A thread for Democrats Only
POSTED BY: THGRRI
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 15:36
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Quote:The richest, the top 50% of American voters are doing fine, they like the system the way it is, and most Democratic politicians know that the top 50% don't want change in how they get their health insurance. So the Democrats have to work around that and the fact that it only takes 41 Senators to kill any Medicare-for-All bill. The result is gridlock in Congress that stretches back decades and far into the future. There is nothing Democrats can do to permanently end gridlock, other than rewrite the Constitution, but the top 50% of American voters like the Constitution as it is. So we are stuck with what George Washington, Jefferson, and Madison designed. Other countries with constitutions modelled after America's have major problems that we have. The design is bad and it always causes noisy chaos and disfunction. (You might have noticed that the last 230 years of American history did not go smoothly, if you were paying attention in class.)
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
You and I both know why Democrats continue to lose to Republicans, and you've said it yourself before. Republicans, at least for the most part, have a single direction, where Democrats are a hodge podge of a bunch of miscellaneous crap these days that are usually at odds with each other.
I do hope that you're not saying that "Democrats" in general are in favor of Med4All, because that simply is not true at all.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
When, in 1985, a Yale political scientist named Juan Linz compared the records of presidential and parliamentary democracies, the results were decisive. Not every parliamentary system endured, but hardly any presidential ones proved stable. “The only presidential democracy with a long history of constitutional continuity is the United States,” Linz wrote in 1990. This is quite an uncomfortable form of American exceptionalism.
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/our-fragile-constitution/
403237/
Linz’s findings suggest that presidential systems suffer from a large, potentially fatal flaw. In parliamentary systems, governmental deadlock is relatively rare; when prime ministers can no longer command legislative support, the impasse is generally resolved by new elections. In presidential systems, however, contending parties must eventually strike a deal. Except sometimes, they don’t. Latin America’s presidential democracies have tended to oscillate between authoritarianism and dysfunction.
Even if we discount the failures of other presidential democracies, though, we should not dismiss the fact that the U.S. Constitution was modeled on a system that collapsed into civil war, and that it is inherently fragile. “This is a system that requires a particular set of political norms,” Eric Nelson told me, “and it can be very dangerous and dysfunctional where those norms are not present.” Once those norms have been discarded, the president or either house of Congress can simply go on strike, refusing to fulfill their responsibilities. Nothing can compel them to 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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I don’t imagine that many people have heard about Trump’s nomination of David Malpass, currently an under secretary at the Treasury Department, to lead the World Bank.
The Malpass nomination highlights the remarkable character of Trump’s economic appointments.
Remarkable in what way? Every economist gets it wrong sometimes. But Trump only seems to choose men who have been wrong about everything.
Much press commentary has noted Malpass’ 2007 insistence, as chief economist at Bear Stearns, that there was no reason to be worried about the financial system. A few months later his own firm imploded.
But I think his most revealing piece of commentary was a 2011 screed against low interest rates and what Malpass considered a “weak dollar” policy. A low rate policy, he declared, hurts the economy because it “discourages thrift,” while the weak dollar was bad for confidence, or something.
This was really bad economics. At the time, America had 9 percent unemployment, entirely because of inadequate private spending; to the extent that low interest rates were discouraging thrift and making people spend rather than save, that would have been a good thing, not a problem. And Malpass’s argument for a weak dollar was just incoherent.
What’s really striking, however, is that the policies Malpass attacked were precisely the policies Donald Trump now demands: low rates and a weaker dollar ( a "weak" dollar makes American exports look cheaper to foreigners, who then buy more American goods than when the dollar is "strong"). So why would Trump want to promote him, and people like him?
Why does he do this? You’re not gonna like the reason: Right-wing hack economists are, with hardly any exceptions, hard-money, hyperinflation-is-around-the-corner types. So Trump ends up with officials whose past views are diametrically opposed to what he says now. This is Trump creating his own Deep State opposition, secretly bringing him down.
More at www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/opinion/trump-david-malpass.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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As a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general, I have spent my share of time in the courtroom before state and federal judges whose commitment to neutral principles and fairness made even losing parties respect their decisions. Today, that confidence is undermined by the Roberts Court’s undeniable pattern of political allegiance. Under Roberts, justices appointed by Republican presidents have, with remarkable consistency, delivered rulings that advantage big corporate and special interests that are, in turn, the political lifeblood of the Republican Party. The “Roberts Five” are causing a crisis of credibility that is rippling through the entire judiciary.
Several decisions have been particularly flagrant and notorious: Citizens United v. FEC wrongly held that unlimited special-interest spending couldn’t corrupt, or even appear to corrupt, American politics, unleashing torrents of corruption and public disdain. Shelby County v. Holder wrongly declared racism over, disabling key sections of the Voting Rights Act and prompting a surge of racist state voting legislation. District of Columbia v. Heller elevated as constitutional doctrine a Second Amendment argument once described by a former chief justice as a “fraud.” After a bald invitation from a Republican appointee, right-wing lawyers rushed to lose cases in lower courts so a friendly Supreme Court majority could deliver a blow to the labor movement in Janus v. AFSCME.
Dig a bit, and a pattern emerges far worse than just that handful of bad decisions. Since Roberts ascended to chief justice in 2006, the court’s bare 5-4 majority of Republican appointees has delivered such rulings not three or four times, not even a dozen or two dozen times, but 73 times in civil cases. There are 79 5-4 decisions with no Democratic appointee joining the majority since Roberts became chief justice; and 73 of them implicate issues important to powerful Republican political interests. The score in those 73 cases for the big Republican interests is 73-0.
