A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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The Republican defeat in Louisiana shows Trump is 'human repellent spray' for suburban voters, and it could spell big trouble for his reelection chances
Gov. John Bel Edwards, a socially conservative Democrat, won his reelection bid Saturday in the deep-red state of Louisiana, beating his Republican challenger Eddie Rispone with 51% of the vote to 49%.
On November 5, the Democrat Andy Beshear unseated the incumbent Republican in Kentucky's gubernatorial race.
The results underscore some trends that might worry Republicans ahead of the 2020 US election.
They've exposed the limits of Trump's personal capacity to help Republican candidates win, as the president campaigned hard for the losing GOP candidate in both cases.
And they show that support from a key demographic of Republican voters — those living in the suburbs of major cities — may be waning.
www.businessinsider.com/louisiana-defeat-shows-suburban-voters-abandon
ing-trump-2019-11
Overall, the results reflect a pattern seen in the 2018 midterms, when Democrats seized back control of the House of Representatives partly by winning suburban areas in states including Pennsylvania and Illinois. Recent further gains for Democrats in Pennsylvania compound the trend.
A shift toward Democrats in the suburbs also defined the early-November state legislature elections in Virginia, in which Democrats claimed control of each of the state's legislative bodies, flipping a series of traditionally Republican seats.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Noam Chomsky Calls Trump and Republican Allies "Criminally Insane"
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/noam-chomsky-calls-tr
ump-and-republican-allies-criminally-insane/
Q: Why did you recently call the Republican Party “the most dangerous organization in world history”?
Noam Chomsky’s answer: Take its leader, who recently applied to the government of Ireland for a permit to build a huge wall to protect his golf course, appealing to the threat of global warming, while at the same time he withdrew from international efforts to address the grim threat and is using every means at his disposal to accelerate it. Or take his colleagues, the participants in the 2016 Republican primaries. Without exception, they either denied that what is happening is happening – though any ignorance is self-induced – or said maybe it is but we shouldn’t do anything about it. The moral depths were reached by the respected “adult in the room,” Ohio governor John Kasich, who agreed that it is happening but added that “we are going to burn [coal] in Ohio and we are not going to apologize for it.” Or take a recent publication of Trump’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a detailed study recommending an end to regulations on emissions. It presented a rational argument: extrapolating current trends, by the end of the century we’ll be over the cliff and automotive emissions don’t contribute very much to the catastrophe – the assumption being that everyone is as criminally insane as we are and won’t try to avoid the crisis. In brief, let’s rob while the planet burns, putting poor Nero in the shadows.
This surely qualifies as a contender for the most evil document in history.
There have been many monsters in the past, but it would be hard to find one who was dedicated to undermining the prospects for organized human society, not in the distant future -- in order to put a few more dollars in overstuffed pockets.
And it doesn’t end there. The same can be said about the major banks that are increasing investments in fossil fuels, knowing very well what they are doing. Or, for that matter, the regular articles in the major media and business press reporting US success in rapidly increasing oil and gas production, with commentary on energy independence, sometimes local environmental effects, but regularly without a phrase on the impact on global warming – a truly existential threat. Same in the election campaign. Not a word about the issue that is merely the most crucial one in human history.
Hardly a day passes without new information about the severity of the threat. As I’m writing, a new study appeared in Nature showing that retention of heat in the oceans has been greatly underestimated, meaning that the total carbon budget is much less than had been assumed in the recent, and sufficiently ominous, IPCC report. The study calculates that maximum emissions would have to be reduced by 25% to avoid warming of 2 degrees (C), well above the danger point. At the same time polls show that -- doubtless influenced by their leaders who they trust more than the evil media -- half of Republicans deny that global warming is even taking place, and of the rest, almost half reject any human responsibility. Words fail.
Q: Wasn’t Richard Nixon worse than Donald Trump?
Noam Chomsky’s answer: Nixon had a mixed record. In some respects, he was the last liberal president: OSHA and EPA for example. On the other hand, he committed terrible crimes. Arguably the worst was the bombing of rural Cambodia, a proposed article of impeachment but voted down though it was incomparably more important than the others. And the article was much too weak, focusing on the secrecy. There has been little attention to the orders that Nixon delivered, relayed to the Pentagon by his faithful servant Henry Kissinger: “A massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves.” It is not easy to find comparable orders for genocide in the archival record. But all of Nixon’s crimes pale in comparison
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Pot Addicts
In terms of long-standing risks, the lack of federal involvement in legalization has meant that marijuana products are not being safety-tested like pharmaceuticals; measured and dosed like food products; subjected to agricultural-safety and pesticide standards like crops; and held to labeling standards like alcohol. (Different states have different rules and testing regimes, complicating things further.)
Health experts also cited an uncomfortable truth about allowing a vice product to be widely available, loosely regulated, and fully commercialized: Heavy users will make up a huge share of sales, with businesses wanting them to buy more and spend more and use more, despite any health consequences.
