Real World Event Discussions

A thread for Democrats Only

POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Thursday, September 17, 2026 09:05
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Friday, June 18, 2021 5:27 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

I think people need to rethink their assumptions about the US and its various levels of government, and what they should and should not be focused on.

Does this rethinking include specific goals your government would have? Name a few specific goals, 1kiki. (By the way, Balancing Trade is not really a goal. Neither is making the dollar convertible into gold at a fixed rate. Or any of your other crank ideas that come from misunderstanding economics.) I'll name a few of my own: Medicare for All, A Living Wage, Stop Climate Change, Deflating the price of houses. That last one really makes many people angry because most of their net worth is in real estate, which means they love a shortage of cheap housing. I'll name a political party that opposes all goals: Republican.

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, June 18, 2021 7:07 PM (P)


I've already posted my priorities at least a dozen times. I had 2.




I think it would be really interesting if people were able to choose broad categories for how their tax dollars get spent when they filled out their 1040's. I wonder how much would go to the military. Or to fossil fuel company subsidies.

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Friday, June 18, 2021 10:38 PM (P)

Quote:

SECOND:

How America Fractured Into Four Parts

People in the United States no longer agree on the nation’s purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?

Nations, like individuals, tell stories in order to understand what they are, where they come from, and what they want to be. National narratives, like personal ones, are prone to sentimentality, grievance, pride, shame, self-blindness. There is never just one—they compete and constantly change. The most durable narratives are not the ones that stand up best to fact-checking. They’re the ones that address our deepest needs and desires. Americans know by now that democracy depends on a baseline of shared reality—when facts become fungible, we’re lost. But just as no one can live a happy and productive life in nonstop self-criticism, nations require more than facts—they need stories that convey a moral identity. The long gaze in the mirror has to end in self-respect or it will swallow us up.

Since then, the two parties have just about traded places. By the turn of the millennium, the Democrats were becoming the home of affluent professionals, while the Republicans were starting to sound like populist insurgents. We have to understand this exchange in order to grasp how we got to where we are.

The 1970s ended postwar, bipartisan, middle-class America, and with it the two relatively stable narratives of getting ahead and the fair shake. In their place, four rival narratives have emerged, four accounts of America’s moral identity. They have roots in history, but they are shaped by new ways of thinking and living. They reflect schisms on both sides of the divide that has made us two countries, extending and deepening the lines of fracture. Over the past four decades, the four narratives have taken turns exercising influence. They overlap, morph into one another, attract and repel one another. None can be understood apart from the others, because all four emerge from the same whole.

...
More about fractured American Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 at https://web.archive.org/web/20210609154909if_/https://www.theatlantic.
com/magazine/archive/2021/07/george-packer-four-americas/619012
/

Impatient readers jump to the end of the essay: All four narratives are also driven by a competition for status that generates fierce anxiety and resentment. They all anoint winners and losers. In Free America, the winners are the makers, and the losers are the takers who want to drag the rest down in perpetual dependency on a smothering government. In Smart America, the winners are the credentialed meritocrats, and the losers are the poorly educated who want to resist inevitable progress. In Real America, the winners are the hardworking folk of the white Christian heartland, and the losers are treacherous elites and contaminating others who want to destroy the country. In Just America, the winners are the marginalized groups, and the losers are the dominant groups that want to go on dominating.

. . . we remain trapped in two countries. Each one is split by two narratives—Smart and Just on one side, Free and Real on the other. Neither separation nor conquest is a tenable future. The tensions within each country will persist even as the cold civil war between them rages on.

This essay is adapted from George Packer’s new book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374603663



GOALS
Quote:

SIGNYM:
People work for reward. Our old narratives are breaking down because we are actually living in the realm of a FIFTH narrative, one which the elites have been steadily imposing on us for decades, and that is WORK DOESN'T PAY. BECOME A CONSUMER/USELESS EATER. GO INTO DEBT. WHINGE ABOUT "OTHERS" HAVING MORE PRIVILEGE.

But here's the thing: Three (and a half) of the four narratives actually overlap. You can create a unifying narrative out of them if you want something for America, BUT IT DEPENDS WHAT YOU WANT.

Do you want

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 4:46 AM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:

YOU'RE the crank.

Let go of your sick vendetta, SECOND.

You've got a bug in your head and it's eating your brain. Let it out: You'll feel better.

If this was 1860, I could easily judge people based on only one facet of their jewel-like character -- slavery. Nowadays I know much more about people's character. I get to examine their personality, pick up that jewel, turn it every which-way and see all the cut facets and flaws deep inside the diamond. Too bad for your superiority, but I know hundreds of Trumptards and many of their biographical secrets. You guys are insane, right down there with Confederates for people burdened with flawed personalities and crazy beliefs. It is no surprise how flawed people found the most flawed man, Trump, to back.

Narcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity—a psychologist investigates how Trump’s extraordinary personality might shape his possible presidency.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210612211342if_/https://www.theatlantic.
com/magazine/archive/2016/06/the-mind-of-donald-trump/480771
/

Books on Trump
https://www.google.com/search?q=books+on+how+crazy+trump+is

America was troubled by the kind of people who supported slavery. America is troubled by the kind of people who support Trump.

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, June 19, 2021 5:11 AM (P)

Quote:

SIGNYM:
YOU'RE the crank.
Let go of your sick vendetta, SECOND.
You've got a bug in your head and it's eating your brain. Let it out: You'll feel better.

SECONDRATE: If this was 1860, I could easily judge people based on only one facet of their jewel-like character -- slavery. Nowadays I know much more about people's character.

How? Because you hire PIs to dig into people's private lives? If that's the case, then you KNOW I'm neither a Russian troll nor a Republician, and yet you kept pushing those lies (otherwise known as libel) over and over again.

Quote:

SECOND: I get to examine their personality...
How? Are you their psychiatrist?

Quote:

SECOND ... pick up that jewel, turn it every which-way and see all the cut facets and flaws deep inside the diamond. Too bad for your superiority, but I know hundreds of Trumptards and many of their biographical secrets.
Yep, you hire PIs to snoop into people's private lives. Did anyone tell you you're a twisted fuck with a megalomaniac personality?

Quote:

SECOND: You guys
If you've dug into my life, you know for a fact that I'm not Republican. (And yet, you keep lying about it.) Nor am I an uncritical supporter of Trump.

You may not have figured this out yet, but criticizing YOUR incessant, irrational, fake-news screeds against Trump is NOT supporting Trump, it is defending reality-based thinking. Of which you seem incapable.

Quote:

SECOND ... are insane, right down there with Confederates for people burdened with flawed personalities and crazy beliefs. It is no surprise how flawed people found the most flawed man, Trump, to back.
Wow. Says the insane man with the bug-eaten brain who spends all of his time obsessing about Republicans because of a mistake that he made 50 years ago!

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

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

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 8:06 AM (P)

Quote:

SECONDRATE: If this was 1860, I could easily judge people based on only one facet of their jewel-like character -- slavery. Nowadays I know much more about people's character.
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM: How? Because you hire PIs to dig into people's private lives? If that's the case, then you KNOW I'm neither a Russian troll nor a Republican, and yet you kept pushing those lies (otherwise known as libel) over and over again.
Quote:

SECOND ... pick up that jewel, turn it every which-way and see all the cut facets and flaws deep inside the diamond. Too bad for your superiority, but I know hundreds of Trumptards and many of their biographical secrets.
Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM: Yep, you hire PIs to snoop into people's private lives. Did anyone tell you you're a twisted fuck with a megalomaniac personality?
He's a sociopath. The only thing he has against republicans isn't the futility of the Vietnam War. Or the many hundreds of thousands dead. Or the needless suffering inflicted on people who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or even that it ruined the US budget.

It's that THEY PLAYED HIM. For a fool.


BTW, remember how he was jonesing to find out who was that 'good man' who died? I guarantee it wasn't to pay his respects! Probably more like in order to dig out any little dirty secrets to tarnish that good man ... and prove to himself that since he - SHITHEAD - isn't a good man, there can be no good men, ever, who might be ... yanno ... better than he is.

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 3:52 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:
The only thing he has against republicans . . .

The Republican Party has turned fascist – it is now the most dangerous threat in the world

The G7 meeting focused attention on many challenges facing the world, but it did not address the most dangerous threat of them all, which is the transformation of the Republican Party in the US into a fascist movement.

When Donald Trump was in the White House there was much debate about whether or not he could be called a fascist in the full sense of the word, and not merely as a political insult. His presidency showed many of the characteristics of a fascist dictatorship, except the crucial one of automatic re-election.

But Trump or Trump-like leaders may not have to face this democratic impediment in future.
It was only this year that the final building blocks have been put in place by Republicans as they replicate the structure of fascist movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

Two strategies, though never entirely absent from Republican behaviour in the past, have become far more central to their approach. One is a greater willingness to use or tolerate violence against their opponents, something that became notorious during the invasion of the Capitol by pro-Trump rioters on 6 January.

The other change among Republicans is much less commented on, but is more sinister and significant. This is the systematic Republican takeover of the electoral machinery that oversees elections and makes sure that they are fair. Minor officials in charge of them have suddenly become vital to the future of American democracy. Remember that it was only the refusal of these functionaries to cave in to Trump’s threats and blandishments that stopped him stealing the presidential election last November.

Many of them will be unable to perform the same duty in future elections. The Republican Party across the country is replacing or intimidating them so they are giving up their jobs or are being forced from their posts.
In Pennsylvania, a state which played a crucial role in Trump’s defeat, a third of county election officials have changed as have numerous others in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin. Their places are frequently being taken by conspiracy theory zealots who will have the power to nullify election results that are not to their liking. A survey by the Brennan Center for Justice shows that one in three local election officials say that they are being subjected to harassment and other pressures.

Speeding up this exodus are Republican state legislatures that have passed laws mandating heavy fines – $10,000 in Iowa, $25,000 in Florida – for election supervisors who make minor technical mistakes. Republican officials who refused to say that Trump won the election are being removed by their party. The Republicans should be able to do in 2022 and 2024 what they failed to do in 2020, which is to nullify election results at will so the true outcome of a poll can be ignored. Put simply, the will of the people will no longer count for anything.

Authoritarian regimes across the world have found that it is much easier and more certain to announce the election result they would like than to go to all the trouble of suppressing votes and gerrymandering constituencies. Once control of the electoral machinery is obtained then democracy poses no threat to those in power. Fascist leaders may use democratic processes to obtain office, but once there, their instinct is to pull up the ladder and let nobody else climb up it.

Nullification of elections is only the latest step in the Republican Party’s strange voyage towards becoming a genuine fascist party. Other steps have a much longer history, notably the moment half a century ago when President Nixon adopted his “Southern Strategy” whereby the Republicans capitalised on the Civil Rights acts to make a political takeover of the American South. The old slave states became the strongholds of the Republican Party which had once freed the slaves and defeated

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 8:12 PM (P)


So, you're up to your normal abnormal of posting random shit out of context in order to not address it? Troll much?


As for the first sentence (which is as far as I bothered to read): Republicans are really the most dangerous thing in the world? Can you really post that with a straight face as you swallow your guffaws over that ridiculousness? Or are you genuinely hyperventilating like the author, with your knickers in a bunch, over nothing at all?

There are LOTS of things far more dangerous in the world: Supervolcanoes, a large coronal mass ejection aimed at the earth, an EMP aimed at the earth, an asteroid aimed at the earth ...


