A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
VIEWED: 755368
PAGE 180 of 725
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
We’re very close to becoming another Poland or Hungary. Why is America, the birthplace of democracy, so close to following the lead of other countries that have recently destroyed it?
What Freedom House calls illiberalism is on the rise across Eastern Europe. This includes Poland and Hungary, both still members of the European Union, in which democracy as we normally understand it is already dead.
In both countries the ruling parties — Law and Justice in Poland, Fidesz in Hungary — have established regimes that maintain the forms of popular elections, but have destroyed the independence of the judiciary, suppressed freedom of the press, institutionalized large-scale corruption and effectively delegitimized dissent. The result seems likely to be one-party rule for the foreseeable future.
Everybody in the European Union already did that when they made their elected leaders beholden to unelected EU leadership. The death of Democracy in Europe has been spreading since the EU was founded in 1993.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:The problem is that in THIS thread it's impossible t have an intelligent discussion because SECOND endlessly splatters here. I guess this is like SECOND's outhouse.
Hey KIKI, I have tried my darndest to have a conversation with SECOND, but, sadly, the result is that SECOND really only wants to be a "lying sack of shit" and splatter the board with lots and lots and lots of dung. There is absolutely nothing genuine or honest about SECOND.
The more attention SECOND gets, even if only "I'm not paying attention to you", the more SECOND attempts to capture eyeballs for more and more propaganda. Unless SECOND appears ready to have a discussion, I refuse to respond to SECOND because that simply bumps the thread ... and it only encourages him.- SIGNY
Considering SECOND has no problems at all endlessly talking to itself ...
I refuse to let it drive me away from a thread and interesting conversation just because it might take some random words as an excuse to talk to itself some more.- KIKI
Out of the roughly 40 posts on this page to-date, 25 comprise SECOND's endless poop-flinging propaganda campaign; there are maybe four direct responses to SECOND (which SECOND doesn't have the courtesy to even respond to), six or seven of you posting "boo!" or some other random phrase just to wind SECOND up again (which BTW I find rather humorous) and some discussion about SECOND.
Does that sound like an intelligent discussion to you?
SECOND has turned this particular thread to shit.
EVEN IF we were to start a discussion on an interesting topic, SECOND would interpolate so much crap that it'd be difficult just scrolling past all of the turds simply to maintain a conversation. I don't know if you remember PIRATENEWS, but he used to spam the board too. At least PN had the excuse of being nuts. I have no idea what SECOND's problem is; maybe it's some sort of borderline personality disorder.
I'm not going to be in this thread because there are no gems to be had here. I prefer to leave this corner of the park and shit-hole to SECOND, he can fart into the wind all he wants. If you want to get my attention on a particular topic, please don't post it here.
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876
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Oh, I'll just post random words here.
THUGGER admits it's not about RUSSIA !!! and is, in fact, a witch hunt. "Trump better be innocent of any wrong doing, anywhere, anytime."
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Trump made some progress in converting evangelicals into his very own private army of brownshirts:
At stake in the November midterms, Trump told the audience, are all the gains he has made for conservative Christians.
“The level of hatred, the level of anger is unbelievable,” he said. “Part of it is because of some of the things I’ve done for you and for me and for my family, but I’ve done them. … This Nov. 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it’s a referendum on your religion, it’s a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment.”
If the GOP loses, he said, “they [the Democrats] will overturn everything that we’ve done and they’ll do it quickly and violently, and violently. There’s violence. When you look at Antifa and you look at some of these groups — these are violent people.”
More at www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/trump-told-christian-leaders-he-got
-rid-law-he-didn-n904471
If Republicans lose, Trump says Democrats are going to overturn free speech and the First Amendment and they’re going to do it “quickly and violently”. The only reason to say something like that is to prep Trump supporters to become violent themselves. Republicans must be ready to take to the streets if Democrats win!
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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What’s the most effective way to sabotage economic growth?
According to a new analysis of five-plus decades of economic data and history, it’s often as easy as increasing tariffs and playing favorites among industries and companies. Corruption helps too. Because bad governments are bad in many ways, it’s nearly impossible to tease out specific factors when policy mistakes and protectionism go hand-in-hand.
More at https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/2018/07/
19/institutional-barriers-and-world-income-disparities.pdf
An analysis of ten representative high-growth countries and ten disappointing laggards, published in the Review of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, helps explain the trends summarized at
www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/28/how-tariffs-corruption-can-
ruin-growing-economy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.523a1b8e3b8f
Almost every slow-growth country raised barriers to international trade and capital markets and favored certain industries and firms -- even when there was no strategic reason to do so.
“We have a lot of the same problems in the U.S. right now,” Wang said. “The government tries to create a lot of trade barriers. The government looks to help select industries -- steel and aluminum, for example.” Government is pursuing an industrial policy that is primarily for “election purposes.”