“The reckless way that we are legalizing marijuana so far is mind-boggling from a public-health perspective,” Kevin Sabet, an Obama administration official and a founder of the nonprofit Smart Approaches to Marijuana, told me. “The issue now is that we have lobbyists, special interests, and people whose motivation is to make money that are writing all of these laws and taking control of the conversation.”
More at https://getpocket.com/explore/item/america-s-invisible-pot-addicts
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Yeah...
Being a pot advocate myself, I have to agree with the claims here.
The stuff they're putting on the shelves in these stores are far more potent than almost all of the weed I ever smoked in my day. Every once in a while I'd be somewhere and somebody got some premium shit that had a name and looked quite colorful and even had some crystallization on it. This stuff would make me, a regular smoker, completely high out of my mind.
And the edibles are another story altogether. This isn't FDA regulated. They run these dispensaries as if they were GNC. And GNC has peddled plenty of shit over the years that it eventually had to take off the shelves because it was deemed unfit for human consumption.
At the end of the day, I'm not going to get into the debate too much other than to say if a state legalizes it, they should also allow you to grow your own in your own backyard right next to the tomatoes, otherwise it's just a sick cash grab.
Quote:
Joe Rogan explains why people that make edibles need to be more consistent with the amount of weed they use and why it would be easier to catch a human than a dolphin.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Trump Wants Absolved War Criminals to Campaign for Him
If Donald Trump gets his wish, he’ll soon take the three convicted or accused war criminals he spared from consequence on the road as special guests in his re-election campaign, according to two sources who have heard Trump discuss their potential roles for the 2020 effort.
Despite military and international backlash to Trump’s Nov. 15 clemency — fallout from which cost Navy Secretary Richard Spencer his job on Sunday — Trump believes he has rectified major injustices. Two people tell The Daily Beast they’ve heard Trump talk about how he’d like to have the now-cleared Clint Lorance, Matthew Golsteyn, or Edward Gallagher show up at his 2020 rallies, or even have a moment on stage at his renomination convention in Charlotte next year. Right-wing media have portrayed all three as martyrs brought down by “political correctness” within the military.
“He briefly discussed making it a big deal at the convention,” said one of these sources, who requested anonymity to talk about private conversations. “The president made a reference to the 2016 [convention] and where they brought on-stage heroes” like former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who refused to execute detained civilians ahead of a devastating Taliban attack.
Former Army Lt. Lorance was sentenced to 19 years in prison in 2013 for murder after ordering his soldiers in 2010 to fire on three unarmed Afghan men riding a motorcycle, killing two of them. He walked out of military prison at Fort Leavenworth on Nov. 15. Next month, former Green Beret Maj. Golsteyn was supposed to stand trial for the murder of an unarmed Afghan man whom he told the CIA he killed in the belief the man was a Taliban bombmaker. Golsteyn, who allegedly burned the man’s corpse, pleaded not guilty to the murder; the Green Berets stripped Golsteyn of his Special Forces tab. Lorance and Golsteyn were both causes célèbres in certain military circles and among their right-wing supporters, as was Navy SEAL Chief Gallagher.
More at www.thedailybeast.com/trump-tells-allies-he-wants-absolved-war-crimina
ls-to-campaign-for-him
In 1971, Nixon pardoned the My Lai Massacre war criminal (500 dead civilians) for a popularity boost with the voters in 1972. It got him reelected by a landslide. So why not pardon war criminals in 2019 for a popularity boost in the 2020 election? I'll answer my own question from experience: indiscriminate killing is why the USA lost Vietnam, dear Trump voters.
More at www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/05/25/he-was-americas-most-notorio
us-war-criminal-nixon-helped-him-anyway/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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He should just pardon Roger Stone and watch you guys go absolutely nuts.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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The Trump administration’s two most revealing speeches weren’t given by Trump.
Republicans control the White House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. They have 27 governorships and governing trifectas in 21 states. But many conservatives — particularly Christian conservatives — believe they’re being routed in the war that matters most: the post-Christian culture war. They see a diverse, secular left winning the future and preparing to eviscerate both Christian practice and traditional mores. And they see themselves as woefully unprepared to respond with the ruthlessness that the moment requires.
Enter Donald Trump. Whatever Trump’s moral failings, he’s a street fighter suited for an era of political combat. Christian conservatives believe — rightly or wrongly — that they’ve been held back by their sense of righteousness, grace, and gentility, with disastrous results. Trump operates without restraint. He is the enemy they believe the secular deserve, and perhaps unfortunately, the champion they need. Understanding this dynamic is crucial to understanding the psychology that attracts establishment Republicans to Trump, and convinces them that his offense is their best defense.