And the 2 most dangerous things in the world related to human cause are nuclear holocaust and global warming, both of which are international, multi-decade, multi-party problems.



SLOPPY - why do you never start any threads of your own but instead spend 100% of your time crapping up everyone else's? Is it because you really have NOTHING you want to discuss and are only here to troll?

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 8:22 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

I've already posted my priorities at least a dozen times. I had 2.




I think it would be really interesting if people were able to choose broad categories for how their tax dollars get spent when they filled out their 1040's. I wonder how much would go to the military. Or to fossil fuel company subsidies.



I like that idea.

Assuming that they'd ever adhere to it, voting on policy would probably be better than voting on individuals.

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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Saturday, June 19, 2021 8:23 PM (P)

I see bugshit is leaking from SECOND's brain...

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

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

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Sunday, June 20, 2021 4:52 PM (P)

Patriotism?
https://twitter.com/timjacobwise/status/1405928759094620166?s=20


Download for the free book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America [1 ed.] by Carol Anderson from the mirrors at
https://libgen.unblockit.li/search.php?req=Carol+Anderson+The+Second

www.amazon.com/Second-Race-Fatally-Unequal-America/dp/1635574250/

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, June 20, 2021 6:30 PM (P)

blah blah blah....

More bugshit from SECOND's brain.

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

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

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Monday, June 21, 2021 12:20 AM (P)

Somebody ought to let Tim know that his last name is a misnomer.

Then give it a dictionary so it can learn what the word misnomer means.



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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Monday, June 21, 2021 2:31 AM (P)

Tim is just a virtue-signalling idiot trying to connect words together that don't really connect. Guns, conservatives, whites, slavery ... all goes into the mixmaster.

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

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

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Monday, June 21, 2021 3:15 AM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Tim is just a virtue-signalling idiot trying to connect words together that don't really connect. Guns, conservatives, whites, slavery ... all goes into the mixmaster.

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

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




This kid gets it.





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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Monday, June 21, 2021 3:13 PM (P)

The Republican Party has a problem with political violence: It’s not sure whether it’s for it or against it.

In the first days after a mob loyal to former President Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 to try to block Congress from certifying President Biden's election, GOP leaders delivered a sensible, unified response: There’s no place in our constitutional system for that kind of violence.

Since January, though, some leading Republicans have been backsliding — offering excuses for the insurgents who sought to overturn the election through extralegal means.

Rep. Andrew S. Clyde of Georgia has likened the forced entrance of the Capitol to “a normal tourist visit." Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar complained last month that the FBI was “harassing peaceful patriots” by investigating the events. Twenty-one House Republicans voted against awarding a medal to the Capitol Police for attempting to defend the building; several said they objected to calling the riot an “insurrection.”

Last week, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin defended the protesters, too. “The vast majority of the crowd, they were in a jovial mood,” he said last week. “They weren’t violent.”

And retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who served briefly as Trump’s national security advisor, recently told an audience that a Myanmar-like coup "should happen here." He later denied having said that, but it was captured on videotape.

These are not good signs for the Republican Party.

Those comments don’t reflect the sentiments of every Republican. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield have both condemned the Jan. 6 riot.

But a significant chunk of the party’s most fervent supporters aren't so sure, and they illustrate the GOP's dilemma. At a time when the party needs every vote it can muster, it can't risk alienating loyal supporters, even if they embrace violence.

In a survey by the conservative American Enterprise Institute after the riot in January, 56% of Republicans agreed that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”

In the same poll, 79% of Republicans said they still had a favorable view of Trump — and 36% said “very favorable.”

That consensus has made GOP politicians fearful of crossing Trump or questioning the actions of his most zealous supporters, including the Jan. 6 revolutionaries.


Republican officials in both Georgia and Arizona, where Trump is still agitating to reverse the election results, say their families have been physically threatened by the former president's supporters.

When the House voted to impeach Trump in January, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told CNN, “There were members who told me that they were afraid for their own security — afraid, in some instances, for their lives.”

The result, says Tufts University political scholar Daniel Drezner, is a GOP that has begun to resemble Lebanon's Hezbollah, “a political party that also has an armed wing to coerce other political actors through violence.”

“The comparison is stronger now than before,” Drezner told me last week. “The Republicans who wanted to impeach Trump have been marginalized, and the state parties sound more and more secessionist with each passing day.”

But what about the Democrats? Don’t they have a violent fringe, too?

Not really. The antifa movement, which conservatives point to as an example of left-wing violence, isn’t part of the Democratic Party; its militants don’t wave Biden flags, show up at Biden rallies or, in most cases, support Biden at all. And while Republicans have attacked Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) for urging demonstrators to “get more confrontational,” that comparison doesn’t hold, either; whatever Waters meant by those words, she isn’t her party’s two-time presidential nominee and leader-in-exile.

This is the Republican Party’s problem, and Republicans need to solve it.

They are trying to tiptoe around a fundamental problem: Their candidate l

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Monday, June 21, 2021 7:28 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The Republican Party has a problem with political violence: It’s not sure whether it’s for it or against it.



Not going to talk a single second about January 6th until you admit that the bullshit BLM and Antifa pulled all year in 2020 was violence and riots.



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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Monday, June 21, 2021 7:49 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The Republican Party has a problem with political violence: It’s not sure whether it’s for it or against it.



Not going to talk a single second about January 6th until you admit that the bullshit BLM and Antifa pulled all year in 2020 was violence and riots.

But what about the Democrats? Don’t they have a violent fringe, too?

Not really. The antifa movement, which conservatives point to as an example of left-wing violence, isn’t part of the Democratic Party; its militants don’t wave Biden flags, show up at Biden rallies or, in most cases, support Biden at all. And while Republicans have attacked Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) for urging demonstrators to “get more confrontational,” that comparison doesn’t hold, either; whatever Waters meant by those words, she isn’t her party’s two-time presidential nominee and leader-in-exile.

Political violence is the Republican Party’s problem, and Republicans need to solve it.

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, June 21, 2021 8:31 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
But what about the Democrats? Don’t they have a violent fringe, too?

Not really. The antifa movement, which conservatives point to as an example of left-wing violence, isn’t part of the Democratic Party; its militants don’t wave Biden flags, show up at Biden rallies or, in most cases, support Biden at all.



You claimed them. Your Leftist media and your Democrat politicians all over the country ran defense for them for an entire year... going on two now.

As we fucking speak, the DA in both Chicago and NYC is still letting 2020 criminals out free to commit more acts of violence and murder.

They don't need to be waving around Biden* flags. Their black masks are a flag for the Democrats. Black Lives Matter is a Democrat slogan. It was even painted all over the streets of Democrat ran cities at one point.





So what now? Are we finally admitting that they were violent riots in 2021? Is the new tactic to just pretend like the Democrats didn't openly embrace them and run protection for them since they can't pretend that they weren't violent criminals anymore?

You fucking hypocrites. All of you.

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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Monday, June 21, 2021 9:59 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
But what about the Democrats? Don’t they have a violent fringe, too?

Not really. The antifa movement, which conservatives point to as an example of left-wing violence, isn’t part of the Democratic Party; its militants don’t wave Biden flags, show up at Biden rallies or, in most cases, support Biden at all.



You claimed them. Your Leftist media and your Democrat politicians all over the country ran defense for them for an entire year... going on two now.

As we fucking speak, the DA in both Chicago and NYC is still letting 2020 criminals out free to commit more acts of violence and murder.

They don't need to be waving around Biden* flags. Their black masks are a flag for the Democrats. Black Lives Matter is a Democrat slogan. It was even painted all over the streets of Democrat ran cities at one point.





So what now? Are we finally admitting that they were violent riots in 2021? Is the new tactic to just pretend like the Democrats didn't openly embrace them and run protection for them since they can't pretend that they weren't violent criminals anymore?

You fucking hypocrites. All of you.

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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

Republicans are forever in fear for their lives because of crime. Being fearful is just another Trumptard trait, along with stupid and insane. In another country, fearful, stupid and crazy would make it impossible to stay in the middle class. In America, it only makes it difficult.

Murder rate usually rises and falls in tandem with the violent crime rate.
Just how closely do they follow each other? FBI data only goes back to 1986:
https://jabberwocking.com/5838-2/


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, June 22, 2021 5:23 PM (P)

The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, for instance, said on Fox News in November, while Trump was disputing the result of a free and fair election that made Joe Biden president, that "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."

Republicans justify their plan to block sweeping voting rights legislation in the Senate this week by arguing that it's a huge federal power grab. But their past words and actions suggest they are again prioritizing their own political advantage over defending democracy.

When former President Donald Trump lost last year's election, most Republicans didn't do what most losing parties do -- agonize over how to modify their message and appeal to a majority to deliver them future power.

Instead, party leaders in Washington and the states dedicated themselves to enshrining his anti-democratic behavior as GOP orthodoxy and whitewashing events that led to Trump's disgrace, including his pandemic failures, lies about non-existent major electoral fraud and the Capitol insurrection.

Instead of examining why voters rejected the ex-President after a single term, Republican state legislators drew up bills rooted in his falsehoods about a stolen election that could make it easier to install their preferred victor after future elections -- even if voters decide otherwise.

It is in this context that GOP senators this week are expected to block Democratic moves effectively designed to protect a democracy under near-unprecedented assault.

The showdown will come at a critical moment for Joe Biden's presidency. Delicate negotiations that could produce a bipartisan infrastructure bill may have a narrow path. And a months-long drive for a bipartisan police reform deal is finally creating some optimism for genuine progress. (Biden is also facing increasing unrest among liberal Democrats who fear dreams of a radical, transformative presidency may be evaporating.)

While these legislative issues are vital to Biden's political agenda, the clash over voting rights touches on something more fundamental to America -- the maintenance of its political system.

It is perfectly valid for Republicans to raise objections to the "For the People Act," which already passed the House and which Democrats are now trying to pass in the Senate. The overhaul bill restores voting rights and expands access to the ballot by introducing automatic voter registration, protecting mail-in voting and establishing nationwide standards for early voting. The idea that this is an overly expansive use of federal power to dictate rules of state elections deserves serious debate. New campaign finance reform proposals included in the bill may face legal impediments. And it's not clear a one-size-fits-all mandate works everywhere. Some states already believe their systems are superior to anything Washington could impose. Critics also question whether Washington will properly fund a huge overhaul of the election system.

Yet the sincerity of Republican opposition is called into question by the actions of GOP state legislators who are actively undermining US democracy. Most Republican lawmakers in Washington voted to shield Trump from impeachment charges after he incited the mob riot at the Capitol on January 6. And more recently, GOP senators blocked an independent, bipartisan probe into the events of that day.

Claims of vast voter fraud in 2020 -- which Republicans say justifies restrictive voting bills from Florida to Texas and Arizona to Michigan -- are false. And past statements from GOP leaders, including Trump, that allowing more people to vote will make it harder for Republicans to ever win power reveals a more genuine rationale for GOP opposition.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, for instance, said on Fox News in November, while Trump was disputing the result of a free and fair election that made Joe Biden presiden

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Tuesday, June 22, 2021 6:03 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation



...brought to you by the liars at CNN.

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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Tuesday, June 22, 2021 6:06 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Republicans are forever in fear for their lives because of crime. Being fearful is just another Trumptard trait, along with stupid and insane. In another country, fearful, stupid and crazy would make it impossible to stay in the middle class. In America, it only makes it difficult.

