A thread for Democrats Only by THGRRI

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Sunday, October 4, 2020 11:01 AM

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.

Someone really doesn't like the Mattress Firm.

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Sunday, October 4, 2020 11:14 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roosh_V

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Sunday, October 4, 2020 11:46 AM

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Monday, October 5, 2020 5:53 AM

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

'Emperor has no clothes': man who helped make Trump myth says facade has fallen

Tony Schwartz, who ghostwrote The Art of the Deal, says nothing is more important to the president than ‘being seen as very, very rich’ – but revelations about his finances have shattered that image.

One man was not surprised by revelations that Donald Trump does not deserve his reputation as a preternaturally successful businessman and deal maker. The man who helped create the illusion.

Tony Schwartz spent hundreds of hours with Trump to ghostwrite his bestselling 1987 book The Art of the Deal, effectively creating the origin story of the brash property tycoon. It was Schwartz who coined the phrase “truthful hyperbole”, which neatly foreshadowed Trump and his supporters’ attempts to rationalize many of his false and misleading claims.

“The Art of the Deal helped him to be able to fabricate a fantasy reality that he has propagated for all of the years since. I came out of that book feeling empty and ashamed, really questioning myself about why I made that choice and who’s the monster I’ve created here?”

The 68-year-old writer has long disowned the president as a malignant narcissist and expressed regret for his part in constructing the mythology. So the New York Times report, detailing chronic financial losses and vast outstanding loans, confirmed his view that Trump was always better at cutting fantasy deals than making real ones.

“It’s the ultimate unmasking of the emperor with no clothes,” Schwartz said. “There’s nothing more important to Trump than being seen as very, very rich, which is why he’s expended so much effort in trying to claim a net worth far beyond what he actually was worth.

“The fact the evidence is unequivocal that he was not the person he claimed to be means that he’s lost the central premise on which he’s based his own self-worth, because Trump confuses personal worth with net worth. There’s nothing Trump hates more than to feel weak and vulnerable and like a failure, so he won’t allow himself to acknowledge those feelings, but they’ll be there and they will affect him.

“Unfortunately, should he be re-elected, one of the ways he’ll respond to that is he’ll take it out on everyone who he thinks diminished or belittled him along the way.”

Trump has spent months seeking to discredit the legitimacy of the election, making baseless claims that mail-in ballots are plagued by fraud. Last week he refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Like dictators across the world, he may fear prosecution over his financial affairs if he leaves office – making him even more determined to cling to power.

“With the release of his taxes and the prospect that he would be indicted even greater than it was before, he doesn’t really have a place where he’s safe other than being president,” Schwartz said.

More at www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/04/donald-trump-tony-schwartz-int
erview-art-of-the-deal

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, October 5, 2020 6:10 AM

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

Republicans gripped by dread as multiple crises swirl

The presidency, control of the Senate and even a quick confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett are all in doubt less than a month from the election.

The virus has forced six Republican senators — three who have tested positive for covid — into quarantine for at least two weeks. Two of them, Thom Tillis and Mike Lee, are on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Graham chairs. His plans to push through the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett were now uncertain. Mitch McConnell said over the weekend that “our biggest enemy” is “the coronavirus, keeping everybody healthy and well and in place to do our job.”

Trump’s Republican critics have long argued that he was a virus infecting their party that would eventually destroy it. Trump skeptics-turned-supporters, which could describe most Washington Republicans, made a different calculation: If the worst elements of Trump could be contained, then Republicans could keep a Democrat out of the White House.

That an actual virus has now infected Trump and GOP senators — many of them at a celebration of Barrett’s nomination — thus throwing all three of the GOP’s 2020 goals into chaos, is a plot twist that would be rejected by any writer as just a little too on the nose.

“Trump has done more to derail the Barrett nomination than any Democrat,” said one dejected former senior White House official. “They are screwing themselves, that’s for sure.”

Republicans, used to seeing Trump slip out of hairy situations that would destroy most politicians — the Access Hollywood tape, impeachment — practically yawn at the turn of events. “We’ve seen that time after time,” said a White House official discussing whether this would blow over. “I don’t know if this would be any different but we’ll see.”

On the other side of the spectrum, many Republicans said the reckless way in which Trump traveled, held big rallies, and refused to consistently wear a mask or encourage his supporters to do so as catastrophic.

