Bernie Sanders Discussion Thread by reaverfan

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

Polls Say Bernie Is More Electable Than Hillary. Don’t Believe Them.

What they really show is a candidate who hasn’t been attacked.

Sanders does better than Clinton in hypothetical matchups against the Republicans. Currently, Sanders outperforms Clinton by more than seven percentage points against Trump, and by nearly nine points against Ted Cruz. But that’s not because Sanders is the stronger nominee. It’s because Republicans haven’t yet trashed him the way they’ve trashed Clinton. Once they do, his advantage over her would disappear.

Say you’re a Republican running against Bernie. There are a lot of bad things you could say about him. You want to pick the message that will hurt him most and hurt you least. So you call up a bunch of people and ask them how they’re planning to vote. Then you try out the various messages you’re considering. After each message, you ask the person on the phone to what degree this statement makes her less likely to support your opponent. When you’re done, you ask her once more how she’s planning to vote, given the information you’ve provided. Congratulations: You’ve just conducted a campaign in a poll. You’ve ascertained how the election might turn out, depending on how you go after Bernie.

That’s what a general-election campaign against Sanders would look like. Republicans would rip Sanders as a big-spending, big-taxing socialist. They have plenty of ammo. They could quote the 2015 letter in which Sanders urged President Obama to “raise revenue” through “executive action.” They could dig up quotes from decades ago, in which Sanders called himself “clearly anti-capitalistic,” complained that U.S. interventions in Latin America “have been for the benefit of large corporations,” and praised communist countries as culturally superior. “Contrast what the young people in China and Cuba are doing for themselves and for their country as compared to the young people in America,” Sanders argued in 1976.

Republicans could hammer the back-seat foreign policy Sanders conducted as a mayor in Vermont: going to Cuba to seek a meeting with Fidel Castro, visiting Lenin’s tomb in the Soviet Union, and traveling to Nicaragua, where he met with Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega and praised the country’s cultural minister as a “hippie” whose government was “teaching poetry not only to peasants and to workers but in the military.” They could go after Sanders’ countercultural mockery of “respectful clerks, technicians and soldiers.” They could rehash his attacks on compulsory schooling, dairy laws, and fluoridation, or his Freudian analysis of napalm use in Vietnam, or his advocacy of public toddler nudity and genital touching as cures for porn, or the sexual quackery through which he attributed breast cancer and cervical cancer to orgasm deficiency and capitalist conformity.

Basically, if you were designing the perfect target for Republicans you’d create Bernie Sanders — a candidate who proudly links socialist economics to hippie culture, libertinism, left-wing foreign policy, new-age nonsense, and contempt for bourgeois values. Clinton could have attacked these weaknesses in the primary—her supporters had an opposition research file on Sanders’ “associations with communism”—but she didn’t. In a general election, Republicans wouldn’t hesitate.

Would a GOP assault along these lines hurt Sanders? Absolutely.

www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/04/polls_say_be
rnie_is_more_electable_than_hillary_don_t_believe_them.html

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Friday, April 29, 2016 9:50 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
If he doesn't run, by CA rules, I would literally not have any else to vote for.

Bernie Sanders Has Done the Progressive Movement No Favors
—By Kevin Drum, Fri Apr. 29, 2016 1:25 AM EDT
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/04/heres-why-i-never-warmed-bernie
-sanders

With the Democratic primary basically over, I want to step back a bit and explain the big-picture reason that I never warmed up to Bernie Sanders. It's not so much that he's all that far to my left, nor that he's been pretty skimpy on details about all the programs he proposes. That's hardly uncommon in presidential campaigns. Rather, it's the fact that I think he's basically running a con, and one with the potential to cause distinct damage to the progressive cause.

I mean this as a provocation—but I also mean it. So if you're provoked, mission accomplished! Here's my argument.

Bernie's explanation for everything he wants to do—his theory of change, or theory of governing, take your pick—is that we need a revolution in this country. The rich own everything. Income inequality is skyrocketing. The middle class is stagnating. The finance industry is out of control. Washington DC is paralyzed.

But as Bill Scher points out,
( www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-democratic-part
y-new-york-primary-213829 ) the revolution that Bernie called for didn't show up. In fact, it's worse than that: we were never going to get a revolution, and Bernie knew it all along. Think about it: has there ever been an economic revolution in the United States? Stretching things a bit, I can think of two:

. The destruction of the Southern slave economy following the Civil War.

. The New Deal.

The first of these was 50+ years in the making and, in the end, required a bloody, four-year war to bring to a conclusion. The second happened only after an utter collapse of the economy, with banks closing, businesses failing, wages plummeting, and unemployment at 25 percent. That's what it takes to bring about a revolution, or even something close to it.

We're light years away from that right now. Unemployment? Yes, two or three percent of the working-age population has dropped out of the labor force, but the headline unemployment rate is 5 percent. Wages? They've been stagnant since the turn of the century, but the average family still makes close to $70,000, more than nearly any other country in the world. Health care? Our system is a mess, but 90 percent of the country has insurance coverage. Dissatisfaction with the system? According to Gallup, even among those with incomes under $30,000, only 27 percent are dissatisfied with their personal lives.

Like it or not, you don't build a revolution on top of an economy like this. Period. If you want to get anything done, you're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: through the slow boring of hard wood.

Why do I care about this? Because if you want to make a difference in this country, you need to be prepared for a very long, very frustrating slog. You have to buy off interest groups, compromise your ideals, and settle for half loaves—all the things that Bernie disdains as part of the corrupt mainstream establishment. In place of this he promises his followers we can get everything we want via a revolution that's never going to happen. And when that revolution inevitably fails, where do all his impressionable young followers go? Do they join up with the corrupt establishment and commit themselves to the slow boring of hard wood? Or do they give up?

I don't know, but my fear is that some of them will do the latter. And that's a damn shame. They've been conned by a guy who should know better, the same way dieters get conned by late-night miracle diets. When it doesn't work, they throw in the towel.

Most likely Bernie will have no lasting effect, and his followers will scatter in the usual way, with some doubling down on practical politics and others leaving for different callings. But there's a decent chance that Bernie's failure will result in a net increase of cynicism about politics, and that's the last thing we need. I hate the idea that we might lose even a few talented future leaders because they fell for Bernie's spiel and then got discouraged when it didn't pan out.

I'll grant that my pitch—and Hillary's and Barack Obama's—isn't very inspiring. Work your fingers to the bone for 30 years and you might get one or two significant pieces of legislation passed. Obviously you need inspiration too. But if you don't want your followers to give up in disgust, your inspiration needs to be in the service of goals that are at least attainable. By offering a chimera instead, Bernie has done the progressive movement no favors.

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

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Saturday, April 30, 2016 11:10 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
If he doesn't run, by CA rules, I would literally not have any else to vote for.- SIGNY

Bernie Sanders Has Done the Progressive Movement No Favors
—By Kevin Drum, Fri Apr. 29, 2016 1:25 AM EDT
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/04/heres-why-i-never-warmed-bernie
-sanders

With the Democratic primary basically over, I want to step back a bit and explain the big-picture reason that I never warmed up to Bernie Sanders. It's not so much that he's all that far to my left, nor that he's been pretty skimpy on details about all the programs he proposes. That's hardly uncommon in presidential campaigns. Rather, it's the fact that I think he's basically running a con, and one with the potential to cause distinct damage to the progressive cause.

What IS "the progressive cause" anyway? It's a little hard to tell, Most "progressives" that I know tend to focus on things like "how many people are in our camp?" as opposed to actually accomplishing anything.

Quote:
I mean this as a provocation—but I also mean it. So if you're provoked, mission accomplished! Here's my argument.

Bernie's explanation for everything he wants to do—his theory of change, or theory of governing, take your pick—is that we need a revolution in this country. The rich own everything. Income inequality is skyrocketing. The middle class is stagnating. The finance industry is out of control. Washington DC is paralyzed.

All extremely true.

Quote:
But as Bill Scher points out,
( www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-democratic-part
y-new-york-primary-213829 ) the revolution that Bernie called for didn't show up. In fact, it's worse than that: we were never going to get a revolution, and Bernie knew it all along.

Yanno, I've had people impute base motives of me quite a bit here, including that I'm a Russian bot (Yep, Russia implanted me on this board since 2003! That was pretty far-seeing of them don't you think?). That statement about Bernie sounds like a far stretch, especially since they don't provide any really convincing support later.

Quote:
Think about it: has there ever been an economic revolution in the United States? Stretching things a bit, I can think of two:
. The destruction of the Southern slave economy following the Civil War.
. The New Deal.
The first of these was 50+ years in the making and, in the end, required a bloody, four-year war to bring to a conclusion. The second happened only after an utter collapse of the economy, with banks closing, businesses failing, wages plummeting, and unemployment at 25 percent. That's what it takes to bring about a revolution, or even something close to it.

Only if you mean violent revolution ... i.e. with guns or very close to it. Sanders wasn't looking for a "revolution" in that sense, more like a complete turnabout of policy thru political means. This author misrepresents Sanders' main goal completely to make a point.

Quote:
We're light years away from that right now. Unemployment? Yes, two or three percent of the working-age population has dropped out of the labor force, but the headline unemployment rate is 5 percent.

Unemployment has always been a jiggered number, since it counts anyone who has even worked one hour in a month as "employed", but with the dramatic rise of the temporary workforce and the internet-fueled "gig economy" MORE people are underemployed than ever before, making the unemployment rate a fictitious number.