Murder rate usually rises and falls in tandem with the violent crime rate.
Just how closely do they follow each other? FBI data only goes back to 1986:



The Second bot is just stringing an bunch of meaningless words together again today I see.

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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Tuesday, June 22, 2021 6:26 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
The real reason Republicans are blocking voting rights legislation



...brought to you by the liars at CNN.

FOX News: Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, for instance, said on Fox News in November, while Trump was disputing the result of a free and fair election that made Joe Biden president, that "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-gop-election-fight-never-another-repub
lican-president


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, June 22, 2021 6:28 PM (P)

Mail-in fraud election was fraud.

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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Tuesday, June 22, 2021 6:38 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Mail-in fraud election was fraud.

That has already been covered by FOX News: "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-gop-election-fight-never-another-repub
lican-president


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, June 22, 2021 6:44 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Mail-in fraud election was fraud.

That has already been covered by FOX News: "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
www.foxnews.com/politics/graham-gop-election-fight-never-another-repub
lican-president


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



I covered it first.

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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Wednesday, June 23, 2021 4:40 PM (P)

Republicans Are Still Pushing Trump’s Election Conspiracy Theories

The most absurd thing that Trump’s White House tried to push on the DOJ would be a conspiracy theory called “Italygate” that alleged the CIA and an Italian defense contractor had used satellites to switch votes from Trump to Biden. As the Washington Post reported last week, this particular conspiracy theory was put forward by a woman who pretended to own a $30 million mansion that doesn’t belong to her.

And yet, on Dec. 29, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows sent Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen (Bill Barr quit on Dec. 14 to avoid association with what Trump was doing to stay in the White House www.cnbc.com/2020/12/14/attorney-general-william-barr-resigns-effectiv
e-dec-23.html
) an email with an attached memo written in Italian purporting to prove the Italian satellite theory, along with an English translation. On New Year’s Day, Meadows sent a YouTube clip to Rosen further outlining the Italian satellite fantasy. Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue labeled Meadows’ efforts “pure insanity” in one email.

And yet, not only did Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) note that Trump’s targets should have been taken seriously, but he went on to say that the DOJ officials who refused the requests of Trump White House officials were actually the ones who needed to be investigated. “When the president—when the chief of staff to the president of the United States asks someone in the executive branch to do something, and they basically give him the finger, I think that’s the problem we should be looking into,” he said. According to Jordan, the DOJ’s refusal to subvert the election on the basis of these insane theories was the actual wrongdoing worthy of investigation.

This all sounds wild and outlandish, and a lot of it is performative political theater. But here is the issue: Jordan is one of the most influential Republicans in the House Republican conference. When he says that the real issue that needs to be investigated is why the DOJ didn’t aid in Trump’s attempts to subvert the election, he’s speaking as the person who might lead such investigations. He would be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee if the GOP takes back the House next year and able to conduct any investigation he wanted into the 2020 election on the basis of any number of cooked-up conspiracy theories. Fortunately for Jordan, states across the country are beating him to it.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/jim-jordan-trump-2020-elec
tion-doj.html


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

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Wednesday, June 23, 2021 5:00 PM (P)

Donald Trump keeps stoking ‘reinstatement’ talk

See video about how Trump's lies evolved from crowd size in 2017 to conspiracy theories in 2021 at www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/politics/trump-reinstatement-president-big-lie/
index.html


Donald Trump continues to openly discuss the possibility that he will be reinstated as president, dangerously fomenting the false belief among his followers that this wild conspiracy theory is something other than a total and complete fantasy.

In an interview with David Brody for Just the News’ “Water Cooler” show, Trump was asked about the possibility of reinstatement. Here’s how he responded:

Quote:

“If the election was fraudulent, people are gonna have to make up their own mind. It’s not gonna be up to me. It’s gonna be up to the public. It’s gonna be up to, perhaps, politicians. I don’t think there’s ever been a case like this where hundreds of thousands of votes will be found. So we’ll have to see what happens.”
Literally none of that is right. Or close to it.

The election wasn’t fraudulent. All 50 states plus the District of Columbia certified the vote. The Electoral College count was affirmed by Congress. There has been no evidence of any sort of widespread voter fraud – whether nationally or in an individual state.

Now, consider what Trump says next: “People are gonna have to make up their own mind. It’s not gonna be up to me. … It’s gonna be up to the public.”

And remember that the former President has gone out of his way to elevate this ongoing circus of a recount in Arizona – suggesting, against all proof to the contrary – that it’s a serious thing that could well overturn the result in the state. (There is zero chance of that happening.)

So if and when the “recount” ends and its Trump-loyal backers declare something like we can’t know who really won, then the former President’s supporters will look to statements like “it’s gonna be up to the public” and think that he is urging them to take to the streets.

(Sidebar: If you think this, uh, recount is going to come out and say that election officials got it all right and that President Joe Biden beat Trump in Arizona, I have an emerging video rental business by the name of Blockbuster you might be interested in.)

And well, January 6 gave us a sense of what happens when you have an irresponsible leader pushing a debunked conspiracy theory on a group of people who have been fed lies about their government for years.

Whether Trump realizes it or not (and I think he does and just doesn’t care), giving people reason to believe that he actually could somehow wind up back in the White House and that the power to make that happen could well lie with them is the equivalent of pouring lighter fluid on a fire.

The Point: Don’t be surprised by what comes next. Words matter.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/22/politics/trump-reinstatement-president-
big-lie/index.html


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

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Wednesday, June 23, 2021 5:44 PM (P)

How A Chinese Fishing Village Grew Into A Tech Powerhouse.



While America is obsessed by culture wars, China is overtaking America.
I prefer democracy, but democracy that’s not paralyzed if only Mitch McConnell would find another line of work.



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

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Thursday, June 24, 2021 4:14 PM (P)

The Filibuster Represents All of American Politics in a Nutshell

Our ongoing argument over the filibuster represents the entire American political system in a nutshell. Just as the fear of our political opposites is generally greater than our confidence in our allies, both major parties are reluctant to get rid of the filibuster because their fear of what the other side could do with a majority vote is greater than their excitement about what their own side could do with it. (Got that? This is a surprisingly difficult concept to summarize plainly. But it's true of both liberals and conservatives, at this point in time at least.)

One way to think of this is that it's a straightforward consequence of what behavioral economics tells us about decisionmaking under uncertainty, namely that we hate losses about twice as much as we value comparable gains. If that's the case, then one side or the other will finally kill the filibuster not when the risk of backfiring goes away (it never will) but when the betting odds suggest that the relative gain to their own side seems to be roughly twice as big as the gain to the other side.

It will never be Republicans who come to this conclusion, since the filibuster is fundamentally a conservative rule that helps to preserve the status quo. It will happen only when enough Democrats finally decide that they don't have much to lose.

And when will that happen? On the one hand, Mitch McConnell is helping things along by making it explicit that Republicans will use the filibuster on everything, which makes it clearer every year just how much Democrats are losing because of it. On the other hand, the structural advantage that Republicans have in Congress makes a Democratic sweep (House, Senate, Presidency) unlikely, and that's the only time the filibuster matters.

That's the basic calculus. My own view is twofold. First, I've always objected to the filibuster on the simple grounds that legislatures should decide most things by majority vote. In fact, I'm not sure the filibuster is even constitutional. Second, I have zero doubt that liberals would gain far more than they'd lose from ditching it. This might or might not be true in the first few years after its demise, but it would certainly be true in the long run.

Why am I so confident? I suppose it's because I'm a true believer in social democracy. With the filibuster gone, Democrats would slowly but surely enact social democratic reforms and people would like it. This would make Democrats more popular and we'd then get more Democrats and more social democracy. Rinse and repeat.

Might I be wrong? Sure. But it's what I believe.

https://jabberwocking.com/the-filibuster-represents-all-of-american-po
litics-in-a-nutshell
/

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

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Thursday, June 24, 2021 6:02 PM (P)

Rote a new How Stupid Are We article about the rite wing Youtube propaganda spredrz.

https://howstupidarewe.blog/2021/06/24/liarz/

A quick read, partly kuz Wordpress suks. Basic text functionz work like a 1990z low flow toilet!

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

The real pandemic solution: http://uvpk.net/

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Thursday, June 24, 2021 8:26 PM (P)

Careful JO.

I see pictures of a Jew a gay man and a half-asian that you're calling liarz there.

And at least one of those other guys has a half-asian lawyer himself.




P.S. I love your love of frustration with how stupid everybody else is. I know that feeling very well.

It's hilarious that we both share that but come from two totally different points of view politically.



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

Give me liberty or just come shoot me in my house. I'm so over this ridiculous reality.

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Friday, June 25, 2021 2:31 PM (P)

Actor Comedian Terrence K Williams

'Joe Biden Can't Even Put Together a Full Sentence'
https://rumble.com/vj09y5-joe-biden-cant-even-put-together-a-full-sent
ence.html

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Friday, June 25, 2021 3:12 PM (P)

Economics in a Post-Truth Nation

If a tree falls in a forest but nobody is there to hear it, did it make a sound? If we have a rapidly expanding economy but much of the electorate refuses to acknowledge it, is the country experiencing a boom?

Despite some growing pains, the U.S. economy is clearly on a vaccine-and-stimulus-fueled tear, with just about every measure indicating rapid recovery from the pandemic slump.

Yes, supply bottlenecks have caused some inflation, although recent data seems to validate the view that this inflation is transitory: Lumber prices have fallen sharply, industrial metals have also come down, and used car prices seem to have peaked. Yes, some employers seem to be having trouble hiring enough workers to keep up with surging demand, but this will almost surely be a temporary problem.

Overall, we’re clearly in a much better place economically than we were just a few months ago. Yet according to the long-running University of Michigan survey of consumers, on average self-identified Republicans assess the economic situation much less positively now than they did before the 2020 elections.

Why be surprised to see the post-truth state of mind extend to the economy, too?

But the state of the economy is right out there in the open. People, you might think, can judge it by their own experience or that of their friends and families.

And just to be clear, the Michigan number I’m referring to is the current economic conditions index rather than the index of consumer expectations. That is, it’s supposed to be about how things are now, not about what people think will happen. So this isn’t a matter of Republicans believing that Bidenomics will destroy prosperity in the future; it’s about them believing, in the teeth of lived experience, that it already has.

But hasn’t partisanship always colored perceptions of the economy? And doesn’t it happen on both sides? Well, yes — but not to this degree.

If you look back at Michigan surveys from a dozen years ago, you don’t see anything like today’s partisan polarization. In June 2009, Democrats and Republicans had similar views about current conditions.

We appear to have become a country in which a large chunk of the electorate won’t even judge a president by short-run performance, because those voters’ perceptions of the economy are driven by partisanship unrelated to reality.

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20210625021632/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/06/24/opinion/economy-truth-republicans.html


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

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Friday, June 25, 2021 9:14 PM (P)

$10.00 for a 2x4. $3.30 for a gallon of gas.

That's why.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, June 26, 2021 6:37 PM (P)

I can vouch for this vid



The Liarz Club Yootoobrz I rote about are all over CRT like a cheap shirt.

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

The real pandemic solution: http://uvpk.net/

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Saturday, June 26, 2021 7:22 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
$10.00 for a 2x4. $3.30 for a gallon of gas.

