-just-19-are-republicans/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, November 30, 2018 2:07 PM

SECOND

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

“When I was young, in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war,” Trump told a group of US governors last February. “Now, we never win a war.”

Dominic Tierney, author of multiple books about how America wages war, may know the reason why.

He believes the US can still successfully fight the wars of yesteryear — World War-style conflicts — but hasn’t yet mastered how to win wars against insurgents, which are smaller fights against groups within countries. The problem is the US continues to involve itself in those kinds of fights.

“We’re still stuck in this view that war is like the Super Bowl: We meet on the field, both sides have uniforms, we score points, someone wins, and when the game ends you go home,” he told me. “That’s not what war is like now.”

Under Trump, the US military is currently mired in conflicts in countries like Afghanistan. It’s hard to see any end in sight — especially an end where the United States is the victor, however that’s defined.

Trump said on the campaign trail numerous times that we used to win wars and we don’t win anymore. And he has promised to turn the page on this era of defeat and said that we were going to get sick and tired of winning. Are you seeing winning?

More at www.vox.com/2018/2/15/17007678/syria-trump-war-win-interview

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, December 1, 2018 8:19 AM

SECOND

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

Most billionaires are not especially vocal about public affairs, so public perceptions of what billionaires think are often dominated by an idiosyncratic minority who — like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — tend to talk a lot about high-minded charitable ventures and espouse vaguely centrist or even center-left political views.

But political scientists Page, Seawright, and Lacombe recently completed the first systematic review of billionaires’ political views, finding “that Buffett, Gates, Bloomberg et. al. are not at all typical.” Instead, most billionaires are “obsessed with cutting taxes, especially estate taxes — which apply only to the wealthiest Americans.” And rather than speaking publicly about issues, “most of the wealthiest US billionaires have made substantial financial contributions — amounting to hundreds of thousands of reported dollars annually, in addition to any undisclosed ‘dark money’ contributions — to conservative Republican candidates and officials.”

Rich people got richer, thanks to Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

In arguably the most ridiculous element of his farewell interview, Paul Ryan whined that “there were a lot of seats in California we should have won and we got massively outspent — if you’ve got a couple of billionaires dropping $100 million on your head, that leaves a mark.”

Democrats did raise prodigious sums of money in the 2018 midterms, largely from grassroots donors alarmed by the GOP’s sudden embrace of Trump, a man who Ryan disavowed by the end of the 2016 campaign. But in terms of billionaires dropping huge checks, it was the Republican Koch network that delivered $400 million while Republican Sheldon Adelson personally spent $55 million.

Although $55 million is an awful lot of money, it’s less than what Adelson personally reaped from Ryan’s beloved Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Adelson’s company scored a tax windfall of $670 million in just one quarter, and with a net worth that runs into the many billions of dollars, the estate tax repeal — the one policy goal Ryan actually achieved — will give Adelson’s heirs billions of dollars.

More at www.vox.com/2018/11/30/18119791/paul-ryan-legacy-budget-roadmap

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, December 2, 2018 8:22 AM

SECOND

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

Republicans Blaming the Democrats, the 1971 version:

One of the most vivid exchanges between Nixon and Kissinger took place on the morning of 29 May 1971, just before the national security adviser embarked on a new round of secret negotiations. He outlined his plans to make a deal in time for the next presidential election: ‘So we get through ’72. I’m being perfectly cynical about this, Mr President.’

Nixon: ‘Yes.’

Kissinger: ‘If we can, in October of ’72, go around the country saying we ended the war and the Democrats wanted to turn it over to the Communists …’

Nixon: ‘That’s right.’

Kissinger: ‘Then we’re in great shape.’

He spoke freely about the likely fate of Saigon: ‘If it’s got to go to the Communists, it’d be better to have it happen in the first six months of the new term than have it go on and on and on.’

Nixon: ‘Sure.’

Kissinger: ‘I’m being very cold-blooded about it.’

Nixon: ‘I know exactly what we’re up to.’

