REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

A thread for Democrats Only

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UPDATED: Monday, October 21, 2024 20:59
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Thursday, January 21, 2021 6:50 AM

SECOND

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


Biden Has Already Fired Three of Trump’s Worst Appointees

Biden will not have trouble replacing these holdovers. (Republicans cannot filibuster nominees to the executive branch.)

First, Biden terminated Michael Pack, who was confirmed to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media in June. Pack sought to transform the agency, which oversees the international broadcaster Voice of America, into a propaganda outlet for Trump—despite a statutory mandate that prohibits such political interference. He purged the staff of VOA and its sister networks, replaced them with Trump loyalists, demanded pro-Trump coverage, and unconstitutionally punished remaining journalists who did actual reporting on the administration. In a perverse move, he refused to renew visas for foreign reporters who covered their home countries, subjecting them to retribution by authoritarian regimes. Pack also illegally fired the board of the Open Technology Fund, which promotes international internet freedom, and replaced them with Republican activists.

Following whistleblower complaints, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel found a “substantial likelihood” that Pack had violated federal law and engaged in “gross mismanagement.” He was eight months into his three-year term when Biden demanded his resignation shortly after taking the oath of office. In his resignation letter, Pack complained that his termination “will long be viewed as a partisan act” without any apparent sense of irony.

Second, Biden sacked Kathleen Kraninger, who was confirmed as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2018. Kraninger, who had no previous experience in consumer protection, immediately tried to undermine the agency’s role as a watchdog for the financial sector. She scrapped a landmark rule that restricted predatory payday lending, pressuring staff to downplay the resulting harm to consumers. And she refused to enforce a federal law that protected military personnel against a broad range of predatory lending. Her decision yanked federal support from military families who were defrauded by lenders. In the midst of the pandemic, Kraninger also approved a rule that allows debt collectors to harass Americans with limitless texts and emails demanding repayment.

Through the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress gave the CFPB’s director significant independence by barring the president from firing her over political disagreements. In 2020, though, the Supreme Court found this protection unconstitutional. Kraninger supported that decision, which paved the way for her termination on Wednesday. Had the court upheld the agency’s independence, Kraninger could have remained in office through the end of 2023.

More at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-has-already-fired-three-
of-trumps-worst-appointees/ar-BB1cW6yi
or
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/01/biden-michael-pack-kathlee
n-kraninger-peter-robb.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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Thursday, January 21, 2021 6:58 AM

SECOND

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


The Tea Party Morphed Into the Cult of Trump. What Will It Become Next?

By Kevin Drum

Ten years ago I wrote a short essay for the magazine about the tea party phenomenon. The gist was that it was nothing new: every time Democrats come into power, some sort of conspiracy-minded right-wing movement blossoms. It happened with FDR, it happened with JFK, it happened with Bill Clinton, and at the time it was happening with Barack Obama. I happened to reread this piece a couple of days ago and I was startled at how relevant it still sounded. Here’s an excerpt, right after I noted that each movement was larger than its predecessor:

Beyond sheer numbers, though, right-wing extremist groups are also becoming more effective. The Liberty League withered after it failed to make even a dent in FDR’s 1936 reelection campaign. The Birchers improved on that record, winning lots of local campaigns and eventually helping Barry Goldwater win the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, before collapsing under the weight of Robert Welch’s increasingly bizarre rants. The ’90s activists were more successful yet, helping Gingrich take over Congress in 1994, impeaching a president in 1998, and eventually sending George W. Bush to the White House.

And the tea partiers? Their history hasn’t been written yet, but they have, for all practical purposes, already trumped every previous generation of activists by successfully taking over the Republican Party almost entirely. And this is, at last, something that really is new: The Liberty League was rejected by the GOP almost from the start, the Birchers were all but spent as a political force after the 1964 election debacle, and even during the ’90s there were still moderate factions in the GOP. But today, there’s virtually no one left in the party leadership who doesn’t at least claim to adhere to tea party principles. Recent polls by both Gallup and the Mellman Group (PDF) find that the views of self-identified tea party supporters are nearly identical to the views of self-identified Republicans across the board. Gallup’s analysis may go a little too far in saying that the tea party movement is “more a rebranding of core Republicanism than a new or distinct entity on the American political scene,” but not by much.

Reading this now, the cult of Donald Trump and his iron hold over the Republican Party seem almost inevitable. All he had to do was take over the machinery that had been steadily developing for more than half a century.

So what happens now? It was bad luck that this machinery happened to fall into the hands of a maniac like Trump, but it’s always going to fall into the hands of someone. Who will control it next? And by what new name will we hear about it?

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2021/01/the-tea-party-morphed-i
nto-the-cult-of-trump-what-will-it-become-next
/

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, January 22, 2021 6:16 AM

SECOND

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


After the inauguration, Mitt Romney expressed opposition to a new economic relief package, declaring: “We just passed a $900 billion-plus package. Let’s give that some time to be able to influence the economy.”

Now, Romney has earned the presumption that, unlike other Republicans opposing relief, he’s honestly trying to do the right thing. But that’s an utterly clueless remark, indicating that he doesn’t understand what Biden’s proposed package is all about.

While coronavirus relief legislation is often called “stimulus,” that’s not what Biden is trying to do. The economy in 2021 isn’t like the economy in 2009, depressed because there isn’t enough demand; we haven’t fully recovered because we’re still on partial lockdown, with some activities curtailed by the risk of infection.

The goal of policy in this situation isn’t to pump up spending, getting people to eat out and travel. It is, instead, to help people, businesses and local governments get through the difficult period until widespread vaccination lets us go back to business as usual.

And we know, as certainly as we know anything in economics, that the economy will be depressed at least into the summer and probably beyond. The last package didn’t provide remotely enough aid to get us through those months. Asking whether that package boosted the economy therefore completely misses the point; it’s obvious that America needs another round of disaster relief.

So how is it that Romney, who definitely isn’t a stupid man, doesn’t understand the most basic aspects of pandemic economics? My guess, as I already suggested, is that in the years since he was governor of Massachusetts he has shut himself into the conservative intellectual bubble, and he no longer listens to sensible economic analysis, or knows what it sounds like.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/opinion/biden-republicans-stimulus.
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, January 22, 2021 6:16 AM

SECOND

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


The Minimum Wage Around the World

The United States currently has the lowest minimum wage by a big margin. If raised to $15, it would be among the highest.

According to the OECD, here is the minimum wage in most of the developed countries of the world:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2021/01/raw-data-the-minimum-wa
ge-around-the-world
/

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, January 22, 2021 7:20 AM

SECOND

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


Our Political System Is Unfair. Liberals Need to Just Deal With It As It Is Without Hope of Changing It.

The American voters chose to give the Democrats the White House, but denied them a mandate. Democrats somehow squeaked out wins in both Georgia Senate races, but the Senate will pivot on Joe Manchin of West Virginia.

Not only does Joe Manchin take much of the liberal wish list off the table, he also makes deep structural reform of federal institutions impossible. There will be no new voting rights act in honor of the late Representative John Lewis, no statehood for Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and no Supreme Court packing. For that matter, the filibuster will not be eliminated, which would have been the essential predicate for all of those other changes as well as expansive climate or health care legislation. Anything that Democrats want to do that requires a party-line vote is forlorn.

In response to this disappointment, a number of left-of-center commentators have concluded that “democracy lost” in 2020. Our constitutional order, they argue, is rotten and an obstacle to majority rule. The Electoral College and the overrepresentation of small, mostly conservative states in the Senate is an outrage. As Ezra Klein has argued, our constitution “forces Democrats to win voters ranging from the far left to the center right, but Republicans can win with only right-of-center votes.” As a consequence, liberals can’t have nice things.

The argument is logical, but it is also a strategic dead end. The United States is and in almost any plausible scenario will continue to be a federal republic. We are constituted as a nation of states, not as a single unitary community, a fact that is hard-wired into our constitutional structure. Liberals may not like this, just as a man standing outside in a rainstorm does not like the fact he is getting soaked. But instead of cursing the rain, it makes a lot more sense for him to find an umbrella.

Liberals need to adjust their political strategy and ideological ambitions to the country and political system we actually have, and make the most of it, rather than cursing that which they cannot change.

Teles goes on to argue that Democrats should organize across the country, that they should deal with regional inequities, and recognize that some liberal slogans like “defund the police” do not travel well. He concludes:

The Democratic Party has a future within the constitution the country has. The question for the next decade is, will we withdraw into pointless dreams of sweeping constitutional change or make our peace with our country and its constitution, seeking allies in unlikely places and squeezing out what progress we can get by organizing everywhere, even when the odds of success seem slim.

More at https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/opinion/democrats-constitution.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, January 22, 2021 6:38 PM

REAVERFAN

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Saturday, January 23, 2021 8:08 AM

SECOND

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


Joe Biden has only one shot to stop Trumpism returning in 2024

Donald Trump threatened as much in his last public statement as president, uttering the chilling words: “We will be back in some form.”

Given that Trump left the White House with his support among Republicans still at 82%, there is only one surefire way to ensure that never happens. Sixty-seven US senators – including 17 Republicans – will have to vote to convict Trump in his upcoming impeachment trial for inciting an insurrection on Capitol Hill on 6 January. If they do that, then Senate Democrats can vote by simple majority to ban Trump from ever holding public office again. (Think of it as Anne Archer shooting a resurrected Glenn Close at the end of Fatal Attraction.)

Still, this might be to take the threat of Trump’s return too narrowly, too literally even. What were Trump’s words? “In some form.” The monster might resurface in a new guise in 2024. In traditional Hollywood style, that would mean a sequel starring Son of Trump – or even Daughter – or it could mean someone from outside that desperate clan. This is, surely, the greater fear. That US nativist populism will find a new messenger, one free of the personal defects and grossness of Trump, one who has the quality that Trump lacked: the self-discipline to be a competent authoritarian. So often Trump’s autocratic impulses were thwarted not by the system but by his own ineptitude and the ineffectiveness of his second-rate team. What if next time the US – and the world – is not so lucky?

To repel that as-yet-faceless threat will require deeper work than a simple vote in the Senate. A first task is to dispel the question of legitimacy that hangs over Biden’s presidency in the minds of the one in three Americans who believe Trump’s big lie that he, not Biden, won the 2020 election.

If Biden can make good on his promise to vaccinate 100 million Americans in 100 days, that in itself will be transformative. People’s lives will have changed in a direct and profound way, thanks in part to having Biden at the helm. In the process, he would have gone a long way to restoring Americans’ faith in the ability of government to do good. That is critical given that Trumpism was predicated on an insistence that democratic government is always feeble and useless, that it takes a strongman to get things done.

The debate has been long and acrimonious over whether Trump supporters were drawn to him by “economic anxiety” or plain old racism, spiced with misogyny. But what if the answer contains elements of both? What if bigotry flourishes in unwatered earth? Biden’s $1.9tn rescue plan and an agenda of economic renewal may not win back the left-behind and eradicate Trumpism at a stroke – but it can’t hurt.

Time, though, is desperately short. There is a curious cycle in US politics. In 1992, 2008 and 2020, Democratic presidents were elected alongside Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, granting them the muscle to implement their programmes. But for Bill Clinton and Barack Obama landslide reverses came within two years, depriving them of either one or both chambers of Congress thereafter. In other words, over a 12- or 16-year period Democrats usually get a squeezed two years to get things done. Biden’s majorities are much thinner than his predecessors’, and the clock is already ticking.