That's why.

When hurricanes hit Texas, wood and gasoline prices skyrocket. The rich sellers, not the minimum wage employees working for the rich and parroting what the rich told them, say it is only because of the hurricane. The truth is that the rich sellers can arbitrarily and capriciously raise their prices when buyers are stupid enough to believe that it is the hurricane, not the seller, raising prices for gullible buyers who don't have the commonsense to know that the guy who controls supply raised the prices, not the hurricane. I know that Trumptards believe the Invisible Hand and Supply/Demand set prices, but those are fairy tales told by rich people to poor people who cannot understand, for psychological reasons or just general stupidity, how markets actually work.

Regulators examine Texas energy market after natural gas prices soared 10,000%
www.cnn.com/2021/02/23/investing/texas-natural-gas-investigation-cftc/
index.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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Saturday, June 26, 2021 8:20 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by JO753:
I can vouch for this vid

The Liarz Club Yootoobrz I rote about are all over CRT like a cheap shirt.



CRT is racism in action.

I don't know how you can't look at a thumbnail of that dude and not want to punch him, JO. He's got the most punchable face in America, even beating out Seth Meyer.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, June 26, 2021 8:22 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
$10.00 for a 2x4. $3.30 for a gallon of gas.

That's why.

When hurricanes hit Texas, wood and gasoline prices skyrocket. The rich sellers, not the minimum wage employees working for the rich and parroting what the rich told them, say it is only because of the hurricane. The truth is that the rich sellers can arbitrarily and capriciously raise their prices when buyers are stupid enough to believe that it is the hurricane, not the seller, raising prices for gullible buyers who don't have the commonsense to know that the guy who controls supply raised the prices, not the hurricane. I know that Trumptards believe the Invisible Hand and Supply/Demand set prices, but those are fairy tales told by rich people to poor people who cannot understand, for psychological reasons or just general stupidity, how markets actually work.



So your argument is that nobody wanted to make money while Trump was President and they waited until Biden* got elected*?

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, June 26, 2021 9:19 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
$10.00 for a 2x4. $3.30 for a gallon of gas.

That's why.

When hurricanes hit Texas, wood and gasoline prices skyrocket. The rich sellers, not the minimum wage employees working for the rich and parroting what the rich told them, say it is only because of the hurricane. The truth is that the rich sellers can arbitrarily and capriciously raise their prices when buyers are stupid enough to believe that it is the hurricane, not the seller, raising prices for gullible buyers who don't have the commonsense to know that the guy who controls supply raised the prices, not the hurricane. I know that Trumptards believe the Invisible Hand and Supply/Demand set prices, but those are fairy tales told by rich people to poor people who cannot understand, for psychological reasons or just general stupidity, how markets actually work.



So your argument is that nobody wanted to make money while Trump was President and they waited until Biden* got elected*?

I gave you two examples. One was price gouging during hurricanes and the other was price gouging during the February freeze in Texas: Regulators examine Texas energy market after natural gas prices soared 10,000%
www.cnn.com/2021/02/23/investing/texas-natural-gas-investigation-cftc/
index.html


If either Trump or Biden are President, exactly the same price gouging would happen -- pay close attention 6ix -- unless price gouging was a) made illegal and b) that law was enforced. It just so happens that a) price gouging is NOT illegal and b) if it was illegal, I doubt the law would be enforced and people who were cheated would have to go to court, wait years, to get some kind of slow, rough approximation of justice.

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, June 26, 2021 9:22 PM (P)

You're arguing microeconomics are macroeconomics.

It's a fallacy.

We've got some heavy inflation going on because of the Biden* administration now.


Don't tell me to "pay attention". I read your words, but they're bullshit.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, June 26, 2021 9:49 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
You're arguing microeconomics are macroeconomics.

It's a fallacy.

We've got some heavy inflation going on because of the Biden* administration now.


Don't tell me to "pay attention". I read your words, but they're bullshit.

6ix, you have no fucking idea what micro or macro economics are. To quote myself: "Poor people cannot understand, for psychological reasons or just general stupidity, how markets actually work." Here is another idea that I have never seen a Trumptard understand: business owners in America don't legally owe you a job, or even a living wage. Why is that? Because it is perfectly legal to not expand employment. Perfectly legal to pay poorly, too. If you don't like it, try to get a city, or state, or Federal government to make poor pay illegal. Or make not hiring illegal. Or make closing factories and moving to China illegal.

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, June 26, 2021 10:01 PM (P)


The people over at ZH have been debating which way the economy was going to fail for years ... inflation, or deflation?




A number of years ago people were agape with wonder about the near zero interest rates: why weren't they leading to inflation? Then somebody FINALLY noticed that the $$ wasn't landing in the consumer's wallet, it was going straight to banks, and corporate lenders, and corporations, and being funneled directly into the stock market, corporate buy-backs, and so on - ie blowing stock-market bubbles. That's one example of how the economy's been unstable for YEARS. Which is to say, that Biden* didn't do this all on his own.

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Saturday, June 26, 2021 10:15 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

The people over at ZH have been debating which way the economy was going to fail for years ... inflation, or deflation?

A number of years ago people were agape with wonder about the near zero interest rates: why weren't they leading to inflation? Then somebody FINALLY noticed that the $$ wasn't landing in the consumer's wallet, it was going straight to banks, and corporate lenders, and corporations, and being funneled directly into the stock market, corporate buy-backs, and so on - ie blowing stock-market bubbles. That's one example of how the economy's been unstable for YEARS. Which is to say, that Biden* didn't do this all on his own.

The American Economy is distributing the wealth exactly as the Wealthy prefer:

Wealthiest U.S. households took the majority of the overall gains in 2020

Group/Annual change/ Share
Top 1% / $4,028.3 billion / 35.2%
Next 9% $3,978.8 billion 34.8%
Next 40% $2,969.2 billion 25.9%
Bottom 50% $470.6 billion 4.1%

Source: Federal Reserve

Note: Number of households represented by the
top 1% 1,277,564,
next 9% 11,509,938,
next 40% 51,158,278,
bottom 50% 63,949,595

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-22/the-wealth-gains-that-made-
2020-a-banner-year-for-the-richest-1


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, June 26, 2021 11:16 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

The people over at ZH have been debating which way the economy was going to fail for years ... inflation, or deflation?




A number of years ago people were agape with wonder about the near zero interest rates: why weren't they leading to inflation? Then somebody FINALLY noticed that the $$ wasn't landing in the consumer's wallet, it was going straight to banks, and corporate lenders, and corporations, and being funneled directly into the stock market, corporate buy-backs, and so on - ie blowing stock-market bubbles. That's one example of how the economy's been unstable for YEARS. Which is to say, that Biden* didn't do this all on his own.

I can't understand why anyone would imagine that the economy would wind up with deflation. "The people", they say "aren't getting the created money, and therfore they can't afford to buy anything, so prices will fall".

That's assuming that producers HAVE to sell to USA customers. They don't. The market for EVERYTHING ... USA wheat, USA corn, USA beef, USA timber, USA gas/oil, Chinese phones, Chinese pharma, Chinese textiles, S Korean TVs, S Korean refrigerators, Japanese cars ... the markets are INTERNATIONAL. If there are costumers "out there" who are willing to pay more USD for goods - including USA-produced goods - that's where the goods will wind up. It may well be that international competition in USD for goods will make certain products unavailable to USA market, but only at totally unaffordable prices. It all depends on whether foreign holders of USD want to dump USD in favor of real goods, and THAT depends on whether they see loss of dollar value and/or are do-dollarizing by dumping dollars,



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

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

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Saturday, June 26, 2021 11:22 PM (P)

Quote:

6IXSTRINGJACK:
You're arguing microeconomics are macroeconomics.
It's a fallacy.
We've got some heavy inflation going on because of the Biden* administration now.
Don't tell me to "pay attention". I read your words, but they're bullshit.

SECOND: 6ix, you have no fucking idea what micro or macro economics are.

Do you? If you take any courses in economics as I have, they will toss supply/demand and price curves at you, and argue general equilibrium till the cows come home; positing crowd behavior of independent actors who have full knowledge not only of what prices are but what prices WILL BE (prescience) but they will never

Discuss the fact that there is LITTLE competition among "producers"

The role of banks in creating money.

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

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

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Sunday, June 27, 2021 12:46 AM (P)

I aced micro and macroeconomics in college. Two of the very few courses that I didn't walk away feeling were a complete waste of time and money.

Second, OTOH, can't utter a single sentence without his bias and hate for Trump and any opinions he has about anything are null and void.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Sunday, June 27, 2021 1:31 AM (P)


Quote:

I can't understand why anyone would imagine that the economy would wind up with deflation. "The people", they say "aren't getting the created money, and therefore they can't afford to buy anything, so prices will fall".

That's assuming that producers HAVE to sell to USA customers.

I think the latest example to look at is the Great Depression. AFAIK it wasn't just a US problem, it was a global problem. So there ended up being no international market to keep prices up. It was an economic collapse that spread across the developed world.

More recently, imo, The Great Recession could have become an even Greater Depression had many governments not engaged in QE.

Anyway, I think an inflationary US collapse depends on it being a limited US dollar collapse, while leaving the rest of the global economy untouched. But the global economy is highly integrated (I'd say with the exception of Russia, which might possibly be self-sufficient, which means it wouldn't either be affected by, or rescue, the global economy). The US may be the first, but will it be the only?

Anyway, this is far too complex for me to barely even manage an outline, let alone mentally create a detailed understanding - or predict a future!

So, I'll take your post at face value and work through the scenarios you outlined. It's all way too much for me to parse out.

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Monday, June 28, 2021 5:38 AM (P)

Hey Second...

You're the Pirate King around these parts.

Any chance you can get me a PDF of the children's book Antiracist Baby?

Thanks bud.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Monday, June 28, 2021 4:27 PM (P)

From Inside U.S.A. (1947) by John Gunther:

“There is no valid reason why the American people cannot work out an evolution in which freedom and security are combined,” Gunther concludes. “In a curious way it is earlier, not later, than we think. The fact that a third of the nation is ill-housed and ill-fed is, in simple fact, not so much a dishonor as a challenge. What Americans have to do is enlarge the dimensions of the democratic process. This country is, I once heard it put, absolutely ‘lousy with greatness’ — with not only the greatest responsibilities but with the greatest opportunities ever known to man.”

The Committee for Kentucky, with a membership of 350,000, found, among many other things, that “42,000 Kentucky farms had no toilets or privies of any kind in 1940, and 97 percent of all farms have no toilets inside the house”; that “in one area a single doctor serves 11,500 people”; that “100,000 Kentuckians have syphilis”; that out of the 114,000 children who in 1932 had started first grade, not fewer than 100,000 had had to drop out by the end of high school; that “34 percent of all Kentucky farms are worth less than $300, only 25 percent have electricity and only 16 percent have telephones”; that the “average teacher’s salary is $1,014.”

The South came as a tremendous shock to Gunther. An “almost unbelievable figure is that 11 million Southerners have annual cash incomes of $250 or below. … The rural slums of the South are almost beyond doubt the most revolting in the nation.” As for the “dry” South, “never in Port Said, Shanghai or Marseilles have I seen the kind of drinking that goes on in Atlanta, Houston or Memphis every Saturday night — with officers in uniforms vomiting in hotel lobbies, 17-year-old girls screaming with hysteria in public elevators, men and women of the country club category being carried bodily off the dance floor by disinterested waiters.”

