REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

A thread for Democrats Only

POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 13, 2024 08:08
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Monday, February 17, 2020 6:44 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
How America Became “A City Upon a Hill”

“A society that is both clear and articulate about its intentions is something of a rarity in modern history,” Perry Miller lectured. “Most of the nations of Europe and Asia grew up by chance and by accident either of geography or politics.” In other countries, so much had changed over so much time, he explained, “that even the most patriotic citizens would not dare say to what conscious purpose the nation was originally devoted.” Europe had legends and myths, a murky past misted over by a cloud of unknowing. But America had a recorded past — a written and articulate beginning. All one needed to do was gather up the texts. All one had to do was check the sources. All one really had to do, Miller insisted, was read a single sermon by Winthrop.

This need for a purpose — this story of a nation founded in purpose and defined by it ever since — resonated with a wide range of thinkers and writers following the close of World War II and the opening of the Cold War. In the late 1950s, for example, Henry Luce, the powerful editor of Life magazine, asked respected intellectual and political leaders to articulate and explain the purpose of the country. “More than anything else,” he claimed, “the people of America are asking for a clear sense of National Purpose.” Respondents included politicians, poets, journalists, evangelists, and government officials — everyone from Billy Graham to Adlai Stevenson.

Most in this august group were haunted by a nation that seemed to have lost its way. As John Jessup, a prominent journalist, wrote, “Is there not a connection between the rise of nations and great purpose, between the loss of purpose and their decline?” The problem, it seemed, was complacency. Wealth had made Americans weak. “Part of our problem,” John W. Gardner declared, “is how to stay awake on a full stomach.” Nothing was being asked of the American people. Having achieved material success and world power, the United States seemed content to let citizens go about spending and consuming, little caring about a higher cause.

A whole culture of academics and public intellectuals took up these concerns. David Brinkley, Betty Friedan, Richard Hofstadter, C. Wright Mills, David Reisman, William Appleman Williams, and so many others in their own ways condemned American consumerism and anti-intellectualism in works that were broadly digested and debated by the American masses. Miller, who portrayed himself as a “lone wolf,” was by no means alone in his concerns. He, like others, believed that America’s influence might be terribly short-lived. “History is littered with the corpses of civilization that reached the limit of expansion, dug in behind walls and moats, and there yielded to decay,” he proclaimed. According to him, the materialistic culture of America would soon exhaust itself. It didn’t require particular genius “to ask yourself, at least from time to time, whether this American way of life is not rushing at a steadily accelerating pace toward a massive megalopolis which finally, of sheer dead weight, shall grind to an agonizing stop, and then crumble into ruin by the force of inertia.” As one of his students summarized, “He could imagine the end of America, if not of American affluence.” Yet for Miller, as for others, mere affluence constituted its own form of demise.

The content of Winthrop’s sermon — what Miller thought Winthrop was actually saying or proposing as a model — differed radically from what Reagan and others would make of it. According to Miller, this sermon called Puritans to model radical communal solidarity. It had nothing to do with the American Dream, nothing to do with bettering one’s life, nothing at all to do with making money or getting ahead. In fact, Miller claimed, Winthrop specifically rejected all such ideas. Going it alone, pulling ahead of others, getting rich or even trying to — these were the very dangers that Winthrop sought to guard against. Society’s success depended instead on mutual affection, being “knit together in this work as one man.” According to Miller, the Puritans exhibited “a mighty conviction of solidarity,” a “living cohesion” and “concept of a fellowship united in a common dedication.” Unlike today, Miller insisted, New England theorists thought of society “not as an aggregation of individuals, but as an organism functioning for a definite purpose, with all parts subordinate to the whole, all members contributing a definite share, every person occupying a particular status.”

According to Miller, the commitment to a higher cause and the dedication to God had made the Puritan community unusually successful, and the success of their venture — the wealth it generated — had eventually undermined the venture itself. When Puritans started making money, their purposes collapsed. “A hundred years after the landings, they were forced to look upon themselves with amazement, hardly capable of understanding how they had come to be what they were,” he wrote. They had lost sight of their cause and plan, their purpose and devotion.

That was the story Miller saw playing out again in the 1950s: The success of the United States, its sudden wealth and power, would soon prove the nation’s undoing.

More at www.neh.gov/article/how-america-became-city-upon-hill

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



Explain to me how Democrats are the answer to any of this.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, February 17, 2020 8:23 AM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Explain to me how Democrats are the answer to any of this.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Explain to me how cutting back Medicare, Social Security, taxes on the Wealthy, regulations on pollution, and building more H-bombs and increasing the Pentagon's budget is the answer to anything other than making the Rich even more Wealthy. Every time I do another summing up of my own wealth, it has increased at a faster and faster rate and I can only thank Trump and the Republican Party for that. Were Democrats in control I would NOT be swimming in a vast, overflowing pool of money.

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

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Monday, February 17, 2020 11:16 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

SIX:Explain to me how Democrats are the answer to any of this.

SECONDRATE: Explain to me how cutting back Medicare, Social Security, taxes on the Wealthy, regulations on pollution, and building more H-bombs and increasing the Pentagon's budget is the answer to anything other than making the Rich even more Wealthy. Every time I do another summing up of my own wealth, it has increased at a faster and faster rate and I can only thank Trump and the Republican Party for that. Were Democrats in control I would NOT be swimming in a vast, overflowing pool of money.

Oh, bullshit. You were rich before Trump, right? You were rich under Obama, right? Worth 100+ million when Trump came into office already, right? You can't have $20 million in tax SAVINGS unless you're already very wealthy, correct?

Do you suppose maybe it's possible that NEITHER Dems nor Repubs are the answer to our problems??

But you hate Americans, so why pretend you care about what happens to the rest of us?

Quote:

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
Yanno, this is emblematic of your problem: You're constantly trying to rewrite history.

History happened, son. It's over. You can't undo your bad decisions, just like you can't blame everyone else for your bad decisions. Stop trying -it isn't good for you because it isn't going to work.

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

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

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Monday, February 17, 2020 11:32 AM

THG


T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.


During Trump’s State of the Union Address he told a bunch of lies, did not shake Nancy Pelosi’s hand, gave Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Rosa Parks Day, and Guillermo gave the official Spanish language response.


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Monday, February 17, 2020 12:07 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Oh, let's remember some of our previous politicians' whoppers ...

"I feel your pain"

"Most transparent administration ever"

"Like, with a cloth?"




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

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

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Monday, February 17, 2020 12:57 PM

SECOND

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:

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

Yanno, this is emblematic of your problem: You're constantly trying to rewrite history.

History happened, son. It's over. You can't undo your bad decisions, just like you can't blame everyone else for your bad decisions. Stop trying -it isn't good for you because it isn't going to work.

This is why I don't think you are a Firefly fan. If you were, you'd know I didn't write that 190 page alternative history of Firefly. Joss Whedon wrote it. Then he could not afford to make it on his budget and within 2 hours running time. He revised to make a 126 page version, which you can also download at the same URL.

Trump is rewriting his history all the time. If you don't know about Joss' two scripts it makes sense you don't know about Trump's ever changing past. ‘Something has to be done’: Trump’s quest to rewrite history of the Russia probe
www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-s-quest-to-rewrite-the-history-o
f-the-russia-probe/ar-BB103ff5?ocid=msedgntp

or
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/something-has-to-be-done-trumps-quest-
to-rewrite-history-of-the-russia-probe/2020/02/15/ea7a1b06-4f61-11ea-9b5c-eac5b16dafaa_story.html


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

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Monday, February 17, 2020 1:31 PM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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

Yanno, this is emblematic of your problem: You're constantly trying to rewrite history.