The new president cannot allow himself to get bogged down in delay, tripped up by McConnell’s familiar tricks in the Senate. But that will take more than guile. The system that gives a rural, white Republican minority de facto veto power over the rest of the country – and note that the Democrats’ 50 senators represent a total of 41 million more voters than the Republican 50 – itself has to change. The wish list is long, from tackling voter suppression and gerrymandered districts to campaign-finance reform and abolition of a filibuster rule that demands 60 votes to get something through a 100-member body.

Tackling all that will go against Joe Biden’s instincts. He is a creature of the Senate, faithful to its traditions. But as the columnist Ezra Klein puts it, for too long Democrats have “preferred the false peace of decorum to the true progress of democracy”. History suggests Biden will only get one shot. He must not throw it away – lest he revive the very spectre that gave him his chance.

More at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/22/joe-biden-trumpi
sm-2024-america-democratic-government


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, January 24, 2021 8:04 AM

SECOND

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


I have been browsing many articles over the past few days that ponder the question of whether Joe Biden will be able to get his legislative agenda through Congress. They are all nuanced and carefully written, which means they are all wrong. Here is the answer:

No. Republicans in the Senate will block just about everything and Democrats don’t have the votes to end the filibuster.

I don’t know how much clearer Republicans need to be about this. They are not going to vote to impeach Donald Trump.** They are not going to pass a huge coronavirus bill. They are not going to raise the minimum wage to $15. They are going to do exactly what they did in 2009: oppose everything.

Nor is there anything really unusual about this. Historically, Democratic presidents can pass significant legislation only if they come to office with big majorities in Congress. Obama had that for a little while. LBJ had it for a couple of years. FDR had it for his entire first term. Ditto for Woodrow Wilson. Bill Clinton didn’t have it and he struggled. Obama got little done after 2010. And Biden has both the thinnest possible majority and a Republican Party more opposed to passing Democratic legislation than any we’ve ever seen.

So that’s that. Biden might be able to pass a few things via reconciliation. He might be able to swing a few modest deals in the annual appropriations bill. But that’s it.

Any other questions?

**I’m almost inclined to weasel on this since we don’t know what further outrages we will discover over the next few weeks about Trump’s actions to overturn the election results. But no. I suspect we could have video evidence of Trump trying to personally deliver a bag of cash to the Georgia attorney general and that still wouldn’t garner 17 Republican votes for conviction in the Senate.

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2021/01/behold-my-daring-predic
tion-for-2021
/

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, January 24, 2021 7:24 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:


Opinion
Democrats, Here’s How to Lose in 2022. And Deserve It.
You don’t get re-elected for things voters don’t know that you did.

Ezra Klein
Opinion Columnist

Jan. 21, 2021

President Biden takes office with a ticking clock. The Democrats’ margin in the House and Senate couldn’t be thinner, and midterms typically raze the governing party. That gives Democrats two years to govern. Two years to prove that the American political system can work. Two years to show Trumpism was an experiment that need not be repeated.

Two years.

This is the responsibility the Democratic majority must bear: If they fail or falter, they will open the door for Trumpism or something like it to return, and there is every reason to believe it will be far worse next time. To stop it, Democrats need to reimagine their role. They cannot merely defend the political system. They must rebuild it.

(Ya' hear that Nancy*? NOBODY will be served by your partican failed attempt to impeach Trump and - what - remove him from office? YOUR political games are an obstacle to democrats* regaining relevance and approval.)

“This is a fight not just for the future of the Democratic Party or good policy,” Senator Bernie Sanders told me. “It is literally a fight to restore faith in small-d democratic government.”

Among the many tributaries flowing into Trumpism, one in particular has gone dangerously overlooked. In their book “Presidents, Populism and the Crisis of Democracy,” the political scientists William Howell and Terry Moe write that “populists don’t just feed on socioeconomic discontent. They feed on ineffective government — and their great appeal is that they claim to replace it with a government that is effective through their own autocratic power.”

Donald Trump was this kind of populist. Democrats mocked his “I alone can fix it” message for its braggadocio and feared its authoritarianism, but they did not take seriously the deep soil in which it was rooted: The American system of governance is leaving too many Americans to despair and misery, too many problems unsolved, too many people disillusioned. It is captured by corporations and paralyzed by archaic rules. It is failing, and too many Democrats treat its failures as regrettable inevitabilities rather than a true crisis.

But now Democrats have another chance. To avoid the mistakes of the past, three principles should guide their efforts. First, they need to help people fast and visibly. Second, they need to take politics seriously, recognizing that defeat in 2022 will result in catastrophe. The Trumpist Republican Party needs to be politically discredited through repeated losses; it cannot simply be allowed to ride back to primacy on the coattails of Democratic failure. And, finally, they need to do more than talk about the importance of democracy. They need to deepen American democracy.

The good news is that Democrats have learned many of these lessons, at least in theory. The $1.9 trillion rescue plan Biden proposed is packed with ideas that would make an undeniable difference in people’s lives, from $1,400 checks to paid leave to the construction of a national coronavirus testing infrastructure that will allow some semblance of normal life to resume.

And congressional Democrats have united behind sweeping legislation to expand American democracy. The “For the People Act,” which House Democrats passed in 2019 and Senate Democrats have said will be their first bill in the new session*, would do more to protect and expand the right to vote than any legislation passed since the Great Society, and it would go a long way toward building a fairer and more transparent campaign financing system. In June, House Democrats passed a bill to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., which would end one of the most appalling cases of systematic disenfranchisement in the country.

(I have read the bill, and it has major flaws. Among the are: 1) it does nothing to guarantee only citizens with a right to vote actually vote - in fact it erases any protection against voter fraud, and 2) it does literally nothing to validate the voting after the fact, the only protection available to detect vote manipulation. But there are many, many other flaws.)

“It’s time for boldness, for there is so much to do,” Biden said in his Inaugural Address. “This is certain, I promise you: We will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era.”

But none of these bills will pass a Senate in which the filibuster forces 60-vote supermajorities on routine legislation. And that clarifies the real question Democrats face. They have plenty of ideas that could improve people’s lives and strengthen democracy. But they have, repeatedly, proved themselves more committed to preserving the status quo of the political system than fulfilling their promises to voters. They have preferred the false peace of decorum to the true progress of democracy. If they choose that path again, they will lose their majority in 2022, and they will deserve it.

(I've been noting for sometime that democrats* are just another party of big-money influence. And that If democrats* don't do any different, how are they any better?)

Just Help People

The last time Democrats won the White House, the Senate and the House was in 2008, and they didn’t squander the moment. They passed the stimulus and Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. They saved the auto industry and prevented a second Great Depression and, for good measure, drove the largest investment in clean energy infrastructure in American history.

But too little of their work was evident in 2010, when Democrats were running for re-election. The result was, as President Barack Obama put it, “a shellacking.” Democrats lost six Senate seats and 63 House seats. They also lost 20 state legislatures, giving Republicans control of the decennial redistricting process.

Democrats have less margin for error in 2021 than they did in 2009. Their congressional majorities are smaller — 50 seats in the Senate versus 60, and 222 seats in the House versus 257. Republican dominance of redistricting efforts, and a growing Senate and Electoral College bias toward red states, has tilted the electoral map against them. The nationalization of politics has shrunk ticket-splitting voters down to a marginal phenomenon, making it harder for red and purple state Democrats to separate themselves from the fortunes of the national party.

In 2009, Democrats might reasonably have believed they had a few election cycles in which to govern, to tweak their bills and programs, to see the fruits of their governance. In 2021, no such illusion is possible.

Tom Perriello is the executive director of U.S. programs at the Open Society Foundations. But in 2009, he was a newly elected Democratic representative from Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, where he’d narrowly beaten a Republican. Two years later, Republicans took back his seat. They still hold it. Democrats cannot allow a wipeout in 2022 like they suffered in 2010, and looking back, Perriello told me what he thought Democrats could’ve done to save his seat.

“There’s a belief among a certain set of Democrats that taking an idea and cutting it in half makes it a better idea when it just makes it a worse idea,” he said. As we talked, he ticked off the examples: The stimulus bill was whittled down and down, ending far beneath what economists thought necessary to rescue the economy. The House’s more populist health reform bill — which included a public option, heftier subsidies and was primarily financed by taxing the rich — was cast aside in favor of the Senate’s stingier, more complex proposal. The House passed “cramdown” legislation, which would have allowed bankruptcy judges to alter the terms of mortgages so banks took losses and homeowners would have been more likely to keep their homes, but the bill failed in the Senate, and the impression took hold — correctly — that Congress was bailing out the banks, but not desperate homeowners.

The Obama administration believed that if you got the policy right, the politics would follow. That led, occasionally, to policies that almost entirely abandoned politics, so deep ran the faith in clever design. The Making Work Pay tax credit, which was a centerpiece of the 2009 Recovery Act, was constructed to be invisible — the Obama administration, working off new research in behavioral economics, believed Americans would be more likely to spend a windfall that they didn’t know they got. “When all was said and done, only around 10 percent of people who received benefits knew they had received something from the government,” said Suzanne Mettler, a political scientist at Cornell. You don’t get re-elected for things voters don’t know you did.

Nor do you get re-elected for legislation voters cannot yet feel. The Affordable Care Act didn’t begin delivering health insurance on a mass scale until four years after the bill’s passage. That reflected a doomed effort to win Republican support by prioritizing private insurance and a budgetary gimmick meant to keep the total price tag under $1 trillion over 10 years. Obamacare eventually became a political winner for Democrats, but it took the better part of a decade. A simpler, faster, more generous bill would have been better politics and better policy.

“Democrats are famous for 87-point programs which sometimes do some good but nobody understands what they are,” Senator Sanders said. “What we need to do now is, in very bold and clear ways, make people understand government is directly improving their lives.”

That’s particularly important in a time of fractured media, polarized parties and widespread disinformation. Democrats cannot rely on widely trusted media figures or civic leaders to validate their programs. Policy has to speak for itself and it has to speak clearly.

“The wisdom from much of the political science research is that partisanship trumps everything,” said Amy Lerman, a political scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, and author of “Good Enough for Government Work.” “But one of the insights from the policy feedback literature in particular is that when people experience policy, they don’t necessarily experience it as partisans. They experience it as a parent sending their child to school or a patient visiting a doctor, not as a Democrat or Republican. And because people are often thinking in nonpolitical terms during their day-to-day lives, they are much more open to having their views changed when they see the actual, tangible benefits of a policy in their lives. It’s a way of breaking through partisanship.”

Make the Senate Great Again

President Biden’s agenda will live or die in the Senate. Odds are it will die, killed by the filibuster.

The modern Senate has become something the founders never intended: a body where only a supermajority can govern. From 1941 to 1970, the Senate took only 36 votes to break filibusters. In 2009 and 2010 alone, they took 91. Here’s the simple truth facing the Democratic agenda: In a Senate without a filibuster, Democrats have some chance of passing some rough facsimile of the agenda they’ve promised. In a Senate with a filibuster, they do not.

“I’ve said to the president-elect, ‘reach out across the aisle. Try to work with the Republicans. But don’t let them stymie your program,’” Representative Jim Clyburn, the House majority whip, told me before Inauguration Day. “You can’t allow the search for bipartisanship to ruin the mandate the American people gave you.’”

