A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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PAGE 493 of 725
Sure.
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A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey. 
Collection of links to Second's, Nilbog's and Marcos' death threats: https://cutt.ly/tkCvEX6
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Quote:The Texas Republicans said that the power failed because of wind turbines. That lie might convince Trumptards, but I'm in the industry that supplies natural gas to the power plants. I know for certain the Texas Republicans were talking nonsense because they were fearful of admitting that their plans had failed. Failure had to be shifted over to wind turbines. The Republican governor refused to take blame for what he did.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure.
https://theintercept.com/2021/02/19/deconstructed-texas-republicans-ex
periment/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Ted Cruz ABANDONS Dog Snowflake for Cancun while AOC raises MILLIONS for Texas Charities
Ted Cruz and Wife Heidi Cruz abandoned their dog Snowflake for their Ritz Carlton Cancun Mexico Trip. Ted Cruz also lied about this on Fox News. While all this was happening, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) raised money for charities in Texas, and Beto O'Rourke made nearly a million phone calls to seniors in Texas to ensure they got help. This proves that if Ted Cruz stayed home and did more to help, he could have made this crisis easier for the Texans he represents as Senator.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:The Texas Republicans said that the power failed because of wind turbines. That lie might convince Trumptards, but I'm in the industry that supplies natural gas to the power plants. I know for certain the Texas Republicans were talking nonsense because they were fearful of admitting that their plans had failed. Failure had to be shifted over to wind turbines. The Republican governor refused to take blame for what he did.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sure.
https://theintercept.com/2021/02/19/deconstructed-texas-republicans-ex
periment/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
We know dude. You run your multi-million dollar Republican-free business from Mom's basement.
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A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.
Collection of links to Second's, Nilbog's and Marcos' death threats: https://cutt.ly/tkCvEX6
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The Way Out of America’s Zero-Sum Thinking on Race and Wealth
The evidence shows we all lose when society’s overwhelmed by white resentment and win when we organize across our differences.
By Heather C. McGhee
Ms. McGhee is the author of “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together,” from which this essay is adapted. Download the free book at
https://libgen.unblockit.link/search.php?req=Heather+McGhee
Feb. 13, 2021 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/13/opinion/race-economy-inequality-civ
il-rights.html\
Over a two-decade career in the white-collar think tank world, I’ve continually wondered: Why can’t we have nice things?
By “we,” I mean America at-large. As for “nice things,” I don’t picture self-driving cars, hovercraft backpacks or laundry that does itself. Instead, I mean the basic aspects of a high-functioning society: well-funded schools, reliable infrastructure, wages that keep workers out of poverty, or a comprehensive public health system equipped to handle pandemics — things that equally developed but less wealthy nations seem to have.
In 2010, eight years into my time as an economic policy wonk at Demos, a progressive policy research group, budget deficits were on the rise. The Great Recession had decimated tax revenue, requiring more public spending to restart the economy.
But both the Tea Party and many in President Barack Obama’s inner circle were calling for a “grand bargain” to shrink the size of government by capping future public outlays and slashing Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Despite the still-fragile recovery and evidence that corporations were already paring back retirement benefits and ratcheting down real wages, the idea gained steam.
On a call with a group of all-white economist colleagues, we discussed how to advise leaders in Washington against this disastrous retrenchment. I cleared my throat and asked: “So where should we make the point that all these programs were created without concern for their cost when the goal was to build a white middle class, and they paid for themselves in economic growth? Now these guys are trying to fundamentally renege on the deal for a future middle class that would be majority people of color?”
Nobody answered. I checked to see if I was muted.
Finally, one of the economists breached the awkward silence. “Well, sure, Heather. We know that — and you know that — but let’s not lead with our chin here,” he said. “We are trying to be persuasive.”
The sad truth is that he was probably right. Soon, the Tea Party movement, harnessing the language of fiscal responsibility and the subtext of white grievance, would shut down the federal government, win across-the-board cuts to public programs and essentially halt the legislative function of the federal government for the next six years. The result: A jobless recovery followed by a slow, unequal economic expansion that hurt Americans of all backgrounds.
The anti-government stinginess of traditional conservatism, along with the fear of losing social status held by many white people, now broadly associated with Trumpism, have long been connected. Both have sapped American society’s strength for generations, causing a majority of white Americans to rally behind the draining of public resources and investments. Those very investments would provide white Americans — the largest group of the impoverished and uninsured — greater security, too: A new Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco study calculated that in 2019, the country’s output would have been $2.6 trillion greater if the gap between white men and everyone else were closed. And a 2020 report from analysts at Citigroup calculated that if America had adopted policies to close the Black-white economic gap 20 years ago, U.S. G.D.P would be an estimated $16 trillion higher.