Quote:
Wages? They've been stagnant since the turn of the century, but the average family still makes close to $70,000, more than nearly any other country in the world.

Ahhh, the error of averages! Twenty ballplayers are sitting on a bench. Nineteen make $20,000 a year and one makes #20 million a year. What is the "average" wage?

Anyone who resorts to "average" .... especially when the distribution is so non-gaussian ... can't make an honest argument. I'm going to impute something here: I'll bet he looked at a bunch of statistics on wealth and wages and had to choose the least representative one to make his point, because it's the ONLY one that is positive.

Quote:
Health care? Our system is a mess, but 90 percent of the country has insurance coverage. Dissatisfaction with the system? According to Gallup, even among those with incomes under $30,000, only 27 percent are dissatisfied with their personal lives.

You have got to be shitting me, right? I know people with incomes of less than $30,000, and unless they're living in mommy's and daddy's home, with all of their major expenes taken care of, they are NOT satisfied with their personal lives! I'd love to see a link that that poll!

Quote:
Like it or not, you don't build a revolution on top of an economy like this. Period. If you want to get anything done, you're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: through the slow boring of hard wood.

Why do I care about this? Because if you want to make a difference in this country, you need to be prepared for a very long, very frustrating slog.

Yes

Quote:
You have to buy off interest groups, compromise your ideals, and settle for half loaves—all the things that Bernie disdains as part of the corrupt mainstream establishment.

The Democratic Party has been doing that since at least 1960, and all we've managed to do is slide backwards. That is NOT progress.

Quote:
In place of this he promises his followers we can get everything we want via a revolution that's never going to happen. And when that revolution inevitably fails, where do all his impressionable young followers go? Do they join up with the corrupt establishment and commit themselves to the slow boring of hard wood? Or do they give up?

Or do they get even more pissed off and vote for someone like Trump?

Quote:
I don't know, but my fear is that some of them will do the latter. And that's a damn shame. They've been conned by a guy who should know better, the same way dieters get conned by late-night miracle diets. When it doesn't work, they throw in the towel.

Most likely Bernie will have no lasting effect, and his followers will scatter in the usual way, with some doubling down on practical politics and others leaving for different callings. But there's a decent chance that Bernie's failure will result in a net increase of cynicism about politics, and that's the last thing we need.

We need true believers in a corrupt process?

Quote:
I hate the idea that we might lose even a few talented future leaders because they fell for Bernie's spiel and then got discouraged when it didn't pan out.

Then they're not leaders, only followers. I think he's just worried about losing followers.

Quote:
I'll grant that my pitch—and Hillary's and Barack Obama's—isn't very inspiring. Work your fingers to the bone for 30 years and you might get one or two significant pieces of legislation passed. Obviously you need inspiration too. But if you don't want your followers to give up in disgust, your inspiration needs to be in the service of goals that are at least attainable. By offering a chimera instead, Bernie has done the progressive movement no favors.

Under Obama's and Hilary watch, we've moved backward, not forwards. Just like the author said ....

Quote:
The rich own everything. Income inequality is skyrocketing. The middle class is stagnating. The finance industry is out of control. Washington DC is paralyzed.

Isn't "progress" part of the term "progressive"? So, where's the progress?

Article: dishonestly framed from beginning to end. Clearly, this person is boosting the Democratic Party as a viable pathway towards progress, instead of the influence-infested swamp that it really is.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, April 30, 2016 12:49 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Article: dishonestly framed from beginning to end. Clearly, this person is boosting the Democratic Party as a viable pathway towards progress, instead of the influence-infested swamp that it really is.

There is no need to give up hope so long as Bernie lives and Hillary might die at an opportune moment. Maybe Hillary dies from a plane crash or a bullet. The convention chooses Bernie, then the general election decides if Bernie is better than a Republican. It is the Heir and a Spare concept, with Bernie as the spare.

And I just checked and found that "Americans Are Happy With Their Lives but Angry at Government, Poll Shows".
http://time.com/4296805/american-anger-poll-donald-trump/

84% of respondents said they are enthusiastic or satisfied with their personal relationships, and 77% said the same about their career. 64% said they are satisfied with their financial situation. Sorrowfully, the situation isn't bad enough to spontaneously ignite into a revolution, but Bernie can be useful by figuring out how to reach out before 2020 to that 30 percent of eligible-but-not-registered voters. He could start a real political revolution by getting their votes! Just because it looks very unlikely that Bernie will win the nomination this particular time, that doesn't mean that a different candidate won't be able to succeed with a similar platform and strategy in 2020 when all those potential new voters get registered and vote.
www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11497822/sanders-political-revolution-vote

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Saturday, April 30, 2016 1:23 PM

REAVERFAN

The author wasn't honest, at all. Who hires these clowns? How did that end up in Mother Jones?

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Saturday, April 30, 2016 2:23 PM

THGRRI

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
Louis CK vid

Good stuff. I thought the guy in the black watch cap at the far end of the bar would chime in and dis the guy in the plaid shirt with something like, "You're no better - saying "if only..." is a bunch of horse sh*t too."
There is a kind of perfection in what kind of government we have right now - it is the creation and end result of all the effort and lack of effort, of each and every single person.

On Bernie: My 73 yr old father-in-law said, "Take it from me, he's too old. He'd be 78 by the time his term ended... way too old."

The biggest reason I knew Bernie had no chance of winning was because of something he said himself. 80% of poor people don't vote. So in a way they are somewhat responsible for there plight in life. Sad but true.

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Saturday, April 30, 2016 5:21 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:

The biggest reason I knew Bernie had no chance of winning was because of something he said himself. 80% of poor people don't vote. So in a way they are somewhat responsible for there plight in life. Sad but true.

. . . unless something dramatic happens, Americans are heading for a society in which a tiny elite controls most of the wealth, resources and decision-making power.
www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/books/review/listen-liberal-and-the-limousi
ne-liberal.html

You know what the something dramatic is? Poor people going out to vote. Getting into the details, it would be better for the poor not to vote for the multi-billionaire. I don't think he has their best interests at heart. More likely he has his own best interests at heart since that is how he became a multi-billionaire.

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Saturday, April 30, 2016 8:02 PM

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

"unless something dramatic happens"

The Democratic Party, as embodied by Hillary, Debbie and Bill, has lost 45% support from the registered democrats who voted (to date). And then there's Hillary's 40% favorable to 55% unfavorable numbers.

If I were them, that would concern me. They seem like dramatic figures for the presumed next president.

SAGAN: We are releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide, increasing the greenhouse effect. It may not take much to destabilize the Earth's climate, to convert this heaven, our only home in the cosmos, into a kind of hell.

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Sunday, May 1, 2016 5:54 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

The Democratic Party, as embodied by Hillary, Debbie and Bill, has lost 45% support from the registered democrats who voted (to date). And then there's Hillary's 40% favorable to 55% unfavorable numbers.

If I were them, that would concern me. They seem like dramatic figures for the presumed next president.

But what can Hillary do about it? I’d say nothing she does will get your vote or change her unfavorable numbers. Well, she could nominate Bernie as her VP, then tell the world after the convention but before November election that she will be stepping down from the Presidency and Bernie will be stepping up within a month after they are both sworn in by the Chief Justice. Would that get Hillary your vote in November? Is your answer still “No!” because you don’t trust her to keep her word?

1kiki wrote: "I didn't start out thinking 'anybody but Clinton'. But I've moved in that direction as her true intentions (and arrogance, hubris and patently bad judgment) become more obvious."
www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=60433&mid=1010427#
1010427

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Sunday, May 1, 2016 9:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
But what can Hillary do about it? I’d say nothing she does will get your vote or change her unfavorable numbers.

You're absolutely right. 40 years of being a corrupt politician is not about to be erased any time before November. And then, there was this

WTH???

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Sunday, May 1, 2016 2:00 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
But what can Hillary do about it? I’d say nothing she does will get your vote or change her unfavorable numbers.
You're absolutely right. 40 years of being a corrupt politician is not about to be erased any time before November. And then, there was this

WTH???

I checked. Hillary had nothing to do with Muammar Gaddafi’s killing.

It figures she’d be insinuating that she had some involvement. But she did nothing. She was useless. It’s Obama. And his contribution? Going along with the decision of 9 other nations on the UN Security Council approving the no-fly zone over Libya.

The closest Hillary got to doing something worth writing about was one month after the Libyan Civil War started, which Hillary had nothing to do with starting. Sarkozy, who was also the president of the G8, along with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and pressed her to push for intervention in Libya.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Civil_War_%282011%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Muammar_Gaddafi

It is typical Hillary: dithering and indecisive. Once Gaddafi is dead, she wants some credit. Except she deserves nothing for starting the Civil War or killing Gaddafi or the chaos that followed or Benghazi. She did nothing. She is irrelevant, but she pretends to be important, all of which is very sad and even ironic that Hillary is blamed for the mess that is Libya today.

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Sunday, May 1, 2016 4:10 PM

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

I probably should post this in the Hillary thread, but so as to not lose track of the discussion, I'll put it here.

But what can Hillary do about it? I’d say nothing she does will get your vote or change her unfavorable numbers.