Two weeks later, on 13 June the New York Times began publication of what became known as the Pentagon Papers, the highly-classified report commissioned five years earlier by Robert McNamara which recorded with icy candor the deceits and misjudgments whereby the country had become entangled in Vietnam. Though the administration’s initial fury focused on Daniel Ellsberg, the official who had leaked them, their release increased the ever-deepening conviction of the American people that they never should have been in Vietnam, and now needed to leave that place of doom as swiftly as possible.

From Chapter 23, Collateral Damage, Vietnam An Epic Tragedy by Max Hastings (2018)

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 7:39 AM

SECOND

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

Mass Immigration Creates Problems For the Left.

The rich lay claim to a higher share of America’s wealth than they have at any point since the Gilded Age — and foreign-born residents account for a higher share of our nation’s population than at just about any time since that same era.

These two developments are related suggests historian Jefferson Cowie. His case is simple: It is hard to implement egalitarian economic policies in the absence of working-class solidarity — and it is hard to achieve the latter in a context of mass, multi-ethnic immigration.

According to this analysis, it wasn’t purely coincidence that American workers secured themselves a “New Deal” shortly after Congress passed (profoundly racist) restrictions on immigration, nor that the New Deal consensus unraveled shortly after those restrictions were lifted in 1965.

Throughout the Gilded Age, America’s industrial working class was riven by bitter tensions between protestants and Catholics; and/or between longtime Anglo-American citizens, and newly arrived Irish, German, and Jewish immigrants. These ethnic and religious tensions divided workers (and the trade union movement) between the two major parties, preventing them from consolidating power within either.

When immigration resurfaced slowly in the generation after the 1965 immigration reforms, so did neo-Know Nothings and the militant nativism of an earlier age, returning “the” working class to historical patterns of internecine hostilities and political divisions reminiscent of the pre-New Deal Era. As throughout much of the twentieth century, few issues generate more visceral and divisive political reactions among native-born citizens than immigration — be it the immigrant cauldron of Five Points in New York on the 1830s or tensions along the militarized Arizona border today. To put it plainly, for most of American history, battle lines have been drawn around the social reality and policy issues of immigration — except during the period of the New Deal order.

In Cowie’s telling, the 1924 Immigration Act was one of several aberrant developments that allowed for “the great exception” that was the New Deal era: the sole period in American history when “the central government used its considerable resources in a systematic, if hardly consistent, fashion on behalf of the economic interest of non-elite Americans,” and, thereby, built the most prosperous middle class the world had ever known.

More at https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/immigration-open-borders-hilla
ry-clinton-angela-nagle-the-left.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 8:30 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:

These two developments are related suggests historian Jefferson Cowie. His case is simple: It is hard to implement egalitarian economic policies in the absence of working-class solidarity — and it is hard to achieve the latter in a context of mass, multi-ethnic immigration.

Yup. Simple solution. Kick them out and then keep them out.

Problem solved.

What a great deal.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 8:43 AM

SECOND

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:

These two developments are related suggests historian Jefferson Cowie. His case is simple: It is hard to implement egalitarian economic policies in the absence of working-class solidarity — and it is hard to achieve the latter in a context of mass, multi-ethnic immigration.

Yup. Simple solution. Kick them out and then keep them out.

Problem solved.

What a great deal.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I wish Trump would solve the problem, but he is not. The number of illegal aliens living permanently in the US is only down by a few thousand since Trump took power. There are 12 million more to go. At the rate Trump is moving, he will have removed a million of them in about 20 years and he will still have 11 million more to go. Maybe the 11 million will die of old age? But most of them are younger than Trump and will outlive him. I guess Trump doesn't realize that patrolling the border won't stop illegal aliens who are already here.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 8:57 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Keeping invaders out is first priority, otherwise you're just wasting your time.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 9:54 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Keeping invaders out is first priority, otherwise you're just wasting your time.

When there are already 12 million invaders secretly living inside Trump's Fortress America and only thousands of new invaders openly crossing Trump's imaginary Wall into his Fortress, his biggest problem is the millions, not the thousands. He has all kinds of laws authorizing removal of the millions, but unsurprisingly Trump only concentrates on the thousands and the imaginary wall Congress won't pay for.

