A thread for Democrats Only
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UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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Fox host: It is important to pay some people less than $30,000 a year
Stuart Varney: Democrats are “buying votes” by advocating for $15 minimum wage
The Republicans are very upset by even the idea of $15.
www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-host-it-important-pay-some-people-le
ss-30000-year
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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America’s nuclear-weapons policy isn’t what you think—it’s much worse
https://qz.com/1680411/us-and-russia-are-starting-another-nuclear-war/
There is a large disconnect between what Americans think our nuclear policies ought to be, and what they currently are. Trump tearing up of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is just a reminder that the specter of nuclear war, so long ignored, is still with us.
Nuclear is back, baby.
Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama considered US reliance on nuclear deterrence to be a minor part of its overall international outlook. The Clinton administration definitely de-emphasized nukes; George W. Bush managed to cut the US nuclear warhead arsenal by half; and one of Barack Obama’s first speeches as president was about the importance of eliminating nuclear weapons.
These presidents kept the nuclear system alive, even if it wasn’t predominant. But under Trump, plans to maintain the arsenal have morphed into a grab for new hardware, new capabilities, and a return of lost prestige.
And a drive to spend, spend, spend.
There’s nothing particularly peaceful about the US’s new gadgets. The Trump administration is seeking to deploy low-yield warheads on its Trident missiles to make our nuclear threat seem less like a bluff.
But making the weapons “easier” to use might in fact encourage their use; there is no such thing as a “small” nuclear weapon in the eyes of our enemies. Every time the US pursues a program that could negate the existing offensive capabilities of other nations, they in turn are pushed to develop new offensive capabilities.
It’s a vicious cycle, and not a new one. What’s new is that Trump is pursuing it deliberately, again.
The best-case scenario is that we get out of this era without any nukes going off, having wasted our money on weapons. That means spending trillions on new systems that will likely leave the balance of power exactly where it started and creating new possibilities for things to go out of control.
If you’re a hawk, your range of emotions range from enthusiasm for these new “opportunities,” or that they are “unfortunate but necessary.” If you’re a complete dove, you go to the same old answer as before: ban the bomb. Or, if you’re a more moderate dove, you hope that future treaties and negotiations will tamp down the worst possibilities and, maybe, in the very long term, lead to a more stable world. (The hawks currently rule the roost, and may for some time now.)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Doomsday Machines
https://inference-review.com/article/striking-second-first
The best way to ensure the success of a nuclear first strike, one might assume, is to target the opposing president or leader, the individual with sole authority to press the button. In an effort to counter this vulnerability, suppose that an enemy nation has delegated the power to launch a nuclear attack to multiple people, each of whom can, under certain circumstances, also delegate that power. Suppose, moreover, that alongside this cascading structure, reprisals are launched automatically and that this task has been assigned to a computerized system. The deterrent power of this arrangement seems assured. But, suppose, finally, that the enemy nation fails to inform its rival about the existence of the automatic reprisal system. If the first nation then seeks to decapitate its adversary, it will be confronted with a thermonuclear hydra — mutual assured destruction would be inevitable.
This absurd scenario evokes the dark humor of Dr. Strangelove. In the film, the Soviets invent a Doomsday Machine that responds automatically to an American nuclear attack by detonating a network of buried nuclear bombs and rendering the earth uninhabitable for a century, but they neglect to warn the US leadership of its existence. As Martin Hellman has noted, far from being simply satire, the film could almost be considered a documentary.23 “Everything in that film,” Ellsberg has remarked, “existed as an operational reality at the time.”24
During the Cold War, neither the Americans nor the Soviets thought to let each other know that they had each developed Doomsday Machines by delegating the power to launch attacks beyond their leadership. At the height of the Cuban missile crisis, the American leaders were unaware that Soviet submarines patrolling the waters around Cuba were equipped with nuclear warheads. As a result, the Americans almost provoked nuclear attacks on several occasions by putting Soviet submarine commanders in situations in which they could have chosen to launch reprisals. Ellsberg acknowledges the lunacy of this situation. To admit to the world that a Doomsday Machine had been developed, he explains, was to risk terrifying one’s countrymen, allies, and, of course, the rest of the planet.25 This secretiveness reveals just how little importance deterrence had for the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union. And this is Ellsberg’s point. The fact that each nation did not inform the other about the existence of a deterrent is proof that deterrence was not their goal.
