A thread for Democrats Only by THGRRI

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
As we're finding out today, though, this might actually be a pretty prescient story about how democracies and the international (or interplanetary) order they've created fall apart. - SECOND
And a good thing, too! There is nothing "democratic" about the WTO, or other "free trade" deals, or the BIS and it's coterie of central banks, or the Troika and its administration of the EU currency, or the various western military alliances.

Signym, you are a windy blowhard. Trump has the same problem as you have -- he hates the WTO. But Trump does not have the power to withdraw from the WTO.

“He’s [threatened to withdraw] 100 times. It would totally [screw] us as a country,” said a source who’s discussed the subject with Trump. The source added that Trump has frequently told advisers, “We always get fucked by them [the WTO]. I don’t know why we’re in it. The WTO is designed by the rest of the world to screw the United States.”

But the U.S. law implementing the WTO agreements states quite plainly that withdrawal from the WTO requires an act of Congress.

Too bad for Signym and Trump. None of your rants matter even slightly since Congress is not going to withdraw from the WTO. It’s just another story about all the weird stuff idiot Trump (and ignorant Signym) rant about. Someone should make a list.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/06/donald-trump-is-not-going-to-wi
thdraw-from-the-wto/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 30, 2018 4:42 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Too bad for Signym and Trump. None of your rants matter even slightly since Congress is not going to withdraw from the WTO. It’s just another story about all the weird stuff idiot Trump (and ignorant Signym) rant about. Someone should make a list.- SECOND

So, speaking of weird rants, how about the one where you think that Americans are too dumb to have the vote on important matters?

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

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 30, 2018 5:30 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:

Too bad for Signym and Trump. None of your rants matter even slightly since Congress is not going to withdraw from the WTO. It’s just another story about all the weird stuff idiot Trump (and ignorant Signym) rant about. Someone should make a list.

www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/06/donald-trump-is-not-going-to-wi
thdraw-from-the-wto/

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

We've tried keeping a list SECOND. Problem is we'd have to put every one of sigs posts on the list to have a complete one.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, June 30, 2018 5:56 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Too bad for SECOND and THUGR. None of your rants matter even slightly since Trump didn't collude with Russia. It’s just another story about all the stuff that Trump supposedly did. Someone should make a list.- THUGR

FIFY

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

As long as you insist that everything is the Republicans'/ Democrats' fault, then you fail to grasp the REAL problem with American politics.

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 3, 2018 7:38 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

FIFY

FIFY means "Fixed It For You". Changing a few words or issuing a few Presidential orders then declaring you fixed a problem does not actually fix the problem, but it is favorite technique of Trump for stalling, instead of repairing government. There is a book for all those people who imagine that if only their party wins a few elections, then the new President and Congress will fix the system in a few years of work. It won't be that quick and simple:

Tailspin - The People and Forces Behind America’s Fifty-Year Fail

The decline and fall of the United States has inspired a 21st-century cottage industry of books devoted to how things went off course. They range from the journalistic (“The Unwinding”) to the sociological (“Our Kids”) to the economic (Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century”) to the political (“Winner-Take-All Politics”). We are living in a golden age of authors telling Americans that we no longer live in a golden age.

“Tailspin” distinguishes itself within the America Gone Wrong genre. It comes to life when it focuses on the legal shifts and stalemates that ushered in the country’s current predicament, examining how these changes rippled across the rest of society. The rise of executive compensation practices linked to stock prices encouraged executives to prioritize short-term profits over long-term investments. A series of Supreme Court cases, ending with Citizens United, enabled corporate speech to play a powerful role in national politics. The growth of super PACs and lobbyists in Washington guarantees that any piece of appropriate regulation will be watered down — first in Congress and then in the implementation stage. The federal government’s approach to fraudulent financial firms has shifted from the criminal prosecution of executives to the levying of fines. All of the book’s chapters on the law crackle with energy.

“Tailspin” describes a slow-motion process of perverse meritocracy in which, as one law professor says, “the elites have become so skilled and so hardworking that they are able to protect each other better than ever before.”

“Tailspin” distinguishes itself by the number of times the phrase “unintended consequences” appears in the book. Many of the legal and regulatory changes have counter-intuitive beginnings. Who helped spearhead the growth of the commercial speech movement? The consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who sued the Commonwealth of Virginia to allow pharmacies to advertise drug prices. “Talk about boomerangs,” Nader said in 2017. “That case was the biggest boomerang of all time.”

“Tailspin” blames the tortoise-like pace of government rule-writing on due process run amok. Laws like the 1946 Administrative Procedure Act mandated citizen feedback to new regulations, but interest groups have weaponized due process to guarantee gridlock.

More at www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/books/review/steven-brill-tailspin.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 3, 2018 10:19 AM

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

Republicans almost always play hardball, while Democrats vacillate between episodes of hardball and periods in which they hope unilateral concessions will restore old-time governance norms. Both sides have been willing to change the rules in somewhat arbitrary ways to speed confirmations of presidential appointees when they control the White House and slow them when they do not, but Republicans have played the game much more consistently and much more aggressively.

Consider, for example, the hardball saga of the “Blue Slip Rule”:

1) Up through 1994 or so there was a tradition in the United States Senate that a judicial nomination could not be brought to the floor unless the nominee received at least one “blue slip” — i.e., favorable recommendation — from a home-state senator.

2) Then in 1995, Republicans won control of the Senate and changed the principle to require two blue slips to advance a judicial nominee, which made it easier to block Bill Clinton’s appointees.

3) In 2001, George W. Bush became president, so they changed the rule back to one blue slip. Jim Jeffords’s defection then gave Democrats control of the Senate, so they moved back to two blue slips to make it easier to block his judges.

4) The two slip rule, critically, remained in effect as long as Democrats controlled the Senate even once Barack Obama took over as president — with Democrats choosing to uphold a senatorial courtesy over partisan advantage.