I think Hillary COULD have changed this if she'd moved earlier. She may still be able to. (Though the percent of Bernie voters who say they will not vote for Hillary if she's the nominee has gone up from 25% to 33%, and that doesn't bode well for a potential turnaround.)

Here's my thinking overall.

The positive things about Hillary's initial positions were mostly about women's rights and gay rights and immigrant's rights.

But her biggest NEGATIVE to me is her history of war-mongering, and the fact that she's doing the bidding of AIPAC and the neo-cons - if indeed she's not a neo-con herself. Though since neo-con politicians tend to not announce that they're part of the group, her official status as a neo-con is hard to determine. (The State Department has a long and illustrious history of being run by the neo-con deep state rather than by the president's office, starting with Bush deux and Afghanistan, and through the current CIA missions in Syria. And those neo-con CIA missions in Syria ironically have ended up fighting the US military in Syria. Because the military IS run from the president's office, and the president is not pleased with the CIA fostering ISIS. But that whole "schizophrenic foreign policy thing" where one branch of the US government is fighting another branch of the US government on foreign soil is a discussion for another time.)

Starting with Afghanistan, every single one of those neo-con efforts has ended up as a major clusterfuck, with previously stable countries left in literal smoking ruins across the globe. And those countries that we so stupidly destroyed that also have nearby terrorist organizations have now become major sources of global, exported terror. As Europe knows too well. (And put this in the predictions thread - thanks to Hillary's valiant efforts around the globe we here in the US aren't done with foreign terrorism on home soil, either. But that's also another discussion for another time.)

So, with Afghanistan and Iraq as object lessons in how neo-con missions can go so very wrong, what did Hillary learn? Well, she enthusiastically backed every neo-con action during her time as Secretary of State. Libya. Ukraine. Syria. And the results? Smoking ruins? Check. Smoking ruins? Check. Smoking ruins? Check. What do I surmise that she DID she learn? Assuming smoking-ruins-clusterfucks were not her goal, apparently she learned nothing.

Initially I backed Bernie because his PLATFORM AND HISTORY were overall superior to Hillary's.

But as time has gone on my focus ON HILLARY has sharpened. What has HILLARY learned from history? What has HILLARY learned from her own failures? What has HILLARY learned on the campaign trail from Bernie's popularity? And the answer appears to be - next to nothing.

Yes, she's made some concessions around the edges. She now says she's for a federal minimum wage of $12.00 per hour. It doesn't match Bernie's $15.00 per hour minimum wage, and certainly doesn't match her own rhetoric that a person who works full time should not be living in poverty. But what the hell. At least she's now said SOMEthing about the minimum wage, where she was silent before. And she's said that people should be able to graduate from college without a burdensome debt. What's burdensome? She's failed to reveal what she means. Nor has she provided anything specific. But what the hell. She's now said SOMEthing about it, where she was silent before. And there are a few other tidbits that I haven't mentioned.

But there are four things that to me are about survival - how do we survive, if indeed we do survive. What has HILLARY learned about these issues?

One is whether or not we back Israel no matter what. Israel and its actions have been at the root of a lot of terrorism in the middle east. Bernie thinks the US should not back Israel in its expansion of settlements that are internationally recognized as illegal; and not in its targeting civilians with reprisal, which is also internationally recognized as illegal. Going by Hillary's AIPAC speech, she's on board with everything Israel does, and will back it with US policy and might, no matter what. YAY Hillary!! You show 'em! And ... what has she learned over time about the negative results of US-Israel policy? Nothing.

The second is 'too big to fail' banks. Those 'too big to fail' banks have gotten even 'yuger' - and risker - since they brought down the global economy in 2008. (And if you think the global economy has recovered and is now stable, you're mistaken.) Thanks to cheap loans to banks, the continued co-mingling of investment and savings banks, the continued lax capitalization requirements, and the continued accounting of outstanding loans as assets (on which to borrow even more money), the banks have been borrowing and placing trillions of non-existent money into the stock market. Which is driving the lighter-than-air frothy stock market.
But we already know about bubbles - they're made of nothing. And when they pop, you end up with nothing. Or in this case, the banks end up with nothing. There are estimates that the banks have bubbly money to the tune of 20x the global GDP.
Governments already figured out some time ago that they will not be able to insure your government-guaranteed savings account should the banking bubble pop again. So they instituted 'bail in' regulations, which require that banks make THEMSELVES whole out of YOUR savings account. Because your savings account isn't really yours, after all. It's an unsecured loan to the banks.
Bernie has said he wants to break up too-big-to-fail banks.
And Hillary? What has she learned from the painful global 2008 experience? What has she learned about her constituents on the campaign trail? ... Crickets. I suspect her attachment to big banks is keeping her from making that breakthrough in her thinking.

There's global warming and its attendant ocean acidification.
FWIW I've already mourned the loss of this beautiful, gracious, bountiful planet. I've said my goodbye. We won't stop ourselves from turning it into a despoiled, festering sore. And global warming is only part of it. There's deforestation, overfishing, chemical pollution, plastic pollution, species extinction, soil loss, reef and tidal marshland loss ... and so on.
But if you still think there's a chance, and you want to know what what has Hillary learned over the years about global warming ... she supports renewables and tax breaks for renewables, and increased rail safety. Does she oppose offshore drilling? Arctic drilling? Fracking? Or at least want to increase their safety? Well ... no. Does she want to remove tax breaks for the oil industry? No. Increased public transportation? Silence.
If you think the environment in general, and global warming in particular, are about survival, does Hillary get us there? Apparently her attachment to big oil is stronger than mere survival.

And finally, there's the issue I have about her playing global-thermonuclear-warfare chicken with Russia.
And here's where I've been very focused on her ability to learn from the impersonal past, from HER past, and from the campaign trail and the voice of her constituents, and to incorporate better alternatives.
What has she learned from Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Ukraine? Syria?
Out of that history, what she's learned is that Libya was a great success, and she's just tickled pink and giddy over it. "We came. We saw. He died. (Laughter.)" That Libya is now a failed state of warlord wannabes and jihadis, and a net source of terrorism, doesn't seem to have penetrated her skull.
And what does she think of her own efforts in Ukraine, which is now a smoking ruins? Or of her own efforts in Syria, which is now a smoking ruins? Apparently she's deep-sixed that history from her mind, if you go by her silence.
That doesn't bode well for her ability to rationally assess the past, or the present, or the future.
Relations with Russia are now hostile, and Putin has already said Russia will use nuclear weapons if threatened. But Hillary doesn't seem to have taken note of that, at least according to the private speech she gave where she likened Putin's actions to Hitler's; and where she implied she'll continue on her provocative path towards Russia - because she thinks Putin will show restraint.
Not only does that sound like she hasn't learned anything over the years, it doesn't even sound sane.
Which gets us to Hillary, on the campaign trail. With her fading support among democrats, and her net negatives overall, she has every incentive to modify her positions. Instead, with some very minor exceptions, she's covered them over with silence.

Her neo-con agenda, along with her well-documented history of eminent bad judgment, and inability to learn from mistakes, is her big negative. She hasn't learned anything from the failure of Afghanistan. Or Iraq, Libya, Ukraine, or Syria. She intends to continue forward with the neo-con agenda of provoking Russia, without an apparent goal or stopping point, or consideration of how it could go wrong. And since I personally don't believe in limited thermo-nuclear war, her agenda presents the possibility of a near-term threat to survival.

And that's such a big negative, it's something I CAN'T vote for. Hence, 'anybody but Hillary'.

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Sunday, May 1, 2016 6:01 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

So, with Afghanistan and Iraq as object lessons in how neo-con missions can go so very wrong, what did Hillary learn? Well, she enthusiastically backed every neo-con action during her time as Secretary of State. Libya. Ukraine. Syria. And the results? Smoking ruins? Check. Smoking ruins? Check. Smoking ruins? Check. What do I surmise that she DID she learn? Assuming smoking-ruins-clusterfucks were not her goal, apparently she learned nothing.

The burning necklace of tires, representing these failed nations, ought to go around Obama's neck, rather than Hillary's. He is more guilty. Bernie has not attacked Obama fiercely about those failures. You, on the other hand, have used the most inflammatory rhetoric. It is always the supporters who go too far. Maybe too far for Bernie to support your position. I bet Bernie will endorse Hillary. I'll know for sure after the convention whether I bet correctly.

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Sunday, May 1, 2016 7:20 PM

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

I thought I made it clear, in many ways over many sentences, that Iraq and Afghanistan weren't Hillary's failures. I said, over and over ... and over, they were impersonal object lessons from history from which she could and should have learned - but failed to do so. But if you want to apportion blame, Iraq and Afghanistan go around Bush's neck.

But the decision to bomb Libya is on Hillary. She was charged with investigating the US course, she was convinced the US should bomb, and she made the recommendation; and to her discredit, nothing since then has convinced her otherwise. Not the smoking ruins, the civilian deaths, the instability, the warlordism, and the exported terrorism. Libya is HER failure, and she SHOULD have learned from it, but didn't.

On to Ukraine. Hillary hired Nuland, a neocon. Maybe you can convince me that Hillary was oblivious to what Nuland was doing all those years in preparation for the coup. But a mere 12 months after Hillary left office, there's Nuland, in on the coup, and picking who the US wants as the next PM. Either Nuland was working on Hillary's left-over project during that time, or Kerry as Nuland's motivating factor was a very, very busy boy, setting up the contacts, making the overtures, deciding the who and when and how, and funneling US support and direction, over those 12 months. I'd put my money on Hillary.