Trump does not have an effective strategy to remove 12 million aliens, 6ix. But he will never need one if he has already convinced people like you that he fixed the problem by stopping only a few thousand.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 1:49 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Keeping invaders out is first priority, otherwise you're just wasting your time.
When there are already 12 million invaders secretly living inside Trump's Fortress America and only thousands of new invaders openly crossing Trump's imaginary Wall into his Fortress, his biggest problem is the millions, not the thousands. He has all kinds of laws authorizing removal of the millions, but unsurprisingly Trump only concentrates on the thousands and the imaginary wall Congress won't pay for.

Trump does not have an effective strategy to remove 12 million aliens, 6ix. But he will never need one if he has already convinced people like you that he fixed the problem by stopping only a few thousand.

How did the millions get here, dipshit?

It's comical how stupid and illogical you are.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 1:57 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How did the millions get here, dipshit?

It's comical how stupid and illogical you are.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

SECOND probably thinks they teleported here all at once.

What's different about Trump is his commitment to actually stopping illegal immigration. No other president I can think of has taken that position. Instead, they've wrung their hands, claimed it's a problem while at the same time bemoaning the plight of those poor people while at the same time allowing US businesses to rake in the dough by exploiting them.

Without the flow of cheap exploitable labor, and with Americans demanding better wages for that work, I do believe, however, that we're going to run into the contradiction of capitalism. By definition, profit is the difference between what you pay your workers and what you sell the product for. By definition, the person who makes the Mercedes can only afford the Honda. The person who makes the Honda can only afford the bicycle. The person who makes the bicycle can only afford shoes. And the person who makes the shoes ...

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 2:22 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How did the millions get here, dipshit?

It's comical how stupid and illogical you are.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
SECOND probably thinks they teleported here all at once.

What's different about Trump is his commitment to actually stopping illegal immigration. No other president I can think of has taken that position. Instead, they've wrung their hands, claimed it's a problem while at the same time bemoaning the plight of those poor people while at the same time allowing US businesses to rake in the dough by exploiting them.

I do believe, however, that we're going to run into the contradiction of capitalism. By definition, profit is the difference between what you pay your workers and what you sell the product for that they made. By definition, the person who makes the Mercedes can only afford the Honda. The person who makes the Honda can only afford the bicycle. The person who makes the bicycle can only afford shoes. Ad the person who makes the shoes ...

Yup. All those mental gymnastics and opposing stances in their brain space must be exhausting. That is why only the rich and the people on government welfare vote Democrat.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 3, 2018 2:42 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

That's one of the things I found refreshing about Trump's statement about the Khashoggi murder. We buy SA oil with the US-petrodollar. SA uses the US-petrodollar to buy hundreds of billions in US arms. It's been the arrangement since the petrodollar was finalized in 1974. And SA has been a Wahhabist hotbed of exported global terrorism and a murderous repressive regime internally all this time. When Trump basically said - they support our economy and we can't afford to alienate them (is how I interpreted his various words) - people understood that.

Do *I* like or support that entire mutualism? No.

But at least it's nice to be told the truth, even if it came out under pressure. And finally, an end to the mental gymnastics around SA.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 8:18 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How did the millions get here, dipshit?

It's comical how stupid and illogical you are.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
SECOND probably thinks they teleported here all at once.

What's different about Trump is his commitment to actually stopping illegal immigration.

1kiki, a majority of illegal aliens arrived by airplane, not teleportation. A 2017 report from the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) found "that two-thirds of those who arrived in 2014 did not illegally cross a border, but were admitted (after screening) on non-immigrant (temporary) visas, and then overstayed their period of admission or otherwise violated the terms of their visas." This trend, it claimed, would "likely continue into the foreseeable future."
http://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-visa-overstays-border-wall/

Trump's responsibility extends to 12 million illegal aliens that arrived before he was President. But he is not acting that way. His commitment is nonexistent. If he refuses to shutdown the government this month to gets his wall you will have proof that his commitment doesn't exist. He has promised a shutdown, over and over. If he does a half-hearted shutdown and then surrenders before he gets his wall, that will be more proof that he is only a loudmouth, not the person he claimed to be.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 8:22 AM

THG

Oh my god SECOND. Is it true, more illegals come here by airplane? We need to call out the army. Maybe mine the air strips.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, December 4, 2018 9:18 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Oh my god SECOND. Is it true, more illegals come here by airplane? We need to call out the army. Maybe mine the air strips.