History happened, son. It's over. You can't undo your bad decisions, just like you can't blame everyone else for your bad decisions. Stop trying -it isn't good for you because it isn't going to work.


'This is why I don't think you are a Firefly fan. If you were, you'd know I didn't write that 190 page alternative history of Firefly. Joss Whedon wrote it. Then he could not afford to make it on his budget and within 2 hours running time. He revised to make a 126 page version, which you can also download at the same URL.




Yep, she is a russian troll...

T


Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Monday, February 17, 2020 10:59 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

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

SIGNY: Yanno, this is emblematic of your problem: You're constantly trying to rewrite history. History happened, son. It's over. You can't undo your bad decisions, just like you can't blame everyone else for your bad decisions. Stop trying -it isn't good for you because it isn't going to work.

SECONDRATE: This is why I don't think you are a Firefly fan. If you were, you'd know I didn't write that 190 page alternative history of Firefly. Joss Whedon wrote it. Then he could not afford to make it on his budget and within 2 hours running time. He revised to make a 126 page version, which you can also download at the same URL.

The decision was made, the movie was completed. Why do you keep bringing up coulda-beens? Not very Mal-like of you!

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

Happy New Year, WISHY. I edited out your psychopathic screed!

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Monday, February 17, 2020 11:18 PM

1KIKI

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


Quote:

Originally posted by THG:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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

Yanno, this is emblematic of your problem: You're constantly trying to rewrite history.

History happened, son. It's over. You can't undo your bad decisions, just like you can't blame everyone else for your bad decisions. Stop trying -it isn't good for you because it isn't going to work.


'This is why I don't think you are a Firefly fan. If you were, you'd know I didn't write that 190 page alternative history of Firefly. Joss Whedon wrote it. Then he could not afford to make it on his budget and within 2 hours running time. He revised to make a 126 page version, which you can also download at the same URL.




Yep, she is a russian troll...

T


Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.


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Tuesday, February 18, 2020 7:01 AM

SECOND

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


How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy

Dystopian titles are often nothing more than marketing tools, but such a title is necessary for this book. How America Lost Its Mind describes the sorry state of our democracy at this early point in the twenty-first century. The corruption of thought, information, and common sense is eroding governing institutions and traditions that took more than two centuries and ten generations of Americans to build.

Americans have lost touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with the facts. As I show in the first chapter, today’s level of misinformation is unprecedented and is a far greater danger to our democracy than the long-standing problem of an uninformed citizenry. The uninformed know what they don’t know, whereas the misinformed think they know something but don’t know it, which leads them into senseless decisions. The second chapter examines the link between misinformation and partisanship. On almost every issue, misinformation is concentrated in the minds of either Republicans or Democrats. It has reached the point where, although Republicans and Democrats live in the same country, their minds reside in different ones, making it nearly impossible for them to understand each other, much less resolve their differences.

Age-old incentives—the lure of power, celebrity, and money—have corrupted the media system that is the source of our information. Media dysfunction began decades ago but is now careening out of control. One set of information corruptors, whom I call the “disruptors” and discuss in the third chapter, lust for power and have weaponized information, twisting it to serve their political and personal agendas. Another set, whom I call the “performers,” lust after celebrity and thrive in a mutual-referential world of caricatures and inane chatter. Their role in misinforming us is explained in the fourth chapter. Then there are the “marketers,” who are the subject of the fifth chapter. Their lust is money, and they peddle what sells, no matter how trivial, inaccurate, or distracting. Collectively, these media and political actors have scrambled our minds. We’ve reached a point where we think that nonsense is knowledge. It’s a dangerous position for a democracy. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt noted decades ago, demagoguery is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

The forces that have brought us to this point are powerful and will not bend easily. But I discuss in the final chapter what could be done to bring about change. It would require us to wrest power from the ideologues and mind twisters and entrust it to level-headed leaders and reliable sources. It would also require us as citizens to accept our role in the misinformation crisis. We can’t have a thriving citizen democracy if citizens fail to accept the responsibilities of citizenship.

www.amazon.com/How-America-Lost-Mind-Distinguished/dp/0806164328/
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/02/12/when-balance-comes-at-the-exp
ense-of-the-truth
/


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, February 18, 2020 3:07 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
How America Lost Its Mind: The Assault on Reason That’s Crippling Our Democracy

Dystopian titles are often nothing more than marketing tools, but such a title is necessary for this book. How America Lost Its Mind describes the sorry state of our democracy at this early point in the twenty-first century. The corruption of thought, information, and common sense is eroding governing institutions and traditions that took more than two centuries and ten generations of Americans to build.

Americans have lost touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with the facts. As I show in the first chapter, today’s level of misinformation is unprecedented and is a far greater danger to our democracy than the long-standing problem of an uninformed citizenry. The uninformed know what they don’t know, whereas the misinformed think they know something but don’t know it, which leads them into senseless decisions. The second chapter examines the link between misinformation and partisanship. On almost every issue, misinformation is concentrated in the minds of either Republicans or Democrats. It has reached the point where, although Republicans and Democrats live in the same country, their minds reside in different ones, making it nearly impossible for them to understand each other, much less resolve their differences.

Age-old incentives—the lure of power, celebrity, and money—have corrupted the media system that is the source of our information. Media dysfunction began decades ago but is now careening out of control. One set of information corruptors, whom I call the “disruptors” and discuss in the third chapter, lust for power and have weaponized information, twisting it to serve their political and personal agendas. Another set, whom I call the “performers,” lust after celebrity and thrive in a mutual-referential world of caricatures and inane chatter. Their role in misinforming us is explained in the fourth chapter. Then there are the “marketers,” who are the subject of the fifth chapter. Their lust is money, and they peddle what sells, no matter how trivial, inaccurate, or distracting. Collectively, these media and political actors have scrambled our minds. We’ve reached a point where we think that nonsense is knowledge. It’s a dangerous position for a democracy. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt noted decades ago, demagoguery is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

The forces that have brought us to this point are powerful and will not bend easily. But I discuss in the final chapter what could be done to bring about change. It would require us to wrest power from the ideologues and mind twisters and entrust it to level-headed leaders and reliable sources. It would also require us as citizens to accept our role in the misinformation crisis. We can’t have a thriving citizen democracy if citizens fail to accept the responsibilities of citizenship.

www.amazon.com/How-America-Lost-Mind-Distinguished/dp/0806164328/
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/02/12/when-balance-comes-at-the-exp
ense-of-the-truth
/


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



I agree with this.

However, it's not saying what you think it's saying.

Democrats run the media and celebrity. The misinformation campaign is a strictly partisan thing today, and it's a tool of the Democrats.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020 6:38 AM

THG


GEEK SPEAK

Fox hits local ‘Firefly’ group with cease and desist

https://blog.mysanantonio.com/geekspeak/2011/04/fox-hits-local-firefly
-group-with-cease-and-desist
/

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020 8:27 AM

SECOND

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


In 1775, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia who wanted to quickly end the war, issued a proclamation to free enslaved Black people if they defected from the colonies and fought for the British army. In response, George Washington revised the policy that restricted Black persons (free or enslaved) from joining his Continental army. His reversal was based in a convergence of his interests: competing with a growing British military, securing the slave economy, and increasing labor needs for the Continental army. When enslaved persons left the plantation, this caused serious social and economic unrest in the colonies. These defections were encouragement for many white plantation owners to join the Patriotic cause even if they previously held reservations.