This is a lesson the Obama administration learned the hard way. Tellingly, both Obama and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader at the beginning of the Obama administration, have come to support the elimination of the filibuster. “It’s not a question of if the filibuster will be gone, but when it’ll be gone,” Reid told me by phone. “You cannot have a democratic body where it takes 60 percent of the vote to get anything done.”

When I asked Biden, during the campaign, about filibuster reform, he was reluctant, but not definitively opposed. “I think it’s going to depend on how obstreperous they” — meaning Republicans — “become, and if they become that way,” he replied. “I have not supported the elimination of the filibuster because it has been used as often to protect rights I care about as the other way around. But you’re going to have to take a look at it.”

Senate Democrats could eliminate the filibuster if every single one of them wanted to, but even a single defection would doom them. Senator Joe Manchin has promised to be that defection. Mere days after the election, he went on Fox News and said, “I commit to you tonight, and I commit to all of your viewers and everyone else that’s watching. I want to allay those fears, I want to rest those fears for you right now because when they talk about whether it be packing the courts, or ending the filibuster, I will not vote to do that.”

Red state Democrats like Manchin have long held to a political strategy in which public opposition to their party’s initiatives proves their independence and moderation. And there was a time when that strategy could work. But the nationalized, polarized structure of modern American politics has ended it.

Ticket-splitting has been on a sharp decline for decades, and it has arguably reached a nearly terminal point. According to calculations by the Democratic data analyst David Shor, the correlation between the statewide vote for Senate Democrats and the statewide vote for the Democratic presidential candidate was 71 percent in 2008. High, which is why Obama’s sagging approval ratings hurt Democrats so badly in 2010, but there was still some room to maneuver. But by 2016, it was 93.2 percent. And in 2020, it was 94.5 percent. With few exceptions — and Manchin, admittedly, has been one — Democrats live or die together. They certainly win or lose the majority together.

(And yet, Biden*'s many millions of votes barely translated to the Senate, and not at all to the House. So there must have been many, many ballots with only a single presidential vote. "Does that seem right to you?")

To give Manchin his due, a more high-minded fear — shared by others in his caucus — is that we have just come through a long, ugly period of partisan norm-breaking. Surely the answer to Trump’s relentless assaults on decorum, to Mitch McConnell’s rewriting of Senate rules, is a return to the comity they cast off, to the traditions they’ve violated, to the bipartisanship they abandoned. A version of this may appeal to Biden, too: Trump stretched the boundaries of executive authority, so perhaps he should retreat, offering more deference to Congress and resisting opportunities to go it alone, even when stymied by Republicans. But if this is what he means by “unity,” it will just empower the merchants of division.

In their book, Howell and Moe write that this is a common, but dangerously counterproductive, response to populist challengers. Defenders of the political system, eager to show that normalcy has returned, often embrace the very defects and dysfunctions that gave rise to the populist leader in the first place. The nightmare scenario is that Trump is defeated, driven from office, and that augurs in an era when even less appears to get done, as Biden submits to congressional paralysis while embracing a calmer communications strategy. If Democrats permit that to happen, they will pave the road for the next Trump-like politician, one who will be yet more disciplined and dangerous than Trump.

Democrats for Democracy

“Democracy is precious,” Biden said at his inauguration. “Democracy is fragile. And at this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.”

It’s a stirring sentiment, but wrong. Democracy barely survived. If America actually abided by normal democratic principles, Trump would have lost in 2016, after receiving almost three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. The American people did not want this presidency, but they got it anyway, and the result was carnage. In 2020, Trump lost by about seven million votes, but if about 40,000 votes had switched in key states, he would have won anyway. The Senate is split 50-50, but the 50 Democrats represent more than 41 million more Americans than the 50 Republicans. This is not a good system.

(And once again, we hear whinging about following the Constitution.)

Democracy is designed as a feedback loop.

)(No it's not. If democracy was a feedback loop, people could vote the President, their Senators, and Representatives out at any time they lost broad public approval, like in parliamentary systems. Instead, people and electors select kings and lords who rule unchallenged by removal for set periods of time. And if we want a MORE representative feedback loop, we need to drastically change the Constitution to make early removal easier.)

Voters choose leaders. Leaders govern. Voters judge the results, and they either return the leaders to power, or give their opponents a chance. That feedback loop is broken in American politics. It is broken because of gerrymandering, because of the Senate, because of the filibuster, because of the Electoral College, because we have declared money to be speech and allowed those with wealth to speak much more loudly than those without.

(The supposed feedback mechanism of the vote has also failed because the system to hold elected officials accountable isn't timely, letting broken promises, misdeeds, and misrule accumulate and fester. And the lack of timeliness also means that as circumstances change, government isn't held accountable to address them in a timely way. As a result, people notice that it doesn't matter what candidates SAY, their ACTIONS go unchecked.)

It is also broken because we directly disenfranchise millions of Americans. In the nation’s capital, 700,000 residents have no vote in the House or Senate at all. The same is true in Puerto Rico, which, with 3.2 million residents, is larger than 20 existing states. For decades, Democrats promised to offer statehood to residents of both territories, but have never followed through. It is no accident that these are parts of the country largely populated by Black and Hispanic voters. If Democrats believe anything they have said over the past year about combating structural racism and building a multiethnic democracy, then it is obvious where they must start.

“It would be a devastating civil rights failure if we didn’t achieve statehood now,” Stasha Rhodes, the campaign director of 51 for 51, which advocates D.C. statehood, told me. “It would also be a sign that Democrats are not interested in restoring and strengthening American democracy. We can no longer say Republicans are anti-democracy when we now have a chance to restore and create the democracy we say is important, and then we don’t do it.”

After Representative John Lewis died, Obama used his eulogy to address those in Congress who called Lewis a hero but allowed the rights to which he had devoted his life to wither. “You want to honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for. And by the way, naming it the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, that is a fine tribute.” And, he continued, “if all this takes is eliminating the filibuster — another Jim Crow relic — in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that’s what we should do.”

Democracy is worth fighting for, not least because it’s the fight that will decide all the others. “One of the things a Trump administration has shown is that democracy is inextricably linked to the things that matter to Americans,” Rhodes said. “The rules are not separate from the issues. If you want effective Covid response, if you want robust gun violence prevention, if you want a strong economy, then you need a true American democracy.”

The Vaccine Opportunity

Great presidencies — and new political eras — are born of crises. Thus far, America has bobbled its vaccination rollout. But the fault doesn’t lie only with Trump. In blue states where Democrats command both power and resources, like California and New York, overly restrictive eligibility criteria slowed the rollout, and huge numbers of shots were locked in freezers. It’s an embarrassment.

(But now NYC has run out of vaccines as of last Friday, exposing the ultimate bottleneck, which is production.)

A successful mass immunization campaign will save lives, supercharge the economy and allow us to hug our families and see our friends again. Few presidents, outside the worst of wartime, have entered office with as much opportunity to better people’s lives immediately through competent governance.

Biden’s team understands that. Their $20 billion plan to use the full might of the federal government to accelerate vaccinations hits all the right notes. But it’s attached to their $1.9 trillion rescue plan, which needs 10 Republican votes it doesn’t have in order to pass over a filibuster (Senator Mitt Romney already dismissed it as “not well-timed”). Letting the resources required to vaccinate the country — and to set up mass testing and to prevent an economic crisis — become entangled in Republican obstruction for weeks or months would be a terrible mistake.

Here, too, Democrats will quickly face a choice: To leave their promises to the American people to the mercies of Mitch McConnell, or to change the Senate so they can change the course of the country.

Some, at least, say they’ve learned their lesson. “I’m going to do everything I can to bring people together,” said Senator Ron Wyden, who will lead the powerful Senate Finance Committee, “but I’m not just going to stand around and do nothing while Mitch McConnell ties everyone up in knots.” They will all need to be united on this point for it to matter.

In her book “Good Enough for Government Work,” Lerman argues that the U.S. government is caught in a reputation crisis where its poor performance is assumed, the public is attuned to its flaws and misses its virtues, and fed-up citizens stop using public services, which further harms the quality of those services. The Trump years add another dimension to the analysis: Frustration with a government that doesn’t solve problems leads people to vote for demagogic outsiders who create further crises. But this is not an inevitability. Her titular phrase, she notes, “originated during World War II to describe the exacting standards and high quality required by government.” It was only in the 1960s and ’70s that it became a slur.

It is no accident that World War II led to the idea that government work was a standard to strive for, not an outcome to fear. Crises remind us of what government is for in the first place. Biden has an extraordinary opportunity to change the relationship between the people and their government. If he succeeds, he will not only deprive authoritarian populists like Trump of energy, he will give Democrats a chance to win over voters who’ve lost faith in them, and he will give voice to millions more that the American political system has silenced. “The best thing we can do right now to reduce levels of anger and frustration on both sides of the aisle is to give people the things they need to live better lives,” said Lerman.

In other words, what Democrats need to do is simple: Just help people, and do it fast.

Roge Karma provided additional reporting.


© 2021 The New York Times Company




And prosecuting impeachment doesn't count, Nancy.*


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Monday, January 25, 2021 5:50 PM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


A Psaki press briefing:



I no wut youre thinking - wherez the outrajus liez?

I want to hear blatantly false claimz about the inogyration crowd size!

I NEED to see reporterz squirming in their seats after a bazarr denial uv undeniable facts!

How can I satisfy my craving for bad lojik wen all Psaki duz iz calmly speak the truth????

THERE IZ NO CONFLICT HERE! ITS BORING! The Biden administration duz not know Jack Squat about putting on a show!

If this goez on, thouzandz uv comedienz will be out uv work if they cant find another sourse for derision! Think wut that will do to the unemployment stats!

I coud go on, but I uzed up my daily alotment uv exclamation points. Dont want to get another ticket.

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

The real solution: https://fundrazr.com/71jIY1?ref=ab_f9ZUS0

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Monday, January 25, 2021 6:07 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Nothing good comes out of the next two years.

If we're lucky, nothing bad does either.




--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Monday, January 25, 2021 6:15 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.



JO - after a long post about democratic* policy in the next 2 years, all YOU can come up with in reply is a post about crowd size?


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Tuesday, January 26, 2021 6:16 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:
Nothing good comes out of the next two years.

If we're lucky, nothing bad does either.

You got your wish because Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. have decided to join with the Republicans. If Sinema and Manchin don't change their ways, the Senate will stay deadlocked:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he is ready to move ahead with a Senate power-sharing agreement after two Democratic senators said they won’t support ending the legislative filibuster, a central sticking point for the GOP in the talks.

In a statement released late Monday, the Kentucky Republican said his concerns about the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to advance, had been assuaged by comments from Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., reaffirming their opposition to its elimination. Their statements earlier Monday signaled that Democrats don’t have the votes needed to kill the filibuster, since it would take all 50 Democrats, plus Vice President Kamala Harris, voting as a bloc to kill the filibuster unilaterally.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mcconnell-agrees-to-senate-power-sha
ring-agreement-11611634411


With the Republicans able to veto anything Biden needs, it is almost certain Biden will lose the 2024 election. But lose to who? Donald Trump can be back in the White House since the GOP Senators, except for Mitt Romney, won't convict Donald Trump for inciting violence against the government of the United States. If Trump wants to be President, again, the job is his, thanks to Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin.

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, January 26, 2021 9:16 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Even Biden* doesn't look to want to end the filibuster.

