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The Official Paracast Political Thread! — Part Four

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Ezechiel said:
Who bets he gets impeached before summer ?
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Among “Donald Trump Specials” listed is the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

Surely, they jest …

Ladbrokes

Donald Trump Specials …

To serve full term: Evens

To leave office via impeachment or resignation before end of 1st term: 4/5

NOT to be re-elected as President in 2020: 1/2

To visit Russia before the end of 2017: 6/4

To win 2017 Nobel Peace Prize: 25/1
 
Although it’s almost impossible to overstate just how horrific the Trump presidency + administration actually is – you guys do realize that it would’ve been even worse if Hillary had won, right?

I dunno if this has come up here (it’s a long thread), but remember her brilliant plan to implement a no-fly zone in Syria? According the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dunford, that would’ve started a war with Russia:

And gauging by all of the ludicrous and factless Red Scare hysteria in Pravda, I mean, “the free American press,” the Deep State is *still* frothing at the mouth to start a war with Russia.

At least the orange baboon isn’t so keen on that idea. A Hillary Clinton presidency could’ve spelled the end of human civilization on Earth. It was *that* close.
 
Don't agree about Hillary, but that's by-the-by now. What would have been happening would have been impeachment proceedings and all kinds of nastiness instigated by the Republicans because of her e-mail server 'crimes'. It would have been hell for sure. But war? No. And we would not be looking at our country being dismantled. :mad:

Thomas R Morrison said:
At least the orange baboon isn’t so keen on that idea. A Hillary Clinton presidency could’ve spelled the end of human civilization on Earth. It was *that* close.
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Again, I disagree with your 'take' on Hillary - but you are clearly missing the seriously egregious actions of Trump that spell trouble for the US and the world. It is Trump who is on the road to end civilization on earth as we know it. :(
 
Tyger said:
Don't agree about Hillary, but that's by-the-by now. What would have been happening would have been impeachment proceedings and all kinds of nastiness instigated by the Republicans because of her e-mail server 'crimes'. It would have been hell for sure. But war? No.
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This is why I prefer science to politics: for some reason, facts don’t matter in political debates. It’s like religion – got proof of evolution? “Yeah, well, y’know that’s just like, uh your opinion, man.”

That doesn’t happen in science.

Tyger said:
And we would not be looking at our country being dismantled.
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I think it’s weird that most people haven’t yet realized that our country has already been dismantled. It’s done. All the levers of power in this country have been seized by the billionaires and the multinational corporations, and the American people have no representation left in our entire government. This isn’t an opinion: it’s been proven scientifically by the 2014 Gilens and Page study at Princeton:

“Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.”
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites...testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

Now they’re just vacuuming up the last bits of money and piece by piece transforming global society into a neofeudal police state. The last 30-40 years have been silent class warfare (“silent” because they bought up the media first and barred any reporting on it). And we lost.

Tyger said:
Again, I disagree with your 'take' on Hillary - but you are clearly missing the seriously egregious actions of Trump that spell trouble for the US and the world. It is Trump who is on the road to end civilization on earth as we know it.
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Again with the “politics.” It’s not a “take,” I gave you two clear and indisputable facts: 1.) Hillary Clinton repeatedly and publicly campaigned on implementing a no-fly zone in Syria and 2.) The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff flatly stated that it would mean war with Russia. 1 + 2 = WWIII. You can choose to disregard the facts, but don’t try to paint me as some nutcase for pointing them out.

Have you noticed that Trump’s administration is essentially “business as usual” – the same kind of cabinet that Hillary Clinton would’ve appointed, and that Barack Obama was handed by CitiGroup? Goldman Sachs, psychopathic billionaires, Exxon Mobile, yadda yadda.

Sure, Trump is a scum-sucking invertebrate whose moral dipstick is two drops short of bone dry.