“Today feels like the election’s over,” said a veteran Republican strategist who, like others in the party, requested anonymity to speak candidly. “The polls have dropped all last week everywhere, it just feels like the end is near. And I don’t know what they can do to rehabilitate it until he gets better. There’s too many seniors who think he’s been irresponsible and this all started when he politicized the coronavirus. It started back in April and May, but it’s really peaking now.”

There is a scenario that he believed would crush the GOP on Nov. 3.

“If the White House lied about the timeline and he went to events and was around people knowing he was covid-positive,” he said. “I think that is the single biggest thing that would resonate with regular people in terms of how irresponsible he was — if he put other people in danger.”

He added, “That could turn this into a death spiral.”

www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/republicans-dread-coronavirus-infecti
ons-426351

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, October 5, 2020 8:59 AM

Still posting your wet dreams, I see.

I can smell your desperation from Texas.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, October 5, 2020 9:10 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:
Still posting your wet dreams, I see.

I can smell your desperation from Texas.

My dream is that Trump is reelected so that I can keep my enormous tax cuts, but he is on a ventilator 24/7 for the next 4 years with Melania acting as the real President, signing his name because he is too weak to hold a pen, on bills passed by Nancy Pelosi.

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, October 5, 2020 9:29 AM

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

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Monday, October 5, 2020 9:36 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

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Tuesday, October 6, 2020 8:18 AM

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

Bidencare Would Be a Big Deal

Don’t dismiss it because it isn’t Medicare for All.

While Biden is indeed proposing incremental change rather than Medicare for All, we’re talking about some big increments. Independent estimates suggest that under Biden’s plan, 15 million to 20 million Americans would gain health insurance. And premiums would fall sharply, especially for middle-class families.

The Biden plan would increase subsidies and also remove the upper-income limit that prevents many middle-class families from receiving aid. This would cost a fair amount of money: The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget puts the price tag at $850 billion over a decade. But it would cost far less than the 2017 tax cut, much of which went to corporations, which were supposed to respond by increasing investment, but didn’t.

The Biden plan would also automatically enroll low-income Americans in the public option, which is more important than it might sound. One of the defects of our system is that it’s complex and confusing, and those who need help the most are often the least able to navigate their way to getting it. Ideally we’d just move to a simpler system, but for now auto-enrollment would be an important palliative measure.

True, America would still fall somewhat short of achieving what every other advanced country has — universal health care. But we’d get a lot closer, and many who currently have insurance coverage would see their costs fall and the quality of coverage improve.

If Trump wins, Americans will lose preexisting condition protection and many will lose their health insurance or see their premiums soar; if Biden wins, Americans will keep that protection and many will gain insurance or see their premiums fall.

More at www.nytimes.com/2020/10/05/opinion/joe-biden-health-care.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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Tuesday, October 6, 2020 9:13 AM

Donald Trump Jr. reportedly wanted a family 'intervention' to stop Trump's 'crazy behaviour' at Walter Reed

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-jr-reportedly-wan
ted-a-family-intervention-to-stop-trump-s-crazy-behaviour-at-walter-reed/ar-BB19KC72?ocid=msedgntp

T

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

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Tuesday, October 6, 2020 10:51 AM

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

Trump and Socialized Medicine

In economics we have the concept of “revealed preference” that simply states that you do not pay attention to what an individual claims to prefer. Rather, you pay attention to what they actually do.

President Trump just elected to go to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of his CORON-19 symptoms. He could have elected to go to any hospital in the country, but he choose to go to the most purely socialist medical center in the country, one owned by the government and all it’s employees are government employees. Just as the military is the purest example of socialism in the US, Walter Reed is the purest example of socialized medicine in the US.

So Trump’s revealed preference is that he prefers socialized medicine to private medical care.

Who knew that deep down he really is a socialist.

https://angrybearblog.com/2020/10/trump-and-socialized-medicine.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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Tuesday, October 6, 2020 4:42 PM

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Wednesday, October 7, 2020 7:42 AM

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

We have to take action and vote like our lives depend on it.

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, October 8, 2020 7:16 AM

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

"Socialism is a scare-word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years. Socialism is what they called public (owned electric) power. Socialism is what they called Social Security. Socialism is what they called farm price supports. Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance. Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people." - Harry S. Truman, 1952
www.snopes.com/fact-check/truman-socialism-scare-word/

Truman did not mention Obamacare or Medicare because those would be distant future scare-words.