On to Syria. The US was smuggling arms out of Libya (the US Embassy annex in Benghazi to be precise) through Turkey to armed groups of no particular denomination in Syria. The only qualifying criteria was you had to be anti-Assad. The 'how' you intended to get rid of him wasn't important. That too is on Hillary. unless you want to claim she was either unaware of the arms smuggling out of her embassy, or unable to protest it then or now.

Add to that her AIPAC speech which offers Israel endless US support, no questions asked; and her private speech which does nothing to deescalate tensions with Russia - both of which I've posted on Firefly, and which are undeniable facts - and you have the picture of a dangerous and deluded politician, unable to learn from history, from her own mistakes, or from the campaign trail's feedback. And if her OWN RECORD and her OWN SPEECHES are inflammatory, oops. Too bad for her.

I have to say, your denial of facts is impressive.

PS - when I go into the voting booth it will be me, punching those punch-outs for my own reasons. There will be no strings attaching me to Bernie, with him manipulating my movements as if I'm some marionette. IF he, or you, or somebody, happens to come up with some cogent reason as to why Hillary is preferable, I'll consider it. Until then, deescalating tensions with Russia and backing away from our provocative policies towards Russia will be MY primary considerations. Because the alternative, which Hillary is hell bent on pursuing, is dangerous.

And just to show you I'm not either misunderstanding or misrepresenting her position towards Russia, here's her official neo-con crock of shit directly from her website

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/national-security/?webSyncID=749
d5162-1dd1-9d79-9925-cb2049b7b464&sessionGUID=507d26b9-812a-7dc2-94b7-40882982b014

Standing up to Putin. Hillary has gone toe-to-toe with Putin before, and she'll do it again. She'll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our European allies and help them decrease dependence on Russian oil. With our partners, Hillary will confine, contain, and deter Russian aggressions in Europe and beyond, and increase the costs to Putin for his actions.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 12:02 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
I thought I made it clear, in many ways over many sentences, that Iraq and Afghanistan weren't Hillary's failures. I said, over and over ... and over, they were impersonal object lessons from history from which she could and should have learned - but failed to do so. But if you want to apportion blame, Iraq and Afghanistan go around Bush's neck.

That would make the Vietnam War all JFK’s fault. Or, since he first sent military, is Eisenhower to blame for the Nixon era Vietnam War? No, on second thought, Nixon is to blame for Nixon’s Vietnam. Want to shift some blame to Kissinger? He was there, but the War was all Nixon, all the time. Nixon needed Kissinger to sit down with N Vietnam, but only because Paris is hours away from Washington and Nixon had to delegate. Somebody has stay in America and teargas those hippies and that was Nixon’s delightful form of recreation.

Obama’s Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are Obama’s. Not Bush’s. Ukraine, Syria, Libya? That is all Obama, not Hillary. Hillary may dream that she was Kissinger to Obama’s Nixon, but she is about as Machiavellian as a divorce lawyer. I never expected Hillary to learn anything from her job as Secretary of State other than how dry her skin gets while spending two thousand hours a year on a jet plane. She was just Obama's mouthpiece, just another lawyer serving her client's desires. Does a divorce lawyer decide who divorces who? No. Did Hillary decide where Obama would next go to war? No.

Obama has plenty of his own foreign policy sins that Bernie could call down hellfire upon him, should Bernie wish to. But Bernie has not. Why not? Obama is popular with Bernie supporters. But if it makes you feel better, blame Hillary for Obama’s foreign policy.

Bernie has said nothing about drone strikes and Obama’s love of the phrases “collateral damage” and “wedding party”, which makes the Pentagon’s targeting sound competent and pinpoint accurate. I’m guessing Bernie does not want to offend some of his supporters who are also comfortable with Obama. It’s better for Bernie to blame all foreign policy on Hillary.
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/01/d-c-elite-hated-larry-wilmores-dro
ne-joke-last-night-but-loved-obamas-in-2010/

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Monday, May 2, 2016 1:21 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I thought I made it clear, in many ways over many sentences, that Iraq and Afghanistan weren't Hillary's failures. I said, over and over ... and over, they were impersonal object lessons from history from which she could and should have learned - but failed to do so. But if you want to apportion blame, Iraq and Afghanistan go around Bush's neck.

You did make that pellucidly clear.

Quote:
That would make the Vietnam War all JFK’s fault. Or, since he first sent military, is Eisenhower to blame for the Nixon era Vietnam War? No, on second thought, Nixon is to blame for Nixon’s Vietnam. Want to shift some blame to Kissinger? He was there, but the War was all Nixon, all the time. Nixon needed Kissinger to sit down with N Vietnam, but only because Paris is hours away from Washington and Nixon had to delegate. Somebody has stay in America and teargas those hippies and that was Nixon’s delightful form of recreation. Obama’s Iraq and Afghanistan Wars are Obama’s.

Who started these wars will full scale "shock and awe" attacks? Who attempted to put a satrap (Bremmer) in power? Who killed up to a million people? Obama?

Obama isn't about shock and awe, or massive numbers boots on the ground. He's more about drone attacks. So you can look at Sudan, Yemen, and Pakistan as Obama's babies.

Quote:
Not Bush’s. Ukraine, Syria, Libya? That is all Obama, not Hillary. Hillary may dream that she was Kissinger to Obama’s Nixon, but she is about as Machiavellian as a divorce lawyer. I never expected Hillary to learn anything from her job as Secretary of State other than how dry her skin gets while spending two thousand hours a year on a jet plane.

Wow, then you have low expectations of the woman you expect to be President!

And you are entirely mistaken. USA Embassies are joined at the hip with the CIA. Our embassies are CIA listening posts, if nothing else, and at times centers of action. Secretaries of State know this. So do our more "experienced" Ambassadors, like Christopher Stevens, the one in Libya who was directing the arms shipments to Syria.

Quote:
Obama has plenty of his own foreign policy sins that Bernie could call down hellfire upon him, should Bernie wish to. But Bernie has not. Why not? Obama is popular with Bernie supporters. But if it makes you feel better, blame Hillary for Obama’s foreign policy.

I have often thought that some of Hillary's activities were a downright surprise to Obama. That's why the USA can have CIA fighting the Pentagon, or make war in Syria and make peace in Iran. Some policies, when put together, try cancel each other out.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 1:52 AM

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

"Did Hillary decide where Obama would next go to war? No."

So, I suppose Jimmy Carter was responsible for Ronnie Reagan telling Ayatollah Khomeini to keep the Iranian hostages till after the election? Because after all, Carter was President and everything was under his direct control. At least, your reasoming would say so. Or is that just a really, really naive assumption you're making?

Libya

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.ht
ml
The president was wary. The secretary of state was persuasive. But the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven.

Ukraine
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/22758-meet-the-american
s-who-put-together-the-coup-in-kiev

Libyan arms to Syria
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-admin-admits-to-covertly-sending-
heavy-weapons-to-syrian-rebels-2012-12
Clinton State Department approved U.S. weapons shipment to Libya despite ban
Memos recovered from Benghazi compound divulge covert effort

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Monday, May 2, 2016 4:35 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

Au contraire, Irving...far from it.

Say, isn't there a conservative motto "Thou shalt not tell the States
what to do." Each state has their own agenda, and that's the way it should be -
Founding Fathers and all that rubbish - nor would any self-respecting New Yorker
strive to fix someone else's problems; you broke it, you fix it.

I was actually extolling the virtues of New York as an independent beacon of the
modern-day political pioneer steeped in patriotic tradition. The mentality that
currently exists and pervades the political landscape is one that they would
have been proud of. In other words, we no need no stinking states (or Feds for
that matter) to tell us what to do. Nor would we be so presumptuous to impose
our beliefs and systems on others. What works for New York, may not work for
Kansas and vice versa. No, leave us alone, thank you very much.

Let us figure out our own mess and don't be so quick to pass judgment; there are some states that really suck at this whole voting thing....so, move over Arizona,
North Carolina, Texas, etc. you are not the only ones that need fixing. You're
not the only ones with crooked state senators, incompetent greedy governors,
inept officials and dick-less police chiefs. It is an American right of passage
to have a fucked up voting process that totally ignores the rights and will of
the people. It's the American way.

I'm shinygoodguy and I approve this message.

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
That's how we do in NY!!!!!

Indeed [/snark]

Additional Evidence Of Mind-Boggling Fraud Emerges from The New York Primary
Quote:
For the past week or so, I’ve been warning readers that the supposedly “liberal” state of New York has some of the most repressive voting laws in the country. Before reading the rest of this post, I suggest refreshing your memory on just how undemocratic New York is by checking out the following:

Published April 13th: Hillary Clinton Will Win New York, Because New York is Running a Banana Republic Primary

Published yesterday: As Expected, New York’s Primary is Already a Pathetic Mess

As such, two things were obvious going into the New York primary: 1) Hillary Clinton would win. 2) There would be an enormous amount of voter suppression and fraud.

Well the results are in, and the state of the state in New York is very, very bad.

The Daily Beast reports:

Alba Guerrero was dumbfounded. She’d arrived at her polling place in Ozone Park, Queens only to be told that she had been registered as a Republican since 2004.