Washington also saw other benefits in Black enlistment: White revolutionary soldiers only fought in three- to four-month increments and returned to their farms or plantation, but many Black soldiers could serve longer terms. The need for the Black soldier was essential for the war effort, and the need to win the war became greater than racial or racist ideology.

Interests converged with those of Black revolutionary soldiers as well. Once the American colonies promised freedom, about a quarter of the Continental army became Black; before that, more Black people defected to the British military for a chance to be free. Black revolutionary soldiers understood the stakes of the war and realized that they could also benefit and leave bondage. As historian Gary Nash has said, the Black revolutionary soldier “can best be understood by realizing that his major loyalty was not to a place, not to a people, but to a principle.”

Black people played a dual role — service with the American forces and fleeing to the British — both for freedom. The notion of the Black Patriot is a misused term. In many ways, while the majority of the whites were fighting in the American Revolution, Black revolutionary soldiers were fighting the “African Americans’ Revolution.”

More at www.vox.com/identities/2020/2/18/21134644/black-history-month-2020-myt
hs


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

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020 12:53 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by THG:
GEEK SPEAK

Fox hits local ‘Firefly’ group with cease and desist

https://blog.mysanantonio.com/geekspeak/2011/04/fox-hits-local-firefly
-group-with-cease-and-desist
/

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.



From 2011?

You'd have to call Disney in 2020 for permission. Kaylee is a Disney Princess now.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020 3:38 PM

SECOND

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


Bernie Sanders has refused to release his medical records even though (a) he promised to do so, and (b) he’s 78 years old and recently had a heart attack, making him the exact kind of person whose medical history is especially salient in a presidential election. Will this pay off? It seems like it: Sanders is soaring in the polls. The price of concealing his medical history is — in his estimation, anyway — smaller than the price he’d pay for whatever his medical history shows.

In 2016 Donald Trump refused to release his income tax records even though (a) he had promised to do so, and (b) he’s a real estate billionaire, the exact kind of person whose financial history is especially salient in a presidential election. This paid off: no one really cared, apparently, and Trump became president. The price of concealing his financial history was smaller than the price he would have paid for whatever that history would have shown.

Presidential candidates are learning that releasing records of any kind is all downside. If the records show that everything is OK, no one cares and it buys you nothing. But if the records show a problem, it could blow your candidacy to pieces. The voters will literally give you no reason to do it. Voters might want to think about that more clearly because NOT showing your record is absolute evidence you are a crook and a liar.

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

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020 3:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Bernie Sanders has refused to release his medical records even though (a) he promised to do so, and (b) he’s 78 years old and recently had a heart attack, making him the exact kind of person whose medical history is especially salient in a presidential election. Will this pay off? It seems like it: Sanders is soaring in the polls. The price of concealing his medical history is — in his estimation, anyway — smaller than the price he’d pay for whatever his medical history shows.

In 2016 Donald Trump refused to release his income tax records even though (a) he had promised to do so, and (b) he’s a real estate billionaire, the exact kind of person whose financial history is especially salient in a presidential election. This paid off: no one really cared, apparently, and Trump became president. The price of concealing his financial history was smaller than the price he would have paid for whatever that history would have shown.

Presidential candidates are learning that releasing records of any kind is all downside. If the records show that everything is OK, no one cares and it buys you nothing. But if the records show a problem, it could blow your candidacy to pieces. The voters will literally give you no reason to do it. Voters might want to think about that more clearly because NOT showing your record is absolute evidence you are a crook and a liar.

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



Should probably change the laws about that. Dontcha think?

Given that Bernie's doing it now, you would think it would be a bi-partisan effort, at least for the president.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020 4:33 PM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Should probably change the laws about that. Dontcha think?

Given that Bernie's doing it now, you would think it would be a bi-partisan effort, at least for the president.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I have dealt with plenty of crooks and liars. What they were doing was illegal, but that didn't stop them and laws/courts/police in the United States are excruciatingly slow and unhelpful. Ordinary people can, all by themselves, handle these crooks and liars by not giving them money, but about 99% of the time ordinary people do give them the money. It's like they have no brains or even ordinary good sense. Similarly, ordinary voters can handle crooks and liars by not giving them their vote. But, once again, 99% of voters don't exercise their god given good sense and, instead, vote for the crook and the liar anyway, as if the voter was helpless and had no sense and no wits.

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

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Wednesday, February 19, 2020 6:30 PM

1KIKI

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


There might be one or two here who aren't crooks and liars, but only one independent enough to get the full-on leper-of-the-year treatment.





And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better?

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Thursday, February 20, 2020 8:15 AM

SECOND

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


Is the two-party system good for democracy? A Debate: Yascha Mounk & Norman Ornstein vs. Lee Drutman & Katherine Gehl

At the beginning of the video there is an amusing talk "US History Can Be Fun" about how violent Senators once were about defending slavery. The Senators lowered the level of violence in the 20th Century to legislative maneuvers keeping blacks in their proper place, but it never went completely away.



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, February 22, 2020 6:50 AM

SECOND

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


America’s monopoly problem, explained by your internet bill

We should be asking the government and corporate America how we got here. Instead, we just keep handing over our money.

Seriously, be mad about your internet bill.

In 2019, New York University economist Thomas Philippon did a deep dive into market concentration and monopolies in The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets. And one of his touch points for the book is the internet. Looking at the data, he found that the United States has fallen behind other developed economies in broadband penetration and that prices are significantly higher. In 2017, the average monthly cost of broadband in America was $66.17; in France, it was $38.10, in Germany, $35.71, and in South Korea, $29.90. How did this happen? In his view, a lot of it comes down to competition — or, rather, lack thereof.

That’s where the government could come in by regulating the network or forcing the company that built it to lease out parts of it to rivals. As Philippon notes, that’s what happened in France — an incumbent carrier was compelled to lease out the “last mile” of its network — basically, the last bit of cable that gets to your hours or apartment building — and therefore letting competitors have a chance at also appealing to customers.

In the US, however, just a few big companies, often without overlap, control much of the telecom industry, and the result is high prices and uneven connectivity.

Experts and advocates have laid out a range of ideas for restoring healthy competition in the economy. Some of it would entail new laws, which, given the current state of affairs in Washington, seems unlikely — Congress can barely agree to fund the government, let alone enact a major overhaul of the workings of the US economy. But it has happened in the past. “What happened in the New Deal was a systemic attack on every aspect of the old order, and the old order was somewhat similar to what we have now,” Stoller noted.

Competition is lacking across countless industries, including baby formula, agriculture, candy, beer, just to name some examples. When you look, monopolies and oligopolies (meaning instead of one dominant company, there are a few) are everywhere. They’re a systemic feature of the economy.

More at www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/18/21126347/antitrust-monopolies-internet
-telecommunications-cheerleading


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

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Monday, February 24, 2020 7:54 AM

SECOND

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


Why the Presidency Can’t Just Go Back to ‘Normal’ After Trump

The “norms and traditions” that Trump has incinerated aren’t timeless features of American democracy; they’re actually quite new—and brittle.

Under President John F. Kennedy, the Department of Justice approved wiretaps on Martin Luther King Jr. and ordered the IRS to audit Richard Nixon, JFK’s once and presumed future opponent. On President Lyndon B. Johnson’s watch, the FBI illegally bugged King’s hotel rooms, attempted to blackmail him into suicide, and famously infiltrated and attempted to sabotage the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Under LBJ, the CIA also ran extensive, extralegal sabotage of domestic political organizations, while the FBI placed violent saboteurs in the ranks of peaceful anti-war demonstrators.