Workplace audits to catch illegal aliens peaked under the Obama administration. Trump could try that. It is not dramatic, but it is effective and cheaper than what he is doing.

The relevant legislation is the Immigration and Nationality Act, and in particular Section 274A that deals with "The Unlawful Employment of Aliens."

Under this law employers in the U.S. are required to have an I-9 form on file for every person they employ. A huge number of Trump voters break this law. On the I-9 form, employers are required to indicate whether the employee is a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or on some sort of non-immigrant visa that provides them authorization to work in the U.S., such as an H-1B or TN visa.

So far, the Trump administration has focused far more publicly on arresting and detaining illegal immigrants at their homes. However, this is no reason for businesses to be complacent. The laws are on the books to help Trump make life very difficult for employers that continue to employ illegal immigrants. ICE can come knocking on the boss's door at any time. The best way to avoid that risk is to have your company’s I-9 forms in order and to do due diligence on each new hire.

I don't expect loudmouth Trump to enforce the requirement for I-9 forms for every employee because it won't get him TV coverage.

www.forbes.com/sites/andyjsemotiuk/2017/07/13/how-to-deal-with-employe
r-compliance-and-u-s-immigration-law/

If Trump really wants to get those 12 million illegal aliens out, he could best do it by making them unemployable. Sorrowfully, Trump will have to offend millions of Trump voters who are using illegal aliens to do their hard and dirty work, but the Hillary voters will be very thankful to Trump for enforcing the law that Trump voters are violating.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 8:21 AM

SECOND

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

I Served in Congress Longer Than Anyone. Here’s How to Fix It.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/john-dingell-how-restore-fai
th-government/577222/

The Great Compromise, as it was called when it was adopted by the Constitution’s Framers, required that all states, big and small, have two senators. The idea that Rhode Island needed two U.S. senators to protect itself from being bullied by Massachusetts emerged under a system that governed only 4 million Americans.

Today, in a nation of more than 325 million and 37 additional states, not only is that structure antiquated, it’s downright dangerous. California has almost 40 million people, while the 20 smallest states have a combined population totaling less than that. Yet because of an 18th-century political deal, those 20 states have 40 senators, while California has just two. These sparsely populated, usually conservative states can block legislation supported by a majority of the American people. That’s just plain crazy.

It is understood that even should a good bill make it through the hyper-partisan House, it will die a quiet death in the Senate because of the disproportionate influence of small states.

With my own eyes, I’ve watched in horror and increasing anger as that imbalance in power has become the primary cause of our national legislative paralysis.

My friend Norm Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, sees a demographic shift coming that will effectively transform us into two countries. He tells me that “in 2050, 70 percent of Americans will be living in just 15 states. That 70 percent will then have 30 senators, and the remaining 30 percent of the people, mainly those living in the smallest and poorest states, will have 70 senators.”

How do we fix this? Practically speaking, it will be very difficult, given the specific constitutional protection granted these small states to veto any threat to their outsize influence.

There is a solution, however. More at www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/john-dingell-how-restore-fai
th-government/577222/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 8:32 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 8:32 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Remember when California was going to secede from the Union when Trump won?

Any progress on that yet?

You can even have Illinois for free.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 9:34 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Remember when California was going to secede from the Union when Trump won?

Any progress on that yet?

You can even have Illinois for free.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

One thing saving California Republicans from annihilation? An earlier wave of misunderstood migrants.
www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/04/one-thing-saving-california
-republicans-annihilation-an-earlier-wave-misunderstood-migrants/

Adam Ramey found a strong relationship between the share of a county’s population that hailed from Dust Bowl-region states as of 1940 and support for Republican candidates in the 2018 midterms.