To understand what stops us from uniting for our mutual benefit, I’ve spent the past three years traveling the country from California to Mississippi to Maine, visiting churches and worker centers and city halls, in search of o
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Quote:
Originally posted by THGRRI:
If you meet the requirements ( slightly to the right, middle and liberal ) and you have an interest in starting a discussion say so.
T
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Republicans Offer Preview of Brutal Climate Policies in Texas
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/02/republicans-offer-preview-of-b
rutal-climate-policies-in-texas.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
The conservative mindset can be counted on to prioritize private interests over public ones. In a Republican utopia, the rich are noble and deserving of basic necessities, comforts, and life itself. If they have rigged the system to benefit themselves, it means they are smart, not conniving. In the future that Republicans promise, “Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish (sic),” as per Boyd’s post. In other words, our lives are expendable, and if we die, it is because we deserve it and were simply not smart enough to survive.
This was utterly predictable. Republicans have used this same approach on health care—think of all the Republican governors who backed lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act and opted their states out of the federal government’s Medicaid program even though a majority of Americans support Obamacare. Even more Americans support the government nationalizing health care, but Republicans warn that if the program is expanded from Medicare for those over 65 to all Americans, it will suddenly become “socialism” and thus “evil.” Their solution for health care is the status quo of a deregulated “Wild West” private insurance market.
Republicans have offered a similar approach to the coronavirus pandemic where any public safety standards set by the government are anathema to “personal freedoms,” even though a majority of Americans support such precautions. It is also how Republicans have approached poverty and rising inequality: by opposing a federal government increase to the minimum wage even though most Americans want a floor of $15 an hour.
Interestingly, Republicans believe strongly in the idea of “big government” when it comes to regulating their pet social issues such as harsh anti-immigrant measures and attacks on abortion. (Meanwhile, most Americans support a pathway to legalization for the undocumented and a majority supports reproductive choice.)
As Americans are subject to the brutal impacts of inevitable climate change, we face a clear choice: strong government intervention to save our lives, or a “survival of the fittest” dystopia that contemporary conservatism promises. The Texas debacle is a preview of what is to come if the free-marketeers have their way while the climate changes. The nation’s conservative party went from insisting that climate change does not exist (it is a “hoax!”) to shrugging their shoulders and telling us, as Boyd did, that we’re on our own when the consequences hit.
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Uh huh.
What do you care, dude?
The end of the world is coming, you said.
Enjoy the time you have left, you said.
--------------------------------------------------
A government is a body of people usually, notably, governed by Mark Zuckerborg and Slack Dorsey.
Collection of links to Second's, Nilbog's and Marcos' death threats: https://cutt.ly/tkCvEX6
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
In some sense, it’s not surprising that the Texas infrastructure would buckle under weather stresses. The central problem is that our elected leaders have shown zero indication of understanding the urgent need, for Texas’ economic viability, to do whatever it takes to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Ted Cruz, as everyone now knows, left for Cancun; the mayor of Colorado City angrily told everyone to fend for themselves (and then resigned); and Governor Abbott has been blaming frozen wind turbines, a tiny percentage of the problem (frozen gas pipes are a much bigger issue) but one that plays with the base. The bare minimum of a sane response might be, I dunno :
>> acknowledging the reality that climate change means that “once-per-century” weather events will be every couple years from now on,
>> building spare capacity (nuclear would be ideal … well, I can dream),
>> winterizing what we have now, and
>> connecting the Texas grid to the rest of the US.
If I were a Texas Democratic politician, I’d consider making Republican incompetence on infrastructure, utilities, and public health my only campaign issues.
https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5347
“Whether it’s hot or cold, the weather’s changing. In my mind you need to be prepared for the worst of anything,” said Larry Weiss, the former CEO of the municipal utility Austin Energy, who now consults for utilities around the country. “There needs to be some (political/regulatory) incentive for power plants to stay on and be available. Right now it’s a free market in Texas, and you dispatch when you want to. If you freeze up, you just say, ‘Sorry.’”
https://www.mrt.com/business/energy/article/texas-power-weird-weather-
climate-change-cold-15963920.php
In Texas, it is perfectly legal to let your customers freeze in the dark and die. It's mandatory to let them freeze for a pure capitalist seeking the highest profits from electricity. If nobody dies, you aren't squeezing your customers hard enough to make the most money.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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