President Nixon, whose abuses of office are well-documented, instructed the IRS to audit wealthy Jewish Democrats, whom he privately denounced as “cocksuckers.” At White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman’s request, the agency subjected Edward Bennett Williams, the Washington Post’s attorney in the Pentagon Papers case, to three consecutive audits. (“I wouldn’t want to be in Edward Bennett Williams’ … position after this election,” Nixon told his staff members. “I think we’re going to fix the son-of-a-bitch. Believe me. We’re going to. We’ve got to, because he’s a bad man.”) On the advice of Pat Buchanan, a conservative White House speechwriter, Nixon ordered the IRS to investigate the finances of liberal organizations like the Ford Foundation and Brookings Institution; the agency complied, compiling data on over 1,000 institutions and 4,000 individual citizens.

It wasn’t just the IRS. When news of the highly secret bombing campaign in Cambodia broke on the pages of the New York Times in late 1969, then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger ordered FBI wiretaps on 13 of his own aides and four journalists. When even the FBI balked at tapping the phone of Joseph Kraft, a highly respected syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s chief domestic policy adviser, hired a private detective to do the job without the cloak of legal authority.

Nixon also ordered the FBI, CIA and NSA to surveil New Left organizations and instructed the Justice Department to arrest several thousand anti-war protesters who marched on Washington, D.C., in May 1971. The federal courts overturned many of the convictions. But the judges did not know the half of it. Coordinating the arrests from the Oval Office, Nixon heartily approved of plans by Charles Colson, a top political aide, to have rank-and-file teamsters rough up the protesters before their detention. “They’ve got guys who’ll go in and knock their heads off,” the president beamed. Nixon’s chief of staff, Haldeman, confirmed this point. “Murderers. Guys that really, you know, that’s what they really do … they’re going to beat the shit out of some of these people.”

In the wake of Nixon’s disgrace, Congress undertook a sweeping investigation of these abuses, leading to new congressional oversight mechanisms and restrictions on FBI and CIA political activity.

All of which is to say, the idea of independent agencies staffed by nonpartisan career public servants, free of political interference, is a very recent development. Once unraveled, it is not certain to be reassembled.

More at www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/15/why-presidency-cant-go-back-
normal-trump-115362


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

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Monday, February 24, 2020 11:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Why the Presidency Can’t Just Go Back to ‘Normal’ After Trump

The “norms and traditions” that Trump has incinerated aren’t timeless features of American democracy; they’re actually quite new—and brittle.

Under President John F. Kennedy, the Department of Justice approved wiretaps on Martin Luther King Jr. and ordered the IRS to audit Richard Nixon, JFK’s once and presumed future opponent. On President Lyndon B. Johnson’s watch, the FBI illegally bugged King’s hotel rooms, attempted to blackmail him into suicide, and famously infiltrated and attempted to sabotage the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Under LBJ, the CIA also ran extensive, extralegal sabotage of domestic political organizations, while the FBI placed violent saboteurs in the ranks of peaceful anti-war demonstrators.

President Nixon, whose abuses of office are well-documented, instructed the IRS to audit wealthy Jewish Democrats, whom he privately denounced as “cocksuckers.” At White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman’s request, the agency subjected Edward Bennett Williams, the Washington Post’s attorney in the Pentagon Papers case, to three consecutive audits. (“I wouldn’t want to be in Edward Bennett Williams’ … position after this election,” Nixon told his staff members. “I think we’re going to fix the son-of-a-bitch. Believe me. We’re going to. We’ve got to, because he’s a bad man.”) On the advice of Pat Buchanan, a conservative White House speechwriter, Nixon ordered the IRS to investigate the finances of liberal organizations like the Ford Foundation and Brookings Institution; the agency complied, compiling data on over 1,000 institutions and 4,000 individual citizens.

It wasn’t just the IRS. When news of the highly secret bombing campaign in Cambodia broke on the pages of the New York Times in late 1969, then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger ordered FBI wiretaps on 13 of his own aides and four journalists. When even the FBI balked at tapping the phone of Joseph Kraft, a highly respected syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s chief domestic policy adviser, hired a private detective to do the job without the cloak of legal authority.

Nixon also ordered the FBI, CIA and NSA to surveil New Left organizations and instructed the Justice Department to arrest several thousand anti-war protesters who marched on Washington, D.C., in May 1971. The federal courts overturned many of the convictions. But the judges did not know the half of it. Coordinating the arrests from the Oval Office, Nixon heartily approved of plans by Charles Colson, a top political aide, to have rank-and-file teamsters rough up the protesters before their detention. “They’ve got guys who’ll go in and knock their heads off,” the president beamed. Nixon’s chief of staff, Haldeman, confirmed this point. “Murderers. Guys that really, you know, that’s what they really do … they’re going to beat the shit out of some of these people.”

In the wake of Nixon’s disgrace, Congress undertook a sweeping investigation of these abuses, leading to new congressional oversight mechanisms and restrictions on FBI and CIA political activity.

All of which is to say, the idea of independent agencies staffed by nonpartisan career public servants, free of political interference, is a very recent development. Once unraveled, it is not certain to be reassembled.

More at www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/15/why-presidency-cant-go-back-
normal-trump-115362


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




Trump didn't start that fire. GWB did. Obama ran with it.


Let's stop re-writing history here.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, February 24, 2020 11:11 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
America’s monopoly problem, explained by your internet bill

We should be asking the government and corporate America how we got here. Instead, we just keep handing over our money.

Seriously, be mad about your internet bill.

In 2019, New York University economist Thomas Philippon did a deep dive into market concentration and monopolies in The Great Reversal: How America Gave Up on Free Markets. And one of his touch points for the book is the internet. Looking at the data, he found that the United States has fallen behind other developed economies in broadband penetration and that prices are significantly higher. In 2017, the average monthly cost of broadband in America was $66.17; in France, it was $38.10, in Germany, $35.71, and in South Korea, $29.90. How did this happen? In his view, a lot of it comes down to competition — or, rather, lack thereof.

That’s where the government could come in by regulating the network or forcing the company that built it to lease out parts of it to rivals. As Philippon notes, that’s what happened in France — an incumbent carrier was compelled to lease out the “last mile” of its network — basically, the last bit of cable that gets to your hours or apartment building — and therefore letting competitors have a chance at also appealing to customers.

In the US, however, just a few big companies, often without overlap, control much of the telecom industry, and the result is high prices and uneven connectivity.

Experts and advocates have laid out a range of ideas for restoring healthy competition in the economy. Some of it would entail new laws, which, given the current state of affairs in Washington, seems unlikely — Congress can barely agree to fund the government, let alone enact a major overhaul of the workings of the US economy. But it has happened in the past. “What happened in the New Deal was a systemic attack on every aspect of the old order, and the old order was somewhat similar to what we have now,” Stoller noted.

Competition is lacking across countless industries, including baby formula, agriculture, candy, beer, just to name some examples. When you look, monopolies and oligopolies (meaning instead of one dominant company, there are a few) are everywhere. They’re a systemic feature of the economy.

More at www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/18/21126347/antitrust-monopolies-internet
-telecommunications-cheerleading


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




My monthly internet bill is $20. That's $10 less than South Korea.

Not only are their different tiers of service, and many Americans are paying for higher tiers than they're ever going to use, but there are also discounts for setting up auto-pay, paperless billing and doing a contract.