Their ancestors arrived in California before 1940, but they vote Republican, same as do their relatives still living back in Oklahoma and Arkansas. They might have left the old country behind, but they did not leave the old country's failed political ideas when they moved to the Golden State, proving once again that many people end life as bitter failures because of the worthless ideas in their head.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 4:49 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Remember when California was going to secede from the Union when Trump won?

Any progress on that yet?

You can even have Illinois for free.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 4:58 PM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Remember when California was going to secede from the Union when Trump won?

Any progress on that yet?

You can even have Illinois for free.

Remember the petition to bring back Firefly? That really worked well with thousands and thousands of signatures. Maybe somebody should start a new petition for California to leave the Union following the same tradition of Firefly petitions? This time it will work for sure.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 5:32 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Remember when California was going to secede from the Union when Trump won?

Any progress on that yet?

You can even have Illinois for free.
Remember the petition to bring back Firefly? That really worked well with thousands and thousands of signatures. Maybe somebody should start a new petition for California to leave the Union following the same tradition of Firefly petitions? This time it will work for sure.

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

The only difference is that this would be good for everybody.

All the hard D states can form their own union and take all of the debt and illegal immigrants with them.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 6:14 PM

SECOND

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:
Remember when California was going to secede from the Union when Trump won?

Any progress on that yet?

You can even have Illinois for free.
Remember the petition to bring back Firefly? That really worked well with thousands and thousands of signatures. Maybe somebody should start a new petition for California to leave the Union following the same tradition of Firefly petitions? This time it will work for sure.

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

The only difference is that this would be good for everybody.

All the hard D states can form their own union and take all of the debt and illegal immigrants with them.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

If the Democrats were more like me, we'd take your money away, then laugh at your belligerent talk and puny "freedom fighters" armed with AK47s. But it's not really worth it to Democrats to loot Indiana because local Republican businessmen already took away most of your money and turned you into their part-time slave for not much more than what it costs to keep you barely alive. I don't want you to lose hope. You can always kill your Republican masters and take their money, if you've got the guts. That's how Mal, Zoe, and Jayne made their living.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 8:38 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

lol.

Democrats are more like you than you think.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, December 6, 2018 7:41 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol.

Democrats are more like you than you think.

Wrong, again, 6ix. I'd make a great Trump loving One-Percenter, stripping the bottom 50% of most all their money, but it is the criminal incompetence and the pointless belligerence of GOP Presidents (Nixon, Bush II, Trump) that makes me a Democrat.

Trump (so far) hasn’t done anything even remotely as pernicious as the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

It’s easy to snark about the conspiratorial thinking of Trump and the relentless dishonesty of his press operation, but the Bush-era conspiracy theories about Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were about as ridiculous, and also got way more people killed.

In its main phase from 2003 to 2011, this war led to the deaths of thousands of American soldiers, plus what appears to be around 400,000 Iraqis. And that was only the beginning. The regional destabilization the invasion touched off led directly to the rise of ISIS and a whole new round of fighting in Iraq in which many thousands of people have died.

More broadly, the extremely deadly civil war in Syria likely also counts as a knock-on consequence of invading Iraq. This is to say nothing of the extent to which the war undermined the global non-proliferation regime by convincing North Korea to go for broke in its quest for nukes.

At a certain point, trying to calculate the proliferating consequences of the decision to invade Iraq is impossible. But what we can say for sure is that the direct cost of war — $1 trillion in narrow fiscal terms — was high, and it brought about essentially none of the promised strategic or humanitarian benefits.

More at www.vox.com/2018/12/5/18126573/weekly-standard-neoconservatives-trump-
iraq-casualties

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, December 6, 2018 7:46 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

I'm not going to defend Republicans when it comes to money or war. It's not my party, and those are my two biggest oppositions to them.

All I'll say is that everything you're accusing Trump of right now you would be just as in the right for accusing Obama of, or Hillary had she been elected.