The Roberts Five have been cavalier with any doctrine, precedent or congressional finding that gets in their way.
More at www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/02/15/sen-whitehouse-theres-a-cris
is-of-credibility-at-the-u-s-supreme-court/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Texas Republican John Cornyn sent out a personal message through his 2020 U.S. Senate re-election campaign:
“Texas stands with President Trump.”
For Cornyn, seeking a fourth term in the Senate, the message underscored some of the central challenges of his re-election bid: For better or worse, his fate is inextricably tied to that of a famously polarizing and unpredictable president, with whom he will share a ballot.
Cornyn said, “I look at the things I can control, and I can control my preparation for what I think will likely be a fairly serious opposition in 2020. The president is at the top of the ticket, and I believe he will be responsible for nearly 100 percent of the turnout, about half of the voters for him, and half against him.”
www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/texas/article/Cornyn-faces-new-
threats-in-2020-re-election-bid-13618254.php
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Trump isn’t the first president, or even the first Republican president, who has sought to define his legacy in part with a big construction project. Abraham Lincoln signed legislation providing the land grants and financing that created the transcontinental railroad. Theodore Roosevelt built the Panama Canal. Dwight Eisenhower built the interstate highway system.
Why isn’t Trump building anything? During the 2016 campaign he didn’t just promise a wall, he also promised a major rebuilding of America’s infrastructure.
But month after month of inaction followed his inauguration. A year ago he again promised “the biggest and boldest infrastructure investment in American history.” Again, nothing happened.
Last month there was reportedly a White House meeting to game out a new infrastructure plan. This time they mean it. Really.
More at www.nytimes.com/2019/02/18/opinion/trump-infrastructure.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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Why has it taken us so long to see Trump’s weakness?
That weakness has been evident from the beginning. For last the two years, it hasn’t been a Democratic House but a GOP Congress that refused to give Trump money for his wall. Even with total control of the federal government, Trump never got an inch of that wall built. Nor was he able to get any legislation to restrict immigration.
The declaration of emergency is a desperate act of a desperate man who is becoming increasingly irrelevant in Washington. Trump’s announcement, claimed The New Yorker’s John Cassidy, shows that “he is a fundamentally weak and isolated President.”
Since Trump’s election, we’ve not heard much about the weakness of the presidency. All the things presidents were supposed to be unable to do — reshape the public, their parties, and the polity — journalists and pundits now believe a president can do. Through words alone. Everyone’s a Green Lanternist now. (That’s the bizarre notion that it is willpower, alone, that makes an effective, competent President. Also, a Green Lantern president with strong willpower, and a loud mouth, will beat a weaker-willed Lantern from Congress or North Korea in a duel. Green Lantern President doesn’t need help from anybody. He does it alone.)
More at https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/02/corey-robin-on-the-historovox-
what-we-missed-about-trump.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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Jussie Smollett’s sisters, actresses and activists, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, and Jazz Smollett-Warwell, worked as leading campaign surrogates for former President Barack Obama, and less than a year ago, videos of Jussie dancing with Michelle Obama went viral.
https://canadafreepress.com/article/jussie-smolletts-sisters-worked-fo
r-barack-obama
Jussie Smollett
?Verified account
'With my big bro Jojo'
https://twitter.com/jussiesmollett/status/965781389261070337
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Some have suggested that the U.S. is actually two countries in one -- a developed nation for the rich and a developing one for the poor. But recent trends like the fall in construction productivity and the rise in health costs suggest that inequality isn't the whole story here. The U.S. is simply becoming less efficient along a broad spectrum of measures.
How long can this loss of efficiency go on without hurting the country’s overall wealth? Nobody knows, but if the U.S. does eventually backslide in terms of gross domestic product, it wouldn’t be the first rich country to have done so in recent years. Italy has already traveled that path:
Italy constant gross domestic product per capita (2010 dollars)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=mTpD
Source: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Italy has been politically dysfunctional and divided for a long time. For almost a decade, a corrupt, divisive, populist president, Silvio Berlusconi, made the situation worse. The comparison with the U.S. certainly doesn’t look encouraging.
The U.S. shouldn’t wait and see if current trends persist. Instead, there needs to be a national focus on reducing excessive costs in key industries, improving the population’s health, increasing density in the country’s sprawling cities, upgrading public transit, and reducing corruption and waste in both the public and private sectors. If the U.S. wants to remain a developed country, it should try to look and act more like one.
More at www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-02-21/u-s-is-a-rich-country-wi
th-symptoms-of-a-developing-nation
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Texans’ life expectancy varies wildly depending on zip code
Life expectancy varies by as much as 30 years in some parts of the state and 20 years in some parts of Harris County, according to a new report that breaks down the time Texans will likely live by race and geography. “[Even] a 10-year difference within a region is insane,” said Sandi Pruitt, a UT Southwestern Medical Center professor of population and data science and the research’s lead investigator. “We know that where you live is predictive of health, but the degree of variation in this study was quite striking.”
www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texans-lif
e-expectancy-varies-wildly-depending-13647558.php
By the way, the state is controlled by Republicans. If the GOP ever loses control, life expectancy can, at best, only climb by 1 year per year, but you can expect Republicans to immediately blame Democrats for not raising it by 30 years in one 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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Trump, a brave and noble man, fights a lonely battle . . .
www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/25/1837372/-Cartoon-The-traveler
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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