I wasn't even aware of this and had been paying $50 per month for years, month to month without any of the discounts.

All it took was one 20 minute call to Customer Retention and I'm now paying little more than I would be paying if my service were subsidized (which requires proving you have a child on the student lunch program in school).

If you feel you're paying too much, which you almost certainly are, call and ask for the Customer Retention department and see what they have to offer you.



Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, February 25, 2020 7:37 AM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:

My monthly internet bill is $20. That's $10 less than South Korea.

Per your usual, you completely missed the point about monopolies charging high prices for inferior products. It's one of those things that Congress and the President either take care of or else, when the GOP has any control in either the Senate or the White House, it is not taken care of.

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, February 25, 2020 7:38 AM

SECOND

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


Given the increased White House involvement in judicial matters, Yale University's Timothy Snyder, a historian and author who has devoted much of his career to understanding the rise of tyranny in different parts of the world, sits down with Ana Cabrera to discuss his concerns about a worrying trend taking root in the U.S.



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, February 25, 2020 8:47 AM

SECOND

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


Senator Mitch McConnell is about to plunge the Senate into the nation’s culture wars with votes on bills to sharply restrict access to late-term abortions and threaten some doctors who perform them with criminal penalties, signaling that Republicans plan to make curbing a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy a central theme of their re-election campaigns this year.

Mr. McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, is expected to bring the bills up for votes on Tuesday. Both lack the necessary 60-vote supermajority to advance, and the Senate has voted previously to reject them.

But by putting them on the floor again, Mr. McConnell hopes to energize the social conservatives who helped elect Mr. Trump and whose enthusiasm will be needed to help Republicans hold on to the Senate this year, while forcing vulnerable Democrats to take uncomfortable votes on bills that frame abortion as infanticide. The rhetoric around the measures is hot; Mr. Trump, for instance, has pointed to one of the bills to falsely assert that Democrats favor “executing babies AFTER birth.”

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mcconnell-looking-to-energize-social-c
onservatives-forces-votes-on-abortion/ar-BB10looV?ocid=spartanntp


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

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Wednesday, February 26, 2020 6:27 AM

SECOND

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


Bernie and the Filibuster

During a conversation on gun control, wherein former Vice President Joe Biden bragged about beating the NRA in the ’90s, he said he’d do it again as president. What he didn’t mention is that the Obama administration repeatedly sought, and failed, to pass gun control in the aftermath of horrific mass shootings. Biden was part of that effort, and he was unsuccessful. It fell to Warren to explain why:

We have to talk about what it’s really going to take to get something done. I’ve been in the Senate. What I’ve seen is gun safety legislation introduced, get a majority, and then doesn’t pass because of the filibuster. Understand this: The filibuster is giving a veto to the gun industry. It gives a veto to the oil industry. It’s going to give a veto on immigration. Until we’re willing to dig in and say that if Mitch McConnell is going to do to the next Democratic president what he did to President Obama, and that is try to block every single thing he does, that we are willing to roll back the filibuster, go with the majority vote, and do what needs to be done for the American people. Understand this: Many people on this stage do not support rolling back the filibuster. Until we’re ready to do that, we won’t have change.

Warren is right, on all counts. Among those who oppose rolling back the filibuster are Biden, and Sens. Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar.

Pete Buttigieg tried to press the point a few minutes later, saying:

I want to come back to the question of the filibuster because this is not some long-ago bad vote that Bernie Sanders took. This is a current bad position that Bernie Sanders holds. And we’re in South Carolina. How are we going to deliver a revolution if you won’t even support a filibuster rule change?

Sanders got the next word and, again, ignored the issue. The tension between Sanders’s revolutionary rhetoric and his more institutionalist approach to Senate rules on the filibuster is unexplored in his candidacy, but would be a serious problem for his presidency. The only place he has sought to resolve it is Medicare-for-all, where he’s offered a complex plan to use the budget reconciliation process by instructing his vice president to try overturning the Senate parliamentarian’s rulings. But since Senator Bernie won’t support ending the filibuster, President Bernie won’t have Medicare-for-All. The filibuster will bloody murder any hope Bernie and his supporters have about a transformative Presidency. Senator Bernie should murder the filibuster, but he won’t do it because he is a fake revolutionary.

www.vox.com/2020/2/25/21153846/filibuster-south-carolina-debate-democr
atic-primary-2020


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

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Wednesday, February 26, 2020 8:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

My monthly internet bill is $20. That's $10 less than South Korea.

Per your usual, you completely missed the point about monopolies charging high prices for inferior products. It's one of those things that Congress and the President either take care of or else, when the GOP has any control in either the Senate or the White House, it is not taken care of.

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




Yup. I clearly remember Obama being known for all of that monopoly busting he did.

Oh... wait...

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, February 26, 2020 8:26 AM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

My monthly internet bill is $20. That's $10 less than South Korea.

Per your usual, you completely missed the point about monopolies charging high prices for inferior products. It's one of those things that Congress and the President either take care of or else, when the GOP has any control in either the Senate or the White House, it is not taken care of.

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




Yup. I clearly remember Obama being known for all of that monopoly busting he did.

Oh... wait...

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, you never stop missing the point, do you? Trump is Doubling Down on Obama and Bush's Legacy of Going Soft on Antitrust Problems. If you keep missing the point, 6ix, you will end up dead sooner rather than later. While thinking about that, go have a smoke, then suddenly realize you must give up smoking.
www.vice.com/en_us/article/evmqye/trump-is-doubling-down-on-obama-and-
bushs-legacy-of-going-soft-on-antitrust-problems


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

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Wednesday, February 26, 2020 8:34 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

My monthly internet bill is $20. That's $10 less than South Korea.

Per your usual, you completely missed the point about monopolies charging high prices for inferior products. It's one of those things that Congress and the President either take care of or else, when the GOP has any control in either the Senate or the White House, it is not taken care of.

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




Yup. I clearly remember Obama being known for all of that monopoly busting he did.

Oh... wait...

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, you never stop missing the point, do you? Trump is Doubling Down on Obama and Bush's Legacy of Going Soft on Antitrust Problems. If you keep missing the point, 6ix, you will end up dead sooner rather than later. While thinking about that, go have a smoke, then suddenly realize you must give up smoking.
www.vice.com/en_us/article/evmqye/trump-is-doubling-down-on-obama-and-
bushs-legacy-of-going-soft-on-antitrust-problems


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




I like smoking. I have zero plans on quitting.


I'm not missing the point. You just made it for me.

There isn't anybody on that Democrat debate stage that is going to do a goddamned thing about breaking up monopolies, so in light of the fact that Democrats are just awful in every other thing they say or do I'm going to be voting for Republicans.

Hopefully when they lose both the popular vote and the electoral college to Trump and get crushed in November, they'll start coming around and being a better party for the next cycle.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, February 26, 2020 8:53 AM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I like smoking. I have zero plans on quitting.


I'm not missing the point. You just made it for me.

There isn't anybody on that Democrat debate stage that is going to do a goddamned thing about breaking up monopolies, so in light of the fact that Democrats are just awful in every other thing they say or do I'm going to be voting for Republicans.