That was news to her. She remembers registering to vote for the first time as a Democrat so she could vote for Barack Obama in the general election in 2008. When she recently moved from Manhattan to Ozone Park, in Queens, she re-registered at the DMV, she says, and even checked online on March 9th to be sure she was registered at her new address.

But when she showed up to vote for Bernie Sanders at PS63 on Tuesday, she says she was told she couldn’t. New York is a closed primary, where only registered Democrats can vote in the Democratic Primary—and voters had to be registered by last October. She was told—very politely, she wants to make clear—by poll workers to take it up with a judge. She was given a court order in nearby Forest Hills.

Guerrero drove to the Queens County Board of Elections and pled her case, but Judge Ira Margulis initially turned her away.

“The judge tells me, ‘No, that’s it—2004.’ He shows me, I’m registered as a Republican. He says there’s nothing we can do,” she said.

But on her way out she saw a Board of Elections worker holding something with her name on it. It was her 2004 voter registration, replete, she remembers, with her name, her social security number, her birthday—and someone else’s signature.

“I said, ‘Excuse me, that’s not my signature,’” she said. “It’s not my handwriting. It showed completely different signatures.”

Sure enough, the signatures are strikingly different. Next to a box checked “Republican,” her 2004 signature is written in clear, deliberate, legible cursive and includes her middle name. Her more recent signature is a loopy, illegible scrawl. She insists she’s never changed it in her life, and says she can produce old tax forms to prove it.

So Guerrero went back to to Judge Margulis and showed him the discrepancy.

“He allowed me to change for that day,“ she said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who tweeted at 11:50 a.m., “There’s nothing more punk rock than voting. #GetOutAndVote”, had to change his tune by the end of the day. WNYC reported this morning that 126,000 Brooklyn Democrats had been removed from the voting rolls since last fall.

What a fake liberal clown.

“It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that the voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists,” he said in a statement released after 5 p.m. on Election Day. “I am calling on the Board of Election to reverse that purge and update the lists again using Central, not Brooklyn borough, Board of Election staff.”

A spokesperson for New York Attorney Eric Schneiderman told the New York Daily News that his office received “by far the largest volume of complaints we have received for an election since Attorney General Schneiderman took office in 2011.”

Some polling sites did not open on time, citing too few election workers. Others had faulty voting machines, or were delivered half the number of promised voting machines.

“I spent three hours this morning trying to vote,” he said. “I’m at a loss for words. I don’t understand that in the 21st century you have to stand in front of a judge to get to vote. It was laughable.”

Gershman was peeved by what happened to him, but he wonders what would’ve happened if he didn’t have a car, or the ability to miss a morning of work to fight for his ballot. And he’s also confounded by what happened to Guerrero’s voter registration form, which he shared on YouTube and calls “pretty clear fraud.”

Guerrero calls the whole incident “creepy.” She has “no idea” who might want to forge her signature on a voter registration form.

“It’s just disheartening. We’re supposed to be the number one country in the world, but things like this you’d imagine would happen in a second or third-world country,” she said. “What happened to me, basically, was fraud.”

Welcome to the real America, Alba Guerrero.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

Fugetaboudit! NY has the best voter suppression in the country, f#ck Neveda, Colorado, hell even North Carolina or the Koch brothers can't top the Big Apple.

New York, the home of the crooked politician............we aim to destroy the
democratic process. Cuomo colluding with the prick from New Jersey "Jumping
Jimmy" Chris Christie (what $50 million missing from the NJ Transit Hub?).
Yep, we have the market cornered when it comes to suppressing the vote. Every
where else their as honest as the day is long. How do you think Trump built
all those buildings and never paid anyone under the table?

Sheldon Silver ran NY like a Chicago night club for decades without taking a
single bribe...........no, wait....he's going to jail for that. And Bush got
the Supreme Court to shill for him without so much as a whoopsy daisy. Yeah, NY
is a steaming pile of doggie dung when it comes to downright nasty cheating.
Everybody's on the take.

New York, so nasty they named it twice...................

SGG

I am getting the impression that you think the rest of America should fix the Democrat party of New York, or maybe also the Republican Party of New York. Or maybe all of New York.
I have not heard anybody ask NY to fix the party system in any of the other states.
Each state controls the rules of the parties, and the elections within their own state - and then the individual party in that state makes their own rules within the rules and laws their state has enacted.

Why should you not just fix your own state? That is what the rest of us work with.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 7:57 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"Did Hillary decide where Obama would next go to war? No."

So, I suppose Jimmy Carter was responsible for Ronnie Reagan telling Ayatollah Khomeini to keep the Iranian hostages till after the election? Because after all, Carter was President and everything was under his direct control. At least, your reasoning would say so. Or is that just a really, really naive assumption you're making?

That is a poor example because Carter did not know, but he should have loudly spoken of his suspicions irregardless of what he knew for certain. Sadly for America, Carter was honest to a fault, a fault that Republicans don’t share. But there is a much better example.

Reagan was the second Republican candidate to commit treason. Nixon, as a candidate, sabotaged a ceasefire with N Vietnam. LBJ knew about the treason because he was using illegal surveilance. It is in the books and LBJ should be blamed (not Sec. of State Dean Rusk) for not stopping Nixon before he became President:
www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/disaster-of-richard-nixon/
www.commondreams.org/views/2014/08/12/george-will-confirms-nixons-viet
nam-treason

Nixon “was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government [of South Vietnam] making it clear that a Nixon presidency would have different views on peace negotiations.”

Johnson was livid. He even called the Republican Senate Minority Leader, Everett Dirksen, to complain that “they oughtn’t be doing this. This is treason.”

“I know,” was Dirksen’s feeble reply.

Johnson blasted Nixon about this on November 3rd, just prior to the election. As Robert Parry of Consortiumnews.com has written: “when Johnson confronted Nixon with evidence of the peace-talk sabotage, Nixon insisted on his innocence but acknowledged that he knew what was at stake.”

Said Nixon: “My, I would never do anything to encourage….Saigon not to come to the table….Good God, we’ve got to get them to Paris or you can’t have peace.”

But South Vietnamese President General Theiu—a notorious drug and gun runner—did boycott Johnson’s Paris peace talks. With the war still raging, Nixon claimed a narrow victory over Humphrey. He then made Kissinger his own national security adviser.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Libya

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/us/politics/hillary-clinton-libya.ht
ml
The president was wary. The secretary of state was persuasive. But the ouster of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi left Libya a failed state and a terrorist haven.

Ukraine
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/22758-meet-the-american
s-who-put-together-the-coup-in-kiev

Libyan arms to Syria
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-admin-admits-to-covertly-sending-
heavy-weapons-to-syrian-rebels-2012-12
Clinton State Department approved U.S. weapons shipment to Libya despite ban
Memos recovered from Benghazi compound divulge covert effort

You are shifting the blame from Obama to Hillary. Hillary is probably as evil as you believe, but she is also a big, fat, soft zero in my opinion. It is Obama who gets things done, not Hillary. A Secretary of State in the 21st Century, where President and Secretary are in constant communication, is much different from George Washington's Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. Hillary was Obama's puppet.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 11:25 AM

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

With many Americans voting for Bernie Sanders, we've been treated to millions of words worth of takes about the strands of populist discontent that fuel anti-establishment politics. Still, the fact remains that most people are NOT voting in the primaries. And most of the Democrats who are voting are voting for Hillary Clinton.

How to explain this paradoxical result whereby mass discontent with the economy will lead to a reaffirmation of establishment control?

John Sides offers one provocative theory — maybe most people aren't really upset. There is evidence that voters aren't angry about the economy after all. To see that evidence:
www.vox.com/2016/5/2/11548948/consumer-sentiment-historical

The overall political system actually seems to be trending toward a complacent outcome. That is why Bernie should be preparing for the 2020 election. He'd have to if he won now. Just because he might lose in 2016 does not mean he and all his followers should not prepare this year for 2020. Sadly for America, I expect Bernie lovers will surrender to despair and prepare not at all because they don't have the staying power of those nasty old Republicans who can impatiently tolerate Democrats in control. Bernie lovers can't even tolerate anybody but Bernie as President.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 11:45 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND

YOU and KIKI between the two of you, and I myself, have provide examples of how important Presidential policies were thwarted. Carter's plans for the Iranian hostage release were thwarted by Reagan, who was at the time only a Presidential candidate.

LBJ's plans for a Vietnam cease-fire were thwarted by Nixon, who himself was only a Presidential candidate.

How much more powerful would it be, then, to be able to redirect Presidential plans from the inside? For example, people who left the GWB admin describe more than one Cabinet-level meeting when GWB would listen to his different advisors glassy-eyed, and then go off into a room with Cheney, only to emerge a few minutes later as "the decider".

The USA administration is not a single entity. The CIA in particular tends to fund its own covert ops through illicit means (drug trafficking, weapons sales) but it needs a sympathetic figure in the military- like Oliver North (NSC staff, and Marine Lt Col), who reported to William Casey (CIA) who conveniently died of a brain tumor before he was to testify on any knowledge of the Iran-Contra connection.

So, there are obviously people who conduct foreign policy at odds with what the President thinks. They can be competitors, such as Presidential candidates, or they can even be high-level appointees.

What's to say that Hillary was not conducting her own foreign (neocon) policy? The State Department, with its close ties to CIA, would be a perfect fit.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 1:59 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND

YOU and KIKI between the two of you, and I myself, have provide examples of how important Presidential policies were thwarted. Carter's plans for the Iranian hostage release were thwarted by Reagan, who was at the time only a Presidential candidate.