I don't understand why you think the Democrats are so great. You're certainly using poor examples here.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, December 7, 2018 7:17 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I'm not going to defend Republicans when it comes to money or war. It's not my party, and those are my two biggest oppositions to them.

All I'll say is that everything you're accusing Trump of right now you would be just as in the right for accusing Obama of, or Hillary had she been elected.

I don't understand why you think the Democrats are so great. You're certainly using poor examples here.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Democrats aren't particularly great. They evolved from the same monkey-men 3 million years ago that Republicans came from. But you've got to admit the Democratic monkeys are very different from Republicans. I'd make a guess that Democrats will get very different results. It is like the difference between LBJ and Nixon. One guided America to the Moon and the other shutdown the Apollo program. One resigned because the Vietnam War was going badly and his V.P. Humphrey was running against the War and the other escalated the war, bombing Laos and Cambodia, and his V.P. Spiro Agnew was super-for-the-war.

One thing LBJ and Nixon had in common was that they both lied, but Nixon was not embarrassed about his lying. And there was that thing about Nixon cheating on his taxes and obstructing justice Watergate-style. LBJ could not match that. But Trump can!

President Nixon's Troublesome Tax Returns
www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/cf7c9c870b600b9585256df80075b9dd/f
8723e3606cd79ec85256ff6006f82c3?OpenDocument

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, December 7, 2018 7:20 AM

SECOND

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

We tend to think that the smarter we are, the more capable we are of seeing through people’s lies and the more capable we are of finding the truth. But that’s absolutely not the case. Humans are social animals, and if our group will benefit from seeing the world a certain way, we’ll use our intelligence to see the world that way.

It’s easy to see how these impulses explain so much of our politics and how willing so many of us are to believe what is false but convenient, as opposed to what is true but inconvenient. I think it also explains why the internet has not made us more intellectually honest; instead, people are just better at finding the information they need to confirm what they need to be true, which is what we’ve always done.

Our intelligence didn’t evolve to solve abstract problems and complex ways of dealing with the environment. Our intelligence evolved to deal with each other more effectively and to leverage the skills and abilities we have when we work together.

More about Evolutionary Psychology at www.vox.com/2018/12/6/18115586/evolution-psychology-william-von-hippel
-social-leap

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, December 10, 2018 8:33 AM

SECOND

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

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s legacy can be summed up in just one number: $343 billion.

That’s the increase between the deficit for fiscal year 2015 and fiscal year 2018 — that is, the difference between the fiscal year before Ryan became speaker of the House and the fiscal year in which he retired.

If the economy had fallen into recession between 2015 and 2018, Ryan’s record would be understandable. But it didn’t. In fact, growth quickened and the labor market tightened — which means deficits should’ve fallen. Indeed, that’s exactly what happened in each of the five years preceding Ryan’s speakership; from 2011 to 2015, annual deficits fell each year.

Ryan says that debt reduction is one of those things “I wish we could have gotten done.” Ryan, the man with the single most power over the federal budget in recent years, sounds like a bystander, as if he watched laws happen rather than made them happen.

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/10/17929460/paul-ryan-speaker-
retiring-debt-deficits-trump

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, December 11, 2018 6:51 AM

SECOND

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

House of Representative gerrymandering was not enough to save the GOP majority in 2018, but the extent to which gerrymandering “mattered” remains striking:

In 2010, Republicans won 51.7 percent of the vote and got 242 seats.
In 2014, Republicans won 51.2 percent of the vote and got 247 seats.
In 2018, Democrats won 53.4 percent of the vote and got 235 seats.

It’s not, in other words, that gerrymandering makes it impossible for Democrats to win. But it puts a consistent skew on the political system. Narrow majorities of popular support translate into big majorities of seats for Republicans, while a larger majority of votes translates into a narrower majority of seats for Democrats.

In the Senate, things are much worse, and Democrats would need to win an enormous landslide of votes to secure even the barest majority of seats.