How Obamacare became Democrats’ most powerful political weapon
There’s a reason Trump and Pence keep lying about Obamacare, and Biden and Harris keep bringing it up.
www.vox.com/2020/10/8/21507188/trump-pence-obamacare-affordable-care-a
ct-aca-biden-harris-debate

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, October 8, 2020 7:39 AM

‘A Republican Party unraveling’: GOP plunged into crisis as Trump abruptly ends economic relief talks, dismisses virus

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/a-republican-party-unraveling-
gop-plunged-into-crisis-as-trump-abruptly-ends-economic-relief-talks-dismisses-virus/ar-BB19NWBm?ocid=msedgntp

T

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

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Thursday, October 8, 2020 6:41 PM

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Thursday, October 8, 2020 9:10 PM

I don't think that ALL Democrats are crazy terrorists that burn down the streets when they don't get their way. In fact, most of them aren't. Just BLM and your Antifa buddies.

I'm assuming this cartoon is about something some crazy dude did. Are you insinuating that everybody who is voting for "the wrong party" is going to shoot up a hair salon because they can't get their hair cut?

I assure you, that's not the case.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Thursday, October 8, 2020 9:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
We have to take action and vote like our lives depend on it.

Fuck Michelle Obama.

Scratch that. I wouldn't do that with Barry's dick.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Saturday, October 10, 2020 6:51 PM

T

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

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Monday, October 12, 2020 9:08 AM

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

Houston Chronicle Editorial: We recommend Joe Biden for president

. . . Many who plan to vote for Trump, some with pinched nose, act as though character itself were a luxury — nice if you can get it, but not essential.

We disagree. Character, in this election, is everything.

Character, personified from the get-go by George Washington’s voluntary relinquishment of power after two terms as America’s first president, is the set of virtues upon which all others depend. What is a promise to an ally or a warning to an adversary if it can’t be trusted?

It is America’s character — the Sunday-best version of it in our hearts or the ideal we’re still striving toward — that swells our chests at a Fourth of July parade, not tweaked trade deals rebranded as new, not games of chicken with China, not even a Supreme Court coup.

Trump’s deficiencies of decency are not a matter of style. These days, they are a matter of life and death.

Lack of character is what got us into this national nightmare that has killed 213,000 Americans, infected more than 7.6 million and put tens of millions out of work. And character is the only thing that will get us out.

The allure of Trump’s message and style back in 2016 was intoxicating for many fed up with Congress’ tit-for-tat dysfunction and decades of unmitigated greed and corporate coddling by both parties at the expense of the American dream.

His devil-may-care rhetoric felt refreshingly, if perversely, free in our bubble-wrapped discourse. Rather than look at his business empire as a liability, his voters ignored Trump’s trust-fund privilege, his companies’ six bankruptcies, and saw in his wealth an independence from donor interests that made his vows of draining the D.C. swamp believable.

Instead, Trump surrounded himself with a crooked cast of characters, more than a dozen of whom have ended up criminally charged or imprisoned.

His tax cuts disproportionately benefited the wealthy. His assault on the Affordable Care Act did nothing to thin the ranks of uninsured. While Biden wants to expand access to health coverage with a public option, Trump has yet to keep his promise to protect people with preexisting conditions.

Even some of Trump’s gains were foiled by his own folly, as we saw when manufacturing gains were erased by his trade wars.

As it turned out, Trump was not a salve for our ills. He was a comorbidity. He exacerbated our preexisting divisions.

The one-time birther conspiracist used his powerful platform to demonize immigrants and to embolden, with winks, nods and loose lips, hate groups and other racists.

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people — does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us,” said retired U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis after resigning as Trump’s defense secretary. “We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership.”

Trump’s brazenness was a double-edged sword as president. The heedless bluster that stirred the hearts of the disaffected, charmed markets and helped maintain President Barack Obama’s record-long economic expansion that pushed household incomes to record levels and slashed poverty is the same hubris that downplayed a deadly virus until its rampant spread forced a national shutdown, turning a 3.5 percent unemployment rate into 14.7 percent seemingly overnight amid the sharpest job losses on record. By June, employers had shed an estimated 40 million jobs.

No, Trump didn’t unleash the novel coronavirus. Yes, he limited travel from China but incompletely and ineffectively. One look at German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s vigilant response that saved lives through science and widespread testing shows where America should have been: leading the world out of a crisis by example as we’ve done for more than a century — until Trump.

