REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

A thread for Democrats Only

POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Monday, October 21, 2024 20:59
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Monday, August 30, 2021 9:43 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Follow the science, blindly, like a lemming, right over the cliff...

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Monday, August 30, 2021 5:29 PM

DREAMTROVE


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Follow the science, blindly, like a lemming, right over the cliff...

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."



Fake science. Lemmings didn't jump, they were pushed
https://gizmodo.com/lemmings-dont-commit-mass-suicide-disney-pushed-th
em-o-1614038696


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Tuesday, August 31, 2021 5:42 AM

SECOND

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


The Snake Oil Theory of the Modern Right

There is an economic element to political extremism, just not what you’d think. Right-wing extremists, and to some extent even more mainstream conservative media, rely on financial support from companies selling nutritional supplements and miracle cures — and that financial support is arguably a significant factor pushing the right to become more extreme. Indeed, right-wing extremism isn’t just an ideological movement that happens to get a lot of money from sellers of snake oil; some of its extremism can probably be seen not as a reflection of deep conviction, but as a way of promoting snake oil.

Consider where we are right now in the fight against Covid-19. A few months ago it seemed likely that the development of effective vaccines would soon bring the pandemic to an end. Instead, it goes on, with hospitalizations closing in on their peak from last winter. This is partly due to the emergence of the highly contagious Delta variant, but it also crucially reflects the refusal of many Americans to take the vaccines.

And much of this refusal is political. True, many people who are refusing to get vaccinated aren’t Trumpists, but there’s a strong negative correlation between Donald Trump’s share of a county’s vote and vaccinations. As of July, 86 percent of self-identified Democrats said they had had a vaccine shot, but only 54 percent of Republicans did.

But vaccine refusers aren’t just rejecting lifesaving vaccines, they’re also turning to life-threatening alternatives. We’re seeing a surge in sales of — and poisoning by — ivermectin, which is usually used to deworm livestock but has recently been touted on social media and Fox News as a Covid cure.

OK, I didn’t see that coming. But I should have. As the historian Rick Perlstein has pointed out, there’s a long association between peddlers of quack medicine and of right-wing extremism. They cater to more or less the same audience.

That is, Americans willing to believe that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that Italian satellites were used to switch votes to Joe Biden are also the kind of people willing to believe that medical elites are lying to them and that they can solve their health problems by ignoring professional advice and buying patent medicines instead.


Once you’re sensitized to the link between snake oil and right-wing politics, you realize that it’s pervasive.

This is clearly true in the right’s fever swamps. Alex Jones of Infowars has built a following by pushing conspiracy theories, but he makes money by selling nutritional supplements.

It’s also true, however, for more mainstream, establishment parts of the right. For example, Ben Shapiro, considered an intellectual on the right, hawks supplements.

Look at who advertises on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show. After Fox itself, the top advertisers are My Pillow, then three supplement companies.

Snake oil peddlers, clearly, find consumers of right-wing news and punditry a valuable market for their wares. So it shouldn’t be surprising to find many right-leaning Americans ready to see vaccination as a liberal plot
and turn to dubious alternatives — although, again, I didn’t see livestock dewormer coming.

The interesting question, however, is to what extent the connection between right-wing politics and snake oil marketing has shaped the political landscape.

Put it this way: There are big financial rewards to extremism, because extreme politics sells patent medicine, and patent medicine is highly profitable. (In 2014 Alex Jones’s operations were bringing in more than $20 million a year in revenue, mainly from supplement sales.) Do these financial rewards induce pundits to be more extreme? It would be surprising if they didn’t — as conservative economists say, incentives matter.

The extremism of media figures radicalizes their audience, giving politicians an incentive to become more extreme.

So you can see how vaccination became such a flash point. Getting shots in arms is a priority for a Democratic president, which automatically generates intense hostility among people who want to see Joe Biden fail. And such people were already primed to reject medical expertise and believe in quack cures.

Surely everyone on the right noticed that even Donald Trump got booed recently when he told attendees at a rally that they should get vaccinated. He probably won’t say that again, and would-be future Trumps definitely won’t.

None of this would be happening if there weren’t a climate of anger and distrust for unscrupulous pundits and politicians to exploit. But the fact that extremism sells patent medicine creates a financial incentive to get more extreme.

You could say that if American democracy is in danger, that’s partly because sellers of snake oil — not bad policy ideas, but actual bad medicine — have been pulling off this one weird trick.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210831004841/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/08/30/opinion/covid-misinformation-supplements.html


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

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Wednesday, September 1, 2021 7:45 AM

SECOND

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


The Buying of the American Mind

https://web.archive.org/web/20210831171059/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/08/31/opinion/government-corruption.html


Today’s column was inspired by the latest twist in our still shambolic response to Covid — the continuing refusal of many Americans to get vaccinated and the insistence of some of them on swallowing horse paste instead. I tried to link this horrifying, if comic, development to the long relationship between right-wing extremism and patent medicine. But I didn’t have space to put this in the broader context of how money influences politics and policy.

The simple fact is that none of us are saints. Even those who claim to be working for the common good can be and often are influenced by the prospect of personal reward. As conservative economists like to say, incentives matter.

Indeed, it’s usually conservative economists who make this point most strongly. Half a century ago George Stigler of the University of Chicago published a hugely influential paper titled “The theory of economic regulation,” which argued that government regulators — like the boards setting rules for electricity generation and pricing — weren’t like the wise, selfless guardians of Plato’s “Republic”; they were human and hence subject to influence, which in practice meant that regulators were often captured by the very industries they were supposed to regulate.

It was a good point, if perhaps too extreme — regulators may not be saints, but they aren’t always purely creatures of self-interest either. But it was too narrowly applied. Stigler’s followers have used his logic to make the case against regulation, arguing that regulators will be corrupted by special interests. But why restrict that insight to government officials? In particular, why not apply it to their own political movement?

After all, surely the same logic that applies to regulators also applies to politicians and pundits, including those on the right who denounce regulation. And for that matter, it applies to intellectuals too, especially in those situations where the possible rewards for expressing the “right” opinions go beyond prestige and promotion into the realm of cold, hard cash.

And as far back as I can remember, the world of conservative opinion and thought has in fact consisted largely of bought men and women. (I’ll talk about liberals in a minute.)

I don’t think it was always thus. I’m not a huge fan of Milton Friedman’s legacy, but I do believe that he — and for that matter, Stigler — said what they did out of genuine, unforced conviction. Things have, however, changed since their heyday. In fact, they’ve changed twice.

First came the rise of “movement conservatism” — a highly organized set of interlocking institutions, all backed by billionaires and big corporations, of which the Republican Party was only one piece. There were also media organizations, especially Fox, think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and more. By the Aughts (we never did come up with a better name for this century’s first decade) these institutions had created a safe space, a guarantee of a stable and fairly lucrative career, for people willing to say the right things — tax cuts good, regulation bad — and not rock the boat.

I never thought I’d be nostalgic for the era when big money ruled the right. But traditional corporate influence looks benign compared with where we are now. At this point, to be a conservative in good standing you have to pledge allegiance to blatant lies — Democrats are Marxists, the election was stolen, basic public health measures are sinister assaults on freedom.

Why are so many people who have to know better willing to go along with these lies? Again, self-interest — partly ambition, and yes, partly financial reward. Obviously the snake-oil industry doesn’t have anything like the resources of more respectable Republican-leaning industries like fossil fuels or tobacco. But it offers more opportunities for personal enrichment: Ben Shapiro is presumably well paid for hawking “superfoods” in a way he couldn’t be for, say, promoting oil wells.

OK, what about liberals? They’re people too, with all the usual human flaws; there are plenty of prominent liberals who I know personally to be driven by ego and to some extent by monetary considerations, people like … actually, not going there. But they live in a different environment from conservatives.

The old Will Rogers line — “I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat” — still applies. Political science research confirms that the Republican Party, and conservatism in general, is an ideological monolith, albeit one largely under new management. Democrats and the center-left in general, by contrast, are a loose coalition, and to prosper in that coalition you have to satisfy multiple constituencies. This makes it harder to sell your soul, because it’s not clear who you’re supposed to sell it to.