5) Republicans gained control of the Senate in 2015 and, of course, not only kept the two slip rule in place but basically stopped confirming judges altogether — up to and including holding a Supreme Court seat vacant.

6) When Trump took office, he filled the Supreme Court vacancy with Neil Gorsuch and the GOP swiftly went back to a one blue slip standard, until this May when they broke the seal on confirming judges who had zero blue slips.

These shenanigans have profoundly shaped the federal judiciary over the past quarter-century, a period of time during which the courts also handed an election to Bush, dismantled much of federal campaign finance legislation and the Voting Rights Act, and acted to make it virtually impossible to successfully prosecute political corruption cases and a wide array of other white collar crimes to boot.

And it’s not just the judiciary. More at www.vox.com/2018/7/3/17379766/trump-norms-democracy

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 3, 2018 1:04 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.

cross-posted

SECOND is a troll because it constantly misrepresents what people post, fails to address their actual positions, and resorts to personal attacks when its brain isn't working (which is most of the time).

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 4, 2018 10:15 AM

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

Democracy Dies in the Blinding Light of Day

Despite being one of America’s founding statesmen and its president, John Adams was quite skeptical of democracy. “Democracy never lasts long,” Adams reflected in an 1814 letter. “It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.”

The United States that existed when Adams wrote the letter was not very worthy of being described as a democracy in any case. Millions of slaves were denied the most basic human rights, while women were denied any meaningful participation in civic life. Not until the civil rights movement and women’s suffrage in the 20th century could the United States start to be considered a full-fledged democracy, despite the country’s founding under the false flag of democracy in 1776. American democracy, in any meaningful sense of the term, is then less than a century old.

Recent events suggest that, even now, American democracy may be starting to enter a decrepit late-middle age. While many people assume that our current political turbulence is an aberration, long-term trends suggest that undemocratic illiberalism may one day become the norm in the United States and elsewhere. Technological change, decaying institutions, and populist demagoguery may well make genuine democracy effectively impossible, validating Adams’s prediction that a democratic system could never really endure.

A new book by Cambridge University professor David Runciman, provocatively titled “How Democracy Ends,” charts a number of trends in the United States and Europe that he believes foretell the approaching end of democracy as we know it. Our dysfunctional democratic systems have proven incapable of responding to problems.

Yet the end of democracy does not mean a return to any recognizable, pre-democratic past. Unlike many other gloomy predictions of democracy giving way to something like 1930s European fascism, Runciman argues that the unique nature of our modern societies means that, if the end comes, it will happen in a much more subtle way. Rather than a military coup d’état or the unilateral annulment of a vote by a strongman, in the West, democracy is more likely to simply fracture and fizzle out over time. As our political institutions become less and less able to deliver meaningful results and the speed of technological change continues to warp and remake society, democracy could effectively die while continuing to appear alive for years to come.

Referring to this as “zombie democracy,” Runciman goes on to describe a state of affairs in which “the people are simply watching a performance in which their role is to give or withhold applause at the appropriate moments.” Rather than an expression of civic life, politics instead becomes “an elaborate show, needing ever more characterful performers to hold the public’s attention.”

“If you look 40 years ahead, we are going to continue having elections. The elections will still have lots of sound and fury and talk of change, but the technology and structures of modern life will mean that the change that can be accomplished by voting will be very limited,” Runciman writes. “The system that exists may not be either democratic or authoritarian, but rather a kind of ‘half-life’ democracy that could continue existing for a long time.”

Runciman cites a number of gradual “coups” that could kill or cripple a democracy without us clearly noticing what’s taken place. Among the more subtle types of power grabs available in mature democracies is executive aggrandizement by a sitting government, whereby elected leaders, once in power, begin to attack democratic institutions like the press and civil society groups, bullying them into submission and slowly hollowing out democracy from the inside. Another possible tactic is strategic election manipulation, whereby elections are never outright tampered with to the degree that they can be described as “stolen,” but are creatively manipulated just enough that they are never truly free and fair either.

Do these methods of the soft coup sound harrowingly familiar?

More at https://theintercept.com/2018/07/04/how-democracy-ends-david-runciman-
review/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 4, 2018 10:19 AM

Why yes. Yes, they do.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 4, 2018 10:53 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Why yes. Yes, they do.

Easy to find examples of Democracy being subverted for a large profit paid by Putin. He has billions to spend and the people he buys sell themselves cheaply, for only millions. He can afford to buy many greedy Brits and Americans. Here are two examples, Brexit in the UK and Trump in the US:

Banks’s defense of his behavior to the Times is so absurdly suspicious it almost reads like a winking, dada joke: “The idea that things were dangled as some sort of carrots for me to be involved with the Russians is very far-fetched,” he said. “I wonder what the Russians wanted from me?” What they wanted was perfectly obvious: Banks funded the Brexit political referendum in which Russia had a strong interest in passing. Russia could not directly finance the referendum, but Banks could. Therefore, what they would want is for him to use some of the money they were dangling before him to support Brexit, which he did. At this point, it seems virtually certain that Russia did use Banks, perhaps in conjunction with Mellon, as a pass through to covertly finance the Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Donald Trump and many members of his inner circle have a long trail of financial ties to Russia. The overt behavior looks remarkably similar. Trump and his cronies refuse to disclose their precise financial connections (by, for instance, following the established norm of a presidential candidate publishing his tax returns.) They continuously lie about the number and nature of their covert contacts with Russian officials, then keep insisting with each new disclosure that there is no more to disclose and the whole question is a witch hunt. Meanwhile, they continue to deliver a policy outcome payoff to Putin.

Yesterday alone, reports have emerged that Trump offered Emmanuel Macron a better deal if France would exit the European Union, refused to rule out accepting Russia’s claim to seized territory from Ukraine, and that his government is studying the possibility of withdrawing troops from Germany. Like Banks’s winking “what could the Russians have wanted from me?” defense, Trump is virtually daring his critics to draw the obvious conclusion.