Trump failed to contain the threat, in part by fumbling testing strategy, sending mixed messages about treatments and vaccine availability, pressuring states to reopen early and repeatedly downplaying the virus’ seriousness — deadly ineptitude he continues to demonstrate today with callous panache, even after he and his wife became infected, along with dozens of others in an alarming White House outbreak.

The one simple tool that can save lives and restore jobs — the face mask — he refused to promote, mocking its incongruence with his macho masquerade, even belittling Biden for wearing one.

“It is what it is,” Trump said of America’s death toll.

Those words aren’t a quirk of the president’s rhetorical style. They are affirmation of his disregard for human life that is not his own.

In his fight to save face, Trump has broken things not easily restored, including trust in America’s institutions — from the courts to the post office to the vitally important Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which he has bullied into delaying and altering scientific reports, pressured into playing down the virus’ risk to children and discredited by flatly contradicting his own appointed director, Dr. Robert Redfield.

CDC’s reputation has gone from “gold to tarnished brass,” wrote Dr. William Foege, CDC director under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. The situation, he wrote in a scathing letter to Redfield, “is a slaughter and not just a political dispute.”

Name a line and Trump has crossed it. He escaped impeachment for his many attempts to shut down an investigation into Russia’s hacking of American elections, only to be impeached later for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress involving his withholding of aid for Ukraine for his own political gain. He circumvented Congress and the Constitution and diverted billions from the defense budget toward his border wall, even though only 5 new miles have been built. Trump has hesitated to condemn white supremacists, calling them at one point “very fine people.”

And the lies. Uncharted territory, even for Washington: more than 20,000 false claims, sometimes averaging two dozen a day, according to a Washington Post tally.

Some of Trump’s foreign policy gaffes have been merely mortifying. The time he wished communist China, one of the most murderous regimes in human history, happy 70th anniversary. The time he invited the Taliban to Camp David. The times he flirted with leaving NATO. Other moves — siding with Vladimir Putin over our intelligence community, abandoning our loyal allies the Kurds to be slaughtered by Turkey, refusing to even censure Saudi Arabia for murdering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — have done lasting damage to America’s standing in the world.

Trump’s immigration policy, marred by the travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, his repudiation of people from “shithole countries,” and his campaign to slash legal immigration by half would be enough to condemn him without his unconscionable separation of thousands of children, including infants, from their parents at the border due to a “zero tolerance” policy to prosecute all undocumented immigrants.

Trump has virtually closed America to refugees, admitting only 11,000 this year — 10 percent of Obama’s 2016 total — at a time when 80 million people are displaced worldwide by oppression and war. Biden pledges to reset the cap to 125,000.

Trump’s rollback of environmental regulations has been disastrous in the fight to reduce fossil fuel emissions that cause global warming. He has also rescinded rules that kept us safe from toxic chemicals and polluted water.

Biden’s goals: rejoining the Paris accord. Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Restoring, and toughening, regulations Trump has thrown by the wayside. Banning drilling on public land, something Trump promotes.

Biden isn’t without blemish. His past support of a 1994 crime bill disproportionately targeting the Black community, his dismissive treatment of Anita Hill, his occasional tone-deaf statements — they’re all concerning. But Biden, unlike Trump, seems to learn from his mistakes.

Biden’s accomplishments speak for themselves: A U.S. senator by 29. An early voice for campaign finance reform and taking action on climate change. A champion for the assault weapons ban. Author of the Violence Against Women Act. Chairman of Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees.

As vice president, he oversaw the implementation of the landmark Recovery Act and was instrumental in passing Obamacare, which helped 20 million Americans find insurance. He showed courage in pushing Obama to embrace gay marriage and was the lone voice urging caution on expanding our footprint in Afghanistan in 2010.

We’re confident that as president he would put in place qualified, effective people from diverse backgrounds, as evidenced by his VP pick of Sen. Kamala Harris. They will set about repairing four years of Trump’s destruction.

What Biden lacks in youthful vigor he makes up for in experience, compassion and love for this country and its people. All its people.

That is character — not Twitter tirades and stoking racial divides.

That is patriotism — not dismissing the sacrifices of war heroes, dodging the draft by complaining of bone spurs and avoiding taxes by writing off $70,000 in haircuts.

That is strength — not self-aggrandizing speeches that channel autocratic strongmen.

Many brave Americans, including some pushed out of Trump’s administration, have risked careers and reputations to testify to the danger Trump poses to this land that we love.

Now it’s our turn.

Vote for Joe Biden for president of the United States to restore our soul, our standing and our good sense.