Hopefully when they lose both the popular vote and the electoral college to Trump and get crushed in November, they'll start coming around and being a better party for the next cycle.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I have not watched any debates, but even I know about Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Big Fight’ Against Monopolies: Warren speaks to The Nation about power, markets, and breaking up corporate giants. Why does 6ix not know better?
www.thenation.com/article/archive/elizabeth-warrens-big-fight-against-
monopolies
/

Republicans refuse to break monopolies. By the way, I know why the Federal government will have a very hard fight breaking up monopolies if Democrats are in charge: there are 3.5 million in the top 1%. We outnumber the Federal government's employees. And your average 1%er has far more motivation (it's about money as a motivator, you know) and firepower to fight a monopoly breakup than even the very best paid Federal employees will have. It will be a tough and slow fight for the Federal government.

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

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Friday, February 28, 2020 7:10 AM

SECOND

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


The Border Patrol Invited the Press to Watch It Blow Up a National Monument

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/27/border-wall-construction-organ-pip
e-explosion
/

U.S. Army and Border Patrol officials hosted an unusual event in the Sonoran Desert on Wednesday, inviting members of the press to watch as they blew up a portion of a national monument in support of the president’s ongoing effort to wall off the United States from Mexico.

Presented as a run-of-the mill construction project, the explosives detonated on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona went off just as the chair of the Tohono O’odham Nation — a Native American tribe with deep historic and cultural ties to the area — offered testimony in Washington, D.C. regarding the Trump administration’s desecration of O’odham lands.

Wednesday’s explosive event was an elaborate effort, with journalists invited to a trailer in a dirt lot that has served as a base of operations for the Organ Pipe project.

Taped to the walls inside the space were Google Earth-style images of the border with colored demarcations charting different portions of wall expansion and replacement. Sitting in plain view was a set of Department of Homeland Security blueprints — labeled “Wall Standard Details” — that showed a wall topped with spikes (while President Donald Trump has described his desire for a spiked border wall, the existing wall in Arizona currently lacks spikes). When asked why the wall had spikes, a Border Patrol agent examined the document for a moment, told us all of our questions would be answered, and then took the documents into another room and shut the door. James O’Loughlin, a contractor with the Logistics Management Institute and project manager for Customs and Border Protection-Pentagon projects, later told me that “there is no current plan for spikes on the wall” nor are there current plans to paint the wall black, which the president has also expressed interest in.

Soon after the blueprints disappeared, the day’s events began.

Having offered to pardon U.S. officials if they commit crimes in the process of building his border wall, Trump’s desire to make good on his core 2016 campaign promise ahead of the 2020 election is no secret.

More at https://theintercept.com/2020/02/27/border-wall-construction-organ-pip
e-explosion
/

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

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Friday, February 28, 2020 8:16 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I like smoking. I have zero plans on quitting.


I'm not missing the point. You just made it for me.

There isn't anybody on that Democrat debate stage that is going to do a goddamned thing about breaking up monopolies, so in light of the fact that Democrats are just awful in every other thing they say or do I'm going to be voting for Republicans.

Hopefully when they lose both the popular vote and the electoral college to Trump and get crushed in November, they'll start coming around and being a better party for the next cycle.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I have not watched any debates, but even I know about Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Big Fight’ Against Monopolies: Warren speaks to The Nation about power, markets, and breaking up corporate giants. Why does 6ix not know better?



Because she's full of shit.

We all hear her saying that, but she brought over 10 million dollars of big money donations from her previous Senate run while lying and saying she had no big donors for the primary.

We've gone over this months ago when I showed you the FEC receipts.

Go check it out yourself. I'm not doing the research twice for you.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, February 28, 2020 8:48 AM

SECOND

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 6IXSTRINGJACK:
. . . she brought over 10 million dollars of big money donations from her previous Senate run while lying and saying she had no big donors for the primary.

She has $10 million and Trump has $1,000 million. Trump gets his money directly from monopolies. Trump has and will go easy on monopolies.

Members of President Donald Trump’s re-election team and some of the GOP’s biggest fundraisers are discussing a new goal of raising an extra $1 billion, according to two bundlers who have been part of the discussions.

Trump’s campaign and the RNC have boasted about their strong fund-raising, regularly declaring record hauls and comparing their numbers to those of former President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election.

Republicans will look to super-PAC donors to give more, raise more money at high-dollar events headlined by Trump, and expand other efforts to bring in additional money.

One way to match Bloomberg’s spending is to raise more money from a handful of billionaires, the people said. They speculated that casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, Blackstone Group Inc. Chief Executive Officer Stephen Schwarzman, and Continental Resources Inc. founder Harold Hamm could be asked to up their donations.

Trump’s re-election committees and the Republican National Committee said they have combined to raise $525 million so far in the election cycle, and ended January with more than $200 million cash on hand.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-18/trump-backers-want-extra-bi
llion-to-counter-bloomberg-spending


If Elizabeth Warren has $10 million and Trump has $200 million in his checking account with more coming in every day, who do you think is working for the monopolies?

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

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Friday, February 28, 2020 11:12 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


I'v reseeved 10$ so far.

That wuz in 2017.

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

http://www.7532020.com .

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Sunday, March 1, 2020 10:06 AM

SECOND

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


Star Trek has a lesson for Bernie: We're Not Ready For First Contact

www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/29/star-trek-first-contact-bern
ie-sanders-democratic-primary-column/4913386002
/

In one episode, the crew of the Enterprise is instructed to make “first contact” with a new world, let them know that aliens exist and invite them to join The Federation. The chancellor of the planet’s government is thrilled with the idea but a traditionalist member of his cabinet is completely opposed, convinced that making this information public will destroy their culture. At the end, the traditionalist leader tries to force the chancellor to reject The Federation by attempting to kill himself and frame a member of the crew for his murder.

When he eventually regains consciousness, he grabs the Chancellor’s arm and says, “Chancellor, you must not do this!” The Chancellor responds, “I know, old friend, I know.” He then explains to the Enterprise crew that, as much as he wants to take this step, it is too soon. His people just are not ready for it and that trying to do so prematurely would tear his planet apart. Someday, hopefully soon, his people would be ready for what The Federation has to offer. But not today.

The Bernie Sanders campaign is based on an idea that the data just does not support, that voters will rise up and throw Donald Trump out of office. The reality is that Presidential Candidate Sanders would present voters in critical, must-win states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan with the question of who terrifies them less. And it is by no means certain that they will conclude that a committed socialist, even a democratic one, is the lesser of two evils.

But suppose Bernie did win the presidency. What then? If there is no evidence that millions of previously-unseen voters will flock to his banner, there is massive, irrefutable evidence that huge swaths of America absolutely will not. We all saw the debate and the extreme discomfort that even many Democrats have with many of Bernie’s ideas. Imagine how Independents and Republicans feel.

Even if having Senator Sanders at the top of the ticket did not put at risk the moderate Democrats who won in 2018 and return the House to Republican control, no one can possibly imagine that Bernie’s laundry list of socialist plans and government giveaways will sweep away powerful opposition once Bernie is sitting in the Oval Office. On the contrary, America is still fighting bitterly over Obamacare, a minor — at least compared to Bernie’s plans — tweak of the healthcare system that was based on what was originally a Republican idea.

Electing Bernie Sanders as president would mean committed activists on both sides fighting to the (hopefully metaphorical) death with a lot of us trapped in no-man’s land and taking fire from both camps. A vote for Bernie Sanders isn’t a vote for a return to honest government and peace, it’s a vote for war.

Many of Sanders’ most committed supporters think that’s exactly what America needs and that the only way to save America is a revolution. But none of us should be comfortable with the idea of destroying America in order to save it.