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/10/18126132/trump-populism-dem
ocracy-threat-minority-rule

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, December 11, 2018 6:58 AM

THG

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
House of Representative gerrymandering was not enough to save the GOP majority in 2018, but the extent to which gerrymandering “mattered” remains striking:

In 2010, Republicans won 51.7 percent of the vote and got 242 seats.
In 2014, Republicans won 51.2 percent of the vote and got 247 seats.
In 2018, Democrats won 53.4 percent of the vote and got 235 seats.

It’s not, in other words, that gerrymandering makes it impossible for Democrats to win. But it puts a consistent skew on the political system. Narrow majorities of popular support translate into big majorities of seats for Republicans, while a larger majority of votes translates into a narrower majority of seats for Democrats.

In the Senate, things are much worse, and Democrats would need to win an enormous landslide of votes to secure even the barest majority of seats.

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/10/18126132/trump-populism-dem
ocracy-threat-minority-rule

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

The more governorship's the dems have the more they can change gerrymandered districts.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, December 11, 2018 7:22 AM

SECOND

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

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

The more governorship's the dems have the more they can change gerrymandered districts.

There’s another way to solve gerrymandering. It’s as simple as cake.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-another-way-to-solve-gerrymande
ring-its-as-simple-as-cake/2018/02/15/69e47508-0531-11e8-94e8-e8b8600ade23_story.html

There are more elaborate solutions that are not a piece of cake:
www.policymap.com/2017/08/solutions-to-gerrymandering/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, December 11, 2018 12:01 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

The more governorship's the dems have the more they can change gerrymandered districts.
There’s another way to solve gerrymandering. It’s as simple as cake.
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/theres-another-way-to-solve-gerrymande
ring-its-as-simple-as-cake/2018/02/15/69e47508-0531-11e8-94e8-e8b8600ade23_story.html

There are more elaborate solutions that are not a piece of cake:
www.policymap.com/2017/08/solutions-to-gerrymandering/

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

This is interesting.

I don't agree at all that a 3rd party is a good idea because I don't believe that any 3rd party could ever be non-biased... but the cake idea?

Could it work?

I'm not a mathematician, but it does sound like it could possibly end up being the match game.

Maybe a coin flip is in order to determine who divides up the first 8 districts? But who do we trust to flip the coin?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 12, 2018 8:26 AM

SECOND

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

“In the last few years, it was really frustrating,” said Pam Reicks, a former manager at the IRS who, until she retired at the end of last year, oversaw a program to audit wealthy taxpayers with undeclared offshore bank accounts. “It’s like in the fall when you bob for apples,” she told us. “You’ve got a tub of apples and can’t use your hands to grab them. You can see all this abuse and fraud, and people not paying their taxes, but can’t use your hands to get it.”

Will the American public realize how weak the IRS has become? The effects of an explosion in tax cheating would be dire. The nation’s already soaring budget deficit would surge by hundreds of billions of dollars more.

As of last year, the IRS had 9,510 auditors. That’s down a third from 2010. The last time the IRS had fewer than 10,000 revenue agents was 1953, when the economy was a seventh of its current size. And the IRS is still shrinking. Almost a third of its remaining employees will be eligible to retire in the next year, and with morale plummeting, many of them will.

The IRS conducted 675,000 fewer audits in 2017 than it did in 2010, a drop in the audit rate of 42 percent. But even those stark numbers don’t tell the whole story, say current and former IRS employees: Auditors are stretched thin, and they’re often forced to limit their investigations and move on to the next audit as quickly as they can.

Without enough staff, the IRS has slashed even basic functions. It has drastically pulled back from pursuing people who don’t bother filing their tax returns. New investigations of “nonfilers,” as they’re called, dropped from 2.4 million in 2011 to 362,000 last year.

Corporations and the wealthy are the biggest beneficiaries of the IRS’ decay. It takes specialized, well-trained personnel to audit a business or a billionaire or to unravel a tax scheme — and those employees are leaving in droves and taking their expertise with them. For the country’s largest corporations, the danger of being hit with a billion-dollar tax bill has greatly diminished. For the rich, who research shows evade taxes the most, the IRS has become less and less of a force to be feared.

More at www.propublica.org/article/how-the-irs-was-gutted

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER

POST DATE