But if you’d studied Hillary’s track record, as I have, you would’ve learned that she’s a conniving bloodthirsty psychopath who was hell-bent on adding “war president” to her meticulously executed job résumé. But if you relied on CNN and MSNBC and the Washington Post for your information, you wouldn't have heard a word about it - because, as the DNC leaks proved, the entire corporate media industry was in bed with the DNC and her campaign to help her win.

I can think of exactly one time that Hillary Clinton expressed genuine spontaneous joy: when she proudly announced “We came, we saw, he died!” Right after Qaddafi had been sodomized with a bayonet and brutally executed before being paraded around on the hood of a car like a big game kill. That was a war crime, by the way. And it’s the one time that Hillary Clinton genuinely laughed with glee:

So you can act like things would’ve been better under Hillary Clinton and her vast cabal of Wall Street banksters, oil execs, murderous defense contractors, and the multinational corporations behind the TPP that she would’ve passed after taking office. But that’s a fantasy: in reality, we were sunk as soon as the DNC/Clinton/media conspiracy rigged the primary against Bernie Sanders.
 
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In case anyone is getting too sidetracked by the Russian spy drama, the following bills have been introduced:
1. HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
2. HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education
3. HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education
4. HJR 69 Repeal Rule Protecting Wildlife
5. HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act
6. HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood
7. HR 785 National Right to Work (this one ends unions)
8. HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill
9. HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”)
 
Since way back it's always been maintained by certain of those who study such things that if there is nuclear war it will happen via North Korea, a fact I always thought unusual. Well.....

Will China Launch Nukes and Start WWIII Because of Trump??
TEXT: "Published on Mar 10, 2017: Very unsettling news from South East Asia between China, North Korea, South Korea, and the United States, as Trump amps up our nuclear presence in the area, causing rising tensions."
 
Brave new world.....

What The Wikileaks Dump Tells Us
TEXT: "Published on Mar 10, 2017: On tonight’s Big Picture, Thom talks to former CIA analyst and whistleblower John Kiriakou and journalist James Bamford about the recent Wikileaks dump, known as “Vault 7” and what it reveals about hacking and surveillance techniques used by the CIA."
 
Libertarian world.....

Republicans Want to Destroy the Constitution, We Need to Stop Them!
TEXT: "Published on Mar 10, 2017: Thom talks with a caller about how to take back power from republicans before they destroy our whole system of government for their own gain."
 
Right-Wing Billionaires Have a Project Going to Rewrite Our Constitution, and They Are Shockingly Close to Pulling It Off: A few years ago, it would have been a thought experiment; now it's nearly reality. By Thom Hartmann/AlterNet

LINK: Right-Wing Billionaires Have a Project Going to Rewrite Our Constitution, and They Are Shockingly Close to Pulling It Off

TEXT: "Imagine if the U.S. Constitution barred the EPA and Department of Education from existing. All union protections are dead, there are no more federal workplace safety standards, and even child-labor laws are struck down, along with a national minimum wage.

Imagine that the Constitution makes it illegal for the federal government to protect you from big polluters, big banks and even big food and pharma—all are free to rip you off or poison you all they want, and your only remedy is in state courts and legislatures, because the Constitution prevents Congress from doing anything about any of it. The federal government can't even enforce voting or civil rights laws.

To add injury to insult, the federal government has to shut down Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, because all of these programs (along with food stamps, housing supports and any programs that help the middle class, the less fortunate or disabled) are “beyond the reach” of what the federal government can do.

A few years ago, it would have been a thought experiment; now it's nearly reality. Billionaires and the groups they fund are working to rewrite our Constitution to provide corprations and the rich with more and more protections and benefits, and chop away at anything smelling of “socialism” like Social Security or child labor laws.

The fact is that they're just a few states away from meeting their goal, and have already held dress rehearsals in Washington D.C.—with representatives from all 50 states—for a Constitional Convention that would change America forever.

The Constitution (arguably) provides for three ways to change or amend itself. The first is that Congress can propose a constitutional amendment, pass it with a supermajority in both houses, and have three-quarters of the states ratify it. This is the way it's been done for every one of the existing 27 amendments.