If you are a progressive activist and a Sanders supporter, I understand that you yearn for President Sanders and his re-making of America with all your heart. But most of us are not ready for what Sanders would bring. After four years of Donald Trump’s efforts to fray the bonds that bind us together, we need a period of peace and healing, not a new period of even more intensive conflict. Over the next four years, we need to recapture our common ground, not seize the high ground and use our advantage to batter our enemies. Doing so would damage this country and our institutions on a scale that would dwarf what Donald Trump has done.

Even if blue America is ready for Bernie Sanders, red America is not. Purple America is not. Most of the country is not there and trying to drag it there will tear it apart. Someday, perhaps, America will be ready for what Bernie Sanders and his movement have to offer. But not today. Remember Star Trek!

Editorial written by Republican Chris Truax, an appellate lawyer in San Diego and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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

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Sunday, March 1, 2020 11:13 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:
I'v reseeved 10$ so far.

That wuz in 2017.

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

http://www.7532020.com .



Good thing you don't smoke man. You can't even buy a pack of cigarettes in your county with that budget pool.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, March 1, 2020 7:22 PM

SECOND

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


Watch Trump Kiss and Caress an American Flag: “I Love You, Baby.”

And he is still bitter that climate activist Greta Thunberg was named Time's "Person of the Year" instead of him.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/watch-trump-kiss-caress-am
erican-flag-cpac-love-you-baby.html


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

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Sunday, March 1, 2020 9:32 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Greta who?

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, March 2, 2020 10:42 AM

SECOND

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


The fate of Obamacare is in the Supreme Court’s hands yet again

The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear California v. Texas and United States House of Representatives v. Texas, two consolidated cases that represent an existential threat to Obamacare, and that were brought by a coalition of Republican-governed states. For the third time since President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the justices will hear a lawsuit seeking to eviscerate the legislation.

www.vox.com/2020/3/2/21147037/obamacare-supreme-court-texas-john-rober
ts




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

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Monday, March 2, 2020 10:43 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr


Sumthing haz me a little worried.

Wut if Putin haz dirt on Bernie?

The evidens for that iz paper thin now, but wut if?

Its an alternate explanation to the theory that they are boosting Bernie kuz they think he will be eazy for Trump to beat.

Insted, depending on exactly wut the dirt iz, Putin cant looz if Bernie iz the candidate. He may still prefer Trump, but coud at least work with a komprimized Bernie.

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

http://www.7532020.com .

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Monday, March 2, 2020 11:51 AM

THG


T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.


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Tuesday, March 3, 2020 8:46 AM

SECOND

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


Brett Kavanaugh does not approve of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

https://qz.com/1811652/

Today, the US Supreme Court is hearing arguments about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Ironically, this agency that protects Americans from predatory lenders now needs help. It has a “friend of the court” assigned to advocate on its behalf, having been abandoned by its own director, appointed by Trump, in a supreme legal challenge that could unravel a decade of the bureau’s work.

The CFPB is the brainchild of Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren. It was created by the 2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Under that law, the agency director is appointed for five years and can only be removed by the president “for cause.” This single director’s fixed term is meant to ensure that the CFPB chief can act on behalf of consumers, insulated from political concerns.

Indeed, during its decade or so of existence, the agency has collected billions of dollars and shut down numerous scams.

The agency’s leadership structure is being challenged by a law firm the CFPB was investigating, and things don’t look great for the bureau designed to protect the people. Not only is the agency siding with the challengers against itself, but one of the justices who will decide this case—Brett Kavanaugh—has already made it abundantly clear he’s no CFPB fan.

The right to say “you’re fired!”

Seila Law, a California-based law firm involved in consumer-debt cases that was under investigation by the CFPB, challenged the agency’s leadership structure in court in 2017. The firm argues that the CFPB is unconstitutionally composed because its director’s fixed five-year term allowing only removal for cause violates constitutional “separation of powers” requirements. The Dodd Frank reforms passed by Congress, which then created the CFPB, rob the president of power granted by the Constitution to fire any officers for whatever reason or none at all, it contends.

The Trump administration agrees with this view, perhaps unsurprisingly given its high turnover rate and the president’s “you’re fired!” catchphrase from his reality TV show days. The commander-in-chief is not shy about firing people and it appears his administration believes it’s an executive’s constitutional right. Under CFPB director Kathy Kraninger, Trump’s 2018 appointee, the agency is siding with Seila Law on the merits.

Thus, justice Elena Kagan appointed a lawyer to stand for the orphaned bureau before the Supreme Court. Somewhat counterintuitively, she chose Paul Clement, who last week argued his 100th high court case representing a company seeking to build a pipeline under the Appalachian Trail.

A partner at the law firm Kirkland and Ellis, former solicitor general under president George W. Bush, and a longtime champion of conservative causes, Clement’s “defense of the consumer bureau … put[s] him at odds—at least in this case—with groups such as the US Chamber of Commerce and others that have questioned the power of the CFPB director,” Law.com has noted.

But Amy Howe of SCOTUSBlog suggested to Quartz that Clement was a strategic choice, someone conservatives can’t easily dismiss. Appointing him may have been a way to depoliticize an ideologically divisive matter—conservatives don’t like the CFPB and progressives, like Warren who created it, do. But conservatives and business do like Clement and he’s considered a talented advocate, so he’ll zealously represent the agency progressives champion.

Individual liberty and the executive check

The orphaned agency faces another serious challenge though. Clement must convince Kavanaugh he is wrong.

In 2016, before Kavanaugh was appointed to the Supreme Court by Trump, he wrote about the CFPB as a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. In PHH Corporation v. CFPB, similar issues arose when a mortgage lender challenged the agency. Kavanaugh framed the case creatively, finding the single-director fixed-term structure is an assault on individual liberty.

Essentially, he transformed the president’s removal power into a kind of power of the people checking an aggressive federal government.

Agencies, Kavanaugh complained, are a fourth branch of government created by Congress, not the Constitution, and one that goes unchecked, threatening personal freedom. Only the existence of agencies with many directors serving at the pleasure of the president guarantees the American people their liberty from overreaching governmental bureaus, he reasoned. The judge wrote:

Because the CFPB is an independent agency headed by a single director and not by a multi-member commission, the Director of the CFPB possesses more unilateral authority–that is, authority to take action on one’s own, subject to no check–than any single commissioner or board member in any other independent agency in the US government. Indeed … the director enjoys more unilateral authority than any other officer in any of the three branches of the US government, other than the president.

Kavanaugh also lamented that the CFPB director “possesses enormous power over American business, American consumers, and the overall US economy.” But he didn’t go so far as to say that because the agency was unconstitutionally structured its very existence was jeopardized. The judge wrote for a divided panel of three jurists who more or less agreed to varying degrees that the single director structure was problematic but not so bad that the agency had to be dismantled.

In 2018, eight judges on the same court of appeals heard an appeal of PHH, and the majority disagreed with Kavanaugh, overruling the 2016 decision. He wrote a dissent, and the president lauded Kavanaugh’s positions when touting his anti-regulation and pro-industry traits to businesses ahead of his Senate confirmation hearings in 2018.

Now, counsel for the meek-but-audacious CFPB-under-Trump, siding with its challengers against itself, will cite judge Kavanaugh to Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh and no doubt find a highly receptive audience, perhaps one willing to go further than before with a conservative majority to support him.

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, March 3, 2020 10:20 AM

THG


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Brett Kavanaugh does not approve of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

https://qz.com/1811652/

Today, the US Supreme Court is hearing arguments about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Ironically, this agency that protects Americans from predatory lenders now needs help. It has a “friend of the court” assigned to advocate on its behalf, having been abandoned by its own director, appointed by Trump, in a supreme legal challenge that could unravel a decade of the bureau’s work.