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20201012035430/https://www.houstonchronicl
e.com/opinion/editorials/article/endorsement-Joe-Biden-president-us-election-2020-15636598.php

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/endorsemen
t-Joe-Biden-president-us-election-2020-15636598.php

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, October 12, 2020 10:46 AM

Here are the prominent Republicans backing Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/republicans-supporting-biden/i
ndex.html

That's quite a list.

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Monday, October 12, 2020 3:37 PM

T

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

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Tuesday, October 13, 2020 6:46 AM

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

Slaughterhouse-Five is a work of fiction. Copyright © 1969 by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

He had a monograph with him, published by the German Association of Prison Officials. It was a report on the behavior in Germany of American enlisted men as prisoners of war. It was written by a former American who had risen high in the German Ministry of Propaganda. His name was Howard W. Campbell, Jr. He would later hang himself while awaiting trial as a war criminal. So it goes.

While the British colonel set Lazzaro’s broken arm and mixed plaster for the cast, the German major translated out loud passages from Howard W. Campbell, Jr.’s monograph. Campbell had been a fairly well-known playwright at one time. His opening line was this one:

America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, “It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.” It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand—glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

The author of the monograph, a native of Schenectady, New York, was said by some to have had the highest I.Q. of all the war criminals who were made to face a death by hanging. So it goes.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue, the monograph went on. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.

Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves. Once this is understood, the disagreeable behavior of American enlisted men in German prisons ceases to be a mystery.

A prison administrator dealing with captured American enlisted men for the first time should be warned: Expect no brotherly love, even between brothers. There will be no cohesion between the individuals. Each will be a sulky child who often wishes he were dead.

Campbell told what the German experience with captured American enlisted men had been. They were known everywhere to be the most self-pitying, least fraternal, and dirtiest of all prisoners of war, said Campbell. They were incapable of concerted action on their own behalf. They despised any leader from among their own number, refused to follow or even listen to him, on the grounds that he was no better than they were, that he should stop putting on airs.

https://getcomics.info/other-comics/slaughter-house-five-2020-gn/

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, October 13, 2020 10:42 AM

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Tuesday, October 13, 2020 2:33 PM

Native Americans Protesting Trump Border Wall Tear Gassed, Arrested by US Agents on Indigenous Peoples' Day
"It's obscene and offensive to us that local and state governments move to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day while the federal government blows up our sacred sites, steals our kids, militarily occupies our communities, and shoots at Native Americans."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/13/native-americans-protesti
ng-trump-border-wall-tear-gassed-arrested-us-agents

Trumptards are incapable of learning. They just keep being violent, fascist idiots.

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Wednesday, October 14, 2020 6:51 AM

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

Mitch McConnell's disturbing chuckle

About 1 in 4 children in Kentucky lives in poverty — and that was before Covid-19 wiped out tens of thousands of Kentucky jobs.

The state saw a remarkable drop in the percentage of uninsured residents, thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), going from 66% uninsured in 2010 to a mere 5.5% uninsured by 2019.

But now, with his state, and the country, trapped in the teeth of a pandemic, McConnell has forced confirmation hearings for a conservative Supreme Court nominee who many believe would join in a decision to obliterate the ACA in a case set to come before the court in just a few weeks.

Now the question is: Will Kentucky voters agree that this is all a laughing matter?

More at www.cnn.com/2020/10/13/opinions/mitch-mcconnell-disturbing-chuckle-fil
ipovic/index.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, October 14, 2020 9:44 AM

Bill Barr Buries Report That Exonerates Obama
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/10/bill-barr-buries-report
-that-exonerates-obama/

In the pantheon of Republican pseudo-scandals, “unmasking” has always been one of the dumbest. National security officials routinely ask the intelligence community to “unmask” names that have been redacted in raw reports so they can get a better idea of who’s doing what to whom, and the Obama administration did this just like every other administration. Republicans, however, have insisted for years that Susan Rice and others used unmasking requests as cover for a campaign against Michael Flynn, and naturally they demanded an investigation. Just as naturally, Bill Barr gave them what they wanted.

Sadly for Republicans, the investigation turned up nothing. That’s not surprising, and neither is this:

Bash’s team was focused not just on unmasking, but also on whether Obama-era officials provided information to reporters, according to people familiar with the probe, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation. But the findings ultimately turned over to Barr fell short of what Trump and others might have hoped, and the attorney general’s office elected not to release them publicly, the people familiar with the matter said. The Washington Post was unable to review the full results of what Bash found.