LBJ's plans for a Vietnam cease-fire were thwarted by Nixon, who himself was only a Presidential candidate.

How much more powerful would it be, then, to be able to redirect Presidential plans from the inside? For example, people who left the GWB admin describe more than one Cabinet-level meeting when GWB would listen to his different advisors glassy-eyed, and then go off into a room with Cheney, only to emerge a few minutes later as "the decider".

Let's just assume that Bush was not all there in his head. He gave plenty of indication as Texas governor that he was lazy, incurious, and indifferent to his duties. Also assume a President who doesn't have Alzheimer's, someone who is not another Reagan.

Outside the Federal government’s executive branch, the President is not powerful. Repeat that to yourself a dozen times: not powerful, not powerful, not. . .

Yes, the President can kill people, but no, he can’t kill most people that won’t do what he wants. He needs a justification to kill. That is why LBJ did not shoot Nixon, the candidate, even though Nixon was a traitor. LBJ would have had to justify shooting him and that justification would include that LBJ was spying on Nixon. LBJ (1908–1973) died at 64. Maybe he was too tired to end scumbag Nixon in 1968.

On the other hand, the President is very powerful inside the executive branch. Repeat the word "inside" a dozen times. The President can spy on his millions of employees. He can fire employees. He can transfer disobedient employees to the Aleutian Islands to count penguins. A President who can’t control the CIA or FBI or Pentagon is a lazy foolish President that is not trying. A President that can’t control Congress or the Supreme Court or Iran or Canada or France or Russia or Somali pirates is a normal energetic President with very narrow and limited power over people who do not work for and are not paid by his executive branch.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 4:28 PM

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

"The President can spy on his millions of employees."

Yes, he can stay up - night after night - spying on his millions of employees. Because god forbid he delegate anything. He must thwart those secretive no-good doers by doing everything himself.

I can see second, that you're unwilling or unable to address the topics that I'm concerned about and reluctant to address the facts I post, preferring instead to respond to things I didn't post, and to derail onto pointless quibbles.

So, in the interests of perhaps elucidating what you think, I'm going to limit my posts to single questions with yes/ no answers. Hopefully, we'll be able to proceed with an actual, if strictly formatted, exchange of ideas.

Ready?

This statement comes from Hillary's website. Yes or no?

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/national-security/?webSyncID=749
d5162-1dd1-9d79-9925-cb2049b7b464&sessionGUID=507d26b9-812a-7dc2-94b7-40882982b014

Standing up to Putin. Hillary has gone toe-to-toe with Putin before, and she'll do it again. She'll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our European allies and help them decrease dependence on Russian oil. With our partners, Hillary will confine, contain, and deter Russian aggressions in Europe and beyond, and increase the costs to Putin for his actions.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 6:15 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

I can see second, that you're unwilling or unable to address the topics that I'm concerned about and reluctant to address the facts I post, preferring instead to respond to things I didn't post, and to derail onto pointless quibbles.

This may be called a Bernie Sanders Discussion Thread, but I don't care anymore than a Republican would. You Bernie lovers should continuously be reminded that the World is not as it should be, but you can't change it by being nice. You must be mean, cruel, violent. Being fair and reasonable will get you nothing, except with your family and friends. Here is What a Republican Attack on Bernie Sanders Would Look Like
www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/bernie_sande
rs_electability_argument_is_still_a_myth.html

Sanders’ “superior electability” is still a myth. . . . there’s been only scattered excavation of Sanders’ radical connections. He has never been asked to account for his relationship with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, for which he served as a presidential elector in 1980. At the time, the party’s platform called for abolishing the U.S. military budget and proclaimed “solidarity” with revolutionary Iran. (This was in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis.) There’s been little cable news chatter about Sanders’ 1985 trip to Nicaragua, where he reportedly joined a Sandinista rally with a crowd chanting, “Here, there, everywhere/ The Yankee will die.” It would be nice if this were due to a national consensus on the criminal nature of America’s support for the Contras. More likely, the media’s attention has simply been elsewhere.

The Clinton campaign has also ignored Sanders’ youthful sex writings. Republicans are unlikely to be so decorous. Imagine an ad drawing from the old Sanders essay “The Revolution Is Life Versus Death.” First it might quote the candidate mocking taboos on child nudity: “Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others [sic] sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing!” Then it would quote him celebrating girls who defy their mothers and have sex with their boyfriends: “The revolution comes … when a girl pushes aside all that her mother has ‘taught’ her and accepts her boyfriends [sic] love.” Finally, it would remind viewers that Sanders was one of 14 congressmen to vote against the law establishing the Amber Alert system and one of 15 to vote against an amendment criminalizing computer-generated child pornography. The fact that these votes were cast for entirely principled civil libertarian reasons is, in the context of a general-election attack, beside the point. (It’s also beside the point that lots of people, myself included, have no problem with either child nudity or teenage sex.) It takes no special political insight to see that Republicans will try to make Sanders seem like a sexual weirdo. Will it work? I have no idea, but there’s no shorter route to the frightened lizard brain of the American electorate than dark talk about children and sex.

One could go on and on in this vein. My colleague William Saletan has already written about how support for Sanders’ positions tends to fall apart when people hear the details—particularly if they learn their own taxes would go up. As the nominee, Sanders would have to address his former opposition to public schools and praise for parents who believe that it is “better for their children not to go to school at all than for them to attend a normal type of establishment.” He’d have to explain whether he still feels that sexual repression causes cancer, whether he still opposes the concept of private charity, and whether he still supports the public takeover of the television industry.

One also assumes Republicans would, in keeping with Karl Rove’s playbook, try to hit Sanders where he’s strongest—on issues of financial integrity. They’d probably do it by going after Jane Sanders, who has been accused of trying to defraud the Catholic Church on a land deal she undertook as president of Burlington College. (After being forced out of that job, she received a $200,000 golden parachute.) If you think this can’t blow up, remember that Hillary Clinton never personally profited off of Whitewater, the land deal that became a pretext for endless investigations of her and her husband.

P.S. About Hillary? She is North Korean: always making wild, improbable threats that she hasn't the courage or strength to carry out. She should either go completely crazy or stop being so annoying like Kim Jong-un https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Jong-un#Purges

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Monday, May 2, 2016 7:10 PM

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

"You Bernie lovers"

Tsk tsk. And after I spent two very long posts explaining at length that my focus has shifted away from Bernie and TO HILLARY, and that my position has shifted away from 'I prefer Bernie' to 'ANYBODY BUT HILLARY', and why I now think 'ANYBODY BUT HILLARY'. So, I see you've extended your strawman streak. At this point I don't think it's an accident, it's a deliberate tactic at derailing honest discussion. ie You're being deliberately dishonest in a concerted, repeated way.

Hence I'm not going to either read the rest of your post or respond to it.

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Monday, May 2, 2016 7:16 PM

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

So, in the interests of perhaps elucidating what you think, I'm going to limit my posts to single questions with yes/ no answers. With any luck this will focus your replies on WHAT I ACTUALLY POST. And hopefully, we'll be able to proceed with an actual, if strictly formatted, exchange of ideas. Second chance:

Ready?

This statement comes from Hillary's website. Yes or no?

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/national-security/?webSyncID=749
d5162-1dd1-9d79-9925-cb2049b7b464&sessionGUID=507d26b9-812a-7dc2-94b7-40882982b014

Standing up to Putin. Hillary has gone toe-to-toe with Putin before, and she'll do it again. She'll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our European allies and help them decrease dependence on Russian oil. With our partners, Hillary will confine, contain, and deter Russian aggressions in Europe and beyond, and increase the costs to Putin for his actions.

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Wednesday, May 4, 2016 1:08 AM

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

Just watched Bernie Sanders’s speech at a rally in Louisville. It was one of the best speeches I’ve ever seen a politician give.

by Beverly Mann May 3, 2016 9:39 pm
http://angrybearblog.com/2016/05/just-watched-bernie-sanderss-speech-a
t-a-rally-in-louisville-it-was-one-of-the-best-speeches-ive-ever-seen-a-politician-give.html

Sanders was at the very top of his game tonight in Louisville. A genuinely beautiful speech, delivered in perfectly modulated tone, with a wonderful, mostly young group standing on the stage very close behind him and to his sides, and a crowd that several times broke into chants of “Bernie! Bernie!”. I felt like I was there. I hope he uses clips of it in internet ads as he campaigns in California and the other remaining states.

This is the first primary night speech I’ve watched more than just a few minutes of. I haven’t watched most of the election night speeches at all, and have seen only short clips of a few rally speeches. But I clicked on the Washington Post website to see the early Indiana returns, and when I saw that Sanders was beginning a speech in Louisville that the Post was showing live, I clicked it. Watching it was really an experience. I’m guessing that his convention speech will be a version of tonight’s speech, modified somewhat as necessary—a tremendous spur for the Democratic Party from the top of the ticket on down.

It is a mistake to misread the role Bernie Sanders will play in what will be a tremendous victory for progressives—a true turning point. He talked tonight about some legislation he’s currently presenting in the Senate, and I’m sure there will be more legislation and a larger focus on it as the convention approaches. This is what I’ve been hoping he’d do. He probably won’t be the presidential nominee, but he’s making it clear that progressive governance will be a team effort among progressive Democratic elected officials. And Hillary Clinton seems to be indicating now that she wants to be a part of that, not a hindrance to it. Good for her.