More at http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/06/the-british-russia-collus
ion-scandal-is-breaking-wide-open.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, July 5, 2018 9:17 AM

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

The messy reality of Donald Trump’s poll numbers

He’s playing a strong hand, poorly.

On June 25, Axios’s Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei took readers inside Donald Trump’s “winning, cynical plan.” They argued that “the more President Trump does, says and tweets outrageous things, the more his critics go bananas and the better he does in the polls.”

The evidence for this was that Trump had hit 45 percent in Gallup’s presidential approval tracker — a personal high for him, though he’s since slipped back to 42 percent. More impressively, Trump’s approval among Republicans is hovering around 90 percent, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s disapproval among Republicans was up to 53 percent.

“It’s arguably the most cynical strategy imaginable,” write Allen and VandeHei. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t be successful politically.”

I should say at the outset: I believe Allen and VandeHei have this one wrong. I don’t think Trump’s poll numbers show he’s found a successful political strategy — quite the opposite, in fact. But this is a difficult debate to have because it requires defining what success would look like for Trump, which means settling on some counterfactual sense of where Trump’s poll numbers could and should be.

Sure, 45 percent, or his current 42 percent, is higher than Trump’s April low of 38 percent, or his all-time Gallup low, last seen in December, of 35 percent. But his numbers have held within a very narrow range since his inauguration. Indeed, Trump’s approval has actually been the most stable of any president in polling history, as this chart from Charles Franklin shows:
[ ] Charles Franklin/Gallup data

The real question, then, is whether the narrow range Trump has settled into represents success or failure. And so we need to establish a baseline: Are Trump’s poll numbers high given what we might expect, or low?

3.8 percent unemployment and 42 percent approval. Is that “winning”?

Here’s another way to think about this question: Would President Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Mitt Romney be at 42 percent amidst 3.8 percent unemployment? I doubt it. But I also can’t prove it.

More at www.vox.com/explainers/2018/7/5/17531360/donald-trump-poll-numbers-pop
ularity

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, July 5, 2018 12:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:

The real question, then, is whether the narrow range Trump has settled into represents success or failure. And so we need to establish a baseline: Are Trump’s poll numbers high given what we might expect, or low?

3.8 percent unemployment and 42 percent approval. Is that “winning”?

Here’s another way to think about this question: Would President Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Mitt Romney be at 42 percent amidst 3.8 percent unemployment? I doubt it. But I also can’t prove it.

I can't see him winning a second term. Time will tell but I just can't see it.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Thursday, July 5, 2018 2:32 PM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by JJ:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:

The real question, then, is whether the narrow range Trump has settled into represents success or failure. And so we need to establish a baseline: Are Trump’s poll numbers high given what we might expect, or low?

3.8 percent unemployment and 42 percent approval. Is that “winning”?

Here’s another way to think about this question: Would President Marco Rubio or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Mitt Romney be at 42 percent amidst 3.8 percent unemployment? I doubt it. But I also can’t prove it.

I can't see him winning a second term. Time will tell but I just can't see it.

Really you guys??

1. I will never trust another poll no matter where, no matter who, no matter when. Russian hacking - past or future - make any professional polling moot.

2. @T - who do the Dems have that can beat Trump in even a fair fight? Or change previous voting habits or negate more interference? I believed the last one was a done deal, not this next one.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, July 6, 2018 7:37 AM

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

Big Business Reaps Trump’s Whirlwind. The bill for decades of cynical politics is coming due.

July 5, 2018 www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/opinion/trade-war-trump-business-jobs.html

The imminent prospect of a trade war, it seems, concentrates the mind. Until very recently, big business and the institutions that represent its interests didn’t seem to be taking President Trump’s protectionist rhetoric very seriously. After all, corporations have invested trillions based on the belief that world markets would remain open, that U.S. industry would retain access to both foreign customers and foreign suppliers.

Trump wouldn’t put all those investments at risk, would he?

Yes, he would — and the belated recognition that his tough talk on trade was serious has spurred a flurry of action. Major corporations and trade associations are sending letters to the administration warning that its policies will cost more jobs than they create. Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has begun an advertising campaign to convince voters of the benefits of free trade.

Pathetic, isn’t it? Who in the Trump administration is going to pay attention to those letters? What, exactly, does the chamber think it will accomplish by running those ads?

The thing is, big business is reaping what it sowed. No single cause brought us to this terrible moment in American history, but decades of cynical politics on the part of corporate America certainly played an important role.

What do I mean by cynical politics? Partly I mean the tacit alliance between businesses and the wealthy, on one side, and racists on the other, that is the essence of the modern conservative movement. www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-intervi
ew-southern-strategy/

For a long time business seemed to have this game under control: win elections with racial dog whistles, then turn to an agenda of tax cuts and deregulation. But sooner or later something like Trump was going to happen: a candidate who meant the racism seriously, with the enthusiastic support of the Republican base, and couldn’t be controlled.

When organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or the Heritage Foundation declare that Trump’s tariffs are a bad idea, they are on solid intellectual ground: All, and I mean all, economic experts agree. But they don’t have any credibility, because these same conservative institutions have spent decades making war on expertise. www.igmchicago.org/surveys/steel-and-aluminum-tariffs

The most obvious case is climate change, where conservative organizations, very much including the chamber, have long acted as “merchants of doubt,” manufacturing skepticism and blocking action in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s hard to pivot from “pay no attention to those so-called experts who say the planet is warming” to “protectionism is bad — all the experts agree.” www.bloomsbury.com/us/merchants-of-doubt-9781608193943/

Similarly, organizations like Heritage have long promoted supply-side economics, a.k.a., voodoo economics — the claim that tax cuts will produce huge growth and pay for themselves — even though no economic experts agree. So they’ve already accepted the principle that it’s O.K. to talk economic nonsense if it’s politically convenient. Now comes Trump with different nonsense, saying “trade wars are good, and easy to win.” How can they convince anyone that his nonsense is bad, while theirs was good? www.igmchicago.org/surveys/tax-reform-2

But a trade war may be only the start of big business’s self-inflicted punishment. Much worse and scarier things may lie ahead, because Trump isn’t just a protectionist, he’s an authoritarian. Trade wars are nasty; unchecked power is much worse, and not just for those who are poor and powerless.