The second strategy is done by using Article 5 of the Constitution and driving the process up from the states. The easiest way to do this is for three-quarters of the states to legislatively approve (with majority votes in each state) an amendment, in which case Congress is unnecessary and upon ratification by the 38th state, it becomes a permanent amendment to the Constitution.

While this strategy has never been used, it's why many of the good government groups like Move To Amend and Public Citizen are pushing for a “Corporations are not people, and money is not speech” amendment.

The third—and incredibly dangerous—strategy to amend the Constitution is to simply call a “Convention of the States,” again using Article 5, and open the entire document itself up to rewriting and tinkering.

This third strategy is the one being used right now, as you're reading these words, in a very well-funded effort by right-wing oligarchs. If they can pull it off in the states (where it's cheaper to buy politicians), then Congress, the president and even the courts would have no say over it.

Their goal appears to be to put into the Constitution specific prohibitions against any programs (from Social Security to Medicare to food stamps) that they've always viewed as “unconstitutional socialism,” and to permanently enshrine in the Constitution the “right” of corporations and billionaires to own politicians and spend unlimited monies to influence elections and ballot measures. It would effectively turn America into a feudal state owned by the people FDR called the "economic royalists."

The group leading this charge is called Citizens for Self-Governance, which SourceWatch.org says, "is a right-wing political organization tied to Eric O'Keefe that is campaigning for an Article V convention to amend the U.S. Constitution. Through its 'Convention of States' project, CSG promotes an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution pursuant to Article V, which provides that thirty-four states (two-thirds) can trigger a convention to propose an amendment, which must then be ratified by 38 states (three-fourths)."

They add, “CSG director Eric O'Keefe has deep ties to Charles and David Koch and has been a founder and funder of numerous right-wing groups including Wisconsin Club for Growth,” and the CSG, “through its Convention of States project, is pushing for a constitutional convention in order to severely restrict federal power, for example by redefining the Commerce Clause to prohibit Congress from enacting child labor or anti-discrimination laws, or by adding a balanced budget requirement.”

And they're actually doing it. As Wikipedia notes,

“In December 2013, nearly 100 legislators from 32 states met at Mount Vernon to talk about how to call a convention of states. … In February 2014, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn announced that after his retirement from Congress, he would focus on promoting the Convention of States to state legislatures.

“In December 2015, Marco Rubio endorsed CSG's efforts to a call an Article V Convention. In January 2016, Texas Governor Greg Abbott called for a Convention of States to restrict the power of the federal government.

"As of 2016, CSG's application for a Convention of States has been passed in eight states: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Alaska, Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.”​
Now that they have mobilized thousands of enthusiastic billionaire-supporting conservatives across the nation, with help from one of America's most widely heard right-wing talk-radio hosts, Wikipedia notes:

“In September 2016, CSG held a simulated convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution in Williamsburg, Virginia. An assembly of 137 delegates representing every state gathered to conduct a simulated convention.

“The simulated convention passed amendments relating to six topics, including requiring the states to approve any increase in the national debt, imposing term limits, limiting the Commerce Clause to its original meaning [ending minimum wage, federal right-to-unionize, and child-labor laws], limiting the power of federal regulations [aka "consumer protections], requiring a supermajority to impose federal taxes and repealing the 16th Amendment [which legalized federal income taxes], and giving the states the power to abrogate any federal law, regulation, or executive order.”​
We've discussed this movie before, although we've never seen it so close to us.

On April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against fascist Germany and Japan, the New York Times published an op-ed by Vice President Henry Wallace discussing explicitly the issue of very wealthy people setting out to take over our government.

Wallace spoke directly to the danger of multimillionaire and corporate power, defining right-wing industrialists as people “who in case of conflict put money and power ahead of human beings.” He added that “in their search for money and power [they] are ruthless and deceitful. ... They... follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."

In his strongest indictment of that day's equivalent of today's billionaire class, Wallace wrote, "They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection."