In the subculture I know best, politically active economists, those on the left, no matter how passionate they are about their politics — and no matter how self-centered — feel the need to retain academic credibility and, for those who do consulting, credibility with serious business interests. (See, I told you nobody is a saint.) Many of my economist friends look very favorably on President Biden’s policies, but they wouldn’t risk their reputations by claiming that Biden has Nobel-quality economic insight — or selling nutritional supplements.

So the blend of craziness and corruption taking place on the American right is special, without anything comparable on the left. Don’t both-sides this.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210831171059/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/08/31/opinion/government-corruption.html


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

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Wednesday, September 1, 2021 9:26 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


No snake oil. No horse paste.

I don't even take Tylenol when I have a headache. I'm not getting your fuckin' vaccine, chump.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Thursday, September 2, 2021 3:55 AM

SECOND

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


At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The five most conservative Republican-appointed justices refused to block Texas’ abortion ban.

The only Republican dissenting was Chief Justice Roberts.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf


Roberts’ dissent called Texas’ law not just “unusual” but “unprecedented” in its effort to delegate enforcement of an abortion ban “to the populace at large.” He would halt the law “so that the courts may consider whether a state can avoid responsibility for its laws in such a manner.”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/supreme-court-overturn-roe
-wade-texas.html


https://jabberwocking.com/supreme-court-gives-the-green-light-to-texas
-anti-abortion-law
/

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

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Thursday, September 2, 2021 7:15 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.



No it didn't.

You are still free to murder your babies.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Thursday, September 2, 2021 9:41 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.



No it didn't.

You are still free to murder your babies.

You are still free to murder Republican Supreme Court Justices because you are innocent until proven guilty in a Court-of-Law. On the other hand, the Supreme Court wrote about Roe v Wade:
Quote:

JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.
Without full briefing or argument, and after less than 72 hours' thought, this Court greenlights the operation of Texas's patently unconstitutional law banning most abortions. The Court thus rewards Texas's scheme to insulate its law from judicial review by deputizing private parties to carry out unconstitutional restrictions on the State's behalf. As of last night, and because of this Court's ruling, Texas law prohibits abortions for the vast majority of women who seek them—in clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey.

The Roe is Roe v Wade.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf

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

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Thursday, September 2, 2021 11:44 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.



No it didn't.

You are still free to murder your babies.

You are still free to murder Republican Supreme Court Justices because you are innocent until proven guilty in a Court-of-Law.



I know it's still very early in the day, but that's going to easily be the stupidest thing I read today.

Also... archived.


Quote:

On the other hand, the Supreme Court wrote about Roe v Wade:
Quote:

JUSTICE KAGAN, with whom JUSTICE BREYER and JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.
Without full briefing or argument, and after less than 72 hours' thought, this Court greenlights the operation of Texas's patently unconstitutional law banning most abortions. The Court thus rewards Texas's scheme to insulate its law from judicial review by deputizing private parties to carry out unconstitutional restrictions on the State's behalf. As of last night, and because of this Court's ruling, Texas law prohibits abortions for the vast majority of women who seek them—in clear, and indeed undisputed, conflict with Roe and Casey.

The Roe is Roe v Wade.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf



Correction: The Liberal Plants in the Supreme court said that.

There was not a ruling at all about the constitutionality of the original decision, and it doesn't bar anyone from coming back with a new case after they've figured it out.

When the Supreme Court hears about Mississippi's law banning abortions after 15 weeks, it will shut that one down.

Not a prediction. That's a fact, Jack.

Roe v Wade isn't going anywhere, and isn't under threat. This is just Lefty Shill Media spin to try to get the worst President* in our lifetime to make our country even worse by starting the precedent of the Supreme Court being packed with 4 more justices every time a new President is elected.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Thursday, September 2, 2021 4:36 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
At midnight on Wednesday, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.



No it didn't.

You are still free to murder your babies.

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
You are still free to murder Republican Supreme Court Justices because you are innocent until proven guilty in a Court-of-Law.

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I know it's still very early in the day, but that's going to easily be the stupidest thing I read today.

Also... archived.

I'm sure you fail, absolutely FAIL, to understand why Republican Supreme Court justices don't need Secret Service protection 24/7. It is not because there is a law. It is because most people have enough self-control to not murder justices and the ones lacking self-control don't know anything about Roe v Wade, ones like 6ixStringJack. Many decades ago, in Sam Rayburn High School, I read Supreme Court decisions. It turns out that those make remarkably clear which Justices know what they writing about and which Justices were selected because their political party can call them on the phone and tell them which way to vote, but the political party doesn't dictate over the phone what phony legal reasoning to justify following the party line. 6ix, you are terrible at understanding, which would explain your long-term struggle to stay in the middle class.

The Republican Party should hire a first class legal firm to write the Supreme Court decisions for Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas and send it to them in an email. The stuff those four sign as their own work is stupid unless their law clerks draft it for them.

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

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Friday, September 3, 2021 8:07 AM

SECOND

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


What are Democrats going to do about the Supreme Court's Abortion Decision? How about nothing? Does nothing work for you?

Late Wednesday night, the Supreme Court quietly gutted Roe v. Wade. At issue was a new Texas law that allows any dipshit in the state to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks, and to collect a $10,000 reward for their efforts. An unsigned, five-justice Supreme Court majority looked at the insane clusterfuck we described in the previous sentence and said, ahhhh our hands are tied, allowing it to go into effect while litigation is pursued, and making Texas’ creepy bounty-hunter abortion ban model legislation for every other red state to pursue. This would be an ideal time for Democrats, including the president, to act on their pledge to codify Roe protections into federal law. They will face substantial pressure to do so. But as with voting rights, the numbers just aren’t there. The relevant legislation here—the Women’s Health Protection Act—has 48 Democratic sponsors and co-sponsors in the Senate. The two not on board are Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who are both anti-abortion. Casey could go wobbly in the next 10 seconds, but Joe Manchin seems far less likely to do so. Democrats would still need to eliminate the filibuster to pass it, too, and they won’t. Democrats are also not going to pack the courts, which, again, neither has majority support as policy nor is a policy over which they’d nuke the filibuster. Democrats will, instead, try to pocket the effective elimination of Roe as a potent wedge issue with lucrative fundraising and turnout potential. They’ll say they need more Democrats in Congress to enact the legislative change necessary to push back on the actions of this court. It will be aggravating to hear them say this. But—[ducks for cover]—they’ll basically be right.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/the-surge-roe-abortion-man
chin-democrats.html


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

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Friday, September 3, 2021 8:15 AM

SECOND

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


The Social Security Trustees’ Report Is Out

When is a not-a-lie really a lie?

When the liar gives you a part of “true information” and leaves out “the whole truth” in order to lead you to a false conclusion. Or worse, to lead you to do something that hurts you.

Today Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, CRFB, issued a statement in which she said:

“Acting today, we could fix Social Security with a 27 percent tax increase or 21 percent benefit reduction.”

What makes this a lie, though technically “true,” is that MacGuineas knows that the “27% tax increase” is 27% of a 6.2% tax…or about a 2% of payroll increase. On the other hand, the 21% benefit reduction is indeed 21% of the whole benefit. An average benefit is about 1500 dollars…so the benefit cut would amount to 300 dollars, leaving the retiree with about 1200 dollars a month to live on.

But the 2% of payroll tax increase, that would eliminate this benefit cut, would be 2% of about a 1,000 dollar per week paycheck.. or about $20 dollars per week. And CRFB knows that this $20 per week increase in the tax does not have to happen all at once, but can be phased in about a dollar per week per year at a time, while wages are expected to grow by over 200 dollars per week (at 10 dollars per week per year).