“There are do-nothing governors in the South today who are little more than nimble ferrets; some have as much spine as an Eskimo pie. Sprinkled through the South are soapy miscreants who want a war with Russia for the fun of it.” But “the South has a good many first-class liberals too. The notion that the area is a debauched hinterland occupied exclusively by reactionaries is as far from the truth as the notion that everything above the Mason and Dixon line is progressive.”

In a chapter called “Negro in the Woodpile,” Gunther acknowledges that “I had heard words like ‘discrimination’ and ‘prejudice’ all my life, but I had no concrete knowledge, no fingertip realization of what lies behind them. I knew that ‘segregation’ was a problem; I had no conception at all of the grim enormousness of the problem.”

“Atlanta is supposed to rank fairly high among Southern cities in its attitude toward Negroes, but it out-ghettoes anything I saw in a European ghetto, even in Warsaw. What I looked at was caste and untouchability — half the time I blinked remembering that this was not India.”

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20210627052626/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/06/26/books/review/inside-usa-john-gunther.html


Free Download of Inside U.S.A. (1947) by John Gunther from the mirrors at
https://libgen.unblockit.li/search.php?req=John+Gunther+Inside

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, June 28, 2021 4:52 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Hey Second...

You're the Pirate King around these parts.

Any chance you can get me a PDF of the children's book Antiracist Baby?

Thanks bud.

I found the author's adult books:
https://libgen.unblockit.li/search.php?req=Ibram+X.+Kendi

The baby book version of the adult book is at:

Look Inside the book for free at
www.amazon.com/Antiracist-Baby-Picture-Ibram-Kendi/dp/0593110501/

You can buy it used for $1.51. Shipping is $3.99.

It rhymes:

"No one will see racism if we only stay silent.
If we don’t name racism,
it won’t stop being so violent."

Good enough poetry for a 4 year old.

The GOP’s Attacks on the “Woke” Military Recall Joe McCarthy’s Tactics
The Army has recently come under attack by congressional Republicans for committing the crime of being too “woke.” The prosecution’s exhibit A, waved at a House hearing last week, is a course taught at West Point—the Army’s military academy—called “The Politics of Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality.”

How strange it is that the slave owning Confederate leaders of the fight against the Union are more widely honored—with their names on federal forts, roads, barracks, gates, housing areas, etc.—than are those who fought for the country.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/06/military-woke-critical-rac
e-theory-milley.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, June 28, 2021 7:39 PM (P)

I would never actually read one of his books man. All I could find were his books made for grown up babies too.

Had something else in mind. It would be helpful to have a scanned version or a PDF for it.

Thanks anyway.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Tuesday, June 29, 2021 4:57 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I would never actually read one of his books man. All I could find were his books made for grown up babies too.

Had something else in mind. It would be helpful to have a scanned version or a PDF for it.

Thanks anyway.

Your prejudice is showing. The GOP has exactly the same prejudice. Recently, a prominent right-wing media figure attacked Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declaring, “He’s not just a pig, he’s stupid.”

That was Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. What set Carlson off was testimony in which Milley told a congressional hearing that he considered it important “for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and widely read.”

The Milley hearing was part of the orchestrated furor over “critical race theory,” which has dominated right-wing media for the past few months, getting close to 2,000 mentions on Fox so far this year.

Those attacking critical race theory understand that it has something to do with assertions that America has a history of racism and of policies that explicitly or implicitly widened racial disparities.

And such assertions are unmistakably true. The 1938 underwriting manual for the Federal Housing Administration really did declare that “incompatible racial groups should not be permitted to live in the same communities.”

We can argue about the relevance of this history to current policy, but who would argue against acknowledging simple facts?

The modern right, that’s who. It’s only one of multiple subjects that become a litmus test for anyone hoping to succeed in Republican politics.

Thus, to be a Republican in good standing one must deny the reality of man-made climate change, or at least oppose any meaningful action to limit greenhouse gas emissions. One must reject or at least express skepticism about the theory of evolution. And don’t even get me started on things like the efficacy of tax cuts.

What underlies this cross-disciplinary commitment? On each subject, refusing to acknowledge reality serves special interests. Climate denial caters to the fossil fuel industry; evolution denial caters to religious fundamentalists; tax-cut mysticism caters to billionaire donors.

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20210629023334/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/06/28/opinion/tucker-carlson-general-milley-republicans.html


https://i.imgur.com/cHamiag.jpeg

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, June 29, 2021 9:30 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I would never actually read one of his books man. All I could find were his books made for grown up babies too.

Had something else in mind. It would be helpful to have a scanned version or a PDF for it.

Thanks anyway.

Your prejudice is showing.



I don't read racist books written by racists.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Tuesday, June 29, 2021 10:47 PM (P)

Remember When the US Presidency Was Gleefully Corrupt? This brings back memories:

In February 2017, weeks after President Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, [Sonny] Perdue’s company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America....An examination of public records by The Washington Post has found that the agricultural company, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.

Remember when Donald Trump was president and stories like this were almost weekly occurrences? And Republicans didn't care even slightly? Those were the days.

https://jabberwocking.com/remember-when-the-us-presidency-was-gleefull
y-corrupt
/

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, June 30, 2021 4:38 PM (P)

We’re Learning the Wrong Lessons From the World’s Happiest Countries

Sort of like how the launch of Sputnik in 1957 led Americans to feel like their country was falling behind technologically, or how the results of international standardized tests in the 2000s led them to feel like their kids were falling behind educationally, the happiness rankings have subtly encouraged an anxiety fit for our era of self-optimization: that somewhere, other people are doing things that make them much happier than we are.

This disturbing thought has contributed to the rise of a genre of lifestyle content that aims to help unhappy Americans emulate the daily practices and philosophies of happier places, whether that means taking a dip in frigid water or making your living room super-cozy. Wanting to copy the happiest people in the world is an understandable impulse, but it distracts from a key message of the happiness rankings — that equitable, balanced societies make for happier residents. In the process, a research-heavy, policy-oriented document gets mistaken, through a terrible global game of telephone, for a trove of self-help advice.

The happiness rankings are a useful countervailing force in a world that tends to take GDP as a proxy for a country’s success. The lessons of the report are not shocking: People are more satisfied with their lives when they have a comfortable standard of living, a supportive social network, good health, the latitude to choose their course in life, and a government they trust. The highest echelon of happy countries also tends to have universal health care, ample paid vacation time, and affordable child care.

A central takeaway from nine years of happiness reports is that a wealthier country is not always a happier country. In the U.S., “we are living with such incredibly frayed social trust and bad vibes and addictions and so many other things, and still people say ‘Don't tax me,’ ‘Don’t tax the rich,’” Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University and an editor of the report, told me. “This is part of our politics that I think is all wrong, and that I think is what puts us well behind countries that are not quite as rich as the United States but in my view are much more balanced in their lives.”

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20210629070921if_/https://www.theatlantic.
com/family/archive/2021/06/worlds-happiest-countries-denmark-finland-norway/619299
/

https://i.imgur.com/boQTPQZ.jpeg

As a Dutchman, I get universal health care, excellent roads, good public transport, and easily accessible high quality education.
As an American, you get to dream that you too will be rich some day.

https://imgur.com/gallery/6Njj4qS

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, June 30, 2021 6:52 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Remember When the US Presidency Was Gleefully Corrupt? This brings back memories:

In February 2017, weeks after President Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, [Sonny] Perdue’s company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America....An examination of public records by The Washington Post has found that the agricultural company, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.

Remember when Donald Trump was president and stories like this were almost weekly occurrences? And Republicans didn't care even slightly? Those were the days.

https://jabberwocking.com/remember-when-the-us-presidency-was-gleefull
y-corrupt
/

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




We don't hear about the corruption happening now because the corrupt media is in love with the current corruption.

Turns out that's not good for the bottom line though since only 29% of Americans now trust the media and their ratings have never been lower.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2021 6:53 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:

We’re Learning the Wrong Lessons From the World’s Happiest Countries

As a Dutchman, I get universal health care, excellent roads, good public transport, and easily accessible high quality education.
As an American, you get to dream that you too will be rich some day.



I don't want to hear you talking about my money with me again.



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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2021 8:53 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Remember When the US Presidency Was Gleefully Corrupt? This brings back memories:
https://jabberwocking.com/remember-when-the-us-presidency-was-gleefull
y-corrupt
/

We don't hear about the corruption happening now because the corrupt media is in love with the current corruption.

Turns out that's not good for the bottom line though since only 29% of Americans now trust the media and their ratings have never been lower.

Fox News did not cover Trump administration corruption because it did not want to. Fox News wants to cover Biden administration corruption, but is not for a different reason.

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

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Thursday, July 1, 2021 4:44 PM (P)

Farewell to Donald Rumsfeld

Rumsfeld survived Watergate to serve in the next administration as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff, with Dick Cheney as his deputy. Then, at age 43, he was named secretary of defense — for the first time. One of Rumsfeld’s most notable actions was his participation in the creation and promotion of “Team B,” a special CIA project to challenge the agency’s estimates of Soviet strength.

Filled with hard-right ideologues, Team B predictably came to conclusions that were wildly alarmist and largely fantasy: The Soviet economy was growing at a blistering pace, as were its weapons systems, and it was poised to strike the West at any moment. Rumsfeld himself later said, “One of the most significant events in my adult life has been the massive shift in power away from the United States to the Soviet Union.” The intellectual integrity of Team B and its ethos can be judged by the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed and disappeared in 1991.

Rumsfeld returned to the Defense Department with the election of President George W. Bush. With many of the Team B personnel back in power, it should have been expected that the case for war with Iraq would consist of similar delirious falsehoods — and it did. Rumsfeld himself lied in a particularly jarring way in a late 2002 interview:

“The only way Iraqi weapons of mass destruction will ever be found, in my view, effectively is if you find people who have been involved in it who are willing to come and talk to you about it, and tell you where they are. The last time the inspectors were in, that’s how it happened. Two sons-in-laws of Saddam Hussein defected, went into Jordan, and the word came out and they told where these inspectors could go look, they went and looked, and they found weapons of mass destruction.”

In reality, two sons-in-law of Saddam did in fact defect to Jordan in 1995. Soon afterward, Iraq turned over a hidden cache of documents about its 1980s WMD programs — but no actual weapons. And one of the Iraqis, Hussein Kamel, who’d run the programs for his father-in-law, specifically said to the United Nations, the CIA, and even on CNN that Iraq no longer had any WMDs. This, of course, turned out to be completely true. Thus the lesson of Rumsfeld’s tale was exactly the opposite of what he claimed: Iraq could successfully hide pieces of paper from inspectors, but that was it.

Later, in Rumsfeld’s memoir “Known and Unknown,” he would claim that the U.S. was effectively right about the WMD issue. John Nixon, a CIA analyst who interrogated Saddam after he was captured, has said he was motivated by the “gibberish” in books like Rumsfeld’s to write his own to set the record straight.

More at https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/donald-rumsfeld-death-iraq-war/

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

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Thursday, July 1, 2021 5:10 PM (P)


Too bad there's (probably) no hell.

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Thursday, July 1, 2021 6:26 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Remember When the US Presidency Was Gleefully Corrupt? This brings back memories:
https://jabberwocking.com/remember-when-the-us-presidency-was-gleefull
y-corrupt
/

We don't hear about the corruption happening now because the corrupt media is in love with the current corruption.