As Wallace's president, Franklin D. Roosevelt said when accepting his party's re-nomination in 1936 in Philadelphia, "out of this modern civilization, economic royalists [have] carved new dynasties.... It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction."

We stand at the same crossroads Roosevelt and Wallace confronted during the Great Depression and World War II, only this time the Supreme Court (in 1976 with Buckley, 1978 in Bellotti and in 2010 with Citizens United) has given American billionaires the power to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money to own politicians and demand behavior from them so outrageous that they'd even lie on live TV and deny science itself.

The billionaire right's behavior today eerily parallels the day in 1936 when Roosevelt said, "In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for."

President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace's warnings have come full circle. It's critical that we call out these economic royalists for what they're doing, and not let them and their minions rewrite our Constitution.
​
 
"Great analysis that nails it. Enough with the bullshit narrative that liberal 'elites' who don't get the mythic salt-of-the-earth working class are why Trump won. I grew up blue collar and painfully recall rampant bigotry and people who were small-minded, rigid and contemptuous of those they perceived as smarter than them. They scoff at anyone they deem outside their tribe."

An Insider's View: The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America
In deep-red white America, the white Christian God is king.
LINK: An Insider's View: The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America
TEXT Excerpted: In deep-red America, the white Christian god is king, figuratively and literally. Religious fundamentalism has shaped most of their belief systems. Systems built on a fundamentalist framework are not conducive to introspection, questioning, learning, or change. When you have a belief system built on fundamentalism, it isn’t open to outside criticism, especially by anyone not a member of your tribe and in a position of power. The problem isn’t that coastal elites don’t understand rural Americans. The problem is that rural America doesn’t understand itself and will never listen to anyone outside its bubble. It doesn’t matter how “understanding” you are, how well you listen, what language you use…if you are viewed as an outsider, your views will be automatically discounted. I’ve had hundreds of discussions with rural white Americans and whenever I present them any information that contradicts their entrenched beliefs, no matter how sound, how unquestionable, how obvious, they will not even entertain the possibility that it might be true. Their refusal is a result of the nature of their fundamentalist belief system and the fact that I’m the enemy because I’m an educated liberal.

At some point during the discussion, they will say, “That’s your education talking,” derogatorily, as a general dismissal of everything I said. They truly believe this is a legitimate response, because to them education is not to be trusted. Education is the enemy of fundamentalism because fundamentalism, by its very nature, is not built on facts. The fundamentalists I grew up around aren’t anti-education. They want their kids to know how to read and write. They are against quality, in-depth, broad, specialized education. Learning is only valued up to a certain point. Once it reaches the level where what you learn contradicts doctrine and fundamentalist arguments, it becomes dangerous. I watched a lot of my fellow students who were smart, stop their education the day they graduated high school. For most of the young ladies, getting married and having kids was more important than continuing their learning. For many of the young men, getting a college education was seen as unnecessary and a waste of time. For the few who did go to college, what they learned was still filtered through their fundamentalist belief systems. If something they were taught didn’t support a preconception, it would be ignored and forgotten the second it was no longer needed to pass an exam.

[...] Another problem with rural Christian white Americans is they are racists. I’m not talking about white hood-wearing, cross-burning, lynching racists (though some are). I’m talking about people who deep down in their heart of hearts truly believe they are superior because they are white. Their white god made them in his image and everyone else is a less-than-perfect version, flawed and cursed.

The religion in which I was raised taught this.​
 
I never once saw a hillary yard sign and have come to realize only really stupid people voted for her.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
And what about the uneducated voters that Trump adored, and the ones he has now betrayed with policies that favor the rich?

Maybe you didn't see a Hillary yard sign, but she got nearly three million votes more than Trump. Trump only won by dint of narrow wins in three states. A small amount of change would have put Hillary in charge, so he should be grateful he got in.
 
Like a casino not matter who gambles the house is rigged the same could be said about the World today when you have 48 % of the wealth in a few hundred thousand it not going to change from feudalism to corporatisation labels change not wealth.
 
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