MacGuineas also says, “Not only is this year’s outlook worse than in last year’s report,..” but it’s not. Not materially. The long-predicted shortfall in Social Security finances is the same as it has been since 2007 or earlier. SS will require a 4% increase in the tax in about 2030 or so, which can be reached by phasing it in at one-tenth of one percent at a time (if we start now). That 4% is the combined tax for both the employer and the worker. I used the one-tenth of one percent per year..which is the worker’s share and will be matched by a one-tenth of one percent per year increase in the tax paid by the employer. Sorry for the confusion, but I believe that the share paid by the worker is what matters to him, while the combined worker plus employer tax is what most people, not workers talk about.

https://angrybearblog.com/2021/09/social-security-trustees-report-out-
crfb-lies-about-it


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

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Friday, September 3, 2021 11:20 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
What are Democrats going to do about the Supreme Court's Abortion Decision? How about nothing? Does nothing work for you?

Late Wednesday night, the Supreme Court quietly gutted Roe v. Wade. At issue was a new Texas law that allows any dipshit in the state to sue anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion after six weeks, and to collect a $10,000 reward for their efforts. An unsigned, five-justice Supreme Court majority looked at the insane clusterfuck we described in the previous sentence and said, ahhhh our hands are tied, allowing it to go into effect while litigation is pursued, and making Texas’ creepy bounty-hunter abortion ban model legislation for every other red state to pursue. This would be an ideal time for Democrats, including the president, to act on their pledge to codify Roe protections into federal law. They will face substantial pressure to do so. But as with voting rights, the numbers just aren’t there. The relevant legislation here—the Women’s Health Protection Act—has 48 Democratic sponsors and co-sponsors in the Senate. The two not on board are Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who are both anti-abortion. Casey could go wobbly in the next 10 seconds, but Joe Manchin seems far less likely to do so. Democrats would still need to eliminate the filibuster to pass it, too, and they won’t. Democrats are also not going to pack the courts, which, again, neither has majority support as policy nor is a policy over which they’d nuke the filibuster. Democrats will, instead, try to pocket the effective elimination of Roe as a potent wedge issue with lucrative fundraising and turnout potential. They’ll say they need more Democrats in Congress to enact the legislative change necessary to push back on the actions of this court. It will be aggravating to hear them say this. But—[ducks for cover]—they’ll basically be right.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/the-surge-roe-abortion-man
chin-democrats.html


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



You don't read shit or know anything about the recent ruling, buddy.

It's not anywhere near what your Lefty shill sites are saying it is.

But they rely on you being stupid and not looking at the ruling yourself and taking their word for it. Way to make them not have to work for a living, as per usual.

I wouldn't suggest trying anything stupid with the federal justices.

Go get yourself a hobby before you get yourself into trouble.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Friday, September 3, 2021 11:23 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
When is a not-a-lie really a lie?

When the liar gives you a part of “true information” and leaves out “the whole truth” in order to lead you to a false conclusion. Or worse, to lead you to do something that hurts you.



Oh. You mean like every story you've posted about Roe v Wade.

Gotcha.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Friday, September 3, 2021 11:27 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The Social Security Trustees’ Report Is Out

When is a not-a-lie really a lie?

When the liar gives you a part of “true information” and leaves out “the whole truth” in order to lead you to a false conclusion. Or worse, to lead you to do something that hurts you.

Today Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, CRFB, issued a statement in which she said:

“Acting today, we could fix Social Security with a 27 percent tax increase or 21 percent benefit reduction.”

What makes this a lie, though technically “true,” is that MacGuineas knows that the “27% tax increase” is 27% of a 6.2% tax…or about a 2% of payroll increase. On the other hand, the 21% benefit reduction is indeed 21% of the whole benefit. An average benefit is about 1500 dollars…so the benefit cut would amount to 300 dollars, leaving the retiree with about 1200 dollars a month to live on.

But the 2% of payroll tax increase, that would eliminate this benefit cut, would be 2% of about a 1,000 dollar per week paycheck.. or about $20 dollars per week. And CRFB knows that this $20 per week increase in the tax does not have to happen all at once, but can be phased in about a dollar per week per year at a time, while wages are expected to grow by over 200 dollars per week (at 10 dollars per week per year).

MacGuineas also says, “Not only is this year’s outlook worse than in last year’s report,..” but it’s not. Not materially. The long-predicted shortfall in Social Security finances is the same as it has been since 2007 or earlier. SS will require a 4% increase in the tax in about 2030 or so, which can be reached by phasing it in at one-tenth of one percent at a time (if we start now). That 4% is the combined tax for both the employer and the worker. I used the one-tenth of one percent per year..which is the worker’s share and will be matched by a one-tenth of one percent per year increase in the tax paid by the employer. Sorry for the confusion, but I believe that the share paid by the worker is what matters to him, while the combined worker plus employer tax is what most people, not workers talk about.

https://angrybearblog.com/2021/09/social-security-trustees-report-out-
crfb-lies-about-it


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



Your idiot blogger here did the same thing he was accusing MacGuineas of doing.

27% would be BOTH the employee side of the payroll taxes AND the business side. So you're paying 2% more immediately, and paying the other 2% in a few years when your employer figures out how to fuck you and pass that cost on to you through lower pay increases.


ETA: I don't feel bad for anybody making $1k per week today if they can't weather a 21% reduction in benefits in retirement. WTF were they doing with their money?


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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Friday, September 3, 2021 8:13 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:

You don't read shit or know anything about the recent ruling, buddy.

It's not anywhere near what your Lefty shill sites are saying it is.

But they rely on you being stupid and not looking at the ruling yourself and taking their word for it. Way to make them not have to work for a living, as per usual.

I wouldn't suggest trying anything stupid with the federal justices.

Go get yourself a hobby before you get yourself into trouble.

The first sentence of the decision is the only sentence you need to understand, 6ix:

"The application for injunctive relief or, in the alternative,
to vacate stays of the district court proceedings presented
to JUSTICE ALITO and by him referred to the Court is denied."
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf

That is too much to read for most people. Simplifying: Alito says, "Request denied."

The rest of the decision, which was NOT written by Alito, says that the Texas Abortion Law is unconstitutional because it violates Roe v Wade.

Now to tell you something that should be obvious: Alito was asked to enforce Roe v Wade and he refused to enforce that constitutional decision. "Request denied." The Constitution does not enforce itself. Either Judges like Alito do the enforcement or else it is not done. It is up to the judges to enforce the Constitution, not up to you and me.

Texas Heartbeat Act begins like this: "The legislature finds that the State of Texas never repealed, either expressly or by implication, the state statutes enacted before the ruling in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), that prohibit and criminalize abortion unless the mother's life is in danger."
https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB8/id/2395961
Texas and Alito know perfectly well that the Texas Heartbeat Act is cancelling Roe v Wade.

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

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Friday, September 3, 2021 9:17 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The first sentence of the decision is the only sentence you need to understand, 6ix:

"The application for injunctive relief or, in the alternative,
to vacate stays of the district court proceedings presented
to JUSTICE ALITO and by him referred to the Court is denied."
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf

That is too much to read for most people. Simplifying: Alito says, "Request denied."



No.

That's dumbing it down for retards like you, to the point that it doesn't even mean what they say it means anymore.

That's also why you're angry over nothing here.

The Democrats are exceedingly good at riling up their voter base full of low-info morons via their Legacy Media.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Friday, September 3, 2021 9:32 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Even Newsweek says you're wrong.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-supreme-court-could-not-block-te
xas-fetal-heartbeat-law-opinion/ar-AAO3LVE


Newsweek loves blowing Democrats.


The fact that four "Justices" voted in dissent here just shows how agenda driven they are, and how unfit for the position they were appointed to they are.


Your precious Roe v Wade is still intact, and you're still free to murder all the babies you want to.

Even in Texas.

And that's sound legal advice.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Friday, September 3, 2021 10:41 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The first sentence of the decision is the only sentence you need to understand, 6ix:

"The application for injunctive relief or, in the alternative,
to vacate stays of the district court proceedings presented
to JUSTICE ALITO and by him referred to the Court is denied."
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/21a24_8759.pdf

That is too much to read for most people. Simplifying: Alito says, "Request denied."



No.

That's dumbing it down for retards like you, to the point that it doesn't even mean what they say it means anymore.

That's also why you're angry over nothing here.