Turns out that's not good for the bottom line though since only 29% of Americans now trust the media and their ratings have never been lower.

Fox News did not cover Trump administration corruption because it did not want to. Fox News wants to cover Biden administration corruption, but is not for a different reason.




What's your point? I don't care about Fox. I don't watch Fox.

In a country where 90% of the media lies the same lies about everything, there's always going to be somebody else lying different lies about everything.

None of them are trustworthy, and I've said that any time that it's come up before.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Thursday, July 1, 2021 6:27 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Too bad there's (probably) no hell.



Makes you hope though, dunnit'?

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Thursday, July 1, 2021 6:30 PM (P)

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Go NYC! In a time where trust in America's elections are at an all time low, you go right ahead and fuck up a major election that only has relevance to Democrats who are more likely to still have faith in the election system after mail-in fraud ballots were fraud.



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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Thursday, July 1, 2021 11:55 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Too bad there's (probably) no hell.

Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t thrown out of polite society so why would he be punished in the afterlife?

Rumsfeld's Iraq War was wildly popular in 2003 among Republicans and enjoyed majority support even among Democrats. In all, 72% of the country was in favor of the war. Rumsfeld's torturing of prisoners was popular, too. Fundamentally, both the Iraq War and the torture of prisoners was popular. Given that, it makes sense that Rumsfeld was popular and won't be tortured in the afterlife. (The assumption is that typical Americans don't deserve punishment in the afterlife for what they do and believe. That assumption might be incorrect and God will torture them in the same ways as Rumsfeld tortured prisoners.)

Statistics about Donald Rumsfeld from
https://jabberwocking.com/heres-why-donald-rumsfeld-wasnt-thrown-out-o
f-polite-society
/



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, July 2, 2021 4:36 PM (P)

Neoliberalism’s Bailout Problem

Mainstream economics ignores the massive government interventions that “free market” capitalism requires.

As bailouts have prevented full-scale market crashes—and thereby allowed market speculators to escape the full consequences of their excesses—financial institutions and market trading have, accordingly, grown exponentially under neoliberalism. For example, as of 1980, stock market trading in U.S. markets was double what corporations spent on productive investments, such as machines, buildings, land, and R&D. As of 2019 U.S. stock market trading had ballooned to 30 times the amount spent on productive investments. In other words, the ratio of stock market trading to productive investments has increased fifteen-fold in the neoliberal era.

Bailout operations have occurred with clockwork regularity throughout the neoliberal era, beginning with Reagan. In 1983, under Reagan, the U.S. government reached a then-peacetime high for federal deficit spending, 5.7 percent of GDP. At the time, the U.S. and global economy were still mired in the second phase of the double-dip recession that lasted from 1980 to 1982, while Reagan faced a re-election campaign for 1984. Of course, both as a political candidate and throughout his presidency, Reagan preached that big government was the problem, not the solution. Yet Reagan did not hesitate to flout his own rhetoric in overseeing a massive fiscal bailout when he needed it.

After the 1983 bailout, we then saw global stock market prices fall even more sharply than in 1929, on Black Monday in October 1987; the savings-and-loan crisis in 1989 and 90; the “emerging markets” collapse of 1997–1998; and the bursting of the dot-com Wall Street bubble in 2001. Each of these would have easily produced a 1930s-style meltdown without full-scale government bailout operations.

The 2001 intervention ended up being just a warmup to the 2008–09 rescue operation. Defenders of the global neoliberal order apparently seeing no contradiction between the persistent requirement to bail out neoliberalism from impending disasters and their bedrock belief that “trying to defy global market forces is in the end futile.”

A careful 2017 study by Better Markets estimated the overall level of financial market support between 2009 and 2012 at $12.2 trillion, about 20 percent of GDP per year. Moreover, this total figure does not include the full funding mobilized in 2009 to bail out General Motors, Chrysler, Goldman Sachs, and the insurance giant AIG—all of which were facing death spirals at that time. It is hard to envision the form in which U.S. capitalism might have survived at that time if, following true free market precepts as opposed to the actual practice of neoliberal champagne socialism, these and other iconic U.S. firms would have been permitted to collapse.

Together the CARES and COVID Relief Acts amounted to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP in 2020, an unprecedented expansion of federal government deficit spending in peacetime. Yet these massive stimulus measures were exceeded by nearly $4 trillion spent on Federal Reserve interventions—nearly 20 percent of U.S. GDP—to ensure Wall Street stayed afloat.

Financial crises and recessions serve a purpose in the operations of a free-market economy, even while they wreak havoc on the lives of hundreds of millions of innocents who never invest a dime on Wall Street. Without crises, a free-market economy has no way of discouraging investors’ natural proclivities toward greater risks in pursuit of higher profits.

In the wake of the Great Depression, the British economist John Maynard Keynes led the intellectual revolution that aimed to design a policy framework within capitalism that could supplant financial crises as the system’s built-in regulator. This was the context in which the post-World War II system of big-government capitalism was created. The package included two basic elements: regulations designed to limit speculation and channel financial resources into socially useful investments, such as

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Friday, July 2, 2021 6:25 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Too bad there's (probably) no hell.

Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t thrown out of polite society so why would he be punished in the afterlife?



Murdering babies is legal.

If there is a god, something tells me that he doesn't need money from rich donors when he makes his judgements.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Friday, July 2, 2021 6:37 PM (P)

Insane diversity hire Chicago Mayor Blackface Beatlejuice comes out saying that 99% of her critics are racists and sexists.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Friday, July 2, 2021 7:14 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Too bad there's (probably) no hell.

Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t thrown out of polite society so why would he be punished in the afterlife?



Murdering babies is legal.

If there is a god, something tells me that he doesn't need money from rich donors when he makes his judgements.

You know what else is legal? If Satan did not give life to infectious diseases, that leaves God to have sent those diseases to kill billions of babies. Assuming God takes responsibility for what He does, since Satan didn't do it, God has some explaining to do about why He created diseases in His lab and released the diseases to murder babies.

On the other hand, if Satan gave life to childhood diseases, God must take responsibility for Satan's crime wave of infant murder. Perhaps God is squeamish about executing Satan and thus stopping future infant deaths? Since God's Word is Law, it must be perfectly legal and highly moral for God to not stop Satan's crime wave of infanticide. Why expect people to be more legal and moral than their God?

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, July 3, 2021 8:17 AM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Too bad there's (probably) no hell.

Donald Rumsfeld wasn’t thrown out of polite society so why would he be punished in the afterlife?



Murdering babies is legal.

If there is a god, something tells me that he doesn't need money from rich donors when he makes his judgements.

You know what else is legal? If Satan did not give life to infectious diseases, that leaves God to have sent those diseases to kill billions of babies. Assuming God takes responsibility for what He does, since Satan didn't do it, God has some explaining to do about why He created diseases in His lab and released the diseases to murder babies.

On the other hand, if Satan gave life to childhood diseases, God must take responsibility for Satan's crime wave of infant murder. Perhaps God is squeamish about executing Satan and thus stopping future infant deaths? Since God's Word is Law, it must be perfectly legal and highly moral for God to not stop Satan's crime wave of infanticide. Why expect people to be more legal and moral than their God?

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



I'll take your word for it Looney Tunes.

I haven't brushed up on my Fable Law.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, July 3, 2021 4:44 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I'll take your word for it Looney Tunes.

I haven't brushed up on my Fable Law.

What do you feel about H-bombs? Is America safer with more H-bombs? Or do H-bombs blowback, if you realize that the radioactive fallout from 100 American H-bombs dropped on Russia/China would kill millions of Americans, thousands of miles away, back in America?
www.google.com/search?q=radioactive+fallout+deaths

“The support of the nuclear triad is embedded in the minds of Congress,” warned Rep. John Garamendi, a moderate Democrat from California who chairs the House Armed Services subcommittee on readiness. “Very, very few are willing to question, let alone vote to reduce, or to address, or to modify, or to even say, ‘Do we really need a nuclear triad?’ There are very few of us that would be willing to take up that argument. However, I believe we must.”

The Pentagon is hell-bent on securing funds to develop a brand new suite of nuclear weapons to replace its Cold War-era arsenal, with the federal government projecting expenditures of $190 billion through 2030 to modernize powerful missiles, warheads, bombers, and submarines originally conceived at the height of a nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union. The few Democrats who stand opposed to the nuclear spending frenzy have so far struggled to drum up support with their colleagues on Capitol Hill.

The Defense Department has already awarded Northrop Grumman the contract to build 600 new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) ICBMs to replace its 450 1960s-era Minuteman III missiles, which make up one-third of the military’s nuclear triad. (Under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, only 400 ICBMs can be on alert at a given time. President Joe Biden has extended the agreement until 2026, when it will have to be extended again to apply to GBSD.) With costs estimated at more than $80 billion through 2030 and $260 billion over a 50-year life cycle, GBSD is one of the most expensive weapons in U.S. military history.

More at https://theintercept.com/2021/07/01/nuclear-weapons-pentagon-spending/

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, July 4, 2021 4:29 PM (P)

A bunch uv Trump Chumps interviewd:



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

The real pandemic solution: http://uvpk.net/

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Sunday, July 4, 2021 8:37 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I'll take your word for it Looney Tunes.

I haven't brushed up on my Fable Law.

What do you feel about H-bombs? Is America safer with more H-bombs? Or do H-bombs blowback, if you realize that the radioactive fallout from 100 American H-bombs dropped on Russia/China would kill millions of Americans, thousands of miles away, back in America?



I'm fine with it. Because 100 Chinese/Russian H-Bombs dropped on America would kill millions of Chinese/Russians, thousands of miles away, back in China/Russia.

I'm not afraid of a nuclear threat from China/Russia. They are not suicidal.


We've got to stop pretending that Muslims aren't though. No Muslim nation should have access to any nuclear capabilities.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Sunday, July 4, 2021 9:26 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I'll take your word for it Looney Tunes.

I haven't brushed up on my Fable Law.

What do you feel about H-bombs? Is America safer with more H-bombs? Or do H-bombs blowback, if you realize that the radioactive fallout from 100 American H-bombs dropped on Russia/China would kill millions of Americans, thousands of miles away, back in America?



I'm fine with it. Because 100 Chinese/Russian H-Bombs dropped on America would kill millions of Chinese/Russians, thousands of miles away, back in China/Russia.

I'm not afraid of a nuclear threat from China/Russia. They are not suicidal.


We've got to stop pretending that Muslims aren't though. No Muslim nation should have access to any nuclear capabilities.

I see that you are not understanding that American money spent on more and better H-bombs is money wasted because it's stupid to explode either brand-new design nukes or old-fashion design nukes on Earth. At least 340,000 Americans died from radioactive fallout between 1951 and 1973. Specifically, between 340,000 and 690,000 Americans died from radioactive fallout from 1951 to 1973.
https://bigthink.com/politics-current-affairs/new-estimate-deaths-from
-us-nuclear-tests


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, July 4, 2021 9:51 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I'll take your word for it Looney Tunes.

I haven't brushed up on my Fable Law.

What do you feel about H-bombs? Is America safer with more H-bombs? Or do H-bombs blowback, if you realize that the radioactive fallout from 100 American H-bombs dropped on Russia/China would kill millions of Americans, thousands of miles away, back in America?