If anything, the ones who oppose it now know that if they remove it, it will hurt them in the future.


You've got to stop being so reactionary and using that Checkers mindset. Time to start playing chess. Everything in the entire world isn't about one single "bad" man that you don't like.

If you give Democrats new toys, you give those same toys to Republicans too. If you take the Republican's toys away today, you take those same toys away from Democrats tomorrow too.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2021 9:20 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


And this comment seems to be quite confusing:

Quote:

In a statement released late Monday, the Kentucky Republican said his concerns about the filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes for most legislation to advance, had been assuaged by comments from Democratic senators Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., reaffirming their opposition to its elimination. Their statements earlier Monday signaled that Democrats don’t have the votes needed to kill the filibuster, since it would take all 50 Democrats, plus Vice President Kamala Harris, voting as a bloc to kill the filibuster unilaterally.


Why are people assuming that a 51/50 vote with the VP on board would be enough to kill a rule that requires 60 votes for legislation to advance?

I don't think their math is right on this one. They'd better start courting those NeoCons like Romney who get giddy at the thought of being able to push whatever they want through unchecked the next time Republicans have 51 seats.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2021 10:12 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:

If you give Democrats new toys, you give those same toys to Republicans too. If you take the Republican's toys away today, you take those same toys away from Democrats tomorrow too.

That has never been how it works, 6ix. The filibuster has already been removed for appointments of judges. And the Senate can change the rules whenever. Matter of fact, the House of Representatives could decide it also wants to carry over the rules of filibuster in order to make the House just as dysfunctional as the Senate.

Nearly everybody in Congress wants to avoid making decisions. That is why there is a filibuster in the first place. That's why Congress hasn't declared war since 1942. Americans have elected, for the most part, Congressmen who no more feel responsible for what happens than the average American feels about what happens at their jobs. So we get the expected crappy results.
https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Cloture_vrd.
htm


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, January 26, 2021 10:37 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Nearly everybody in Congress wants to avoid making decisions. That is why there is a filibuster in the first place. That's why Congress hasn't declared war since 1942. Americans have elected, for the most part, Congressmen who no more feel responsible for what happens than the average American feels about what happens at their jobs. So we get the expected crappy results.
https://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_index_subjects/Cloture_vrd.
htm




I'll agree with you there.

Nobody likes Congressmen or House Reps outside of their immediate family.

Even that statement might be too generous on my part.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2021 1:00 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:
I'll agree with you there.

Nobody likes Congressmen or House Reps outside of their immediate family.

Even that statement might be too generous on my part.

This pretty well describes what is going on between Americans and their own Congressman: Americans Down on Congress, OK With Own Representative. Congressional approval at 16% in May.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/162362/americans-down-congress-own-repres
entative.aspx


What Americans hate about Congress is that all the other Congressmen, but not their own, are worthless. How the hell did America get into such a weird place? Because the typical Congressman tries to avoid doing anything that will lose the love of a majority of voters in only his district (or state if he is a Senator). He doesn't care what voters in other districts or states think of him. Republican Senators have an advantage because of that. Republican voters think more or less alike in all the states, while Democratic voters are different between states, even different in the next city. That's why the Democratic Congressmen have a very difficult time sticking together as one group with one goal. The Democratic Congressmen are forever bitching about one another because D voters in one state are very different from other states' D voters.

A Democrat like LBJ could handle Senators while he was President or, before, when he was majority leader in the Senate, by threatening politely yet believably to destroy a Democratic Senator who stepped out of line or reward if they behave well. Biden is not going to threaten the two renegade Democratic Senators, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and so Biden is not going to get anything done in the Senate. Maybe Biden should read LBJ's biography to find out how to lead Democrats?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Years_of_Lyndon_Johnson

I think LBJ learned how to handle Senators because he was a teacher for years in a one-room schoolhouse in Texas. He learned how to punish/persuade children and he applied what he learned to immature Democratic Senators who also need punishment/persuasion.

Download the LBJ biography for free: https://libgen.unblockit.ltd/search.php?req=Robert+A.+Caro

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, January 26, 2021 4:07 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Again though, that's not everybody.

I've already emailed my congressmen to let them know that they will not be getting my vote.

I've also successfully been a part of voting out one of our last senators, and was quite displeased when enough of our state's electorate didn't vote Libertarian with me to vote out our Governor in November.

Dude is a piece of shit.



Oh... lol. Did I ever mention that I'm not a Republican?




--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2021 4:12 PM

SECOND

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


The Senate Filibuster Has Already Been Abolished

At the risk of saying the obvious, isn’t it true that the legislative filibuster has already been abolished? Sure, there hasn’t been an official announcement or anything, but everyone agrees that the majority party can pass a piece of legislation with 51 votes anytime they feel like it.** It just takes a simple point of order and a ruling from the vice president.

The fact that no one has done this yet is immaterial. What matters is the consensus that it can be done at will. This means the filibuster no longer exists in any meaningful way. So how about if we forget about it and move on?

**Assuming that the Senate and the White House are controlled by the same party. But that’s been the case for all but two years of the past decade and it’s the case now.

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2021/01/the-senate-filibuster-h
as-already-been-abolished
/

In order for the legislative filibuster to be eliminated, Senators Manchin and Sinema will now have to flip flop on their recent public statements. They may still decide to do this (esp for a popular piece of legislation the GOP refuses to pass), but they are in tight States electorally and probably don’t want to be seen as hypocritical. McConnell’s strategy of withholding power sharing until he got these public statements has thus increased the Dems’ cost to eliminate the filibuster. It also knocked the credibility out of any future threat by Schumer in negotiations with McConnell that Schumer could easily pass legislation on 51 Dem votes.

Sen. Joe Manchin III, who is set to become chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is , as far as I understand , a conservative Democrat from one of the reddest states in the country , West Virginia ( or more precisely a Republican in everything except the suffix D) . In this position is he one of the most influential persons in Washington.

Manchin who oversaw a coal brokerage before running for public office. His most recent financial disclosures show that he holds stocks worth between $1 million and $5 million in Enersystems, the coal brokerage firm he used to run.

“Manchin has already said he doesn’t support eliminating the filibuster as a way to enable Democrats to pass bills without Republican votes. If Democrats are to fight climate change, he wants them to do it the old fashioned way — his way. That means deals forged through compromise, the gears of government greased by long-standing relationships”

.... good luck in implementing any laws seriously targeting Climate Breakdown.

It is easier to understand Manchin's politics if you view him as a moderate Republican who calls himself a Dem because if he actually ran as a Republican a more conservative GOP primary challenger would absolutely smoke him in a primary. Everything else he does follows that. I think that’s the best explanation I’ve ever seen. And it also brings real clarity to the difficulty of having Manchin in the Democratic Party. It tends to pull both parties sharply to the right. As a Republican, Manchin would tend to force that party to the left, whilst as as Democrat, he either pulls the (admittedly nominally) center-left to the right when it appeases him or forces abandonment of the party’s agenda.


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, January 26, 2021 4:26 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


lol

You sure you want to give that toy to Republicans?


Pandora's box there buddy.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Tuesday, January 26, 2021 7:53 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:
lol

You sure you want to give that toy to Republicans?


Pandora's box there buddy.

Read a few paragraphs from the Senate website about the origin of the filibuster. www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Clotur
e.htm


American Senators have always loved to talk-talk-talk so that they didn't have to act-act-act. It is the reason the Federal government has always been a mess. The other reason? Senators from different states have no loyalty to other states. America pretends it is United, but the different states don't have more loyalty to one another than countries like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the UK have loyalty to each other. It is obvious those former British colonies have incompatible goals, since they are also separated by thousands of miles, but the States (and their Senators) of the United States also have incompatible goals, even when the states share a border.

What does the Senate historian write about Filibuster and Cloture? This:

Using the filibuster to delay or block legislative action has a long history. The term filibuster—from a Dutch word meaning "pirate"—became popular in the 1850s, when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent a vote on a bill.

In the early years of Congress, representatives as well as senators could filibuster. As the House of Representatives grew in number, however, revisions to the House rules limited debate. In the smaller Senate, unlimited debate continued on the grounds that any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.

In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Kentucky senator Henry Clay , he threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton rebuked Clay for trying to stifle the Senate's right to unlimited debate.

Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as " cloture ." The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Even with the new cloture rule, filibusters remained an effective means to block legislation, since a two-thirds vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next five decades, the Senate occasionally tried to invoke cloture, but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to southern senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching legislation, until cloture was invoked after a 60-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1975 the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 of the current 100 senators.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuste
r_Cloture.htm


There is a whole lot more about the filibuster at that URL, but the underlying reason for its existence is to avoid making decisions, taking action, being responsible for outcomes. That is why the Senate has the filibuster. But if the Senators ever decide to live up to the Founding Fathers' expectations of honest, mature and wise behavior, the filibuster will be deleted from the rules.

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, January 26, 2021 11:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol

You sure you want to give that toy to Republicans?


Pandora's box there buddy.

Read a few paragraphs from the Senate website about the origin of the filibuster. www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Clotur
e.htm


American Senators have always loved to talk-talk-talk so that they didn't have to act-act-act. It is the reason the Federal government has always been a mess. The other reason? Senators from different states have no loyalty to other states. America pretends it is United, but the different states don't have more loyalty to one another than countries like New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and the UK have loyalty to each other. It is obvious those former British colonies have incompatible goals, since they are also separated by thousands of miles, but the States (and their Senators) of the United States also have incompatible goals, even when the states share a border.

What does the Senate historian write about Filibuster and Cloture? This:

Using the filibuster to delay or block legislative action has a long history. The term filibuster—from a Dutch word meaning "pirate"—became popular in the 1850s, when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent a vote on a bill.

In the early years of Congress, representatives as well as senators could filibuster. As the House of Representatives grew in number, however, revisions to the House rules limited debate. In the smaller Senate, unlimited debate continued on the grounds that any senator should have the right to speak as long as necessary on any issue.

In 1841, when the Democratic minority hoped to block a bank bill promoted by Kentucky senator Henry Clay , he threatened to change Senate rules to allow the majority to close debate. Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton rebuked Clay for trying to stifle the Senate's right to unlimited debate.

Three quarters of a century later, in 1917, senators adopted a rule (Rule 22), at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson, that allowed the Senate to end a debate with a two-thirds majority vote, a device known as " cloture ." The new Senate rule was first put to the test in 1919, when the Senate invoked cloture to end a filibuster against the Treaty of Versailles. Even with the new cloture rule, filibusters remained an effective means to block legislation, since a two-thirds vote is difficult to obtain. Over the next five decades, the Senate occasionally tried to invoke cloture, but usually failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote. Filibusters were particularly useful to southern senators who sought to block civil rights legislation, including anti-lynching legislation, until cloture was invoked after a 60-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 1975 the Senate reduced the number of votes required for cloture from two-thirds to three-fifths, or 60 of the current 100 senators.
https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuste
r_Cloture.htm


There is a whole lot more about the filibuster at that URL, but the underlying reason for its existence is to avoid making decisions, taking action, being responsible for outcomes. That is why the Senate has the filibuster. But if the Senators ever decide to live up to the Founding Fathers' expectations of honest, mature and wise behavior, the filibuster will be deleted from the rules.

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





Okay. Not sure what the point of bringing the origins of it up now though are.



In modern times, the fillibuster protects half of America at any given time from having a bunch of bullshit they'd never be on board with being passed.