The Democrats are exceedingly good at riling up their voter base full of low-info morons via their Legacy Media.

While working as a Justice Department lawyer in 1985, Samuel Alito wrote in a memo that the government "should make clear that we disagree with Roe v. Wade," the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Being a Right-to-Life Catholic, Supreme Court Justice Alito has always believed Roe v Wade was a wrong decision. Now he is undoing it for Texas only because he is Catholic and not for any legal reasons. It is strictly a religious decision that does not mention that his personal religion is Alito's motivation.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5033132

In thousands of TV episodes about murder mysteries, the law against murder does not enforce itself, but rather requires a Sherlock Holmes or a Detective Columbo to follow the clues and identify the true murderer. Similarly, when a Constitutional principle has been murdered, the Constitution does not enforce itself. It requires a Judge to enforce the Constitution and to do what a homicide detective does -- follow the clues, identify the murderer, issue an injunction. Judge Alito decided he is on vacation while Texas murdered Roe v Wade.

Judge Alito didn't pay attention to the clues because Alito wanted Roe v Wade dead back in 1985. In 2020, Alito talked about abortion: “It pains me to say this,” Alito said, “but in certain quarters, religious liberty is fast becoming a disfavored right.” As an example, Alito decried a Washington state law requiring a pharmacist to fill prescriptions for “morning-after pills, which destroy an embryo after fertilization”, as he put it. In 2021, Alito is killing Roe v Wade to enforce Alito's religious belief.
Justice Alito takes aim at abortion rights, gay marriage and Covid rules
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/nov/13/justice-samuel-alito-supre
me-court-liberty


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

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Friday, September 3, 2021 11:13 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Read the Newsweek article.

I'm done with you.

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Saturday, September 4, 2021 8:52 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:
Read the Newsweek article.

I'm done with you.

It is NOT a Newsweek article. It is an article by Josh Blackman, professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. Did you see that word: HOUSTON? I operate out of Baytown, a half hour from downtown Houston, so I asked my Houston lawyer who Blackman is. Short answer: a sneaky, smooth talking Right-to-Lifer Catholic. Blackman didn't mention what his motivation was when he wrote that opinion piece for Newsweek, but then Justice Alito didn't mention he was a Right-to-Lifer Catholic who has been strongly motivated for many decades to attack abortion before he wrote the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v Wade in Texas. That is how the law will work in the future when legal decisions are based on the judge's religion and political party requests secretly made over the telephone, rather than on law, all while the judge refuses to expose his real motivation, but keeps that hidden behind legal gobbledygook and prestidigitation.

https://www.stcl.edu/about-us/faculty/josh-blackman/

https://fedsoc.org/contributors/josh-blackman

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

Blackman has pointed out in articles that laws declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court do not get removed from the law books until after the Texas legislature removes the law. The Texas Heartbeat Act makes the same point about Texas anti-abortion laws written before Roe v Wade. All of those old laws are still on the books, waiting for a change to anti-abortion personnel on the Supreme Court. Maybe Blackman wrote the Texas Heartbeat Act, which would explain why he is defending it.
https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB8/id/2395961

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

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Saturday, September 4, 2021 10:21 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
...so I asked my Houston lawyer who Blackman is.



No you didn't.

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Saturday, September 4, 2021 11:31 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
...so I asked my Houston lawyer who Blackman is.



No you didn't.

6ix, a better argument you could use would be to say that you know for certain that Blackman and Justice Alito are not Catholics, are not Right-to-Lifers, that Blackman did not help draft the Texas Anti-abortion Law, that both these lawyers are only selflessly following the Constitution. Such bullshit you could claim to be true, 6ix. But back in reality, Blackman and Alito are legal legerdemain practitioners who bent the law to get the anti-abortion religion they want.

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

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Saturday, September 4, 2021 2:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


No they didn't.

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Saturday, September 4, 2021 7:55 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No they didn't.

"The most likely way that you can affect the court and how they decide cases is by who's on the court," Jim Bopp, who has served as the National Right to Life Committee's chief lawyer since 1978.

Trump broke political norms by promising justices who would "automatically" overturn Supreme Court abortion precedent, with explicit commitments that were a far cry from the coyness and subtle hints that past Republican candidates would invoke to describe their approach to judicial nominations. Ultimately President Trump was able to confirm three justices. Trump's justices allowed Texas this week to implement a ban on abortion.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/04/politics/abortion-legal-strategy-roe-v-
wade-texas-abortion-ban/index.html


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

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Sunday, September 5, 2021 7:42 AM

SECOND

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


Democrats Who Joined Republicans to Increase Military Budget Have Strong Defense Ties

by Sara Sirota https://theintercept.com/2021/09/03/democrats-defense-industry-militar
y-budget
/

Just two days after the U.S. ended its 20-year war in Afghanistan, more than a dozen Democrats with strong ties to the military establishment defied President Joe Biden and voted to add nearly $24 billion to the defense budget for fiscal year 2022.

On Wednesday, 14 Democrats joined 28 Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to adopt an amendment from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., to the fiscal year 2022 defense authorization bill that would boost Biden’s $715 billion spending proposal to $738.9 billion. The move follows the Senate Armed Services Committee’s vote to similarly raise the top line to more than $740 billion in its July markup of the bill.

The 14 House Democrats to support the defense spending were Reps. Jim Langevin of Rhode Island; Joe Courtney of Connecticut; Jared Golden of Maine; Elaine Luria of Virginia; Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey; Stephanie Murphy of Florida; Anthony Brown of Maryland; Filemon Vela of Texas; Seth Moulton of Massachusetts; Salud Carbajal of California; Elissa Slotkin of Michigan; Kai Kahele of Hawaii; Marc Veasey of Texas; and Steven Horsford of Nevada.

The decision by these lawmakers to approve the higher budget is not necessarily shocking in a political environment in which the military’s leaders demand an annual budget growth of 3 to 5 percent above inflation. Biden’s $715 billion proposal was a 1.5 percent nonadjusted increase above this year’s spending level.

One congressional staffer, who was not permitted to speak on the record, said in an email, “many Dems, especially when serving [on the House Armed Services Committee] are reluctant to look ‘soft on defense’ by opposing increases to the defense budget, so in some ways it’s surprising the majority of Dems still voted against the topline increase.” (Seventeen Democrats voted against Rogers’s amendment, not enough to prevent its inclusion in the bill.)

Many of the Democrats who voted for the $24 billion increase have close ties to the defense establishment. Their districts are home to job-promoting manufacturing sites and military bases, and much of the extra funding will go directly to projects at those locations. Many of the Democrats have also received generous campaign donations from contractors. In fact, Federal Election Commission data shows that in the first six months of this year, the 14 Democrats collectively received at least $135,000 from PACs representing the country’s top 10 defense vendors: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, L3Harris, Huntington Ingalls Industries, Leidos, Honeywell, and Booz Allen Hamilton.

A closer look reveals potentially strong incentives for those Democrats to support an increase in defense spending:

By voting for the $24 billion raise, Courtney, chair of the seapower and projection forces subcommittee, secured more than $560 million for an extra Virginia-class submarine for the Navy. The submarine is built in Courtney’s district at General Dynamics Electric Boat’s Groton shipyard. The contractor’s PAC was his largest donor in the 2020 congressional election, and it gave him $3,000 during the first half of this year. He got at least another $10,500 from other major defense contractors, including $5,000 from Northrop Grumman’s PAC.

General Dynamics’ PAC was also the largest donor in the 2020 election cycle to Langevin, chair of the emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee. Its Electric Boat subsidiary also has a manufacturing site in his state, employing Rhode Islanders to help produce the Navy’s submarines, including the Virginia-class one. Langevin received at least $14,500 from major defense contractors during the first six months of this year, including $4,500 from General Dynamics’ PAC.