I'm fine with it. Because 100 Chinese/Russian H-Bombs dropped on America would kill millions of Chinese/Russians, thousands of miles away, back in China/Russia.

I'm not afraid of a nuclear threat from China/Russia. They are not suicidal.


We've got to stop pretending that Muslims aren't though. No Muslim nation should have access to any nuclear capabilities.

I see that you are not understanding that American money spent on more and better H-bombs is money wasted because it's stupid to explode either brand-new design nukes or old-fashion design nukes on Earth.



I see that you're shifting the goal posts of the conversation again like you always do.

This is why I don't regularly converse with retards.

Have a nice day.



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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Monday, July 5, 2021 5:37 PM (P)

America has never had a particularly settled commitment to democratic, rational government. At a high point of national prosperity, long before manufacturing fell away or economic anxiety gripped the Middle West, a set of paranoid beliefs filled American minds and came perilously close to taking power. A sizable group of people believed things as fully fantastical as the Trumpite belief in voting machines rerouted by dead Venezuelan socialists. The intellectual forces behind Goldwater’s sudden rise thought that Presidents Eisenhower and J.F.K. were agents, wittingly or otherwise, of the Communist conspiracy, and that American democracy was in a death match with enemies within as much as without. (Goldwater was, political genealogists will note, a ferocious admirer and defender of Joe McCarthy, whose counsel in all things conspiratorial was Roy Cohn, Donald Trump’s mentor.)

Goldwater was a less personally malevolent figure than Trump, and, yes, he lost his 1964 Presidential bid. But, in sweeping the Deep South, he set a victorious neo-Confederate pattern for the next four decades of American politics, including the so-called Reagan revolution. Nor were his forces naively libertarian. At the time, Goldwater’s ghostwriter Brent Bozell spoke approvingly of Franco’s post-Fascist Spain as spiritually far superior to decadent America, much as the highbrow Trumpites talk of the Christian regimes of Putin and Orbán.

Trump embraced division and racial discord, railed against a “deep state” within his own government, praised autocrats and attacked allies, politicized the administration of justice, monetized the Presidency for himself and his children, and presided over a tumultuous, turnover-ridden Administration via impulsive tweets. He left office with the lowest average approval ratings in the history of the modern Presidency. Trump became the first incumbent seeking reelection to see his party lose the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives since Herbert Hoover, in 1932. A liar on an unprecedented scale, Trump made more than thirty thousand false statements in the course of his Presidency, culminating in perhaps the biggest lie of all: that he won an election that he decisively lost.

Yet those who identify themselves as Republicans continue to embrace Trump and the conspiracy theories about his defeat that the departing President has spread to explain his loss. This, more than anything, might have been the most surprising thing about Trump’s tenure: his ability to turn one of America’s two political parties into a cult of personality organized around a repeatedly bankrupt New York real-estate developer. And so we are ending these four years having learned that there are millions of Americans who were willing to overthrow our constitutional system in order to keep him in power, who would follow Trump’s dark lies rather than acknowledge unwelcome truths.

As Trump became less constrained by successive waves of White House advisers, he was correspondingly more and more outrageous, untruthful, and unmoored from reality. His sense of grievance and victimization escalated; so, too, did his threats, name-calling, and public provocations. He fired the F.B.I. director, a Secretary of State, an Attorney General, a Defense Secretary, three White House chiefs of staff, and two—or three, depending on whose account you believe—national-security advisers. He pardoned war criminals and boasted of complete and total vindication in the Mueller investigation, even though it offered no such thing. He forced the longest government shutdown in history when Congress would not fund his border wall—all while continuing to claim that Mexico would pay for it.

Trump still won 47 percent of the vote and carried 25 states. The trench lines of identity-based grievance he spent five years digging and deepening — pitting rural voters against urban ones, working-class voters against voters with college degrees, white voters against everybody else — saved him from an overwhelming repudiation.

More at www.newyorker.com/magazin

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Monday, July 5, 2021 7:31 PM (P)

Trump won the election. Democrats cheated. Mail-in fraud election was fraud.

That's alright. He'll win again in 2024.

In the meantime, even the Legacy Media has had to stop blowing Biden* every day. Now the real game begins.



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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Tuesday, July 6, 2021 4:31 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Trump won the election. Democrats cheated. Mail-in fraud election was fraud.

That's alright. He'll win again in 2024.

A Violent Assault Encouraged by Trump:

"These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long." -- Trump, 6:01 P.M., Jan. 6, 2021
www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-tells-protesters-to-go-home-maintaining
-that-the-election-was-stolen-amid-violence-at-the-capitol


Day of Rage: An In-Depth Look at How a Mob Stormed the Capitol



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, July 6, 2021 4:56 PM (P)

QAnon Shaman’s lawyer says all Americans are to be blamed for 6 Jan violence
tenor.com


https://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-pmn/crime-pmn/qanon-shaman-lawyer-sa
ys-all-americans-had-a-role-in-u-s-capitol-riot


Lawyer for 'Q Shaman' asked a judge to release him from jail, insisting his spear wasn't a danger to anyone

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lawyer-q-shaman-asked-judge-214508998.html

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Tuesday, July 6, 2021 5:24 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
QAnon Shaman’s lawyer says all Americans are to be blamed for 6 Jan violence.

That sounds like what a politician would say. Now that Trump no longer has use for V.P. Mike Pence because Pence was disloyal and didn't certify Trump as President on Jan. 6th, Trump's running mate in 2024 could be either QAnon Shaman or the Shaman's lawyer.

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

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Thursday, July 8, 2021 5:31 PM (P)

If you want to fix climate change, you need to fix this flaw in conventional economic thought

The flaw is reflected in benefit-cost analyses of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The traditional thinking suggests a go-slow path for cutting CO2. The logic seems compelling: the cost of damage caused by climate change, after all, is incurred in the future, while the costs of climate action occur today. The Nobel Prize-winning verdict is that we should delay necessary investment in a low-carbon economy to avoid hurting the current high-carbon economy.

But this conventional logic calls for significantly more climate action now, because the costs are often overestimated while the potential (even if uncertain) benefits are underestimated.

Recent pronouncements by the International Monetary Fund and the International Energy Agency are nothing short of revolutionary. Both institutions have now concluded that ambitious climate action leads to higher growth and more jobs even in the near term.

The logic is straightforward: climate policies create many more jobs in clean-energy sectors than are lost in fossil-fuel sectors. The proposal for a $2 trillion infrastructure package in the United States could be expected to spur higher net economic activity and employment. https://bloom.bg/3sFzDS9

The standard economic models have been used to reject policies that would have helped turn the tide many years ago, back when the climate crisis still could have been addressed with marginal changes to the existing economic system. Now, we no longer have the luxury of being able to settle for incremental change.

The framework of neoclassical economics is still blocking progress. The discipline is long overdue for its own tipping point toward new modes of thinking commensurate with the climate challenge.

More at https://www.marketwatch.com/story/if-you-want-to-fix-climate-change-yo
u-need-to-fix-this-flaw-in-conventional-economic-thought-11625681698

or
https://web.archive.org/web/20210708015152/https://www.marketwatch.com
/story/if-you-want-to-fix-climate-change-you-need-to-fix-this-flaw-in-conventional-economic-thought-11625681698


Republican Senator says climate change is bullshit. No economist will be changing that Senator’s votes.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210707185505/https://www.marketwatch.com
/story/sen-ron-johnson-mouths-to-republican-luncheon-that-climate-change-is-bullsh-t-11625681957


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

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Thursday, July 8, 2021 6:16 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by JAYNEZTOWN:
QAnon Shaman’s lawyer says all Americans are to be blamed for 6 Jan violence.

That sounds like what a politician would say. Now that Trump no longer has use for V.P. Mike Pence because Pence was disloyal and didn't certify Trump as President on Jan. 6th, Trump's running mate in 2024 could be either QAnon Shaman or the Shaman's lawyer.



My vote is for Candice Owens.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Friday, July 9, 2021 5:31 PM (P)

What are Republicans up to these days?

Refusing to investigate the deadly insurrection of January 6 because it might make Donald Trump look bad.

Refusing to increase funding for the IRS because that might force rich people to pay the taxes they actually owe.

Claiming without evidence that the NSA is spying on Tucker Carlson.

Whining that Facebook hates them, despite voluminous evidence to the contrary.

Declining to persuade their fellow conservatives to get vaccinated.

Passing laws that allow Republicans to replace election officials who are insufficiently loyal to the party.

Complaining endlessly about critical race theory, despite the fact that they still haven't produced much evidence about how racism is actually taught in American classrooms.

Pretending to negotiate over infrastructure funding.

Missing from this list is anything aimed at actually making the country any better off than it is now. It's all just political theater. I hope they're proud of themselves.

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, July 9, 2021 6:38 PM (P)

Sure. Pretend that none of that is going on.

Don't complain when 2022 is a bloodbath for Democrats.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Friday, July 9, 2021 9:06 PM (P)


Quote:

What Republicans are up to these days?
Is that bad English, or what?

I stopped being a holdout for strictly grammatical English years after the NYTimes gave up on formal grammar. But one's English needs to at least make sense.

Of course, there's always the chance that it's not poor English that's at fault in that statement. It could be that the English is an accurate reflection of scrambled thinking, and so, it's actually a fractured mind at fault.

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Friday, July 9, 2021 9:22 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

Quote:

What Republicans are up to these days?
Is that bad English, or what?

I stopped being a holdout for strictly grammatical English years after the NYTimes gave up on formal grammar. But one's English needs to at least make sense.

Of course, there's always the chance that it's not poor English that's at fault in that statement. It could be that the English is an accurate reflection of scrambled thinking, and so, it's actually a fractured mind at fault.

Is this another of your "I fixed it for you" comments? Just asking because the original doesn't say what you say it says. While you are at, tell me about the Republicans' goals? The Democrats have an extensive list of goals, while Republican Party resolved to have no goals, which you can easily read because it is only one page: https://ballotpedia.org/The_Republican_Party_Platform,_2020

https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

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, July 9, 2021 9:42 PM (P)


I quoted you directly, without altering anything.

And you went back and changed your original post because frankly, it made you look at least stupid, if not a bit insane. And then you lied about it, which makes you look even worse.

Whatever.

That's on you.





SLOPPY - why do you never start any threads of your own but instead spend 100% of your time shitting up everyone else's? Is it because you really have NOTHING you want to discuss and are only here to troll?

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Saturday, July 10, 2021 7:39 AM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

I quoted you directly, without altering anything.

And you went back and changed your original post because frankly, it made you look at least stupid, if not a bit insane. And then you lied about it, which makes you look even worse.

Whatever.

That's on you.

Would you happen to be Catholic? Rev. James Altman has an inspiring YouTube video for you, whether Catholic or not:

"Their (Democratic) party platform is absolutely against everything the Catholic Church teaches."

"You repent for your support of that party and its platform or face the fires of Hell."

Rev. James Altman has claimed the moral high ground, 1kiki, as you have, over and over and over and . . . .



Whatever happened to the marvelous Priest who tells it like it is? His Bishop spoke to him:

“(The bishop) and his diocesan representatives have spent over a year, prayerfully and fraternally, working toward a resolution related to ongoing public and ecclesial concerns of the ministry of Fr. James Altman,” the statement said. “The obligation of a Bishop is to ensure that all who serve the faithful are able to do so while unifying and building the Body of Christ.”