Trump is already in the habit of threatening businesses that have crossed him. After Harley-Davidson announced that it was shifting some production overseas because of trade conflicts, he warned that the company would be “taxed like never before” — which certainly sounds as if he wants to politicize the I.R.S. and use it to punish individual businesses.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, July 6, 2018 4:30 PM

This is why Trump won and hopefully why in the fall he will lose.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Friday, July 6, 2018 11:18 PM

The trolls are alive and well, and most Nazis, here and in EU, aren't aware they're being gaslighted by Russians.

Even the Republican senate finally conceded it.

The rise of the neoNazis is, at least in part, orchestrated by Putin. You want a "commie" to blame it all on? There you go.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 7, 2018 7:59 AM

No such thing as Nazis in 2018.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 7, 2018 2:21 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.

Since there are so many places I could post this exonerating tidbit, I'll post it in a few places:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/politics/paul-manafort-trial-public/ind
ex.html

Prosecutors says any alleged collusion with the Russian government won’t come up at the trial.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 7, 2018 3:49 PM

tick tock

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 7, 2018 3:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No such thing as Nazis in 2018.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Wrong.

If it talks like a Nazi, believes like a Nazi, does Nazi salutes, and beats and murders people like a Nazi for the same reasons a Nazi would, it's a fuckin' Nazi.

But, you go ahead and try to play semantic games. You've already admitted you are one. Toning down on calling people "cucks" doesn't mean your brain works any better.

Charlottesville taught you that sane people loathe you, so you have to be more subtle. The menace of your idiotic brainwashed mind is still there.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 7, 2018 4:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Since there are so many places I could post this exonerating tidbit, I'll post it in a few places:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/politics/paul-manafort-trial-public/ind
ex.html

Prosecutors says any alleged collusion with the Russian government won’t come up at the trial.

Not because there wasn't any. Looks like he cut a deal. Very disingenuous of you.

"Manafort faces trial on bank fraud and other financial charges in the Eastern District of Virginia beginning July 25. Until now, there had been no indication that his role in the Trump campaign would become part of the trial, and he had asked the judge to keep details about his ties to President Donald Trump out of the trial. Prosecutors say any alleged collusion with the Russian government won't come up at the trial."

They'll prove that later.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 7, 2018 7:09 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.

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Since there are so many places I could post this exonerating tidbit, I'll post it in a few places:
https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/06/politics/paul-manafort-trial-public/ind
ex.html
Prosecutors says any alleged collusion with the Russian government won’t come up at the trial.

Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Not because there wasn't any.

How do you know?

Quote:
Looks like he cut a deal.

How do you know? Very disingenuous of you.

Quote:

"Manafort faces trial on bank fraud and other financial charges in the Eastern District of Virginia beginning July 25. Until now, there had been no indication that his role in the Trump campaign would become part of the trial, and he had asked the judge to keep details about his ties to President Donald Trump out of the trial. Prosecutors say any alleged collusion with the Russian government won't come up at the trial."
They'll prove that later.

Whatever.

We have a trial of one of the supposed principals of said supposed collusion, not being tried for collusion. In fact, this supposed key player of the supposed collusion is having any reference at all to the supposed collusion being barred from the proceedings.

I guess the judge is just a really nice guy or gal who musta' gone along with that request just because Manafort's lawyers asked so sweetly. And not because it was unproven or prejudicial.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Saturday, July 7, 2018 9:14 PM

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

How to Lose a Trade War

Trump’s declaration that “trade wars are good, and easy to win” is an instant classic, right up there with Herbert Hoover’s “prosperity is just around the corner.”

Trump obviously believes that trade is a game in which he who runs the biggest surplus wins, and that America, which imports more than it exports, therefore has the upper hand in any conflict. That’s also why Peter Navarro predicted that nobody would retaliate against Trump’s tariffs. Since that’s actually not how trade works, we’re already facing plenty of retaliation and the strong prospect of escalation.

But here’s the thing: Trump’s tariffs are badly designed even from the point of view of those who share his crude mercantilist view of trade. In fact, the structure of his tariffs so far is designed to inflict maximum damage on the U.S. economy, for minimal gain. Foreign retaliation, by contrast, is far more sophisticated: unlike Trump, the Chinese and other targets of his trade wrath seem to have a clear idea of what they’re trying to accomplish.

The key point is that the Navarro/Trump view, aside from its fixation on trade balances, also seems to imagine that the world still looks the way it did in the 1960s, when trade was overwhelmingly in final goods like wheat and cars. In that world, putting a tariff on imported cars would cause consumers to switch to domestic cars, adding auto industry jobs, end of story (except for the foreign retaliation.)

In the modern world economy, however, a large part of trade is in intermediate goods – not cars but car parts. Put a tariff on car parts, and even the first-round effect on jobs is uncertain: maybe domestic parts producers will add workers, but you’ve raised costs and reduced competitiveness for downstream producers, who will shrink their operations.

So in today’s world, smart trade warriors would focus their tariffs on final goods, so as to avoid raising costs for downstream producers of domestic goods. True, this would amount to a more or less direct tax on consumers; but if you’re afraid to impose any burden on consumers, you really shouldn’t be getting into a trade war in the first place.

But almost none of the Trump tariffs are on consumer goods. Chad Bown and colleagues have a remarkable chart showing the distribution of the Trump China tariffs: an amazing 95 percent are either on intermediate goods or on capital goods like machinery that are also used in domestic production.