By voting for the budget increase, Golden nabbed more than $1.6 billion for Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, which are based at Maine’s Bath Iron Works shipyard. In May, Golden joined forces with other members of Maine’s congressional delegation to push back against Biden’s plans to curtail purchases of the warship, complaining that it would break a 2018 contract with General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

After voting for the $24 billion raise, Sherrill issued a press release touting that she secured tens of millions of dollars in additional funding for the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal, the largest employer in her district. Sherrill received at least $11,000 from top defense contractors in the first half of 2021, including $3,000 from Huntington Ingalls’s PAC and $2,500 from L3Harris’s PAC.

Horsford’s Nevada district hosts two prominent military installations: Nellis Air Force base and Creech Air Force base, home to the 432nd Wing, which flies MQ-9 Reapers. The $24 billion addition includes $53 million for U.S. Central Command’s MQ-9 combat lines.

Of the 14 Democrats to vote for a higher defense budget, Brown received the most donations from top military contractors this year: at least $25,000. In the 2020 election cycle, his largest donors were employees from contractor Leidos. Meanwhile, Luria received the next largest amount, $20,500, which included $8,000 from Huntington Ingalls’s PAC. She is known as one of the most hawkish Democrats; she was the only member of her party to vote against repealing the 2002 Iraq War authorization earlier this year.

In addition, during the first six months of 2021, Veasey got $20,000 from the top 10 defense contractors’ PACs; Murphy got $12,000; Carbajal got $8,500; and Kahele got $4,500.

Meanwhile, some of the 14 Democrats who defied Biden to vote for greater defense spending have also tried to blow up their party’s efforts to achieve the president’s domestic policy goals — most notably, Medicare expansion, paid family leave, an extension of the child tax credit, and billions of dollars for clean energy and other climate initiatives. Golden and Vela joined New Jersey Democrat Josh Gottheimer last month to insist that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hold an immediate vote on a $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill rather than wait to finish Democrats’ flagship $3.5 trillion reconciliation package. Murphy later joined that call, airing concerns about the size of the reconciliation bill. Their demands were ultimately unsuccessful.

Despite so many members of Congress voting to add money to the defense budgets, 17 Democrats still opposed Rogers’s amendment, including committee chair Adam Smith of Washington, who received $32,000 in donations from the PACs of the top 10 defense contractors in the first half of this year — the most of any Democrat on the panel.

Despite disagreeing with the increase, Smith and most of the others still voted to approve the overarching defense legislation and advance it to the floor anyway. (In fact, the 15 Democrats who voted against the higher budget but nevertheless passed the bill collectively received a few thousand dollars more in donations from the top 10 military contractors than the 14 who supported Rogers’s amendment.) Only California Reps. Sara Jacobs and Ro Khanna — who got no money from the vendors — stood their ground and voted against the bill’s passage.

“After twenty years of war in Afghanistan, twenty years of our servicemembers and their families answering the call, trillions of dollars in funding from the American people, I can’t support another misguided effort to overflow the Pentagon’s budget beyond what our military leaders are even requesting,” Jacobs said in a press release.

For Khanna, Wednesday was the first time he voted against moving the annual defense bill out of committee in five years; he argued that the $24 billion would be better spent on helping veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, resettling Afghan allies and refugees, or vaccinating people against Covid-19.

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

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Monday, September 6, 2021 9:19 AM

SECOND

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


What’s up with Republicans and Abortion?

“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without reimagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn. -- Methodist Pastor David Barnhart

More at https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2019/05/20/a-methodist-pastor-is-b
rilliantly-calling-out-the-pro-life-crowds-hypocrisy
/

Methodist Pastor David Barnhart also wrote: If they actually cared about abortion…

If Alabama politicians and preachers really cared about preventing abortion, we’d have comprehensive, medically accurate sex education in schools. This new bill criminalizing abortion is entirely about controlling sexual behavior and taking away bodily autonomy.

A few years ago, some conservative clergy (all men) proposed a resolution in our local denominational body about defunding Planned Parenthood. The resolution was tabled until we could talk through it. I offered to meet with its authors to see if we could craft a resolution we could agree on.

None of them showed up for the first meeting.

Since they chose not to participate, those of us who did show up kept the goal of the original resolution—reducing or preventing abortion—but chose to focus on a policy that actually applied to our state: comprehensive, medically-accurate sex education in schools.

That got their attention. They showed up to the second meeting to oppose this change. They would not even consider a resolution that included comprehensive sex education. Abstinence was the only choice. The only compromise we reached was withdrawing the resolution.

I asked if any of the authors had met with the people at Planned Parenthood whose jobs they were trying to defund. They had not. I offered to facilitate a meeting between representatives of Planned Parenthood and the clergy who drafted the resolution. They declined.

I don’t know how they could have made it any clearer: They didn’t care about preventing abortion. Nor did they care about even hearing from the other side.

Alabama politicians likewise have made their goals and values clear: In addition to rejecting exceptions in cases of rape or incest, they are entertaining a bill which makes false accusation of rape a felony. This is intended to intimidate women in light of the #metoo movement. All of these policies taken together are about subjugating women.

I support the right to an abortion, and see religious justification for restricting that right as a failure of empathy and imagination. Ethics requires us to imagine situations in which we have to apply our norms or policies—to put ourselves in someone else’s place, to “do to others as you would have them do to you.” If we create a rule or law, we have to imagine what it would be like to be subject to it.

I believe there are people of good faith who disagree with me about public policy, and are sincere in their desire to reduce or prevent abortion. I just haven’t met many yet.

https://davebarnhart.wordpress.com/2019/05/15/if-they-actually-cared-a
bout-abortion
/

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

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Monday, September 6, 2021 9:26 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


By wanting others to force me to get a vaccine, you've already abandoned "my body, my choice".

You are a hypocrite and, as always, you have no valid argument here.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Monday, September 6, 2021 9:49 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:
By wanting others to force me to get a vaccine, you've already abandoned "my body, my choice".

You are a hypocrite and, as always, you have no valid argument here.

Nobody is forcing you to work, 6ix, but there are consequences involving money. Nobody is forcing you to get vaccinated, but there are consequences so do what you are going to do, 6ix, but don't expect your ex-employers, stepparent, ex-girlfriends, ex-whatevers to send you money or sneak you into places only the vaccinated go. There are consequence for you acting as you do.

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

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Monday, September 6, 2021 10:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
By wanting others to force me to get a vaccine, you've already abandoned "my body, my choice".

You are a hypocrite and, as always, you have no valid argument here.

Nobody is forcing you to work, 6ix, but there are consequences involving money. Nobody is forcing you to get vaccinated, but there are consequences so do what you are going to do, 6ix, but don't expect your ex-employers, stepparent, ex-girlfriends, ex-whatevers to send you money or sneak you into places only the vaccinated go. There are consequence for you acting as you do.



Taking away somebody's ability to make money to live is no different than an actual mandate. Period.

I'm not worried about me. I can wait this out much longer than it will be in the news, replaced by the next big thing. I'm not now or ever getting the vaccination.



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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Monday, September 6, 2021 11:07 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:

Taking away somebody's ability to make money to live is no different than an actual mandate. Period.

I'm not worried about me. I can wait this out much longer than it will be in the news, replaced by the next big thing. I'm not now or ever getting the vaccination.

My job is forcing me to take the covid vaccine or else they will let me go. Is that legal?

Answer: 49 of the 50 US states have “employment at will” laws, which gutted worker protections, reduced or eliminated fair labor relations boards, and made it absolutely legal for employers to terminate employees with or without notice and with or without cause for any reason whatsoever as long as the reason isn’t membership in a protected class.

So, yes, it’s legal.

I see this question a lot on Quora, and I must confess I do literally, not figuratively, laugh every time I see it.

When Ronald Reagan was in office, one of the big conservative legislative pushes was to gut fair worker relations laws and abolish fair labor relations boards in favor of a system that offered basically zero worker protections. Worker protections are Socialist! Fair labor laws are government intrusion in private business! Business works better without government oversight!

Conservatives battled ceaselessly for decades to pass these laws. Liberals kept saying “you know, if you pass these laws, there will come a day when they’re used against conservatives” and conservatives were all “no, no, no, never happen, I can’t hear you la la la.”