The investigation basically exonerated the Obama team and probably would have hurt Donald Trump’s reelection, so Barr decided to keep it under wraps. This is how the Justice Department works these days: it’s a PR shop for Donald Trump, not an independent agency serving the best interests of the American public. Hopefully that will change in a few months.

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Wednesday, October 14, 2020 10:01 AM

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Wednesday, October 14, 2020 10:09 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Here are the prominent Republicans backing Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/republicans-supporting-biden/i
ndex.html

That's quite a list.

It's a who's who of Bushite NeoCon trash, including Ted's favorite youtube channel The Lincoln Project.

These are the people I voted against, so good.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, October 14, 2020 10:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Here are the prominent Republicans backing Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/republicans-supporting-biden/i
ndex.html

That's quite a list.

It's a who's who of Bushite NeoCon trash, including Ted's favorite youtube channel The Lincoln Project.

These are the people I voted against, so good.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Even THEY know he's a moron.

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Wednesday, October 14, 2020 10:37 AM

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Wednesday, October 14, 2020 10:52 AM

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

Conservative interests seek to control the political process by giving their corporate, and often secret, big-money benefactors more freedom to spend on elections. This, in turn, helps them drown out opposing voices, manipulate political outcomes and set the agenda in Congress. For proof of this dynamic, look no further than how the Court’s decision in Citizens United proved the death knell for climate change legislation in Congress. Before that fateful decision, which lifted restrictions on corporate spending in candidate elections, Congress had held regular, bipartisan hearings and even votes on legislation to limit the carbon emissions causing climate change. But Citizens United allowed the fossil fuel industry to use its massive money advantage to strike at this bipartisan progress, and it struck hard. The fossil fuel industry set its political forces instantly to work, targeting pro-climate-action candidates, particularly Republicans. Outside spending in 2010’s congressional races increased by more than $200 million over the previous midterm’s levels—a nearly 450 percent increase. Bipartisanship stopped dead.

More from Sheldon Whitehouse, United States Senator from Rhode Island, at
www.acslaw.org/issue_brief/briefs-landing/a-right-wing-rout-what-the-r
oberts-five-decisions-tell-us-about-the-integrity-of-todays-supreme-court/

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, October 14, 2020 11:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Here are the prominent Republicans backing Biden
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/18/politics/republicans-supporting-biden/i
ndex.html

That's quite a list.

It's a who's who of Bushite NeoCon trash, including Ted's favorite youtube channel The Lincoln Project.

These are the people I voted against, so good.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
Even THEY know he's a moron.

You fools have spent the last four years blowing anybody who would say the tiniest negative thing about Trump, including some of the most horrible people to ever live in our modern times.

You're a whore.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, October 14, 2020 1:02 PM

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Friday, October 16, 2020 8:23 AM

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

How the G.O.P. Can Still Wreck America

Even if Trump loses, his party can do immense damage.

First of all, while Trump has very little chance of winning the popular vote, he might still eke out an Electoral College victory.

A more likely outcome is that Trump loses but Republicans hold the Senate. In that case, we know exactly what will happen: fiscal sabotage on a grand scale. That is, the G.O.P., which has been completely indifferent to budget deficits under Trump, will suddenly rediscover the evils of government debt and block every effort by a Biden administration to sustain the economy and living standards in the face of a pandemic.

And even if Democrats take both the Senate and the White House, they’re now almost certain to face a 6-3 Supreme Court — that is, a court dominated by appointees of an increasingly extremist party that has only won the popular vote for president once in the past three decades.

In the hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, Democrats have, rightly and understandably, hammered on the possibility that such a court would use transparently spurious arguments to overturn the Affordable Care Act, causing tens of millions of Americans to lose health insurance coverage. Roe v. Wade is also in obvious danger.

But the biggest threat this court will pose is to environmental policy.