Although most of those on the stage with him tonight were young, photos I saw of his rally last night in downtown Indianapolis, with about 8,000 in attendance, showed a largely middle-aged crowd. Tonight Sanders is winning Marion County, where Indianapolis is, and most of the suburban Indianapolis counties, and the county where Fort Wayne is. At this writing, with 76% of the vote counted, he’s ahead in Indiana by more than 6%.

Clinton will win the nomination and the general election, but Sanders will be the Most Valuable Player, in November and beyond. The Democrats are uniting around progressivism.

And both uniting and progressivism are operative words here.

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Wednesday, May 4, 2016 8:24 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by G:

So what you're saying is that the Republicans will unite against progressivism. Sorry, I don't see that much will change from now (obstructionism) no matter who the dems have in the WH. People were excited by how much the also brilliant speech maker Obama was going to do when he got in twice, and some things got done, but sadly, one of those was how he was instrumental in solidifying and making more robust the opposition.

It was plainly obvious to me, living in Texas between two Republican neighbors who have decided to hate each other and say to me that they want to kill the other over the trivial matter of whether a driving school should continue to use the street in front of their houses, that Republicans would see a black as an illegitimate president. Millions of Republicans are still fighting the Civil War, inside their imagination, and Obama is obviously a slave and should be stopped because he is the opposite of everything the Confederate States once stood for. There is a whole series of quotes that reveal how Republicans think at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_f_buckley_jr.html

Quote:
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'

I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.

Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.

Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.

People who think like Republicans will always be causing problems for everyone else, but especially for any Democratic President who is a Jew or a woman or not their race or . . . whatever is bothering the Republican.

And that example of Republicans on the street where I live hating the driving school using the street? The Driving School is still using the street because the Republicans can't convince the Baytown police to keep the student drivers off a public street. The Baytown police must be taking bribes according to the Republicans. And many of the student drivers are Mexican, which is an outrage, at least according to the Republicans.

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Wednesday, May 4, 2016 7:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by G:

So what you're saying is that the Republicans will unite against progressivism. Sorry, I don't see that much will change from now (obstructionism) no matter who the dems have in the WH. People were excited by how much the also brilliant speech maker Obama was going to do when he got in twice, and some things got done, but sadly, one of those was how he was instrumental in solidifying and making more robust the opposition.
It was plainly obvious to me, living in Texas between two Republican neighbors who have decided to hate each other and say to me that they want to kill the other over the trivial matter of whether a driving school should continue to use the street in front of their houses, that Republicans would see a black as an illegitimate president. Millions of Republicans are still fighting the Civil War, inside their imagination, and Obama is obviously a slave and should be stopped because he is the opposite of everything the Confederate States once stood for. There is a whole series of quotes that reveal how Republicans think at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_f_buckley_jr.html
Quote:
A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'

I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.

Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money, except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.

Back in the thirties we were told we must collectivize the nation because the people were so poor. Now we are told we must collectivize the nation because the people are so rich.

Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.
People who think like Republicans will always be causing problems for everyone else, but especially for any Democratic President who is a Jew or a woman or not their race or . . . whatever is bothering the Republican.

And that example of Republicans on the street where I live hating the driving school using the street? The Driving School is still using the street because the Republicans can't convince the Baytown police to keep the student drivers off a public street. The Baytown police must be taking bribes according to the Republicans. And many of the student drivers are Mexican, which is an outrage, at least according to the Republicans.

Your attempts to infuse the views of your neighbors into generalizations of all Republicans, which you clearly do not comprehend, seems quite lame.

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Thursday, May 5, 2016 12:03 AM

http://web.archive.org/web/20160302230931/https:/twitter.com/adambaldw
in

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

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

Your attempts to infuse the views of your neighbors into generalizations of all Republicans, which you clearly do not comprehend, seems quite lame.

Damn, now I get it! William F Buckley, Jr. was never a Republican and anything he says cannot be used against Republicans in a court of law.

Are you next going to say that Richard Nixon was not a true blue Republican? And George Bush also wasn't? And that the crash of 2008 was really Obama's fault? All things I have heard in Texas. I guess Texas Republicans are more extreme about denying little factoids than Republicans in other states. It is a very strong defense mechanism they have.

I need to make a prediction: If Trump becomes President, he will be called a great Republican by the party. If he loses, Republicans will say Trump was never a Republican, so of course he would lose since he doesn't embody the GOP's sterling qualities. Similarly, if President Trump has some gigantic foreign policy failure while in office, Republicans will say it was because he wasn't really Republican and the GOP will stop talking about him. Pretend like he never existed as President.

You can see the process of erasing Republican history with Adam Baldwin, also known as Jayne.

He is making the pivot from always despising Trump to always having liked Trump. I’d would include the url for the tweets, but he keeps deleting tweets so you cannot check on what he said further back than about 99 tweets at https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/

It is a great defense mechanism Adam (and the GOP) have. He simply erases past evidence and forgets all about it. History begins with Trump winning Indiana on May 4, 2016. Nothing before that counts with Adam Baldwin. His world is only one day old.

Adam Baldwin @AdamBaldwin 19m19 minutes ago
“There are a lot of conservatives supporting Trump… Conservatism is still how most people live their lives today.”

Adam Baldwin @AdamBaldwin 31m31 minutes ago
#ForUnitySake
Perhaps Cruz can now see it that Trump’s campaign insults were just words… just speeches.

Adam Baldwin Retweeted
Lara Trump @LaraLeaTrump 12h12 hours ago
First they ignore you
Then they laugh at you
Then they fight you
Then you win

Here is Adam Baldwin hating Trump last month (if you watch Firefly, you know that the Dortmunder is an Alliance ship ):

Adam Baldwin @AdamBaldwin
"I can envision Trump’s logo on the Dortmunder"

Adam Baldwin @AdamBaldwin
"Like all demagogues, Trump's using his lies as a loyalty test for his followers."
http://web.archive.org/web/20160403123357/https:/twitter.com/adambaldw
in

The further back you go, the more hate Adam had for Trump, yet today only love for Trump after he won Indiana. Republican voters have amnesia.
http://web.archive.org/web/20160305085910/https:/twitter.com/AdamBaldw
in

Adam Baldwin deleted this photo from his account. Can you feel the love for Trump?

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Thursday, May 5, 2016 7:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

Your attempts to infuse the views of your neighbors into generalizations of all Republicans, which you clearly do not comprehend, seems quite lame.
Damn, now I get it! William F Buckley, Jr. was never a Republican and anything he says cannot be used against Republicans in a court of law.

I cannot believe that you are that stupid, so you must be merely blinded in your rage.

You posted your delusional views, and in the same post you quoted William F Buckley. Just because you tried to cloud the waters by posting his reasonable views in the same post as your delusional views does not make them of the same caliber or validity.

Your attempts to infuse the views of your neighbors into generalizations of all Republicans, which you clearly do not comprehend, seems quite lame.

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Thursday, May 5, 2016 9:06 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:

I cannot believe that you are that stupid, so you must be merely blinded in your rage.

You posted your delusional views, and in the same post you quoted William F Buckley. Just because you tried to cloud the waters by posting his reasonable views in the same post as your delusional views does not make them of the same caliber or validity.

Your attempts to infuse the views of your neighbors into generalizations of all Republicans, which you clearly do not comprehend, seems quite lame.

I've been writing with stone cold disappointment, not anger, about Republicans. And you're silly if you think Buckley was reasonable when he wrote "I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies." He wasn’t joking or exaggerating at the time, either. --
www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_f_buckley_jr.html

And that yesterday Jayne, I mean Adam Baldwin, had an 11th-hour volte-face after Indiana polls closed? I’m very disappointed in him. Only two months ago Trump and Hillary were his enemies. Now Jayne feels friendly because Trump won. Hillary is still his enemy.

Needless to say, this about-face is a habit of highly effective Republicans. Republicans candidates have long made it clear that they don't necessarily mean anything they say, and their supporters are OK with this. If a Republican attacks you, it's only because he wants to win. He'll take it back once there is some advantage. If he offends an important constituency on a policy issue, he explains that he was just providing "an answer." Nobody should have taken it seriously. If he's caught in an outright lie, he simply denies ever having made the offending statement—even if he made it just yesterday and even if it's recorded video.

This is all fine with Republican voters. This kind of behavior is not just OK, but positively admirable combat on their behalf. But I find it disappointing.

From Jayne’s, I mean Adam Baldwin’s, deleted tweet, now that he admires Trump:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160302230931/https:/twitter.com/adambaldw
in

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Friday, May 6, 2016 3:20 AM

SHINYGOODGUY

One good thing about Bernie staying in the race: he urges his followers to
come out in droves to promote a political revolution.

As I watched his speeches and droning on about Billionaires, it occurred
to me that he's doing exactly what the Democrats should be doing all along,
prodding the people to exact their will upon the political landscape. For
that I applaud him. Voter suppression only exists because the people
haven't held the candidates responsible for their lack of vision, and
conviction, to the democratic process (Well, that and a handful of dirty
tricks).

I know from experience that complacency is a bitch. So thank you Bernie!

SGG

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Bernie Sanders is not going to be the nominee. (And Democrats just as conformist as their Republican brethren, and just as inclined to vote identity politics, if not more so. But that's another story.)