If this sound exaggerated, consider two recent speeches given by Attorney General William Barr. Barr is a particularly important kind of figure in the Trump world. He previously served as attorney general under George H.W. Bush, and had settled into a comfortable twilight as a respected member of the Republican legal establishment. It’s the support of establishment Republicans like Barr that gives Trump his political power and protects him from impeachment. But why would someone like Barr spend the end of his career serving a man like Trump?
Speaking at Notre Dame in October, Barr offered his answer. He argued that the conflict of the 20th century pitted democracy against fascism and communism — a struggle democracy won, and handily. “But in the 21st century, we face an entirely different kind of challenge,” he warned. America was built atop the insight that “free government was only suitable and sustainable for a religious people.” But “over the past 50 years religion has been under increasing attack,” driven from the public square by “the growing ascendancy of secularism and the doctrine of moral relativism.”
This is a war Barr thinks progressives have been winning, and that conservatives fight in the face of long institutional odds.
More speeches at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/26/20978613/donald-trump-chris
tians-william-barr-impeachment
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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It is a war that progressives have been winning, but okay... What's your point?
A LOT of people who voted for Trump don't go to church.
You're pointing out one of the extremely few groups of people who would both fight with others who vote their way and always vote Republican.
Take a look around you, Second. There are literally 100's of those groups that vote Democrat. If the Legacy Media didn't blitz Trump stories 24/7, they'd have already begun eating each other.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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Quote:Clearly, you didn't understand what Attorney General Barr said in his full speech, which you probably didn't click. To Barr, right now, will always be Flight 93 -- remember, the Flight 93 passengers fought 9/11 terrorists to the death. For Barr, and a majority of the Trump voters I know, Democrats are the terrorists and they need to be opposed with max force, even if the fighting crashes the airplane. Trump, Mister Maximum Force, in other words is their champion. Whatever Trump does is okay with them because he is the only one that can stop those terrorist/Democrats. Before 1861, slave-owners accused abolitionists of being the 9/11 terrorists of the 19th Century who were attempting to destroy the oh-so-precious,-christian-and-genteel Southern society. I'm pretty sure the slave-owners, and the millions who followed the slave-owners into war, were mistaken about everything. But my local Texan/Trump lovers think there was some merit to the Confederacy. There is even a high school and a college in Baytown named after General Robert E. Lee, a saintly hero to the local Trump lovers. Someday there will be a Trump High School in Baytown.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
It is a war that progressives have been winning, but okay... What's your point?
A LOT of people who voted for Trump don't go to church.
You're pointing out one of the extremely few groups of people who would both fight with others who vote their way and always vote Republican.
Take a look around you, Second. There are literally 100's of those groups that vote Democrat. If the Legacy Media didn't blitz Trump stories 24/7, they'd have already begun eating each other.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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T 
Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/public_approval_of_the_
impeachment_and_removal_of_president_trump-6957.html
RCP Average Impeachment
11/1 - 11/25
--
48.2
45.7
Yes/Remove +2.5
CNN
11/21 - 11/24
910 RV
50
45
Yes/Remove +5
Quinnipiac
11/21 - 11/25
1355 RV
45
48
No +3
Politico
11/22 - 11/24
1988 RV
50
42
Yes/Remove +8
Economist
11/17 - 11/19
1224 RV
49
42
Yes/Remove +7
NPR/PBS/Marist*
11/11 - 11/15
988 RV
47
47
Tie
Politico
11/15 - 11/17
1994 RV
47
44
Yes/Remove +3
Economist
11/10 - 11/12
1206 RV
49
43
Yes/Remove +6
Politico
11/8 - 11/10
1993 RV
48
42
Yes/Remove +6
Gallup
11/1 - 11/14
1015 A
48
50
No +2
Economist
11/3 - 11/5
1201 RV
50
43
Yes/Remove +7
Politico
11/1 - 11/3
1983 RV
47
42
Yes/Remove +5
Monmouth
10/30 - 11/3
835 RV
45
52
No +7
ABC/WP
10/27 - 10/30
876 RV
51
46
Yes/Remove +5
NBC/WSJ
10/27 - 10/30
720 RV
49
46
Yes/Remove +3
FOX News
10/27 - 10/30
1040 RV
49
45
Yes/Remove +4
Economist
10/27 - 10/29
1274 RV
49
43
Yes/Remove +6
Politico
10/25 - 10/28
1997 RV
48
43
Yes/Remove +5
USA Today
10/23 - 10/26
1000 RV
46
47
No +1
Gallup
10/14 - 10/31
1506 A
51
48
Yes/Remove +3
Selzer
10/17 - 10/23
1003 A
42
44
No +2
Economist
10/20 - 10/22
1204 RV
49
43
Yes/Remove +6
Politico
10/18 - 10/21
1989 RV
49
43
Yes/Remove +6
Quinnipiac
10/17 - 10/21
1587 RV
48
46
Yes/Remove +2
CNN
10/17 - 10/20
892 RV
51
44
Yes/Remove +7
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