Put it this way: Charles Koch is reportedly investing millions trying to get Barrett confirmed. That’s not because he’s passionately opposed to abortion rights, or, probably, even because he wants the A.C.A. overturned. What he’s looking for, since Koch is the second largest privately held company in America after Cargill, is a court that will block government regulation of business — and above all a court that will hamstring a Biden administration’s efforts to take action against climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries

Sure enough, during her hearing, Barrett, asked about climate change, uttered the dreaded words, “I’m certainly not a scientist.” At this point everyone knows what that means. It’s not an expression of humility; it’s a signal that the speaker intends to ignore the science and to oppose any attempt to avert the biggest threat facing humanity. If a G.O.P.-stacked Supreme Court blocks effective climate policy, it will be a disaster for America and the world.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/opinion/election-trump-republicans.
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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Friday, October 16, 2020 12:21 PM

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Friday, October 16, 2020 12:31 PM

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Friday, October 16, 2020 2:02 PM

Just because you CAN write books, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

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Friday, October 16, 2020 2:02 PM

Just because you CAN write books, doesn't mean you SHOULD.

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Friday, October 16, 2020 3:12 PM

WSJ confirms what we've suspected: Mark Zuckerberg directly intervened to prevent progressive news orgs like
@CourierNewsroom
from being included in Facebook's News Tab, while sharing meals with Ben Shapiro + exchanging texts with Jared Kushner
https://twitter.com/taraemcg/status/1317122093742460929?ref_src=twsrc%
5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1317122093742460929%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_0%2Ccontainerclick_1&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fjcdhrw%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse

How Mark Zuckerberg Learned Politics
Facebook’s chief, once uninterested, has transformed himself into an active political operator in the Trump era
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-politics-1160
2853200

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Saturday, October 17, 2020 2:53 PM

T

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

Sen. Sasse Criticizes Trump During Call With Constituents

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Saturday, October 17, 2020 4:40 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.

I wonder how badly D's will sink as percent vote in CA, and will that make the party wake up and take notice.

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Sunday, October 18, 2020 7:37 AM

T

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

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Sunday, October 18, 2020 8:07 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
I wonder how badly D's will sink as percent vote in CA, and will that make the party wake up and take notice.

Voters, please wake up and take notice of The $16-Trillion Virus:

The costs through the fall of 2021, assuming the pandemic is largely controlled by then, break down as follows:

$7.6 trillion in lost economic output, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office;

$4.4 trillion in losses due to premature deaths (assuming a relatively conservative statistical value of $7 million is placed on each life lost, and that current trajectories continue, which would lead to 625,000 cumulative deaths associated with the pandemic through next year in the United States);

$2.6 trillion in health-care costs associated with long-term complications among survivors;

$1.6 trillion in increased mental-health costs attributable to the pandemic if the mental-health effects last just a year.

$16.2 trillion, is approximately 90 percent of the annual GDP of the United States, and far exceeds the costs associated with conventional recessions in this country.

www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/10/16-trillion-virus

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, October 18, 2020 8:18 AM

N.Y.C. Was Once a Bastion of G.O.P. Moderates. Then Trump Came Along.

Over the course of two decades, the New York City Republican Party got two mayors elected in deep blue New York City. It was a neat trick made possible by the party’s ability to toe a centrist line — conservative on the budget, liberal on social issues.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/n-y-c-was-once-a-bastion-of-g-
o-p-moderates-then-trump-came-along/ar-BB1a7FB2?ocid=msedgdhp

T

Stupid people don't know they're stupid, and they certainly don't realize how obvious it is to others.

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Monday, October 19, 2020 8:17 AM

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

“You Think Our Country’s So Innocent?”

On war policy, Trump has proven less murderous than George W. Bush and more of a war criminal then Jimmy Carter. So far.

On matters of war, Donald Trump has consistently spoken and acted in contradictory and unorthodox ways. He campaigned in 2016 with a mixed message of attacking the legacy of the Iraq war and U.S. military adventurism, while simultaneously pledging to commit war crimes and promote imperialism as a matter of policy. On part four of American Mythology, we take an in-depth look at Trump’s war and national security policies. He escalated drone strikes in Somalia and Afghanistan, authorized troop surges and massive bombings in Iraq, launched cruise missile strikes in Syria, and threatened to “totally destroy North Korea.” On the other hand, he signed a deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces, attempted to end the Korean War, and claims to have fired John Bolton to avoid being in “World War 6.” In assessing Trump’s war policies, we seek to navigate past the rhetoric from Trump and his critics and examine his place in the history of U.S. presidents. In many ways, Trump has represented a continuity of U.S. policy with largely tactical differences from his predecessors. Overall, Trump built on some of the worst excesses of the Bush/Cheney administration and took advantage of the weak guardrails left behind by the Obama administration.

More at https://theintercept.com/2020/10/19/part-four-you-think-our-countrys-s
o-innocent/

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, October 19, 2020 8:31 AM