Is there a strategy here? It’s hard to see one. There’s certainly no hint that the tariffs were designed to pressure China into accepting U.S. demands.

China’s retaliation looks very different. It’s mostly on final goods. And it’s also driven by a clear political strategy of hurting Trump voters; the Chinese, unlike the Trumpies, know what they’re trying to accomplish.

Trump and company don’t actually have a plan to win this trade war. They may, however, have stumbled onto a strategy that will lose it decisively.

More at www.nytimes.com/2018/07/07/opinion/how-to-lose-a-trade-war.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 6:11 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Whatever.

We have a trial of one of the supposed principals of said supposed collusion, not being tried for collusion. In fact, this supposed key player of the supposed collusion is having any reference at all to the supposed collusion being barred from the proceedings.

I guess the judge is just a really nice guy or gal who musta' gone along with that request just because Manafort's lawyers asked so sweetly. And not because it was unproven or prejudicial.

Sammy "The Bull" Gravano was flipped to prosecute mob boss John Gotti. Why did Sammy flip? Because he made a deal where, if he testified, he would not be prosecuted for murder, although he had killed 19, so that the "Teflon Don" John Gotti could be convicted of one murder. The prosecutor was Mueller.

What does this have to do with Manafort? Manafort is Sammy. Trump is Gotti. Mueller is still Mueller. And instead of not prosecuting Sammy for murder, it's not prosecuting Manafort for Russia. Sammy did get some jail time, but not for 19 murders and he is now out and was interviewed by Vanity Fair after Gotti died in jail. Maybe Manafort will be interviewed by Vanity Fair after Trump dies. As fat and old as Trump is, that could be sooner than Gotti rather than later.

HOW SCARED SHOULD TRUMP BE OF MUELLER? ASK JOHN GOTTI OR SAMMY “THE BULL”
www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/how-scared-should-trump-be-of-mueller-
ask-john-gotti-or-sammy-the-bull

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 7:19 AM

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

How the modern world fell in love with money

Alston, who acts as a watchdog on extreme poverty, said Trump’s administration had passed tax laws that “overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality”. He said Trump’s policies “seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege”.

But Greenfield says the chasm between rich and poor was widening well before the reality TV star’s 2016 election. “The American dream – that everyone has equal opportunity – became a fiction long before Trump,” she says. “Americans don’t hate the rich, as they imagine they could become the rich. They don’t want high taxes as they think they could become rich and won’t want to pay them. But what they dream of is an increasingly unbelievable fantasy.”

She says that while examining her photos it became clear to her that “We have left behind the American dream of my dad’s generation where there was the possibility of social mobility and the belief that anyone could make it. The things that were valued then – discipline, hard work and frugality – are not so important now. We have a culture that prizes celebrity, bling and narcissism.” Trump, she says, “is the apotheosis of wealth. With Trump you have wealth and celebrity achieving the ultimate goal. Trump is the natural evolution of the values of our culture.”

www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jul/08/generation-wealth-how-the-moder
n-world-fell-in-love-with-money

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 7:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
How the modern world fell in love with money

Alston, who acts as a watchdog on extreme poverty, said Trump’s administration had passed tax laws that “overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy and worsened inequality”. He said Trump’s policies “seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege”.

But Greenfield says the chasm between rich and poor was widening well before the reality TV star’s 2016 election. “The American dream – that everyone has equal opportunity – became a fiction long before Trump,” she says. “Americans don’t hate the rich, as they imagine they could become the rich. They don’t want high taxes as they think they could become rich and won’t want to pay them. But what they dream of is an increasingly unbelievable fantasy.”

She says that while examining her photos it became clear to her that “We have left behind the American dream of my dad’s generation where there was the possibility of social mobility and the belief that anyone could make it. The things that were valued then – discipline, hard work and frugality – are not so important now. We have a culture that prizes celebrity, bling and narcissism.” Trump, she says, “is the apotheosis of wealth. With Trump you have wealth and celebrity achieving the ultimate goal. Trump is the natural evolution of the values of our culture.”

www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jul/08/generation-wealth-how-the-moder
n-world-fell-in-love-with-money

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

Yup.

Vote with your wallet people.

At this point I can dictate my schedule at work. I've been very clear that if they want me full time they have to pay me more. Since that likely isn't doable, they will bend over backwards to give me the schedule I want just to keep me around. Should that ever change, I'll tell them to only schedule me one day a week until they figure it out.

How do I do this? Well... having the house paid for certainly doesn't hurt, but it's a lot more than that. No cable TV. No cell phone. Paid for car that I've not had a payment on for 10 years as well as the lowest possible legal car insurance. Never eat out. Yada, yada, yada...

Oh... and I don't buy into any of those days of the year that we've been programmed to go out and spend big bucks either. I don't buy anybody any christmas or birthday presents, etc., and I also tell everyone not to buy me any. That's a lot of money saved for all parties involved on useless shit. The only present I'll be giving this year is to my niece, and I'm building it. It will be far better than any made in China bullshit you can get in the stores and it will be a fraction of the price too.

I'm never going to be rich. Boo hoo.

Chances are that anyone reading this isn't either. The less shit you buy that you don't need, the more you're one step closer to not being a wage slave. When you reach that point, if you've got a near minimum wage job and can pay the bills with only a few days of work a week, you hold all the power in that relationship as long as you're a damn good worker.

There's a lot more to life than money.

Seriously. Fuck money.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 8:13 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

At this point I can dictate my schedule at work. I've been very clear that if they want me full time they have to pay me more.

There's a lot more to life than money.