Right now, it's protecting me from stuff you want done. In 2016, it protected you from stuff that I wanted done.

This country is fucked until we find our way back into the middle for sure.

Until then, it's a good idea not to let these assholes make any changes.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2021 8:34 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:

Okay. Not sure what the point of bringing the origins of it up now though are.

In modern times, the filibuster protects half of America at any given time from having a bunch of bullshit they'd never be on board with being passed.

Right now, it's protecting me from stuff you want done. In 2016, it protected you from stuff that I wanted done.

This country is fucked until we find our way back into the middle for sure.

Until then, it's a good idea not to let these assholes make any changes.

There is divide in understanding that can't easily be crossed about the difference between what devices like filibusters or guns were designed to do and what you think those devices do. I will tell what the devices were designed to do and you can keep believing your myths:

1) The filibuster was designed to prevent the Senate from making decisions, not to "protect" you. Often, both sides in Senate are pleased that filibuster was used because neither side really wanted to eventually face the voters on a decision. Civil Rights was the perfect example. Neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to touch that subject for 100 years after the Civil War because the voters back home might not reelect them if they expanded rights. Best for the Senator's reelection to hope somebody filibusters Civil Rights so that the Senator can safely do nothing.

2) Firearms were designed to kill, not to "protect" you. If you ever were in gun fight, you'd know that. TV and movies give Americans peculiar ideas about what happens. I've seen what happens when soldiers raised on TV Westerns get into a firefight. Those soldiers kill civilians and guys on their own side. The soldiers might, or might not, feel bad about it afterwards, but it would not have happened if they showed self-control and aimed rather than spraying bullets randomly for "protection".

Pat Tillman killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pat-tillman-killed-by-frie
ndly-fire-in-afghanistan


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, January 27, 2021 8:36 AM

SECOND

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


Election changes such as ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan primaries are popping up across the country—and are already upending national politics.

Lisa Murkowski was the first GOP senator to demand Trump’s exit after the deadly riot. The speed and bluntness with which she spoke out against the former president surprised her allies, who saw in her words the first reverberations of how Alaska voted in November. Murkowski wasn’t on the 2020 ballot, but in passing a ballot measure to change the way the state elects its leaders, Alaskans effectively gave their long-serving senator a fresh infusion of political freedom: She no longer needs to worry nearly so much about a conservative primary foe defeating her next year. “I think we’ve seen the result of it already,” former Alaska Governor Bill Walker told me.

The ballot measure that Alaska adopted by a narrow margin last fall represents the farthest-reaching changes to any state’s election laws in recent memory, giving a boost to political reformers who are trying to increase voter participation while reducing the incentives for partisanship across the country. Its advocates hope the reforms will be a model for other states, leading to a shift in how both Congress and state legislatures function in the years ahead. And for the next two years, they will have their eye on Murkowski.

The referendum scraps party primaries in favor of a single nonpartisan primary, a move that might help Murkowski more directly than any other politician in Alaska. In 2010, Murkowski was defeated in a Republican primary and secured her second full term only after mounting an unlikely write-in campaign in the general election. She’s up for reelection next year, and before Alaska passed its ballot measure, Murkowski was seen as once again vulnerable to a primary challenge because of her votes against her party, whether in rejecting the GOP’s attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act or opposing Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

As recently as September, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was teasing a possible primary challenge to Murkowski. But as remarkable as Murkowski’s immediate denunciation of Trump was, equally notable was the silence among her peers that followed. Palin said nothing, and Trump loyalists made no serious move to rebuke, censure, or oust Murkowski even though they have threatened other Republicans, such as Representative Liz Cheney, who faces a primary challenge in Wyoming and an effort to remove her as chair of the House GOP conference in Washington after voting to impeach the president.

The absence of a backlash to Murkowski’s move against Trump is more evidence that the new laws have altered Alaska politics, supporters argue. The idea isn’t to push Murkowski, a lifelong Republican, to the left—she’s already ruled out switching parties—but to allow her to keep voting independently when she sees fit, whether that’s to break with Trump or to work across the aisle on areas of common ground with President Joe Biden.

Opponents of the Alaska ballot measure have sued to stop its implementation. But if it survives a legal challenge, the state will hold a nonpartisan primary for all statewide and federal offices beginning this year. The top four candidates will advance to the general election, where Alaskans will use ranked-choice voting to determine a winner. The referendum also significantly boosts disclosure requirements for campaign financing in an effort to crack down on so-called dark money pouring into state elections.

California dropped partisan primaries a decade ago, and Maine voters approved the use of ranked-choice voting in 2016, but Alaska is the first state to combine the two reforms. Alaska and Maine are separated by more than 4,000 miles, but many of their voters share a similar distaste for the two major parties. More than six in 10 voters in Alaska aren’t registered as either Republicans or Democrats, and both states regularly elect independent candidates to statewide posts. The impetus for change in Alaska somewhat mirrored the dynamics that led Maine to adopt ranked-choice voting, after the conservative firebrand Paul LePage twice won gubernatorial races without once securing a majority of the vote. In Alaska, the conservative Republican Mike Dunleavy captured the governorship in 2018 after the incumbent, Walker, a political independent, dropped his reelection bid and endorsed the Democrat Mark Begich in the final weeks of the race.

More at https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/congress-reform-r
anked-choice-voting/617821
/

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, January 27, 2021 11:20 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Okay. Not sure what the point of bringing the origins of it up now though are.

In modern times, the filibuster protects half of America at any given time from having a bunch of bullshit they'd never be on board with being passed.

Right now, it's protecting me from stuff you want done. In 2016, it protected you from stuff that I wanted done.

This country is fucked until we find our way back into the middle for sure.

Until then, it's a good idea not to let these assholes make any changes.

There is divide in understanding that can't easily be crossed about the difference between what devices like filibusters or guns were designed to do and what you think those devices do. I will tell what the devices were designed to do and you can keep believing your myths:

1) The filibuster was designed to prevent the Senate from making decisions, not to "protect" you. Often, both sides in Senate are pleased that filibuster was used because neither side really wanted to eventually face the voters on a decision. Civil Rights was the perfect example. Neither Democrats nor Republicans wanted to touch that subject for 100 years after the Civil War because the voters back home might not reelect them if they expanded rights. Best for the Senator's reelection to hope somebody filibusters Civil Rights so that the Senator can safely do nothing.

2) Firearms were designed to kill, not to "protect" you. If you ever were in gun fight, you'd know that. TV and movies give Americans peculiar ideas about what happens. I've seen what happens when soldiers raised on TV Westerns get into a firefight. Those soldiers kill civilians and guys on their own side. The soldiers might, or might not, feel bad about it afterwards, but it would not have happened if they showed self-control and aimed rather than spraying bullets randomly for "protection".

Pat Tillman killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pat-tillman-killed-by-frie
ndly-fire-in-afghanistan


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





It doesn't matter what things were designed to do. It matters how they're used now.

I live right by one of the most historically dangerous cities in the entire country. I even do some shopping there. And most of the time I'm part of the minority.


But you know what doesn't happen in my state? BLM and Antifa bullshit. Ain't nobody clogging up the streets or beating through car windows to yank somebody out of their car and do god knows what to them. Ain't nobody even doing any carjacking out here, while only 50 miles from me the amount of carjackings in Chicago so far this year are nearly 1/3 of what they were for the entirety of 2020.


We've got conceal and carry here. I don't even have to go out with a gun to be protected. The implication alone does that for me.

Just the idea that some random dude like me has a pretty good chance of walking around with a deadly weapon makes people a whole lot more polite.




--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2021 12:35 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:

It doesn't matter what things were designed to do. It matters how they're used now.

I live right by one of the most historically dangerous cities in the entire country. I even do some shopping there. And most of the time I'm part of the minority.

But you know what doesn't happen in my state? BLM and Antifa bullshit. Ain't nobody clogging up the streets or beating through car windows to yank somebody out of their car and do god knows what to them. Ain't nobody even doing any carjacking out here, while only 50 miles from me the amount of carjackings in Chicago so far this year are nearly 1/3 of what they were for the entirety of 2020.

We've got conceal and carry here. I don't even have to go out with a gun to be protected. The implication alone does that for me.

Just the idea that some random dude like me has a pretty good chance of walking around with a deadly weapon makes people a whole lot more polite.

The filibuster has always worked the way it was designed -- to delay making decisions by the majority. Senators and political scientists understand. Ordinary people will continue to misunderstand by describing the filibuster as "protection" for the minority, but it can't be "protection" because the majority can deactivate the filibuster rule, if the majority wanted. The majority won't deactivate because it is to the individual majority Senator's advantage to avoid decisions without it being obvious that is what the majority is doing. Making decisions makes enemies and most Senators hate to make enemies among voters if they can avoid it without looking like cowards. That's why there is filibuster rule. Too many Senators on both sides of any issue always feel safer when no decision is made. The filibuster gives the majority cover for doing nothing and adroitly shifting the blame to the other side.

As for your understanding of guns, I point you to the story of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two. His defense team will claim he used his rifle for "protection" against BLM. That's both a lie and stupid. Kyle killed because he is a 17 year old fool who learned from TV dramas that guns are for "protection," not for murder. His defense team will have to confuse the jury about how he ran back to Mommy who lives in another state immediately after "protecting" himself, when he should have stood over the bodies and bragged to the police about how good he is at "protecting" himself.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53934109

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, January 27, 2021 3:20 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The filibuster has always worked the way it was designed -- to delay making decisions by the majority. Senators and political scientists understand. Ordinary people will continue to misunderstand by describing the filibuster as "protection" for the minority, but it can't be "protection" because the majority can deactivate the filibuster rule, if the majority wanted. The majority won't deactivate because it is to the individual majority Senator's advantage to avoid decisions without it being obvious that is what the majority is doing. Making decisions makes enemies and most Senators hate to make enemies among voters if they can avoid it without looking like cowards. That's why there is filibuster rule. Too many Senators on both sides of any issue always feel safer when no decision is made. The filibuster gives the majority cover for doing nothing and adroitly shifting the blame to the other side.



Let them get rid of it then. And two years from now it won't matter for them since so many will be voted out. And god help them if a Republican wins the Presidency in 2024 with a majority in the House and Senate.

Outside of a couple of crazies like AOC, and idiots at MotherJones and Salon that don't know how things work, nobody wants to fire that first nuke.

Sure... It will be great to let 11 million illegals have even more rights than actual US Citizens do right now...

Until the GOP can work unchecked and just start putting anybody who crosses the border for any reason to death because now everybody can just do whatever the fuck they want to do.


It's not really even worth debating though, since it's not going to happen.

Quote:

As for your understanding of guns, I point you to the story of Kyle Rittenhouse, who killed two. His defense team will claim he used his rifle for "protection" against BLM. That's both a lie and stupid. Kyle killed because he is a 17 year old fool who learned from TV dramas that guns are for "protection," not for murder. His defense team will have to confuse the jury about how he ran back to Mommy who lives in another state immediately after "protecting" himself, when he should have stood over the bodies and bragged to the police about how good he is at "protecting" himself.


Your understanding on the issue is incorrect.

Those ADULTS who attacked a minor carrying a non-concealed rifle while holding it properly and not aiming it at anyone are Darwin award winners and got what they deserved. The ADULT who attacked Kyle that didn't die got his fucking arm blown off at the elbow seconds before firing his handgun into Kyle's brain.