Ellsberg broadly defines the Doomsday Machine as
a very expensive system of men, machines, electronics, communications, institutions, plans, training, discipline, practices, and doctrine—which, under conditions of electronic warning, external conflict, or expectations of attack, would with unknowable but possibly high probability bring about the global destruction of civilization and of nearly all human life on earth.26
Rather than focusing on the dangers posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorism, widely considered the most pressing threats in the current era, Ellsberg believes that it is the American and Russian Doomsday Machines that constitute the greatest danger to humanity. These two Doomsday Machines, he writes, must be dismantled: “And that, at minimum, is what we must hasten to do.”27 Each are “susceptible to being triggered on a false alarm, a terrorist action, unauthorized launch, or a desperate decision to escalate.”28
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Contrary to popular opinion, Ellsberg believes that the US military has never regarded the use of nuclear weapons as a taboo — whether for threats or actual strikes. Nuclear weapons are far from the weapons of non-use suggested by the theory of deterrence. With an overwhelming array of examples, Ellsberg demonstrates that when it comes to deciding between preemption and retaliation, the former has always been preferred, and there is no reason to think that it will not triumph in the future. It turns out that the world is much more dangerous than we had imagined.
https://inference-review.com/article/striking-second-first
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Seeds of fascism: Growing number of Republicans favor expanding presidential power
The share of conservative Republicans who say that presidents could deal with problems more effectively if they “didn’t have to worry so much about Congress or the courts” has doubled since March 2018. Today, about half of conservative Republicans (52%) hold this view, compared with 26% a year ago.
www.people-press.org/2019/08/07/republicans-now-are-more-open-to-the-i
dea-of-expanding-presidential-power/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Billionaire Trump donor explains he’s in it for the tax cuts, not the racism
It’s quite plausible that multi-billionaire Stephen M. Ross is telling the truth and he legitimately does have profound disagreements with Trump over certain culture war issues. It’s just that the amount of money at stake for Ross, personally, in the question of Trump’s continuing political success is mind-boggling. That is the fundamental truth about what keeps Trump in power.
Impeachment, meaningful congressional oversight, and everything else is on hold because Trump’s presence in office serves the interests of the billionaire class.
If you want to understand what’s really happening in America in the Trump era, you could do a lot worse than read a statement provided to the press Wednesday evening by Stephen M. Ross — a rich guy who, like a lot of rich guys, enjoys spending some of his riches in order to influence public policy to make himself richer.
As a fan of turning wealth into political influence, which begets more wealth, Ross wants to see Donald Trump continue to entrench himself in office. But at the same time, like a lot of other rich guys, Ross got rich in part by selling services to the affluent masses of urban America — specifically through the upscale gym Equinox and the bicycle “cult” SoulCycle — so when news broke that Ross was hosting a Trump reelection fundraiser at his Hamptons mansion where tickets sold for up to $250,000 a pop, it damaged Ross’s brand.
In an effort to stave off criticism, Ross told the press that he has “known Donald Trump for 40 years” and that “while we agree on some issues, we strongly disagree on many others.” He didn’t explain which issues were which.
Billionaires benefit enormously from Trump
It’s interesting that though Ross is willing to support Trump’s reelection bid in material ways, he doesn’t seem particularly inclined to tell us what the issues are on which he agrees with the president.
The issue on which Ross agrees with Trump is likely taxes. Ross has an estimated net worth of $7.7 billion. And while you might think that part of the pleasure of having $7.7 billion is that you don’t need to sweat the small stuff, the fact of the matter is that Trump’s changes to the estate tax alone are worth $4.4 million to a guy like Ross.
More at www.vox.com/2019/8/8/20782269/stephen-ross-soulcycle-equinox-trump-don
or
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Another story about Trump being out of his mind:
Trump considering ending Rod Blagojevich’s prison term, citing ‘Comey gang and all these sleazebags’
www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-president-trump-considering-rod-bla
gojevich-commutation-20190808-y3ixmutnfnd5havbgdgtxcvyd4-story.html
President Donald Trump has once again dangled the idea of commuting the 14-year prison sentence of disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, telling reporters aboard Air Force One that he was “very strongly” considering springing Blagojevich from prison almost five years early.
But Trump also showed he has done little homework on the case since he first raised the idea of using his powers of executive clemency for Blagojevich in May 2018.
Trump repeated the same misstatement he made last year that Blagojevich was sentenced to 18 years in prison and once again mentioned only one wiretapped phone call by Blagojevich, when much of the evidence presented at trial came from witnesses who said the governor was shaking them down for campaign cash in exchange for official acts.
The victims included the then-CEO of Children’s Memorial Hospital, now Lurie Children’s Hospital, who said he was pressured to contribute tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for state funding.
“He’s been in jail for seven years over a phone call where nothing happens. But over a phone — where nothing happens,” Trump said after making visits to Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, following mass shootings in those cities over the weekend. "But over a phone call which, you know, he shouldn’t have said what he said, but it was braggadocio you would say.”
Such mischaracterizations have been blasted before by those who investigated and prosecuted Blagojevich.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, however, Trump said he thought the former Democratic governor — who had been a contestant on Trump’s former NBC show “The Celebrity Apprentice” before his firing — was mistreated.
“I thought he was treated unbelievably unfairly; he was given close to 18 years in prison," said Trump, a Republican. "And a lot of people thought it was unfair, like a lot of other things — and it was the same gang, the Comey gang and all these sleazebags that did it.”
The president was referring to former FBI Director James Comey, a frequent Trump target who he contends sought to politicize the nation’s top law enforcement agency in the 2016 election in which Trump faced Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. After taking office, the president fired Comey amid the investigation into Russia’s interference in the election and whether the Trump campaign was involved.