Seriously. Fuck money.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I’ve got a story about Amazonian tribesmen who have little money but they have their health. They made the same trade-off 6ixStringJack did. Your next step, 6ix, is to stop wearing shoes, start carrying bundles on a banana plantation (or whatever the Indiana equivalent is) and live in a thatch-roof house, which is so inexpensive. Get your bare feet in touch with the rich soil.
www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-tsimane-tribe-diet-lifestyle-habits-health
y-hearts/

Matthew 6:26 6ixStringJack, look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-animals/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 8:53 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.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano was flipped to prosecute mob boss John Gotti. Why did Sammy flip? Because he made a deal where, if he testified, he would not be prosecuted for murder, although he had killed 19, so that the "Teflon Don" John Gotti could be convicted of one murder. The prosecutor was Mueller.

What does this have to do with Manafort? Manafort is Sammy. Trump is Gotti. Mueller is still Mueller. And instead of not prosecuting Sammy for murder, it's not prosecuting Manafort for Russia. Sammy did get some jail time, but not for 19 murders and he is now out and was interviewed by Vanity Fair after Gotti died in jail. Maybe Manafort will be interviewed by Vanity Fair after Trump dies. As fat and old as Trump is, that could be sooner than Gotti rather than later.

HOW SCARED SHOULD TRUMP BE OF MUELLER? ASK JOHN GOTTI OR SAMMY “THE BULL”
www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/how-scared-should-trump-be-of-mueller-
ask-john-gotti-or-sammy-the-bull

Whatever. All your intense interest in speculation doesn't make it more than speculation. It's a lot like the Douma/ Sarin claims you *thought* were so important. Until the facts came in. And then all that time and effort and thought and belief became so much chaff, to be blown away in the breeze like the wastage it was. A complete waste of your time, and anyone who bothered with your posts. Honestly, life's too short to treat you as anything but a source of amusement.
One would think you'd have learned by now - you're being lied to every day. A narrative is being played over and over and over AND over - while zero evidence is presented. You need to seek facts, and if you can't find them, wait for them. And learn by experience who the liars are.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 9:46 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

At this point I can dictate my schedule at work. I've been very clear that if they want me full time they have to pay me more.

There's a lot more to life than money.

Seriously. Fuck money.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
I’ve got a story about Amazonian tribesmen who have little money but they have their health. They made the same trade-off 6ixStringJack did. Your next step, 6ix, is to stop wearing shoes, start carrying bundles on a banana plantation (or whatever the Indiana equivalent is) and live in a thatch-roof house, which is so inexpensive. Get your bare feet in touch with the rich soil.
www.cbsnews.com/news/amazon-tsimane-tribe-diet-lifestyle-habits-health
y-hearts/

Matthew 6:26 6ixStringJack, look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?
www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-animals/

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

Nah... I'm good with where I'm at now. I don't want to be a tree person living completely off the land. I like buying my food at the store and I love having the internet.

Those things are cheap, or at least they can be if you don't need to buy the premium packages.

I'll be able to live this year on less than $5,000, including my property taxes. I'm going to dump another $1,000 into my car to get another 5 years out of it, and I'm going to spend another $1,500 to get a family member to pull out my teeth and put in dentures and never have to worry about that problem I created for myself ever again.

After that, everything else I earn is just gravy.

My point is, there are people who jumped on the opportunity to work full time where I'm employed and it didn't come with a single cent per hour increase. They took it because they had to. Because the job is overnights, they essentially get one free day per week to live their life, and the other six belong to our employer. They are wage slaves.

Beyond working to pay my bills and put a modest amount of money in the bank every month for a rainy day, the money I'm paid isn't worth anything to me. In another 5 years of working 3 days a week, I should be comfortable enough to lower that to only 2 days a week.

SGG asked in another thread "What is Freedom?"

I can't think of a better definition of the word than the way I'm living my life now that I'm sober and living healthy again.

Money is bullshit. Beyond what I need to live, I'm completely done with it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 10:01 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Sammy "The Bull" Gravano was flipped to prosecute mob boss John Gotti. Why did Sammy flip? Because he made a deal where, if he testified, he would not be prosecuted for murder, although he had killed 19, so that the "Teflon Don" John Gotti could be convicted of one murder. The prosecutor was Mueller.

What does this have to do with Manafort? Manafort is Sammy. Trump is Gotti. Mueller is still Mueller. And instead of not prosecuting Sammy for murder, it's not prosecuting Manafort for Russia. Sammy did get some jail time, but not for 19 murders and he is now out and was interviewed by Vanity Fair after Gotti died in jail. Maybe Manafort will be interviewed by Vanity Fair after Trump dies. As fat and old as Trump is, that could be sooner than Gotti rather than later.

HOW SCARED SHOULD TRUMP BE OF MUELLER? ASK JOHN GOTTI OR SAMMY “THE BULL”
www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/how-scared-should-trump-be-of-mueller-
ask-john-gotti-or-sammy-the-bull] Whatever. All your intense interest in speculation doesn't make it more than speculation. It's a lot like the Douma/ Sarin claims you *thought* were so important. Until the facts came in. And then all that time and effort and thought and belief became so much chaff, to be blown away in the breeze like the wastage it was. A complete waste of your time, and anyone who bothered with your posts. Honestly, life's too short to treat you as anything but a source of amusement.
One would think you'd have learned by now - you're being lied to every day. A narrative is being played over and over and over AND over - while zero evidence is presented. You need to seek facts, and if you can't find them, wait for them. And learn by experience who the liars are.

1kiki, never forget you are an idiot logging in from Russia. It required three trials and two decades to get John Gotti into prison for a single murder. In a better world, Mueller would have shot Gotti dead on the street, but Mueller worked through a system that has extraordinary difficulty in slowly making up its mind over many years about important people going to jail for their crimes. If you are a poor person, the opposite of a Trump or a Gotti, justice comes a little too swiftly, unfairly, and inaccurately.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, July 8, 2018 11:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Whatever. All your intense interest in speculation doesn't make it more than speculation. It's a lot like the Douma/ Sarin claims you *thought* were so important. Until the facts came in. And then all that time and effort and thought and belief became so much chaff, to be blown away in the breeze like the wastage it was. A complete waste of your time, and anyone who bothered with your posts. Honestly, life's too short to treat you as anything but a source of amusement.
One would think you'd have learned by now - you're being lied to every day. A narrative is being played over and over and over AND over - while zero evidence is presented. You need to seek facts, and if you can't find them, wait for them. And learn by experience who the liars are.