Still, I hope he continues to stay in the race, as he promised. If he's still running, I intend to vote for him, If he doesn't run, by CA rules, I would literally not have any else to vote for.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Saturday, May 7, 2016 8:20 AM

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

Now Everyone Can Play Bubble Burst Bernie -- Stephen Colbert

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

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Tuesday, May 10, 2016 9:19 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
So, in the interests of perhaps elucidating what you think, I'm going to limit my posts to single questions with yes/ no answers. With any luck this will focus your replies on WHAT I ACTUALLY POST. And hopefully, we'll be able to proceed with an actual, if strictly formatted, exchange of ideas. Second chance:

Ready?

This statement comes from Hillary's website. Yes or no?

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/national-security/?webSyncID=749
d5162-1dd1-9d79-9925-cb2049b7b464&sessionGUID=507d26b9-812a-7dc2-94b7-40882982b014

Standing up to Putin. Hillary has gone toe-to-toe with Putin before, and she'll do it again. She'll stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our European allies and help them decrease dependence on Russian oil. With our partners, Hillary will confine, contain, and deter Russian aggressions in Europe and beyond, and increase the costs to Putin for his actions.

Yes is the answer to your question, but despite that fact, Bernie will be endorsing Hillary, I predict. If my prediction is wrong, all is well for you. If right, you will have been betrayed by Bernie endorsing a war-monger against Russia and Putin:

Quote:
Sanders is promising to do everything in his power to keep Republicans out of the White House, but also suggesting that concessions may be needed from the Clinton camp to spur enthusiasm on the part of his voters.

The reality, however, is that nobody is better positioned to make the case to Sanders voters than Sanders himself. And Sanders already has all the reasons he could possibly need to give Clinton his full-throated support.

Thanks to the primaries, Sanders has emerged as a substantial factional leader inside the Democratic Party — someone whose statements and tweets will garner media attention, whose email list will be coveted and envied by other Democrats in Congress, and whose support or opposition to a measure will matter to a national constituency. That gives him, potentially, considerably more influence over national affairs than he's had in his previous 25 years in Washington. But essentially all of that influence hinges on Clinton winning the election in November.

That, rather than anything to do with platform concessions or "lesser of two evils" talk, is why Sanders will almost certainly do everything in his power to boost Clinton this fall. He'll do it because it's the right thing for Bernie Sanders.

There is more at www.vox.com/2016/5/10/11615720/bernie-sanders-will-back-hillary

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016 12:56 PM

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

Bernie Sanders Has Been the Most Influential Insurgent Candidate Since the 70s

—By Kevin Drum
Wed May 11, 2016 11:21 AM EDT

Win or lose (hint: he's going to lose), Bernie Sanders should feel pretty good about his success in pushing Hillary Clinton to the left during the primary campaign. She's now against the TPP; she definitively favors a large hike in the minimum wage; and she supports expansion of Social Security. These may not seem like huge changes—and they aren't—but they're a lot more than most candidates accomplish. Dennis Kucinich ran twice without having any measurable effect at all on the Democratic race.

Now Bernie can take credit for one more move to the left:
continued at www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/05/hillary-clinton-supports-public
-option-obamacare

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Wednesday, May 11, 2016 1:58 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by G:

And I say that as no fan of Clinton, but if not her it's Caligula time.

Trump is not the mad emperor of Rome. He is a super-salesman who will say whatever will close a deal. After the deal is done, his attention turns to the next deal and he is super-bad at running the business his deals create. The proof is his businesses have gone bankrupt several times. Trump needs a chief operating officer (COO) with Trump remaining as a CEO. Prez Trump would need Dick Cheney to do the actual work of running the executive branch. I'm sure Cheney is ready, available and experienced at being completely in charge while Bush was mentally incapacitated for years and years.

There is an article about Trump doing his sales talking at www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2016/05/11/donald-trump-has-d
iscovered-one-weird-trick-for-getting-people-to-agree-with-him/

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Thursday, May 12, 2016 7:44 PM

With Bernie winning Wwest Virginia, he adds 18 to Hilliary's 11 delegates.

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Friday, May 13, 2016 12:18 AM

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

"but the longer he runs the more damage he does"

He and the 45% of democrats Hillary and Debbie seem bent on ignoring.

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Friday, May 13, 2016 11:15 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by G:
Quote:
Originally posted by second: Trump is not the mad emperor of Rome.

Not yet! Wait until he dons the robs. "Salesman" under sells what he would become if he won this, the greatest bauble he has ever coveted. Getting it, acquiring it, is his focus now, but what do you do with something once you get it? The thing that has always seemed out of reach? Like you say, he would move on. But to what? Then the weight and responsibility would drag at him. "Ugh! 4 years of this sh*t!" He'd find out he had won the biggest trophy ever only to realize the cost: being the World's Baby Sitter. Lack of respect (even more) for humanity would ensue, followed by contempt and down right loathing. Mankind is deeply flawed from that vantage point. Next thing: once his burden is realized time for turning inward, pay back. "What about my needs? I do so much for the World." Hello Modern Day Donny Caligula.

Rather than being Caligula, Trump could follow the shining example of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi into sexual misconduct and tax evasion. Trump has certainly been there before and he could go there again. That will keep him entertained while he is President.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi#Divorce_and_allegation
s_of_sexual_misconduct

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Saturday, May 14, 2016 8:27 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by G:

Yes! As a modern day example I was actually thinking of Berlusconi. They both carry a sense of believing they are untouchable. Plus - they both have a hair thing on their heads.

"Dateline looks at Silvio Berlusconi's record on women's rights, as he stands accused of debasing Italian culture." The parallel with Berlusconi is that Trump also debased American culture. I look forward to Trump calling Clinton Cunton during debate. Afterwards he'll excuse himself by saying her lies made him very angry. Then Trump's male supporters will refer to Hillary as Cunton and act amazed that anyone might be offended because it is not a four letter word, but six letters! And thus the culture is debased.

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Saturday, May 14, 2016 10:16 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I'd look forward to four years of the USA "doing nothing". That's the best argument for Trump yet.

--------------
You can't build a nation with bombs. You can't create a society with guns.

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Monday, May 16, 2016 6:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
With Bernie winning West Virginia, he adds 18 to Hilliary's 11 delegates.

So Bernie has won 10 of the last 15 Primary States.
Bernie has 1433, Hilliary has 1716, and 2382 is needed to win.

So she has a lead of 283 for today. I have heard he is leading in the polls for Kentucky and Oregon, which vote tomorrow.

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Monday, May 16, 2016 7:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Quote:
Originally posted by SHINYGOODGUY:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Aaaaand, you delivered.
You are defining Bush and Cheney as New Conservatives, or vice versa.
Did you get that from some Libtard dictionary? Something that includes FDR as a neo-con?

Actually, what is a conservative? Define that!!!

SGG

In the Political Spectrum of America, there are 5 partitions.
In the middle are Centrists, generally not heavily biased.
On the far left of the diagram are the Radicals.
Between Radical and Center are Liberals - still well left of middle.
On the far Right of the diagram are Reactionary.
Between Reactionary and middle are Conservatives, still right of Center.

In the Golden Age of Radio and Television broadcast "journalism" or "news" when many yellow journalists pretended to be unbiased or balanced, and attempted to give the impression of being Centrist, they were merely liberal while trying to appear Centrist.
But Uncle Wally (Cronkite) was able to put a severe spin on the content and ushered in the current Hard left, Radical, and extreme Liberal position of the MainStream Media, while most of America resides in Conservative or Right side of Middle. This mismatch is why MSM so vehemently tries to claim that they are unbiased or Middle, Centrist - so that the most gullible will believe them and suspend disbelief while pretending to accept this falsehood.

For those who wish a visual, the below links to a map of the 2012 Presidential Election results, by county. In this map, the blue counties voted for Romney, and the red counties voted for Obama.

[img] http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/countymap.php?year=2012&f=1&
;off=0&elect=0&size=1[/img]

Note the vast amount of America is teeming with centrists - normal, real people, which the media calls "conservatives" even though many of them are not.
The counties which voted for Democrat are where the large media markets are able to maintain their brainwashing, where the constant spoon-feeding of liberalism is able to survive in the weak-minded.
Without the media's (and "education" establishment) nonstop liberalism brainwashing, those baseless concepts wither in the light.

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Monday, May 16, 2016 7:41 PM

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

Gotta love that map. Too bad empty acreage

doesn't vote.

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Monday, May 16, 2016 11:50 PM

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

Delegates Won
Clinton 1716/ Sanders 1433

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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 5:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
Quote:
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:
With Bernie winning West Virginia, he adds 18 to Hilliary's 11 delegates.

So Bernie has won 10 of the last 15 Primary States.
Bernie has 1433, Hilliary has 1716, and 2382 is needed to win.

So she has a lead of 283 for today. I have heard he is leading in the polls for Kentucky and Oregon, which vote tomorrow.

Still sounds like Bernie is expected to win both KY and OR.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/six-things-watch-kentuck
y-oregon-primaries-n574756

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Tuesday, May 17, 2016 6:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:

Gotta love that map. Too bad empty acreage

Yep, Illinois, California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio don't have any Electors. right

That's where Americans live, outside the media brainwashing bubble. And were real Americans provide food for you.

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Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:03 AM