Now here we are. 49 states have implemented at-will employment laws, and…

Conservatives are having their contracts dropped because of the things they Tweet. Conservatives who don’t want to wear masks or get vaccinated are getting fired. And conservatives are all “it’s not fair this can’t be legal how dare you do that MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS!”

We told you.

We told you this would happen.

Yes. Yes, it is legal.

https://www.quora.com/Can-the-covid-19-vaccine-be-made-legally-mandato
ry-Can-jobs-mandate-that-you-have-it-to-go-to-work/answer/Franklin-Veaux


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

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Monday, September 6, 2021 3:41 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Not getting it.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Tuesday, September 7, 2021 6:11 AM

SECOND

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


'Help Wanted' signs aren't a mystery. They're a message.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210906154737/https://www.houstonchronicl
e.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-Help-Wanted-signs-aren-t-a-16434684.php


An asthma attack on Tuesday pushed Andrea Dutta one step closer to getting fired.

Dutta’s employer, a security contractor at Bush Intercontinental Airport, gave her a day off to recover, and then added a punitive point to her personnel file. If Dutta gets sick or has to miss work for any reason, even with a doctor’s note, the company adds a point. If she accrues more than seven points, she will lose her job.

Workers such as Dutta are vital to the airport ecosystem. As a wheelchair agent, she spends her days helping elderly or disabled people who need assistance boarding or deplaning, collecting their baggage and safely handing them off to family members or connecting them with ground transport. For this, Dutta makes $11 an hour, which is actually four dollars more than what she was paid when she started two years ago.

The pay raise isn’t part of a company merit system. It was the result of a 2019 executive order from Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner that bumped up wages for hundreds of airport employees to at least $12 an hour by 2022.

The hike was a nice lift for Dutta, but it doesn’t address the other stresses of her job. She has two children, and her job provides little flexibility to pick them up from school or care for them when they get sick. She has no health benefits, and has to pay out of pocket for parking as well as personal protective equipment to keep her safe from COVID-19. She relies heavily on tips from the people she helps, but not everyone tips.

“Do they expect us to live on a $600 check every two weeks?” Dutta told the editorial board on Thursday.

While some employees are reaping the benefits of a more dynamic pandemic economy that allows for greater flexibility in working from home and, in some cases, opportunities for higher pay, low-wage essential workers aren’t faring as well, even amid a national labor shortage. Often, they disproportionately bear the costs of states’ inability and in some cases unwillingness to slow the virus’ spread, further exacerbating the inequality in our labor market.

Many have lost jobs and seen their hours cut. Even those who have been revered as “essential workers” often don’t find the title, or their daily toiling on the front lines of this pandemic, have earned them higher pay, status or regard in the eyes of higher-ups within their companies.

For those workers such as Dutta, who managed to hold on to low-paying jobs, there are few opportunities for upward mobility. Economists and policymakers who hailed the country’s low pre-pandemic unemployment rate overlooked the fact that wages at the bottom have stagnated and benefits have dried up. A nation whose essential workers can’t access paid sick leave, childcare options or health insurance is one whose economic growth will eventually hit a brick wall.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in July that while the economy added 850,000 jobs in June, there are 7 million fewer jobs than there were before the pandemic — a gap that has disproportionately hit the low-wage workforce. According to the Brookings Institute, low-wage workers comprise more than half of all pandemic-induced job losses. In Texas, while gross domestic product has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, unemployment is 2 percent higher than it was before March 2020. While some business owners contend that the state’s enhanced unemployment benefits, which paid jobless workers an extra $300 a week, played a role in delaying their return to a job, Texas was one of a handful of states to end those benefits early at the end of June. Economists note the July jobs report did not show any significant employment gains for Texas.

These vacancies are nonetheless hurting businesses all across the state. Stroll past your local Whataburger or Fuddruckers and you’re likely to see a “help wanted” sign in the window. The reasons seem to be mixed, ranging from health concerns about COVID-19 exposure, opportunities to earn better pay elsewhere and parenting or caregiving responsibilities. Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates for school districts, for instance, means any given week, hundreds of kids could be forced home from school, creating a headache for working parents who can’t afford childcare. It’s increasingly difficult for workers to commit to jobs that barely make ends meet, when they might have to quit in a week if the babysitter gets sick.

There are hopeful signs, though, that businesses are beginning to understand the need to step up and improve pay and conditions for workers. McDonalds, which employs 800,000 people across the country, announced in July that, in addition to increasing its starting pay at franchisees from $11 to $17 an hour, it would be adding emergency childcare, paid time off and help cover tuition costs in an attempt to draw more workers.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions, which manages employer-based childcare, is seeing greater demand for its services, with more than 100 of its clients adding child care benefits last year, the company announced in July.

More employers should join the trend.

Of course, the U.S. can’t afford to rely solely on the good faith of business owners to rectify economic disparity. Policymakers should prioritize and empower essential workers such as Andrea Dutta to fight for higher wages and critical health and childcare benefits at the bargaining table so that the flaring of a chronic illness isn’t grounds for termination.

The federal government already requires workers on federally funded infrastructure projects to be paid a prevailing wage. With a proposed bipartisan infrastructure bill set to pump $25 billion into airports, the Biden administration could extend the same to airport workers, boosting a critical sector out of poverty. The U.S. House has already passed the PRO Act, a sweeping bill which strengthens the ability of workers in the private sector to form unions and engage in collective bargaining, which could lead to better wages and benefits for essential workers across the country. We urge President Biden and the Senate to seriously consider passing that bill ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

Biden’s proposals to expand paid sick leave to seven days, establish a national paid family and medical leave program — building on the unpaid leave afforded by the Family and Medical Leave Act — and make childcare affordable or even free for lower-income working parents, would also be ground-breaking achievements. The American Families Plan, which is being incorporated into a proposed $3.5 trillion budget bill, would spend $225 billion over 10 years — paid for by raising taxes on the wealthiest earners — to fund these measures.

The “help wanted” signs across America aren’t a mystery — they’re a message: essential work deserves essential compensation.

We can’t allow the economic recession caused by this pandemic to be a dead end for working families. We must seize this moment to expand the market economy, and show that we value our American laborers at least as much as we value the products they make and services they provide.

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

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Tuesday, September 7, 2021 9:34 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


People can go flip their own fuckin' burgers and cut their own fuckin' hair.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Wednesday, September 8, 2021 7:59 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:
People can go flip their own fuckin' burgers and cut their own fuckin' hair.

After the Civil War was over the plantation owners still grew cotton the same old way as before the Civil War and still needed their ex-slaves, who were now "free" to seek farm employment at whatever plantation paid the best wages. The new labor system based on "free" workers actually was less expensive for the owners than the old system based on slavery because in the new "free" labor system there was no more free food for the workers, no more free housing, no more free clothing, no more free anything, which is the system America still uses today.

The one "free" thing that the ex-slaves had that they didn't have while slaves was the right to vote, but when Ulysses S. Grant was no longer President, they lost that right.

The South and the end of Reconstruction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes#The_South_and_the_en
d_of_Reconstruction


I see that an even cheaper labor system is possible: Restaurants across the country are struggling to find employees, so one establishment in Dallas decided to hire robots to help pick up the slack.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/07/business/dallas-restaurant-employs-robo
ts-trnd/index.html


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

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Wednesday, September 8, 2021 10:23 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
People can go flip their own fuckin' burgers and cut their own fuckin' hair.

After the Civil War was over the plantation owners still grew cotton the same old way as before the Civil War and still needed their ex-slaves, who were now "free" to seek farm employment at whatever plantation paid the best wages. The new labor system based on "free" workers actually was less expensive for the owners than the old system based on slavery because in the new "free" labor system there was no more free food for the workers, no more free housing, no more free clothing, no more free anything, which is the system America still uses today.



Yeah. Maybe one day we'll stop blowing Abraham Lincoln and telling everybody that he was the greatest President America ever had.

But the paragraph that you just posted above never gets taught in school.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Wednesday, September 8, 2021 10:31 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


And meanwhile... nearly every person I've ever known is a wage slave to this day. Even the ones clearing six figures.

Gotta keep buying all that shit you don't need with money you don't yet have.