If the cops were allowed to do their fucking jobs, that incident would never have taken place. Kyle and others were there simply being Rooftop Koreans protecting businesses that Antifa and BLM were burning to the ground. They even stopped those idiots from blowing up a gas station that night.



And it still doesn't change the fact that despite being well armed myself, I never leave my house with a gun. Concealed or otherwise. But I very well could.

And nobody pulls any of that bullshit anywhere near me. Kyle's incident would never have been a thing here because that doesn't happen here. Antifa and BLM only operate in Democrat ran shitholes that don't allow people to arm themselves.


The day you successfully disarm every violent lawbreaker out there. The day that you successfully remove every bad cop off of every force. The day that you remove every corrupt politician on both sides of the aisle who enjoy nothing more during their day than taking more rights away from the citizens they're supposed to be serving...

On that day, we can talk about guns.


In the meantime, prepare yourself for a lot more of them for a very long time with SCOTUS being as it is today.

--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2021 5:03 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:

Election changes such as ranked-choice voting and nonpartisan primaries are popping up across the country — and are already upending national politics.

The hope might be that these 2 AK moves (non-partisan primaries, ranked-choice voting) reduce the effect of tribal party-voting and put the focus on policy. But I don't see a cause-and-effect. As an example, in CA's non-partisan primaries, rather than voting for the person in their party they think is most likely to win, people will vote for the OTHER party's candidate they think is most likely to lose. There's still a lot of partisan games going on, despite the non-partisan primaries. Alaska's new rules seem to be more likely the effect of a substantial majority of people more interested in policies over partisanship, rather than the cause.


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Wednesday, January 27, 2021 6:04 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.



FWIW, the House of Representatives is based on the House of Commons in Britain, quick to react to the hoi polloi's concerns and temper of the day. The British House of Lords is supposed to be the more deliberative body, thinking more long-term and being slower to pass laws until they've been thoroughly examined ... but since we don't have Lords in the US, we have the Senate. If the Senate is putting the brakes on quick changes, it's performing its assigned function.


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Wednesday, January 27, 2021 6:07 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:

Your understanding on the issue is incorrect.

Those ADULTS who attacked a minor carrying a non-concealed rifle while holding it properly and not aiming it at anyone are Darwin award winners and got what they deserved. The ADULT who attacked Kyle that didn't die got his fucking arm blown off at the elbow seconds before firing his handgun into Kyle's brain.

If the cops were allowed to do their fucking jobs, that incident would never have taken place. Kyle and others were there simply being Rooftop Koreans protecting businesses that Antifa and BLM were burning to the ground. They even stopped those idiots from blowing up a gas station that night.



And it still doesn't change the fact that despite being well armed myself, I never leave my house with a gun. Concealed or otherwise. But I very well could.

And nobody pulls any of that bullshit anywhere near me. Kyle's incident would never have been a thing here because that doesn't happen here. Antifa and BLM only operate in Democrat ran shitholes that don't allow people to arm themselves.

The day you successfully disarm every violent lawbreaker out there. The day that you successfully remove every bad cop off of every force. The day that you remove every corrupt politician on both sides of the aisle who enjoy nothing more during their day than taking more rights away from the citizens they're supposed to be serving...

On that day, we can talk about guns.

In the meantime, prepare yourself for a lot more of them for a very long time with SCOTUS being as it is today.

6ix, that is not how it went down. If it was, then the indictment is totally fictional and the DA assistants who wrote it should be disbarred: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7047765-Kyle-Rittenhouse-Crimi
nal-Complaint.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, January 27, 2021 6:27 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 1KIKI:

FWIW, the House of Representatives is based on the House of Commons in Britain, quick to react to the hoi polloi's concerns and temper of the day. The British House of Lords is supposed to be the more deliberative body, thinking more long-term and being slower to pass laws until they've been thoroughly examined ... but since we don't have Lords in the US, we have the Senate. If the Senate is putting the brakes on quick changes, it's performing its assigned function.

Maybe the Senate was invented to mimic the House of Lords of 18th Century, but 21st Century House of Lords has little power to slow down the House of Commons:

The House of Lords debates legislation, and has power to amend or reject bills. However, the power of the Lords to reject a bill passed by the House of Commons is severely restricted by the Parliament Acts. Under those Acts, certain types of bills may be presented for the Royal Assent without the consent of the House of Lords (i.e. the Commons can override the Lords' veto). The House of Lords cannot delay a money bill (a bill that, in the view of the Speaker of the House of Commons, solely concerns national taxation or public funds) for more than one month. There is more boring details about how the Lords are toothless old dogs at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords#Legislative_functions

Unlike the House of Lords, the Senate can kill any legislation it pleases, stop any Presidential appointments, including judges, making the Senate more powerful in a negative way than the House of Representatives.

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, January 27, 2021 6:48 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

FWIW, the House of Representatives is based on the House of Commons in Britain, quick to react to the hoi polloi's concerns and temper of the day. The British House of Lords is supposed to be the more deliberative body, thinking more long-term and being slower to pass laws until they've been thoroughly examined ... but since we don't have Lords in the US, we have the Senate. If the Senate is putting the brakes on quick changes, it's performing its assigned function.

Maybe the Senate was invented to mimic the House of Lords of 18th Century, but 21st Century House of Lords has little power to slow down the House of Commons:

The House of Lords debates legislation, and has power to amend or reject bills. However, the power of the Lords to reject a bill passed by the House of Commons is severely restricted by the Parliament Acts. Under those Acts, certain types of bills may be presented for the Royal Assent without the consent of the House of Lords (i.e. the Commons can override the Lords' veto). The House of Lords cannot delay a money bill (a bill that, in the view of the Speaker of the House of Commons, solely concerns national taxation or public funds) for more than one month. There is more boring details about how the Lords are toothless old dogs at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords#Legislative_functions

Unlike the House of Lords, the Senate can kill any legislation it pleases, stop any Presidential appointments, including judges, making the Senate more powerful in a negative way than the House of Representatives.

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

Which is the Senate's function, SECOND. Just as the House can kill a bill IT doesn't like.

You seem kinda pissed off that Congress in behaving the way it was intended.


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

THUGR posts about Putin so much, he must be in love.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2021 7:03 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.



And obviously there are other differences between Britain and the US. For example, the US doesn't have a Parliamentary system, and instead elects President as an unaccountable King for a term.

So while the US modeled SOME of its functions after Britain, it rejected a lot of the structure.



Still, it's obvious that in the US Constitution, both of the legislative branches independently and the executive branch independently have the power to kill a bill and keep it from becoming law. The system seems geared to work very, very slowly in making any changes at all ... especially when the country is closely divided on an issue. Which makes it a good democracy.


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Thursday, January 28, 2021 9:37 AM

REAVERFAN






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Thursday, January 28, 2021 12:18 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 1KIKI:

Still, it's obvious that in the US Constitution, both of the legislative branches independently and the executive branch independently have the power to kill a bill and keep it from becoming law. The system seems geared to work very, very slowly in making any changes at all ... especially when the country is closely divided on an issue. Which makes it a good democracy.

That's a very peculiar measure for "good democracy". The Corruption Index explains much about America:

Why the least corrupt countries have best coronavirus response

Transparency International’s 2020 Corruptions Perception Index showed the least corrupt countries have the best responses to the pandemic. Denmark and New Zealand are found to invest more in health care and “are less likely to violate democratic norms.”

Countries with the least corruption have been best positioned to weather the health and economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a closely watched annual study released Thursday by an anti-graft organization.

Transparency International’s 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index, which measures the perception of public sector corruption according to experts and business people, concluded that countries that performed well invested more in health care, were “better able to provide universal health coverage and are less likely to violate democratic norms.”

“COVID-19 is not just a health and economic crisis,” said Transparency head Delia Ferreira Rubio. “It is a corruption crisis – and one that we are currently failing to manage.”

This year’s index showed the United States hitting a new low amid a steady decline under the presidency of Donald Trump, with a score of 67 on a scale where 0 is “highly corrupt” and 100 is “very clean.” That still puts the U.S. 25th on the list in a tie with Chile, but behind many other western democracies. It dropped from scores of 69 in 2019, 71 in 2018 and 75 in 2017, and was down to the lowest level since figures for comparison have been available.

“In addition to alleged conflicts of interest and abuse of office at the highest level, in 2020 weak oversight of the $1 trillion COVID-19 relief package raised serious concerns and marked a retreat from long standing democratic norms promoting accountable government,” said the report by Transparency, which is based in Berlin.


The link between corruption and the coronavirus response could be widely seen around the world, according to the report’s analysis.

For example, Uruguay scored 71 – putting it at 21st place on the list. It invests heavily in health care and has a strong epidemiological surveillance system, which has helped not only with COVID-19 but also other diseases like yellow fever and Zika, Transparency said.

By contrast, Bangladesh, which scored 26 and placed 146th on the list, “invests little in health care while corruption flourishes during COVID-19, ranging from bribery in health clinics to misappropriated aid,” Transparency wrote. “Corruption is also pervasive in the procurement of medical supplies.”

Even in New Zealand, which placed No. 1 as the least corrupt nation with a score of 88 and has been lauded for its pandemic response, there was room for improvement, Transparency noted.

“While the government communicates openly about the measures and policies it puts in place, more transparency is needed around public procurement for COVID-19 recovery,” the organization wrote.

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20210128170519/https://www.csmonitor.com/W
orld/2021/0128/Why-the-least-corrupt-countries-have-best-coronavirus-response


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, January 28, 2021 5:51 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.


https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/corruption-index
country corruption-index
corruption index
Denmark 87
New Zealand 87
Finland 86
Singapore 85
Sweden 85
Switzerland 85
Norway 84
Netherlands 82
Germany 80
Luxembourg 80
Iceland 78
Australia 77
Austria 77
Canada 77
United Kingdom 77
Hong Kong 76
Belgium 75
Estonia 74
Ireland 74
Japan 73
United Arab Emirates 71
Uruguay 71
France 69
United States 69
Bhutan 68
Chile 67
Seychelles 66
Taiwan 65
Bahamas 64
Barbados 62
Portugal 62
Qatar 62
Spain 62
Botswana 61
Brunei 60
Israel 60
Lithuania 60
Slovenia 60
South Korea 59
St Vincent and the Grenadines 59
Cape Verde 58
Cyprus 58
Poland 58
Costa Rica 56
Czech Republic 56
Georgia 56
Latvia 56
Dominica (55)
St Lucia 55
Malta 54
Grenada 53
Italy 53
Malaysia 53
Rwanda 53
Saudi Arabia 53
Mauritius 52
Namibia 52
Oman 52
Slovakia 50
Cuba 48
Greece 48
Jordan 48
Croatia 47
Sao Tome and Principe 46
Vanuatu (46)
Argentina 45
Belarus 45
Montenegro 45
Senegal 45
Hungary 44
Romania 44
South Africa 44
Suriname 44
Bulgaria 43
Jamaica 43
Tunisia 43
Armenia 42
Bahrain 42
Solomon Islands (42)
Benin 41
China 41
Ghana 41
India 41
Morocco 41
Burkina Faso 40
Guyana 40
Indonesia 40
Kuwait 40
Lesotho 40
Trinidad and Tobago 40
Serbia 39
Turkey 39
East Timor (38)
Ecuador 38
Sri Lanka 38
Colombia 37
Ethiopia 37
Gambia 37
Tanzania 37
Vietnam 37
Bosnia and Herzegovina 36
Kosovo (36)
Panama 36
Peru 36
Thailand 36
Albania 35
Algeria 35
Brazil 35
Egypt 35
Ivory Coast 35
Macedonia 35
Mongolia 35
El Salvador 34
Kazakhstan 34
Nepal 34
Philippines 34
Swaziland (34)
Zambia 34
Sierra Leone 33
Moldova 32
Niger 32
Pakistan 32
Bolivia 31
Gabon 31
Malawi 31
Azerbaijan 30
Djibouti 30
Kyrgyzstan 30
Ukraine 30
Guinea 29
Laos (29)
Maldives 29
Mali 29
Mexico 29
Myanmar 29
Togo 29
Dominican Republic 28
Kenya 28
Lebanon 28
Liberia 28
Mauritania 28
Papua New Guinea 28
Paraguay 28
Russia 28
Uganda 28
Angola 26
Bangladesh 26
Guatemala 26
Honduras 26
Iran 26
Mozambique 26
Nigeria 26
Cameroon 25
Central African Republic 25
Comoros 25
Tajikistan 25
Uzbekistan 25
Madagascar 24
Zimbabwe 24
Eritrea 23
Nicaragua 22
Cambodia (20)
Chad 20
Iraq 20
Burundi 19
Congo 19
Turkmenistan (19)
Guinea Bissau 18
Haiti 18
Libya 18
Republic of the Congo 18
North Korea (17)
Afghanistan 16
Equatorial Guinea 16
Sudan 16
Venezuela 16
Yemen 15
Syria 13
South Sudan 12
Somalia 9