You've gone from "there's nothing there" to "it doesn't matter."

Just like all the Russian trolls have.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 6:23 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Whatever. All your intense interest in speculation doesn't make it more than speculation. It's a lot like the Douma/ Sarin claims you *thought* were so important. Until the facts came in. And then all that time and effort and thought and belief became so much chaff, to be blown away in the breeze like the wastage it was. A complete waste of your time, and anyone who bothered with your posts. Honestly, life's too short to treat you as anything but a source of amusement.
One would think you'd have learned by now - you're being lied to every day. A narrative is being played over and over and over AND over - while zero evidence is presented. You need to seek facts, and if you can't find them, wait for them. And learn by experience who the liars are.

You've gone from "there's nothing there" to "it doesn't matter."

Just like all the Russian trolls have.

I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 9:39 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by second:I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

Post of the week.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 12:31 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.

Quote:
Originally posted by JJ:
Trump says this DOJ report proves there was no collusion with the Russians. One of the charges against his former campaign manager, who by the way was running Trumps campaign for 144 days and not 49 days as Trumps is saying, is conspiracy. In other words, collusion.

Is this you NOT caring about collusion? So, when you say "nobody cares about collusion", does that make you Nobody?

Also, does RUSSIA!!! need to be involved? Because it wasn't in this case. So, if we're not discussing collusion, or Russia, what are we discussing?

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 12:35 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.

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61954&mid=1
056594#1056594
Monday, July 9, 2018 6:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Whatever. All your intense interest in speculation doesn't make it more than speculation. It's a lot like the Douma/ Sarin claims you *thought* were so important. Until the facts came in. And then all that time and effort and thought and belief became so much chaff, to be blown away in the breeze like the wastage it was. A complete waste of your time, and anyone who bothered with your posts. Honestly, life's too short to treat you as anything but a source of amusement.
One would think you'd have learned by now - you're being lied to every day. A narrative is being played over and over and over AND over - while zero evidence is presented. You need to seek facts, and if you can't find them, wait for them. And learn by experience who the liars are.

You've gone from "there's nothing there" to "it doesn't matter."

Just like all the Russian trolls have.
I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

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

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 12:37 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.

Sunday, July 8, 2018 11:31 AM
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61954&mid=1
056605#1056605

Quote:
Originally posted by reaverfan:
Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Whatever. All your intense interest in speculation doesn't make it more than speculation. It's a lot like the Douma/ Sarin claims you *thought* were so important. Until the facts came in. And then all that time and effort and thought and belief became so much chaff, to be blown away in the breeze like the wastage it was. A complete waste of your time, and anyone who bothered with your posts. Honestly, life's too short to treat you as anything but a source of amusement.
One would think you'd have learned by now - you're being lied to every day. A narrative is being played over and over and over AND over - while zero evidence is presented. You need to seek facts, and if you can't find them, wait for them. And learn by experience who the liars are.

You've gone from "there's nothing there" to "it doesn't matter."

Just like all the Russian trolls have.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 12:40 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.

Monday, July 9, 2018 9:39 AM
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61954&mid=1
056686#1056686

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

Post of the week.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 1:00 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.

SECOND

ALL I POSTED WAS THE OPCW REPORT. THEY SAY there were no organophosphates, no Sarin, no nerve agents of any kind at Douma. But the US government said there was. And the media said the same thing many times over.

Is the OPCW lying to you now when they say there were no organophosphates, no Sarin, no nerve agents? Are THEY Russian trolls? Or did the US government and the media lie when they said there was?

I'd appreciate an answer, because SOMEBODY LIED TO YOU. And I'm curious if you can figure out who.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 1:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

Post of the week.

Seconded, hey I made a funny. Seconded, get it.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 1:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JJ:
Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

Post of the week.

Seconded, hey I made a funny. Seconded, get it.

T

Stop reappropriating my smoking emoji.

Nah... I'm just kidding. I'm not some wackjob SJW twit. Have fun with it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 1:31 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.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 4:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JJ:
Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

Post of the week.

Seconded, hey I made a funny. Seconded, get it.

President Trump stiffed longtime personal driver on thousand of hours of overtime, lawsuit alleges

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/president-trump-stiffed-longti
me-personal-driver-on-thousand-of-hours-of-overtime-lawsuit-alleges/ar-AAzNYvA

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 5:03 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.

Monday, July 9, 2018 4:53 PM
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=61954&mid=1
056753#1056753

Quote:
Originally posted by JJ:

Quote:
Originally posted by JJ:
Quote:
Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:I "love" that 1kiki says that I need to identify the liars who continuously mislead me. The nicest explanation for Signym's and 1kiki's writing is they are Russian trolls. The saddest and most likely explanation is that they are Americans believing the lies they spread. In the real world of Texas, in areas far from politics, the people that lie constantly and seem unaware of it, are the Trump voters. Maybe they are faking belief in what they say? Maybe they're sincere, yet stupid? It is mixture of both. But if I make a business deal with a Trump voter, it will probably end up in court, eventually, because those guys are no more trustworthy businessmen than Trump himself. They will take shortcuts, they will cheat you, they get on their high horse and insist they are good people of integrity. When the judge or the arbitrator tells them they aren't good, they always seem genuinely amazed. And it is amazing, it is incredible! how little self-knowledge actual Trump voters have. At least with Russian trolls, they know they are faking it for Putin. But genuine American Trump defenders don't know they are fake! So sad for them and America that the country is afflicted with these dimwits. They impoverish the USA, but they have convinced themselves they enrich it.

Post of the week.

Seconded, hey I made a funny. Seconded, get it.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, July 9, 2018 5:05 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.

NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 10, 2018 6:20 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
SECOND

ALL I POSTED WAS THE OPCW REPORT. THEY SAY there were no organophosphates, no Sarin, no nerve agents of any kind at Douma. But the US government said there was. And the media said the same thing many times over.

Is the OPCW lying to you now when they say there were no organophosphates, no Sarin, no nerve agents? Are THEY Russian trolls? Or did the US government and the media lie when they said there was?

I'd appreciate an answer, because SOMEBODY LIED TO YOU. And I'm curious if you can figure out who.

1kiki, it is not "somebody in the US government lied to me". It is Donald Trump that lied. And then he bombed Syria. The biggest liar in DC told new lies and the media repeated his words verbatim rather than call Trump a liar because, well, you know why -- Republican voters hate stories exposing Trump. I do recall 1kiki defending Trump against Democrats writing about his past bad character and his present lack of honesty.
www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trumps-rush-to-judgement-on-s
yria-chemical-attack/

Every news story should have a footnote: These are Trump's actual words. We have not been able to verify anything he said by the time this story had to be published, mostly because Trump and his staff won't cooperate, but if past stories are any guide, much that he said is untrue. See our list of past untruths at www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, July 10, 2018 6:22 AM

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

A story about Trump's character and honesty:

This much was clear in March 2016: The person who managed the campaign of a pro-Russian candidate in Ukraine was now also managing the campaign of a pro-Russian candidate in the United States. And Trump’s campaign certainly looked like the same play Putin had run many times before: Trump inflamed internal ethnic division, assailed the corruption of the elite, attacked Western allies while calling for cooperation with Russia, and sowed distrust in the fairness of the vote count. And in addition to deploying social-media bots and trolls, Russia apparently spent directly to help elect Trump. The FBI is investigating Alexander Torshin, a Russian banker who built ties to Republicans and allegedly funneled campaign funds to the National Rifle Association, which spent three times as much to help Trump as it had on behalf of Romney.

Trump surrounded himself with several staffers, in addition to Manafort, with unusually close ties to Russia. It is possible that the current list of known campaign contacts accounts for most of the direct cooperation. But that is hardly a safe assumption. Very little of the information we have about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia was voluntarily disclosed. The pattern of anyone implicated is to lie about everything, construct the most plausible-sounding cover story for the known facts, and when their lies are exposed, retreat to a new story. Since the election, Trump and his advisers have continued to act like people who have a great deal to hide.

How do you even think about the small but real chance that the president of the United States has been influenced by a hostile foreign power for years?

While the fact that the former CIA director has espoused a theory hardly proves it, perhaps we should give more credence to the possibility that Brennan is making these extraordinary charges of treason and blackmail at the highest levels of government because he knows something we don’t.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collus
ion.html

The only people who know everything discovered in the Russian election meddling probe are Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team, and they aren’t talking.

But Trump knows far more about it than the rest of us, and what he knows appears to be a consuming preoccupation. He tweets about the investigation constantly.

Part of this is an overt play to bend public opinion, to besmirch whatever conclusions the investigation might reach and to ward off any attempt at a possible impeachment. But why exactly is impeachment in front of his mind? If he was as innocent as he publicly proclaims, he would know that impeachment would be out of the question as a matter of fact and law. But that is apparently not the case.

Does Trump believe that Democrats would take the politically disastrous step of moving to impeach him even if Mueller exonerated him?

I don’t believe so. I believe that Trump is conducting himself as only a guilty man would, one who has a very real and well-founded fear that he is in jeopardy. Trump has publicly done and said many heinous things as president and before, but it is highly unlikely that any would be grounds for impeachment. However, what Trump has done that only he and maybe Mueller know could create solid ground.

Trump contends that there’s no there there. If not, why is he acting like there is?
www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/opinion/trump-mueller-impeachment.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 11, 2018 7:05 AM

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

Trump picked the judge who’s most inclined to say the president can’t be indicted. Pro tip: That makes him look guilty. The midterm elections will be about whether Trump’s proposed new justice thinks the president can pardon himself.

In selecting Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court, Trump has given Democrats a talking point: The president picked a guy who will hand him a get-out-of-jail-free card.

A pair of Democratic senators have already jumped on this bandwagon, with Jeff Merkley tweeting that the pick indicates Trump “is terrified of Robert Mueller” and Cory Booker stating that he “literally selected the one person who has a pretty good written record of saying, ‘Hey, if you’re a president under investigation, I don’t think you should be allowed to be under criminal investigation.’ ”

Senate Democrats will be able to spend the summer arguing precisely what the president doesn’t want them to argue: that the Mueller probe is ongoing, that close Trump confederates have been indicted and other indictments are coming, that many of the legal questions surrounding the Mueller investigation may end up before the Supreme Court, and that the president hand-picked a judge solely for the possibility that he may vote to exonerate him.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/brett-kavanaugh-supreme-co
urt-donald-trump-just-handed-democrats-a-gift.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 11, 2018 7:46 AM

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

Brett M. Kavanaugh thanked President Trump for his nomination to the Supreme Court on Monday night. Almost immediately, he made a thoroughly strange claim.

“No president has ever consulted more widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination,” Kavanaugh said.

It may seem like a throwaway line — a bit of harmless political hyperbole. But this was also the first public claim from a potential Supreme Court justice who will be tasked with interpreting and parsing the law down to the letter. Specificity and precision are the name of the game in Kavanaugh's chosen profession. How on earth could he be so sure? It is a completely unprovable assertion.

Beyond that, Trump actually used a list of names provided by the conservative Federalist Society — a group whose ideological diversity is very narrow. Trump did not stray from that list for either this selection or Neil M. Gorsuch's.

www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/07/10/brett-kavanaughs-fir
st-claim-as-a-supreme-court-nominee-was-bizarre/?utm_term=.54d9cbe45d78

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, July 11, 2018 8:08 AM