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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Wednesday, September 8, 2021 11:20 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:
And meanwhile... nearly every person I've ever known is a wage slave to this day. Even the ones clearing six figures.

Gotta keep buying all that shit you don't need with money you don't yet have.

You would think most Americans could learn from history, but you would be wrong:

13 Things Benjamin Franklin Said about Money that are Still True Today
https://www.moneymanagement.org/blog/things-benjamin-franklin-said-abo
ut-money-that-are-still-true-today


“If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.” -- B. Franklin

But for Americans who don't remember that the Philosopher's stone changes base metals into precious metals, Franklin's meaning is lost for them.

Another aphorism that goes completely over the heads of most Americans:

“Our necessities never equal our wants.” -- B. Franklin

It can be hard to tell the difference, but it’s crucial to learn what you really need and what you only want.


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

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Thursday, September 9, 2021 6:31 AM

SECOND

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


Political Adversaries (Or why Democrats and Republicans are oil and water)

A Conflict of Visions is a book by Thomas Sowell. It was originally published in 1987; a revised edition appeared in 2007. Sowell's opening chapter attempts to answer the question of why the same people tend to be political adversaries in issue after issue, when the issues vary enormously in subject matter and sometimes hardly seem connected to one another. The root of these conflicts, Sowell claims, are the "visions", or the intuitive feelings that people have about human nature; different visions imply radically different consequences for how they think about everything.

A Conflict of Visions begins with this quote:

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day. -- Bertrand Russell

A Conflict of Visions continues:

One of the curious things about political opinions is how often the same people line up on opposite sides of different issues. The issues themselves may have no intrinsic connection with each other. They may range from military spending to drug laws to monetary policy to education. Yet the same familiar faces can be found glaring at each other from opposite sides of the political fence, again and again. It happens too often to be coincidence and it is too uncontrolled to be a plot. A closer look at the arguments on both sides often shows that they are reasoning from fundamentally different premises. These different premises—often implicit—are what provide the consistency behind the repeated opposition of individuals and groups on numerous, unrelated issues. They have different visions of how the world works.

Download the book A Conflict of Visions from the mirrors at https://libgen.unblockit.ws/search.php?req=A+Conflict+of+Visions

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

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Thursday, September 9, 2021 6:40 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The reason why Rebublians and Democrats paint themselves as adversaries is because they're both fighting over money. But since neither of them actually overturn or even modify the system that causes extreme wealth gap, they have to find different "reasons" to pretend to fight.

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


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Thursday, September 9, 2021 8:14 AM

SECOND

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


Are Democrats, Independents and Republicans psychologically different? Yes.
https://www.google.com/search?q=are+democrats+independents+and+republi
can+psychologically+different


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

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Thursday, September 9, 2021 10:10 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Are Democrats, Independents and Republicans psychologically different? Yes.



In other news...

The sky is blue and water is wet.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Thursday, September 9, 2021 10:11 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
And meanwhile... nearly every person I've ever known is a wage slave to this day. Even the ones clearing six figures.

Gotta keep buying all that shit you don't need with money you don't yet have.

You would think most Americans could learn from history, but you would be wrong:

13 Things Benjamin Franklin Said about Money that are Still True Today
https://www.moneymanagement.org/blog/things-benjamin-franklin-said-abo
ut-money-that-are-still-true-today


“If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone.” -- B. Franklin

But for Americans who don't remember that the Philosopher's stone changes base metals into precious metals, Franklin's meaning is lost for them.

Another aphorism that goes completely over the heads of most Americans:

“Our necessities never equal our wants.” -- B. Franklin

It can be hard to tell the difference, but it’s crucial to learn what you really need and what you only want.



My saying is every dollar I don't spend is another dollar I don't have to earn.

Not sure if I heard that one before or if I came up with it on the fly.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Friday, September 10, 2021 7:39 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:

My saying is every dollar I don't spend is another dollar I don't have to earn.

Not sure if I heard that one before or if I came up with it on the fly.

Every dollar in tax cuts is a dollar I . . . blah, blah:

It’s now a matter of public record that the immediate response of Bush administration officials to 9/11 was to use it as an excuse for an unrelated project, the invasion of Iraq. “Sweep it all up, things related and not,” said Donald Rumsfeld, the defense secretary, to his aides while the Pentagon was still burning.

The exploitation of 9/11 by people who wanted a wider war — and the selling of that war on false pretenses, which should have been considered an unforgivable abuse of public trust — has faded from public discourse. And you hear hardly anything about the parallel way in which terrorism was exploited for domestic political goals.

When the nation is threatened, we normally expect our leaders to call for shared sacrifice. But leading Republicans responded to a terrorist attack by trying to enact … tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. Indeed, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee tried to ram through a cut in the tax rate on capital gains less than 48 hours after the twin towers came down.

Later Republican Tom DeLay, the House majority whip, would declare, “Nothing is more important in a time of war than cutting taxes.”

And in May 2003 Republicans exploited the illusion of success in Iraq by pushing through sharp cuts in tax rates on capital gains and dividends.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/opinion/foreign-terrorists-domestic
-extremists.html


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

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Friday, September 10, 2021 9:24 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Are Democrats, Independents and Republicans psychologically different? Yes.



In other news...

The sky is blue and water is wet.

Why won't Donald Trump go away? Because Americans can't tell appearance from reality

Many people believed he'd lose the election and simply disappear. But we live in America, where nothing is real.

Americans have a huge problem. It manifests itself in our politics and we see it in our daily lives. It is exacerbated by the commercials on television, the internet and our cell phones.

Many of us can no longer tell the difference between appearance and reality — if in fact we ever could.

This inability explains the appeal of Donald Trump, why some people believe professional wrestling is "real," why some of us won't take a COVID vaccine and why some of us will take a deworming drug meant for horses versus a vaccine designed by scientists for humans. It enables people to scream out "I don't trust the scientists," while at the same time checking themselves into the hospital if they get sick.

Flooded by a glut of misinformation that overwhelms actual facts, the American public seems to have reached a new level of mistrust and arrogant stupidity, further eroding our ability to take on problems and thus increasing our chances of a calamity heretofore unseen except in gothic horror stories or "Mad Max" movies.

It is why as recently as this week, scientists told NPR they needed to do better in communicating the problems of climate change. It's one of the reasons why a passenger on an American Airlines flight had to be restrained after he began screaming about Joe Biden. It's also why CNN published an opinion piece with the headline: "Let's be clear why the U.S. economy is weakening."

There are those who argue we've long been unable to tell the difference between appearance and reality, while others believe it is a recent phenomenon caused by misinformation. But rather than arguing which came first, we need to focus on those who don't recognize the problem at all.

In the case of Donald Trump, he has spent his life making bank on separating people from their cash by claiming to have answers he doesn't actually have. His ex-fixer, Michael Cohen, once told me that Trump is a master at stating the obvious. "He tells us we have a problem," Cohen explained, "that everyone will agree is a problem. But he has no answers."

For example: The wall. How simple. How stupid. Building a wall to stop the importation of illegal drugs and immigrants may sound appealing, but that assumes you've never heard of a ladder and can't build a tunnel. Since most drugs are smuggled into the country via ports of entry — that is, in aircraft, motor vehicles or boats and ships — the reality is that a wall does nothing to solve either problem.

Time and again, Trump has sold us the appearance of leadership, but the reality is best represented by what Trump told me on the South Lawn when I asked him whether he would take any responsibility for people ingesting Clorox and becoming sick trying to treat the coronavirus, because of something Trump had said recently in the White House briefing room.

"I take no responsibility," Trump reminded us.

He took no responsibility for the insurrection — while he provoked it. He took no responsibility for anything when pressed as president, though he and his surrogates drowned us with claims of his leadership prowess. His greatest sleight of hand came when he lost the election and refused to admit it — based on the "Big Lie" that tried to sell the appearance of a rigged election — when in reality he was the one trying to rig it. Thankfully, that failed.