More at https://madison.com/news/state-regional/wisconsin-bishop-takes-rare-st
ep-of-removing-defiant-priest/article_94698475-563f-5c5b-9ac7-ff1c5c2b5334.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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Saturday, July 10, 2021 8:50 AM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 1KIKI:

I quoted you directly, without altering anything.

And you went back and changed your original post because frankly, it made you look at least stupid, if not a bit insane. And then you lied about it, which makes you look even worse.

Whatever.

That's on you.



That's why if you really want to save anything Second posts you need to archive it. He likes going back and changing things all the time.

I'm assuming that since this is just more of him spewing his daily bullshit that you didn't feel the need to archive it though.



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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, July 10, 2021 7:22 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

That's why if you really want to save anything Second posts you need to archive it. He likes going back and changing things all the time.

I'm assuming that since this is just more of him spewing his daily bullshit that you didn't feel the need to archive it though.

I'm saving this. Trump is calling for RINO election officials to award the next election to Republicans, even when the Republican loses.
Quote:

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
www.donaldjtrump.com/news/statement-by-donald-j-trump-45th-president-o
f-the-united-states-of-america-07.05.21


07/05/21

Seeing the record crowds of over 45,000 people in Ohio and Florida, waiting for days, standing in the pouring rain, they come from near and far. All they want is HOPE for their Great Country again. Their arms are outstretched, they cry over the Rigged Election—and the RINOs have no idea what this movement is all about. In fact, they are perhaps our biggest problem. We will never save our Country or be great again unless Republicans get TOUGH and get SMART!

With Trump, "get TOUGH and get SMART!" means cheat. He said the same about paying his taxes. Rather, not paying was SMART.

"President Trump paid no income taxes for 10 of the 15 years before he was elected president, and just $750 a year in 2016 and 2017"

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), the chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, said the Times' findings "reveal absolutely staggering theft by Trump before and while he has been in office," and that "Trump must release his tax returns as is longstanding practice and is required by law to Congress instead of grandstanding and attacking the media."
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/518510-trump-paid-no-incom
e-taxes-for-10-of-past-15-years-report



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, July 10, 2021 7:36 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
I'm saving this. Trump is calling for RINO election officials to award the next election to Republicans, even when the Republican loses.



You don't have to declare to anybody when you're spouting bullshit dude.

That is already assumed whenever you make a post.



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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, July 10, 2021 7:38 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), the chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, said the Times' findings "reveal absolutely staggering theft by Trump before and while he has been in office," and that "Trump must release his tax returns as is longstanding practice and is required by law to Congress instead of grandstanding and attacking the media."



Nope. Not a law. That's another Democrat/Media lie.



P.S. The IRS already knows what is in his tax returns.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, July 10, 2021 8:24 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), the chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, said the Times' findings "reveal absolutely staggering theft by Trump before and while he has been in office," and that "Trump must release his tax returns as is longstanding practice and is required by law to Congress instead of grandstanding and attacking the media."



Nope. Not a law. That's another Democrat/Media lie.



P.S. The IRS already knows what is in his tax returns.

Like every Trumptard I know, you know far less about the law than you think you do.

The new Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has pledged to conduct the kind of vigorous oversight of the executive branch that has been lacking for the past two years. As part of that oversight agenda, House leaders have said that they intend to invoke their authority under the law to obtain Trump’s tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and to review them. Trump’s Treasury Department is threatening to withhold the returns from Congress and take the issue to the courts, where his team reportedly hopes to bog down the request in a “quagmire of arcane legal arguments.”1 But the law could not be clearer: Congress’ tax committees have the authority to obtain Trump’s tax returns on request—and the U.S. Treasury Department has no basis for refusing. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin would be violating the law if he directs the IRS to stonewall Congress.
www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2019/04/01/468048/pres
ident-trump-cannot-hide-tax-returns-congress
/

For the rest of his life Trump will talk about Democrats being Commies overthrowing America, same as Herbert Hoover ranted FOR 30 YEARS after losing to FDR, but he is dead history. Why hasn't the IRS given Trump's tax returns to Congress?

The Biden administration must decide how to handle House Democrats’ request for former President Trump’s tax returns. However, the Biden administration will not want to look like they’re too politicized in this. It’s a delicate situation for Biden because acknowledging Congress’s authority here weakens the power of the presidency.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/541317-biden-cautious-in-making-tru
mp-tax-returns-decision


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, July 10, 2021 8:27 PM (P)

Fuck you Second. You don't know shit.

Trump, or any other presidential candidate, is under no obligation to ever release their taxes to the people so morons like you can look at them.

You're conflating issues again.

Go try that with somebody as stupid as you are. I'm sure Ted will love talking with you about it. He loves being wrong all the time.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, July 10, 2021 8:39 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Fuck you Second. You don't know shit.

Trump, or any other presidential candidate, is under no obligation to ever release their taxes to the people so morons like you can look at them.

You're conflating issues again.

Go try that with somebody as stupid as you are. I'm sure Ted will love talking with you about it. He loves being wrong all the time.

I know Trumptards. They won't tell the truth or keep promises when they see some advantage to lie and cheat, especially when there is no enforcement. In that, Trump is no different than the average Texas Trumptard. Trumptards get really loud and upset when accused of lying and cheating. The only thing that will quiet and remind them to be slightly honest is being in a courtroom testifying under penalty of perjury. Even then the Trumptards try to mislead, but careful cross-examination by a hostile attorney will draw a little more truth from them.

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, July 10, 2021 9:01 PM (P)

You don't know Trumptards because you don't know anything about yourself, Trumptard.

You work on you. Then when you feel like you're sufficiently fixed, you can start working on your broken party.



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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Saturday, July 10, 2021 10:56 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
You don't know Trumptards because you don't know anything about yourself, Trumptard.

You work on you. Then when you feel like you're sufficiently fixed, you can start working on your broken party.

You've claimed to not be a Republican. Ha-ha! You never claimed to be Christian, either, so I expect you will falsely claim this article is not about you, but it is:

The Christian Right Is in Decline, and It’s Taking America With It.

The movement is dangerous in decline. If they can’t own the country, they’re ready to defile it.

On Thursday, the Public Religion Research Institute (P.R.R.I.) released startling new polling data showing just how much ground the religious right has lost. P.R.R.I.’s 2020 Census of American Religion, based on a survey of nearly half a million people, shows a precipitous decline in the share of the population identifying as white evangelical, from 23 percent in 2006 to 14.5 percent last year.

In addition to shrinking as a share of the population, white evangelicals were also the oldest religious group in the United States, with a median age of 56. “It’s not just that they are dying off, but it is that they’re losing younger members,” Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the P.R.R.I. told me. As the group has become older and smaller, Jones said, “a real visceral sense of loss of cultural dominance” has set in.

White evangelicals once saw themselves “as the owners of mainstream American culture and morality and values,” said Jones. Now they are just another subculture.

From this fact derives much of our country’s cultural conflict. It helps explain not just the rise of Donald Trump, but also the growth of QAnon and even the escalating conflagration over critical race theory. “It’s hard to overstate the strength of this feeling, among white evangelicals in particular, of America being a white Christian country,” said Jones. “This sense of ownership of America just runs so deep in white evangelical circles.” The feeling that it’s slipping away has created an atmosphere of rage, resentment and paranoia.


QAnon is essentially a millenarian movement, with Trump taking the place of Jesus. Adherents dream of the coming of what they call the storm, when the enemies of the MAGA movement will be rounded up and executed, and Trump restored to his rightful place of leadership.

“It’s not unlike a belief in the second coming of Christ,” said Jones. “That at some point God will reorder society and set things right. I think that when a community feels itself in crisis, it does become more susceptible to conspiracy theories and other things that tell them that what they’re experiencing is not ultimately what’s going to happen.”

More at https://web.archive.org/web/20210710100137/https://www.nytimes.com/202
1/07/09/opinion/religious-right-america.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, July 11, 2021 4:17 AM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by second:
You've claimed to not be a Republican.



I'm not.

TL;DR on the rest of your post. None of your bullshit is ever worth the time reading.

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

And he who is not sufficiently courageous to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a distinguished figure or a general. Let him say to himself: I am a part of the herd and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and kept warm.

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Sunday, July 11, 2021 6:10 PM (P)

Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
You've claimed to not be a Republican.



I'm not.

TL;DR on the rest of your post. None of your bullshit is ever worth the time reading.

Then you won't learn a secret about one of the Republican Party's true motivations:

Texas is a world leader in clean energy, and Gov. Greg Abbott wants to ruin that by Chris Tomlinson

Gov. Greg Abbott has made clear that he’s more interested in boosting fossil fuel burners’ profits than improving the electric grid or fighting climate change, and he’s rejecting new ways of generating clean, reliable and affordable energy.

Abbott is not letting lawmakers have a say in overhauling the wobbly Texas grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, known as ERCOT. Instead, he wants to dictate solutions that benefit coal and natural gas companies over clean energy.

Abbott ordered the PUC, which oversees ERCOT, to redesign the state’s wholesale electricity market to reward generators that can provide backup power. This is a break from the current, 20-year-old system that pays generators only for the energy they put on the grid, not their capacity to generate.

Critics of the system have correctly called on ERCOT to set up some version of a capacity market that pays generators to have readily available power in an emergency. But Abbott twists this good idea by calling for more “natural gas, coal and nuclear power,” not a more strategic approach.

Coal plants should have no part of Texas’ energy mix. They produce vast amounts of greenhouse gases, and they are more expensive to operate than other sources, including wind and solar.

Nuclear power does not release any emissions, but new plants are astronomically expensive and better nuclear technologies are not ready yet. The two existing nuclear plants in Texas already operate at almost full capacity; therefore, they do not require any additional incentives.

Natural gas plants, meanwhile, are great in emergencies, and ERCOT should encourage companies to have enough of them for the few hours every year when demand spikes. But Abbott should be ordering the PUC to incentivize renewable energy storage technologies, such as batteries and compressed air, instead.

Abbott’s more disturbing order is to pile additional fees and costs onto wind and solar generators. In a complete disregard for how the wholesale electricity market operates, he perversely wants to punish them because they cannot turn on the sun and wind at will.

The key to reducing wind and solar intermittency is to expand the geography where wind and solar energy are generated. If the PUC provided the right incentives, for example, wind companies could install turbines in the Gulf of Mexico, where the wind almost always blows.

Instead, Abbott intends on knee-capping renewables to give old, failing fossil fuel plants a few more years of profitability at the expense of Texas customers.

Lastly, Abbott ordered the PUC “to accelerate the development of transmission” lines to new natural gas and coal power plants, explicitly excluding wind and solar generation. He is using his power to appoint the PUC to pick and choose winners and losers.

Such huge policy decisions would typically fall within the purview of the Texas Legislature, which created ERCOT and the wholesale electricity market. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked Abbott to put ERCOT market reforms on the special session’s agenda, but Abbott decided to rule by decree rather than allow the GOP-controlled Legislature to provide input.

Abbott’s policies are profoundly regressive compared with the innovation taking place on other major U.S. grids. Not to mention, Abbott could solve almost all of Texas’ electric reliability problems by simply connecting to the national grid rather than maintaining ERCOT as a separate island.

Another state that struggles with extreme heat, Nevada, is a national leader in high-voltage transmission lines that are adding more renewable energy, i

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