The voter base is shifting in a big way now. Soon the Trump voter will no longer have the numbers to scratch an itch. Texas in on the verge of flipping and may do so this very election. Judges can be impeached.

tick tock


T


Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Tuesday, March 3, 2020 10:25 AM

SECOND

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


Why does Trump want to close the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau?
It is easy to see why once you look at who is cheating who out of their money.

https://qz.com/1139249/

The agency’s own list of enforcement actions provides a guide to the most popular ways lenders and collection agencies have been creatively cheating US customers over the past seven years. Here’s a look at some recurring scams:

1) Fake debt collection

The CFPB receives more complaints about illegal debt collection than anything else, and it is a growing problem in America. Unscrupulous companies buy information from banks about loans that are too old to collect, or not even owed, and then hound consumers into paying them back with illegal lawsuits and other threats, often with exorbitant fees attached.

The CFPB has investigated and fined 33 different companies for unscrupulous debt collection practices.

In September, the CFPB forced the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts to pay $19.1 million back to consumers for “private student loan debt that the companies couldn’t prove was owed or was too old to sue over.” In October of 2016, it sued to shut down Northern Resolution Group, a Buffalo group accused of harassing, threatening, and deceiving “millions” of consumers across the country into paying debts they didn’t owe. And in July of 2015, JP Morgan Chase was required to refund $50 million to consumers for selling “zombie debt” to collectors that was “inaccurate, settled, discharged in bankruptcy, not owed, or otherwise not collectible.”

2) Tricking student borrowers into paying more

The CFPB has investigated and fined 14 lenders for over-charging student borrowers, lying to them about loan rates, and misrepresenting themselves as having a relationship with the federal government. Citibank, for example, was ordered in September to return $3.75 million to student borrowers that it had charged in late fees and interest while they were still in school. (Student loan borrowers can defer payments until they graduate).

In August of 2016, the agency required for-profit education company Bridgepoint to refund $23.5 million to students that it had “deceived” into taking out loans that were more expensive than advertised. And in July of 2015, it forced Discover Bank to refund $16 million to student borrowers for inflating their minimum payments.

3) Charging minorities more for car loans

Auto lending in the US has skyrocketed in recent years, including to borrowers without good credit history. Economists and bank analysts see some parallels between the subprime mortgage crash that caused the 2008 recession and the frothy auto loan market. Just as with mortgages then, there are plenty of unscrupulous practices happening in auto lending now.

The CFPB has filed 13 judgements against lenders and debt collectors related to auto loans.

In February of 2016, Toyota Motor Credit was forced to pay $21.9 million back to “thousands of African-American and Asian and Pacific Islander borrowers who paid higher interest rates than white borrowers for their auto loans, without regard to their creditworthiness.” In Sept. of 2015, Fifth Third Bank was required to pay $18 million to African-American and Hispanic auto loan customers who were charged, on average, $200 more per car loan than white borrowers with similar credit history.

4) Starting fake accounts

In September 2016, the CFPB fined Wells Fargo $100 million after it opened an estimated two million unauthorized credit card and deposit accounts, and then billed customers fees through existing accounts. This is the largest fine ever paid to the CFPB.

Beyond the CFPB, in some ways it has become easier for banks to rip off US customers since the subprime crisis. A growing number of big banks include language in the fine print of checking account applications that requires customers to rely on private arbitration to settle disputes, for example. In October, the US Senate killed a rule that would made it easier for bank customers to file class action suits.

Profits at big banks, meanwhile, have risen to near-record levels.

Mulvaney, a former member of House of Representatives from South Carolina, received nearly $200,000 in campaign contributions from the securities and commercial banking industries in the 2015-2016 election season.

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, March 3, 2020 9:07 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by THG:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Brett Kavanaugh does not approve of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

https://qz.com/1811652/

Today, the US Supreme Court is hearing arguments about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Ironically, this agency that protects Americans from predatory lenders now needs help. It has a “friend of the court” assigned to advocate on its behalf, having been abandoned by its own director, appointed by Trump, in a supreme legal challenge that could unravel a decade of the bureau’s work.




The voter base is shifting in a big way now. Soon the Trump voter will no longer have the numbers to scratch an itch. Texas in on the verge of flipping and may do so this very election. Judges can be impeached.

tick tock


T


Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.




lol. Is that what the Legacy Media is telling you now?

Poor, poor T...


Enjoy the summer, because it's going to be a very long winter for you.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, March 3, 2020 9:08 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:
Sumthing haz me a little worried.

Wut if Putin haz dirt on Bernie?

The evidens for that iz paper thin now, but wut if?

Its an alternate explanation to the theory that they are boosting Bernie kuz they think he will be eazy for Trump to beat.

Insted, depending on exactly wut the dirt iz, Putin cant looz if Bernie iz the candidate. He may still prefer Trump, but coud at least work with a komprimized Bernie.

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

http://www.7532020.com .




Bernie for President would be like having Putin for President.

Read a book.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, March 4, 2020 6:34 AM

SECOND

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


Blowout, Chapter 28 www.amazon.com/Blowout-Corrupted-Democracy-Destructive-Industry-ebook/
dp/B07Q18953R
/

What is the point of outrage at oil and gas producers? What good can possibly come of it? It’s like being indignant when a lion takes down and eats a gazelle. You can’t really blame the lion. It’s who he is; it’s in his nature.

The nature of Big Oil and Gas hasn’t much changed since its inception at the end of the nineteenth century. The entire point, and therefore the controlling instinct and the base ethos, is to make money—as much money as possible. That’s true in theory for every industry, but the amount of money potentially at hand for producers of oil and gas sets these particular products apart from every other low-tech filthy widget in the world. Combine that with the inherently destructive and polluting nature of production, and you end up in a relentlessly, recklessly driven cost-cutting environment in which it’s probably mathematically worth it to try to get away with almost anything. In the most profit-making industry on earth, there is still no meaningful R&D investment in cleanup technology, nor has there ever been any measurable slowdown in the pace or number of disasters that need cleaning up.

And it is in the nature of the beast to go get those barrels, so long as there is money to be made. In fact, the breakthrough technologies of hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling in the last generation have made the industry more energetically predatory than ever before. And even more delusional. “Every time we can’t drill a well in America, terrorism is being funded,” Harold Hamm said at the 2016 Republican National Convention. “Every onerous regulation puts American lives at risk.” This is an industry that has demanded and received special treatment for more than a century and regards this private right as its due. But even if “energy independence” is our international relations insurance policy and the safety of our energy supply is a core national security issue, why are oil and gas the only energy sources to which those imperatives redound? Why are oil and gas the only energy sources seen as appropriate tools to reach these two national goals? Heaven forbid the government instead offers breaks and incentives to, say, renewable energy. Then suddenly the industry becomes the champion of the free market. Government should not be in the business of picking winners!

The oil and gas industry, as ever, is wholly incapable of any real self-examination, or of policing or reforming itself. Might as well ask the lions to take up a plant-based diet. If we want the most powerful and consequential industry on our planet to operate safely, and rationally, and with actual accountability, well, make it. It’s not mission-to-Mars complicated either, but it works.

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

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Wednesday, March 4, 2020 6:36 AM

THG


T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.


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Wednesday, March 4, 2020 10:25 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Hand sanitizer applied to your balding scalp isn't going to undo years of what Maddow's done to your brain space.

You need a colonic in your ear canal to fix what ails you, buddy.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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