But Trump's efforts have led to the rebirth of modern sadistic fascism, predominantly in the Bible Belt and specifically in Texas and Florida, where you have freedom to choose whether to wear a mask, but women are not free to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy. As George Carlin once said, the reality is that governments in those states are simply anti-women. They also claim they want to preserve the sanctity of voting, but the laws they've enacted, in the realm of reality, do exactly the opposite. Trump may not be with us forever, but his actions have lit a nasty grease fire that threatens to burn down the kitchen. His acolytes and disciples come in a variety of packaging, but whether it is the Lauren Boebert brand, the Marjorie Taylor Greene brand or the Ron DeSantis brand, it's all merely appearance.

More at https://www.salon.com/2021/09/09/why-wont-donald-trump-go-away-because
-americans-cant-tell-appearance-from-reality
/

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

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Friday, September 10, 2021 10:58 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

My saying is every dollar I don't spend is another dollar I don't have to earn.

Not sure if I heard that one before or if I came up with it on the fly.

Every dollar in tax cuts is a dollar I . . . blah, blah:



You don't benefit from tax cuts because you don't have a business.

Meanwhile, having only paid federal income taxes on 2,000 one year out of the last 11 years, it will be quite easy for me to continue going on without needing a jab to live.

It won't even require me cutting back on anything.

It will be fun watching this one play out from the sidelines.



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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Saturday, September 11, 2021 6:48 AM

SECOND

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


In a 2004 Esquire article, a “senior Bush administration official” explained why the U.S. had needed to invade Iraq. It turned out that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s continued existence in power “resulted in a very bad message to the world, including to Islamic terrorists, that America … could be defied.”

This emotionalism about Saddam was bipartisan. In 1993, the Clinton administration proclaimed that Iraq, having been defeated in the 1991 Gulf War, had tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush while the elder Bush was taking a victory lap in Kuwait. This later turned out to have been made up in exactly the same way as all the tales about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, Clinton officials were filled with rage about it. As the New Yorker reported at the time, they were furious about Saddam’s “near-suicidal defiance of American pressure. … Many officials in the Pentagon and the State Department had become increasingly angry with Iraq in the early months of the Clinton Administration, feeling that Saddam Hussein had been ‘getting away with things.’”

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s similar worldview was described in journalist Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial”:

“Why did you support the Iraq war?” Bush aide Michael Gerson asked him.

“Because Afghanistan wasn’t enough,” Kissinger answered. In the conflict with radical Islam, he said, they want to humiliate us. “And we need to humiliate them.”

Why are all these people lost in these disturbing fantasy worlds? After witnessing the last two decades, I’d suggest that we need to understand a peculiar quirk of human psychology: The powerful always loathe those with less power. My grandfather was a historian who spent his life studying the Spanish conquest of the so-called New World, and as he put it:

“The hostility of those who have power toward those who can be called inferior because they are different — because they are others, the strangers — has been a historical constant. Indeed, at times it seems to be the dominant theme in human history.”

Of course, this doesn’t make “sense” in the way we want to think of it. But neither has the “war on terror.” It’s been 20 years of mindless violence, cruelty, and waste, the U.S. lashing out like a gigantic beast without a functioning frontal cortex, visiting numberless 9/11s on innocents as it staggered around the globe. But that does make sense if you ignore all the speeches and op-eds and instead start from the presumption that the political class running this country is overflowing with the primate wrath of the powerful who are nonetheless not omnipotent.

On September 11, 2001, I realized that I was on Al Qaeda’s list. Since then, I’ve learned that I’m also on the list of the far more mighty people in charge of America, just a little further down. Even with the most concrete dangers facing us — the destruction of a livable biosphere, an enduring pandemic, and much more — they are absolutely committed to following the same path, driven onward by complex delusions. Power tends to corrupt, not just in a standard moral sense but also intellectually and emotionally, and they’ve held extreme power for a very long time. What I know now that I didn’t know then is that if we let them, their corruption will surely destroy us all.

More at https://theintercept.com/2021/09/10/september-11-america-response/

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

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Saturday, September 11, 2021 8:38 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
In a 2004 Esquire article, a “senior Bush administration official” explained why the U.S. had needed to invade Iraq. It turned out that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s continued existence in power “resulted in a very bad message to the world, including to Islamic terrorists, that America … could be defied.”

This emotionalism about Saddam was bipartisan. In 1993, the Clinton administration proclaimed that Iraq, having been defeated in the 1991 Gulf War, had tried to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush while the elder Bush was taking a victory lap in Kuwait. This later turned out to have been made up in exactly the same way as all the tales about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Nonetheless, Clinton officials were filled with rage about it. As the New Yorker reported at the time, they were furious about Saddam’s “near-suicidal defiance of American pressure. … Many officials in the Pentagon and the State Department had become increasingly angry with Iraq in the early months of the Clinton Administration, feeling that Saddam Hussein had been ‘getting away with things.’”

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s similar worldview was described in journalist Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial”:

“Why did you support the Iraq war?” Bush aide Michael Gerson asked him.

“Because Afghanistan wasn’t enough,” Kissinger answered. In the conflict with radical Islam, he said, they want to humiliate us. “And we need to humiliate them.”

Why are all these people lost in these disturbing fantasy worlds? After witnessing the last two decades, I’d suggest that we need to understand a peculiar quirk of human psychology: The powerful always loathe those with less power. My grandfather was a historian who spent his life studying the Spanish conquest of the so-called New World, and as he put it:

“The hostility of those who have power toward those who can be called inferior because they are different — because they are others, the strangers — has been a historical constant. Indeed, at times it seems to be the dominant theme in human history.”

Of course, this doesn’t make “sense” in the way we want to think of it. But neither has the “war on terror.” It’s been 20 years of mindless violence, cruelty, and waste, the U.S. lashing out like a gigantic beast without a functioning frontal cortex, visiting numberless 9/11s on innocents as it staggered around the globe. But that does make sense if you ignore all the speeches and op-eds and instead start from the presumption that the political class running this country is overflowing with the primate wrath of the powerful who are nonetheless not omnipotent.

On September 11, 2001, I realized that I was on Al Qaeda’s list. Since then, I’ve learned that I’m also on the list of the far more mighty people in charge of America, just a little further down. Even with the most concrete dangers facing us — the destruction of a livable biosphere, an enduring pandemic, and much more — they are absolutely committed to following the same path, driven onward by complex delusions. Power tends to corrupt, not just in a standard moral sense but also intellectually and emotionally, and they’ve held extreme power for a very long time. What I know now that I didn’t know then is that if we let them, their corruption will surely destroy us all.

More at https://theintercept.com/2021/09/10/september-11-america-response/

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




Hey. You've got a huge house and a ton of money and a successful business.

Get in contact with somebody from the Administration* and tell them that you'll take in a sand-people family and that you won't even accept the $67,000 per person for it.

That, or shut the fuck up.

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

Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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Saturday, September 11, 2021 9:27 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:

Hey. You've got a huge house and a ton of money and a successful business.

Get in contact with somebody from the Administration* and tell them that you'll take in a sand-people family and that you won't even accept the $67,000 per person for it.

That, or shut the fuck up.

Your demand is along the same lines as Jeff Bezos could give all Amazon workers $105,000 and still be as rich as pre-Covid, therefore he must give the money away: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/jeff-bezos-could-give-all-amazo
n-workers-105000-and-still-be-as-rich-as-pre-covid-212545
/

Or your demand is along the line of if Warren Buffett advocates higher taxes for the rich, he should stop advocating and just give his wealth to the U.S. Treasury: https://www.newsweek.com/warren-buffett-who-advocates-higher-taxes-def
ends-paying-least-among-americas-richest-1598830


Dream on, 6ix, but Bezos, Buffett and I didn't get rich by doing as the poor want us to. We do the opposite and that is why we prosper and the poor don't. If you don't like it, get your government to pressure the rich to change their ways. I'm sure a government with Trump as President would be very open minded about pressuring the rich to pay all their taxes, raise wages and benefits, etc. Or maybe Trump won't if his first term is a guide to his second.

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

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Saturday, September 11, 2021 9:36 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


You don't have a business or money.

But thank you for proving my point regardless.



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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."

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