country per-capita-deaths (corruption index)

Gibraltar 2078 (not listed on corruption index)
San Marino 1913 (not listed on corruption index)
Belgium 1802 (75)
Slovenia 1658 (60)
UK 1515 (77)
Czechia 1487 (56)
Italy 1446 (53)
Bosnia and Herzegovina 1420 (36)
Liechtenstein 1362 (not listed on corruption index)
North Macedonia 1359 (35)
USA 1329 (69)
Bulgaria 1293 (43)
Andorra 1293 (not listed on corruption index)
Hungary 1274 (44)
Montenegro 1258 (45)
Spain 1236 (62)
Peru 1212 (36)
Croatia 1208 (47)
Panama 1189 (36)
Mexico 1184 (29)
France 1144 (69)
Portugal 1140 (62)
Sweden 1137 (85)
Switzerland 1068 (85)
Argentina 1044 (45)
Armenia 1034 (42)
Brazil 1033 (35)
Colombia 1026 (37)
Lithuania 1016 (60)
Poland 964 (58)
Chile 946 (67)
Romania 945 (44)
Luxembourg 909 (80)
Bolivia 864 (31)
Moldova 847 (32)
Austria 842 (77)
Ecuador 830 (38)
Slovakia 808 (50)
Netherlands 805 (82)
Georgia 785 (56)
Belize 732 (not listed on corruption index)
South Africa 722 (44)
Iran 682 (26)
Germany 665 (80)
Ireland 637 (74)
Sint Maarten 626 (not listed on corruption index)
Latvia 613 (56)
Malta 590 (54)
Greece 552 (48)
Tunisia 547 (43)
Aruba 542 (not listed on corruption index)
Canada 517 (77)
Ukraine 513 (30)
Costa Rica 505 (56)
Israel 501 (60)
Russia 491 (28)
Albania 469 (35)
French Polynesia 465 (not listed on corruption index)
Eswatini 461 (not listed on corruption index)
Serbia 455 (39)
Channel Islands 452 (not listed on corruption index)
Bahamas 443 (64)
Jordan 416 (48)
Lebanon 385 (28)
Guadeloupe 385 (not listed on corruption index)
Paraguay 371 (28)
Denmark 357 (87)
Palestine 351 (not listed on corruption index)
Honduras 351 (26)
Iraq 320 (20)
Saint Martin 307 (not listed on corruption index)
Estonia 306 (74)
Azerbaijan 305 (30)
Guatemala 305 (26)
Turkey 302 (39)
Oman 295 (52)
Isle of Man 2937 (not listed on corruption index)
>>> World 281.5
Libya 265 (18)
Suriname 258 (44)
Monaco 254 (not listed on corruption index)
French Guiana 251 (not listed on corruption index)
El Salvador 246 (34)
Dominican Republic 239 (28)
Cabo Verde 231 (58)
Kuwait 222 (40)
Morocco 221 (41)
Mayotte 221 (not listed on corruption index)
Guyana 221 (40)
Bahrain 214 (42)
Kyrgyzstan 214 (30)
Turks and Caicos 205 (not listed on corruption index)
Montserrat 200 (not listed on corruption index)
Bermuda 193 (not listed on corruption index)
Saudi Arabia 181 (53)
Belarus 179 (45)
Cyprus 159 (58)
Kazakhstan 131 (34)
Namibia 129 (52)
Curaçao 122 (not listed on corruption index)
Finland 120 (86)
Martinique 120 (not listed on corruption index)
Uruguay 117 (71)
Jamaica 116 (43)
Caribbean Netherlands 114 (not listed on corruption index)
India 111 (41)
Indonesia 107 (40)
Norway 102 (84)
St. Barth 101 (not listed on corruption index)
Comoros 97 (25)
Philippines 96 (34)
Trinidad and Tobago 96 (40)
Maldives 93 (29)
Mauritania 89 (28)
Egypt 88 (35)
Qatar 88 (62)
Iceland 85 (78)
UAE 82 (71)
Sao Tome and Principe 77 (46)
Zimbabwe 75 (24)
Lesotho 74 (40)
Saint Lucia 71 (55)
Nepal 69 (34)
Algeria 65 (35)
Djibouti 62 (30)
Afghanistan 61 (16)
Antigua and Barbuda 61 (not listed on corruption index)
Equatorial Guinea 60 (16)
Myanmar 57 (29)
Botswana 56 (61)
Pakistan 52 (32)
Gambia 52 (37)
Syria 51 (13)
Réunion 50 (not listed on corruption index)
Bangladesh 49 (26)
Japan 42 (73)
Venezuela 41 (16)
Sudan 40 (16)
Zambia 38 (34)
Barbados 38 (62)
Senegal 36 (45)
Australia 35 (77)
British Virgin Islands 33 (not listed on corruption index)
Kenya 32 (28)
Gabon 30 (31)
Seychelles 30 (66)
Cayman Islands 30 (not listed on corruption index)
Malawi 29 (31)
S. Korea 27 (59)
Nicaragua 25 (22)
Hong Kong 23 (76)
Guinea-Bissau 23 (18)
Malaysia 22 (53)
Haiti 21 (18)
Congo 21 (19)
Yemen 20 (15)
Faeroe Islands 20 (not listed on corruption index)
Ethiopia 18 (37)
Uzbekistan 18 (25)
Cuba 18 (48)
St. Vincent Grenadines 18 (59)
Cameroon 17 (25)
Mali 16 (29)
Liberia 16 (28)
Sri Lanka 14 (38)
Angola 14 (26)
Rwanda 14 (53)
CAR 13 (25)
Ghana 12 (41)
Mozambique 11 (26)
Madagascar 10 (24)
Sierra Leone 10 (33)
Tajikistan 9 (25)
Togo 9 (29)
Grenada 9 (53)
Somalia 8 (9)
Mauritius 8 (52)
Nigeria 7 (26)
Uganda 7 (28)
DRC 7 (18)
Chad 7 (20)
Brunei 7 (60)
Ivory Coast 6 (35)
Guinea 6 (29)
Burkina Faso 6 (40)
Niger 6 (32)
South Sudan 6 (12)
Singapore 5 (85)
New Zealand 5 (87)
Benin 4 (41)
China 3 (41)
Eritrea 2 (23)
Fiji 2
Western Sahara 2 (not listed on corruption index)
Thailand 1 (36)
Bhutan 1 (68)
Papua New Guinea 1 (28)
Mongolia 0.6 (35)
Vietnam 0.4 (37)
Taiwan 0.3 (65)
Tanzania 0.3 (37)
Burundi 0.2 (19)



Nope, not seeing it. The 2 highest per capita deaths Gibraltar 2078 and San Marino 1913 aren't listed on the corruption index. But Gibraltar is a territory of GB with a per capita GDP of $92,843, while San Marino is an independent country dependent on tourism with a per capita GDP of $48,948 (compared to Italy with a per capita GDP of $30,657). So the 2 highest data points are missing, and that's a problem, because the highest numbers drive the curve. Though I can't imagine them as being particularity corrupt, compared to say ... the DRC. In other words, the 2 highest deaths-per-capita countries have a high standard of living and European-style governance, and undermine the claim.

Belgium 1802 and the UK 1515 have the 3rd and 5th most COVID-19 deaths per capita, with extremely high non-corruption scores. They too undermine the claim. (At this point, 4 of the top 5 countries in terms of per-capita-deaths undermine the claim).

Czechia 1487 and Italy 1446 are 6th and 7th with similar corruption scores. But everyone said Italy has one of the finest medical systems in Europe, while nobody has ever said that of Czechia. So corruption scores and deaths seem to be completely unrelated to the quality of the medical system. (Italy undermines the claim that corruption is linked with poor medical system resulting in deaths.) (At this point 5 of the top 7 countries for per-capita deaths undermine the claim |corruption = (poor medical care) = COVID-19 deaths|.)

And out of the top 10 countries for per-capita COVID-19 deaths, 6 actively undermine the proposal |corruption = (poor medical care) = COVID-19 deaths|.

Meanwhile, very large and small populations with really high corruption scores, like say China and Vietnam, have very low death rates.



If I were to do a linear regression I doubt I'd get any correlation at all.

But if you cherry pick your numbers hard enough, and throw out at least 7/8 of the data, I'm sure you'd have a conclusion that matches the article!


Every bit of news treats us like we're simpletons, unable to understand a complicated and nuanced reality. And that we need to have our thoughts guided with simple stories and real-sounding factoids (without evidence) told to us by sincere-faced news-actors and instant experts and tptb mouthpieces.

THO I GUARANTEE ALL THIS THEATER TO GUIDE US FOR OUR OWN GOOD. I'M SURE OF IT. /sarcasm

And so reading a simple news article or watching a news show is like writing a fucking PhD dissertation, where I have to track down every original research paper or project report or 'source' background and often recalculate the numbers just to try to figure out what the fuck is ** REALLY ** going on in any particular instance.

What an obvious crock they're shoveling at us, from all directions.




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Thursday, January 28, 2021 6:55 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Your understanding on the issue is incorrect.

Those ADULTS who attacked a minor carrying a non-concealed rifle while holding it properly and not aiming it at anyone are Darwin award winners and got what they deserved. The ADULT who attacked Kyle that didn't die got his fucking arm blown off at the elbow seconds before firing his handgun into Kyle's brain.

If the cops were allowed to do their fucking jobs, that incident would never have taken place. Kyle and others were there simply being Rooftop Koreans protecting businesses that Antifa and BLM were burning to the ground. They even stopped those idiots from blowing up a gas station that night.



And it still doesn't change the fact that despite being well armed myself, I never leave my house with a gun. Concealed or otherwise. But I very well could.