“Leaving aside big psychological effects, the adverse effects [to America] are likely to take place slowly over time,” Blanchard said. “It took many decades to destroy Argentina.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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How was that model of the rational economic actor ever plausible? It’s not just that human beings are neurotic; it’s that, on the list of things human beings are neurotic about, money is close to the top. People hoard money; they squander it; they marry for it; they kill for it. Don’t economists ever read novels? Practically every realist novel, from Austen and Balzac to James and Wharton, is about people behaving badly around money. Free markets didn’t change that. They arguably made people even crazier.
And as with money so with most of life.
www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/03/francis-fukuyama-postpones-the-e
nd-of-history
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Oh, I'll just post random words here.
THUGGER admits it's not about RUSSIA !!! and is, in fact, a witch hunt. "Trump better be innocent of any wrong doing, anywhere, anytime."
What Republicans Are Saying About Trump
For decades, Republicans, and especially conservative Republicans, insisted that character counted in public life. They were particularly vocal about this during the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, arguing against “compartmentalization” — by which they meant overlooking moral turpitude in the Oval Office because you agree with the president’s policy agenda or because the economy is strong.
Senator Lindsey Graham, then in the House, went so far as to argue that “impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”
All that has changed with Mr. Trump as president. For Republicans, honor and integrity are now passé. We saw it again last week when the president’s longtime lawyer Michael Cohen — standing in court before a judge, under oath — implicated Mr. Trump in criminal activity, while his former campaign chairman was convicted in another courtroom on financial fraud charges. Most Republicans in Congress were either silent or came to Mr. Trump’s defense, which is how this tiresome drama now plays itself out.
More at https://andrewtobias.com/what-republicans-are-saying-about-trump/
Mike Pence makes Moral Case for removing 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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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Oh, I'll just post random words here.
THUGGER admits it's not about RUSSIA !!! and is, in fact, a witch hunt. "Trump better be innocent of any wrong doing, anywhere, anytime."
"For most of our country's history, American corporations balanced their responsibilities to all of their stakeholders - employees, shareholders, communities - in corporate decisions. It worked: profits went up, productivity went up, wages went up, and America built a thriving middle class.
"But in the 1980s a new idea quickly took hold: American corporations should focus only on maximizing returns to their shareholders. That had a seismic impact on the American economy. In the early 1980s, America's biggest companies dedicated less than half of their profits to shareholders and reinvested the rest in the company. But over the last decade, big American companies have dedicated 93% of earnings to shareholders - redirecting trillions of dollars that could have gone to workers or long-term investments. The result is that booming corporate profits and rising worker productivity have not led to rising wages.
"Additionally, because the wealthiest top 10% of American households own 84% of all American-held shares - while more than 50% of American households own no stock at all - the dedication to "maximizing shareholder value" means that the multi-trillion dollar American corporate system is focused explicitly on making the richest Americans even richer."
More at www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-introduces-accoun
table-capitalism-act
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
Oh, I'll just post random words here.
THUGGER admits it's not about RUSSIA !!! and is, in fact, a witch hunt. "Trump better be innocent of any wrong doing, anywhere, anytime."
Why Obvious Lies Are An Effective Political Strategy
At first glance, Trump and Vladimir Putin seem to have wildly different communication styles. But what they share is a tendency to repeat big, obvious lies -- a tactic researchers have dubbed the “firehose of falsehood.”
Previously it was believed that big lies worked if they were close to the truth or believable, but now it seems like even obvious lies work pretty well. Whether it’s lying about Russian troops in Crimea or falsely claiming millions of people voted illegally during the 2016 election, Putin and Trump demonstrate a kind of shamelessness when it comes to telling and retelling big lies.
Read the original "firehose of falsehood" report:
www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.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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A disconnect between overall growth and individual experience seems to lie behind the public’s lack of enthusiasm for the current state of the economy and its disdain for the 2017 tax cut. G.D.P. numbers have been good in recent quarters, but much of the growth has gone to soaring corporate profits, while median real wages have gone nowhere.
But how do facts like these fit into the overall story of economic growth? To answer this question, we need “distributional national accounts” that track how growth is allocated among different segments of the population.
In a reasonable world, something like the Schumer-Heinrich bill would become law in the near future. In the real world the proposal will go nowhere for the time being — because Republicans don’t want anyone to know what distributional national accounts might reveal.
By now everyone knows that conservatives routinely yell “socialist!” whenever anyone proposes doing something to help less fortunate members of our society — which is a key reason so many Americans now think favorably of socialism: If guaranteed health care is socialism, bring it on. But the right doesn’t just cry foul at any attempt to limit inequality; it does the same thing whenever anyone tries to talk about economic class, or measure how different classes are faring.
My favorite example here is still former senator Rick Santorum, who denounced the term “middle class” as “Marxism talk.” But that was just an especially ludicrous version of a general attempt on the right to suppress talk about and research into where the economy’s money goes. The G.O.P.’s basic position is that what you don’t know can’t hurt it.
www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/for-whom-the-economy-grows/ar-BBMFWej?o
cid=spartanntp
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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