The president’s comments mirrored what Patti Blagojevich has said in not-so-veiled attempts to link her husband’s prosecution to some of Trump’s perceived political enemies.
In reality, Comey was in private practice from 2005 to 2013 — virtually the entire time Blagojevich was investigated and prosecuted.
Blagojevich, who served as Illinois governor from 2003 until his impeachment and removal from office in 2009, was sentenced to 14 years on federal corruption charges after his June 2011 conviction.
Blagojevich was convicted of attempting to use his office to personally benefit himself, offering the former U.S. Senate seat of then-President-elect Barack Obama in return for a prosperous job or campaign contributions.
Some counts involving the alleged sale of the Senate seat were subsequently thrown out, but his sentence and corruption conviction for that scandal and other actions stood. In addition to the children’s hospital executive, Blagojevich was convicted of attempting to shake down the horse racetrack owner to sign favorable legislation into law in exchange for campaign donations.
Government agents secretly recorded Blagojevich discussing the Senate seat appointment with his onetime deputy governor, Doug Scofield.
“I’ve got this thing and it’s f------ golden,” Blagojevich famously said in the secretly recorded conversation. “I’m not just giving it up for f------ nothing.”
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Trump promised to get the trade deficit down, but his profound lack of understanding of economics has led to it increasing, just as most economists predicted it would.
Trump’s mismanagement of the economy is monumental.
Foreign Trade Deficit:
Economists have repeatedly tried to explain to Donald Trump that trade agreements may affect which countries the US buys from and sells to, but not the magnitude of the overall deficit. But, as usual, Trump believes what he wants to believes, leaving those who can least afford it to pay the price.
Federal Budget Deficit:
If it takes trillion-dollar annual deficits to keep the U.S. economy going in good times, what will it take when things are not so rosy?
Income Redistribution:
Redistribution from the bottom to the top – the hallmark not only of Trump’s presidency, but also of preceding Republican administrations – reduces aggregate demand, because those at the top spend a smaller fraction of their income than those below. This weakens the economy in a way that cannot be offset even by a massive giveaway to corporations and billionaires. And the enormous Trump fiscal deficits have led to huge trade deficits, far larger than under Obama, as the US has had to import capital to finance the gap between domestic savings and investment.
www.marketwatch.com/story/trumps-mismanagement-of-the-economy-is-monum
ental-2019-08-09
www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-trade-and-fiscal-deficits-b
y-joseph-e-stiglitz-2019-08
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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When Did the GOP Lose Touch with Reality?
Originally published in New York 11.20.2011
I’ve been a Republican all my adult life. I have worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, at Forbes magazine, at the Manhattan and American Enterprise Institutes, as a speechwriter in the George W. Bush administration. I believe in free markets, low taxes, reasonable regulation, and limited government. I voted for John McCain in 2008, and I have strongly criticized the major policy decisions of the Obama administration. But as I contemplate my party and my movement in 2011, I see things I simply cannot support.
America desperately needs a responsible and compassionate alternative to the Obama administration’s path of bigger government at higher cost. And yet: This past summer, the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one: more tax cuts for the very highest earners. When I entered Republican politics, during an earlier period of malaise, in the late seventies and early eighties, the movement got most of the big questions—crime, inflation, the Cold War—right. This time, the party is getting the big questions disastrously wrong.
It was not so long ago that Texas governor Bush denounced attempts to cut the earned-income tax credit as “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.” By 2011, Republican commentators were noisily complaining that the poorer half of society are “lucky duckies” because the EITC offsets their federal tax obligations—or because the recession had left them with such meager incomes that they had no tax to pay in the first place. In 2000, candidate Bush routinely invoked “churches, synagogues, and mosques.” By 2010, prominent Republicans were denouncing the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan as an outrageous insult. In 2003, President Bush and a Republican majority in Congress enacted a new prescription-drug program in Medicare. By 2011, all but four Republicans in the House and five in the Senate were voting to withdraw the Medicare guarantee from everybody under age 55. Today, the Fed’s pushing down interest rates in hopes of igniting economic growth is close to treason, according to Governor Rick Perry, coyly seconded by The Wall Street Journal. In 2000, the same policy qualified Alan Greenspan as the “greatest central banker in the history of the world,” according to Perry’s mentor, Senator Phil Gramm. Today, health reform that combines regulation of private insurance, individual mandates, and subsidies for those who need them is considered unconstitutional and an open invitation to “death panels.” A dozen years ago, a very similar reform was the Senate Republican alternative to Hillarycare. Today, stimulative fiscal policy that includes tax cuts for almost every American is “socialism.” In 2001, stimulative fiscal policy that included tax cuts for rather fewer Americans was an economic recovery program.
I can’t shrug off this flight from reality and responsibility as somebody else’s problem. I belonged to this movement; I helped to make the mess.
More at http://davidfrum.com/article/when-did-the-gop-lose-touch-with-reality
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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