And nobody pulls any of that bullshit anywhere near me. Kyle's incident would never have been a thing here because that doesn't happen here. Antifa and BLM only operate in Democrat ran shitholes that don't allow people to arm themselves.

The day you successfully disarm every violent lawbreaker out there. The day that you successfully remove every bad cop off of every force. The day that you remove every corrupt politician on both sides of the aisle who enjoy nothing more during their day than taking more rights away from the citizens they're supposed to be serving...

On that day, we can talk about guns.

In the meantime, prepare yourself for a lot more of them for a very long time with SCOTUS being as it is today.

6ix, that is not how it went down. If it was, then the indictment is totally fictional and the DA assistants who wrote it should be disbarred: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7047765-Kyle-Rittenhouse-Crimi
nal-Complaint.html


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




That's exactly how it went down.

And until those conditions I've outlined are met, we're never going to have a discussion on firearms.

Period.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Thursday, January 28, 2021 8:20 PM

REAVERFAN


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

That's exactly how it went down.


God, you're dumb.



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Thursday, January 28, 2021 8:21 PM

REAVERFAN








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Thursday, January 28, 2021 10:54 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by reaverfan:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

That's exactly how it went down.


God, you're dumb.





^ Says the idiot.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Friday, January 29, 2021 4:39 AM

JAYNEZTOWN


New COVID-19 Variant Spreading In The USA!

https://www.brighteon.com/699d5a8b-2461-43fb-8249-9d6c9e129776

...more conspiracy talk
John Kerry, Davos, and the ‘Great Reset’
???
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/john-kerry-davos-and-the-great-r
eset
/


Pakistani Supreme Court Frees Terrorist Who Beheaded Daniel Pearl

https://www.bitchute.com/video/hD6Bd9eNO9u9/

Google threatens to shut down search in Australia

https://rumble.com/vd4nm3-google-threatens-to-shut-down-search-in-aust
ralia.html


GameStop and the movements of Billions into some dudes pocket?


A rigged fakeass stock market
substantial losses coming for people who bought in and stay in too long.



Janet Yellen Received $810K In Speaking Fees From Hedge Fund Embroiled In GameStop Saga
https://dailycaller.com/2021/01/28/janet-yellen-gamestop-citadel/

GameStop: Cruz, Ocasio-Cortez blast Robinhood over trade freeze
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/gamestop-cruz-ocasio-cortez-blast-robi
nhood-over-trade-freeze.html


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Friday, January 29, 2021 5:35 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:

But if you cherry pick your numbers hard enough, and throw out at least 7/8 of the data, I'm sure you'd have a conclusion that matches the article!

Every bit of news treats us like we're simpletons, unable to understand a complicated and nuanced reality. And that we need to have our thoughts guided with simple stories and real-sounding factoids (without evidence) told to us by sincere-faced news-actors and instant experts and tptb mouthpieces.

THO I GUARANTEE ALL THIS THEATER TO GUIDE US FOR OUR OWN GOOD. I'M SURE OF IT. /sarcasm

And so reading a simple news article or watching a news show is like writing a fucking PhD dissertation, where I have to track down every original research paper or project report or 'source' background and often recalculate the numbers just to try to figure out what the fuck is ** REALLY ** going on in any particular instance.

What an obvious crock they're shoveling at us, from all directions.

1kiki, the news story was repeating the claims made by Transparency International. You should tell Transparency International that their researchers are corrupt and dishonest and are liars deserving a very low score on the Corruption Index.
https://www.transparency.org/en/press/2020-corruption-perceptions-inde
x-reveals-widespread-corruption-is-weakening-covid-19-response-threatening-global-recovery


1kiki, go tell Transparency International that you are smarter than they are and you distrust them and want them shut down. 1kiki, tell the people measuring corruption that they, too, are corrupt: https://www.transparency.org/en/end-corruption

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, January 29, 2021 5:37 AM

SECOND

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


Here’s what we know about American politics: The Republican Party is stuck, probably irreversibly, in a doom loop of bizarro. If the Trump-incited Capitol insurrection didn’t snap the party back to sanity — and it didn’t — nothing will.

What isn’t clear yet is who, exactly, will end up facing doom. Will it be the G.O.P. as a significant political force? Or will it be America as we know it? Unfortunately, we don’t know the answer. It depends a lot on how successful Republicans will be in suppressing votes.

About the bizarro: Even I had some lingering hope that the Republican establishment might try to end Trumpism. But such hopes died this week.

On Tuesday Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who has said that Donald Trump’s role in fomenting the insurrection was impeachable, voted for a measure that would have declared a Trump trial unconstitutional because he’s no longer in office. (Most constitutional scholars disagree.)

On Thursday Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader — who still hasn’t conceded that Joe Biden legitimately won the presidency, but did declare that Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack on Congress — visited Mar-a-Lago, presumably to make amends.

In other words, the G.O.P.’s national leadership, after briefly flirting with sense, has surrendered to the fantasies of the fringe. Cowardice rules.

And the fringe is consolidating its hold at the state level. The Arizona state party censured the Republican governor for the sin of belatedly trying to contain the coronavirus. The Texas G.O.P. has adopted the slogan “We are the storm,” which is associated with QAnon, although the party denies it intended any link. Oregon Republicans have endorsed the completely baseless claim, contradicted by the rioters themselves, that the attack on the Capitol was a left-wing false flag operation.

How did this happen to what was once the party of Dwight Eisenhower? Political scientists argue that traditional forces of moderation have been weakened by factors like the nationalization of politics and the rise of partisan media, notably Fox News.

This opens the door to a process of self-reinforcing extremism (something, by the way, that I’ve seen happen in a minor fashion within some academic subfields). As hard-liners gain power within a group, they drive out moderates; what remains of the group is even more extreme, which drives out even more moderates; and so on. A party starts out complaining that taxes are too high; after a while it begins claiming that climate change is a giant hoax; it ends up believing that all Democrats are Satanist pedophiles.

This process of radicalization began long before Donald Trump; it goes back at least to Newt Gingrich’s takeover of Congress in 1994. But Trump’s reign of corruption and lies, followed by his refusal to concede and his attempt to overturn the election results, brought it to a head. And the cowardice of the Republican establishment has sealed the deal. One of America’s two major political parties has parted ways with facts, logic and democracy, and it’s not coming back.

What happens next? You might think that a party that goes off the deep end morally and intellectually would also find itself going off the deep end politically. And that has in fact happened in some states. Those fantasist Oregon Republicans, who have been shut out of power since 2013, seem to be going the way of their counterparts in California, a once-mighty party reduced to impotence in the face of a Democratic supermajority.

But it’s not at all clear that this will happen at a national level. True, as Republicans have become more extreme they have lost broad support; the G.O.P. has won the popular vote for president only once since 1988, and 2004 was an outlier influenced by the lingering rally-around-the-flag effects of 9/11.

Given the unrepresentative nature of our electoral system, however, Republicans can achieve power even while losing the popular vote. A majority of voters rejected Trump in 2016, but he became president anyway, and he came fairly close to pulling it out in 2020 despite a seven million vote deficit. The Senate is evenly divided even though Democratic members represent 41 million more people than Republicans.

And the Republican response to electoral defeat isn’t to change policies to win over voters; it is to try to rig the next election. Georgia has long been known for systematic suppression of Black voters; it took a remarkable organizing effort by Democrats, led by Stacey Abrams, to overcome that suppression and win the state’s electoral votes and Senate seats. So the Republicans who control the state are doubling down on disenfranchisement, with proposed new voter ID requirements and other measures to limit voting.

The bottom line is that we don’t know whether we’ve earned more than a temporary reprieve. A president who tried to retain power despite losing an election has been foiled. But a party that buys into bizarre conspiracy theories and denies the legitimacy of its opposition isn’t getting saner, and still has a good chance of taking complete power in four years.


https://web.archive.org/web/20210129012059/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/01/28/opinion/republican-lies.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, January 29, 2021 12:03 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:

1kiki, the news story was repeating the claims made by Transparency International.
Yes, god forbid the news should act as anything but transcribers.

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Friday, January 29, 2021 12:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


News sites should lose their 230 shield along with Facebook and Google.

If 230 doesn't cover them it should be expanded to, that way it can be stripped and they can be sued.

Getting pretty tired of living in a world where we're fed two completely different fake realities.


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Friday, January 29, 2021 12:39 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 1KIKI:

Quote:

1kiki, the news story was repeating the claims made by Transparency International.
Yes, god forbid the news should act as anything but transcribers.

I saw how you "analyzed" the story. You came to your predetermined conclusion very quickly. Maybe you should work for the Christian Science Monitor as a fact checker before their editors can place a reporter's story on the internet. 1kiki becomes the final buffer preventing "erroneous" stories written by Christian Scientists from being spread far and wide.

FACT CHECK: 1kiki sees no correlation between governments run by liars, crooks and thieves and governments doing a poor job serving their citizens.

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, January 29, 2021 1:20 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Quote:

1kiki, the news story was repeating the claims made by Transparency International.
Yes, god forbid the news should act as anything but transcribers.

I saw how you "analyzed" the story. You came to your predetermined conclusion very quickly. Maybe you should work for the Christian Science Monitor as a fact checker before their editors can place a reporter's story on the internet. 1kiki becomes the final buffer preventing "erroneous" stories written by Christian Scientists from being spread far and wide.

FACT CHECK: 1kiki sees no correlation between governments run by liars, crooks and thieves and governments doing a poor job serving their citizens.

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



Why bother spending a lot of time analyzing every story to come from a source if you already know the source spends all day every day peddling bullshit for ad revenue?


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Friday, January 29, 2021 1:22 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


And seriously. It is unbelievably racist to keep pushing this narrative that requiring a voter ID suppresses black people.

Just how helpless do you believe somebody with a different color skin than yours to be?


--------------------------------------------------

A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.

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Friday, January 29, 2021 5:33 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:

You came to your predetermined conclusion very quickly.
No, actually it took me some time to dig the data out, put it together, and examine it. Then I let the it speak to me. And if I had less to do irl, I would have put it on a graph and done a linear regression analysis with a correlation coefficient to see how well the two sets of data correlated with each other. (Other people in a professional setting might have access to professional statistical software packages.)

But even with the time I spent, I uncovered SERIOUS problems with the data itself.

6 !!! of the top 10 countries for per-capita COVID-19 deaths don't support the premise: corruption = poor medical care = deaths. And that's a BIG data problem, because high numbers are what drive correlations (as opposed to low numbers which barely budge the linear regression, no matter how many of those low numbers you have).

If you don't agree with that observation, which countries do you dispute, listed by name? AND WHY?


Other than that I can see that there are too many potential confounding factors to support the simplistic premise.

One is the definition of "corruption" and the list it generates. If the list is jimmied to give high marks to capitalism and low marks to socialism, then countries that really do - sociallistically - focus on citizen well-being over profit - will generate non-conforming data; ie high 'corruption' but low deaths. So maybe we should throw out that data?

Another is sheer poverty. You don't have to be corrupt to be poor. A lack of natural resources, a recent history of being a colony, lack of genuine investment (parasitic investment doesn't count), and a serious burden of existing disease - HIV, malaria, and TB for example - that suppresses economic development - could make even testing-and-counting COVID-19 cases and deaths economically unreachable. So maybe we should throw out the data from poor countries too?

And so on.

And by the time you throw out 7/8 of the data because it doesn't fit your premise, you might be able to support the conclusion.


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