They should absolutely pay for the destruction they cause.

We have the best sun on Planet Earth here in Arizona and every roof should have solar. TEP doesn't want that they want money for carbon garbage.

This has to change in this country and a "carbon tax" is a good start!!!

You can't be nasty to the very corporations that finance your election campaigns.

I think we know where their heads are -- certainly buried, but up a certain orifice, not in the sand....

If Trump gave the Dems everything they wanted, it's because they did not ask for much - just funding for disaster relief and a guarantee to raise the debt ceiling for bills that have already been made, something that should be automatic to avoid a worldwide economic meltdown. Now let's see, which of the two political parties last used the threat of default in an attempt to extort concessions on budgets that had already been passed, resulting in a downgrade of the country's credit rating and downtick in the economy? Shouldn't be too hard to answer that one, the same party that will throw the people of this country on the bonfire of their ideological doctrines.

As for Trump, who knows what's going on inside his walnut brain. He sees governance the same way as he did business, play people off against each other, pay off recalcitrant officials and say nothing but bullshit while extracting wealth and living the high life.

HotCoffee,

Cool. You are interesting to read despite our different understandings in certain areas. And you are so right that words do not, cannot, represent the totality of who a person is. No wiser words spoken.

After rereading the whole thread just now (a tedious task), I must apologize in return for jumping on you so hard right out of the chute and then not so subtly suggesting you were lying. That was uncalled for and unfair, and I'm sorry. Other than maybe not getting enough oats in the hay some mornings, there are no good excuses.

Charging head on at full gallop may get quicker results but increases odds of clean misses. From the dark side of the heart in that somewhat jaded, sometimes ornery Quixote-esque dragon slayer in my mind, who grows weary of hackneyed affectations, occasional bursts of impatience escape to lash out at one of the most trite, transparent, disingenuous tactics that hapless trolls use on liberal sites to introduce themselves as just one of the ol' gang, wink, wink. First, they oh so slyly (hee hee) qualify their status as a Democrat/ liberal/ progressive/ socialist/ Bernie-crat/ pick a "lefty" flavor (as if that will add gravitas to their clueless comedy acts) before launching into the same-old, dime-a-dozen, Republican "think"-tanked, focus-grouped, largely debunked, canned talking points, which are hammered on day in and day out (yawn) all the damn time everywhere. Right-wing hate radio and Fux News even blares out bullsh*t in the background of cop shops and hospitals for chrissakes -- a decades old, full spectrum, corporate mass media onslaught employing nonstop "big lie" propaganda techniques that would pop Joseph Goebbels' cork!

... mmm ... Unexpected consequences? Does correlation equal causation?

Does a constant barage of lies and fear incite hate and anger against all those goddamn wicked and conniving libtards and dumbocRATS and FAKE NEWS LIARS (which evidently means pretty much everyone else on planet friggin Earth except Trump, the greatest truth-teller of all time, so great you wouldn't believe it, folks. It's true ...no, really ...whole truth thing ...greatest ever! Believe me, folks, believe me...) and moooslums and non-white minorities in general -- especially all those OMG armies of little brown-skinned ILLEGAL ALIENS, all those invading hoards at the southern border a'comin' ta STEAL YER JOBS and VOTE ILLEGALLY?

Does all that glitzy, media-magnified, largely unfounded scaremongering trigger an uncontrollable primal urge for violent retaliation in some of the more feral, zombiefied/Foxmerized minds lurking in the shadows with rabid packs of other unhinged, far-right ideologues? Some fiery zealots simply won't tolerate anyone outside of their narrowly defined tribal identity, which is typically but not always Christian, white, gun totin, flag wavin, good ol' red-blooded, American-born boys past their prime with big beer guts in the front and obedient women in the back -- good people nonetheless conditioned all their lives to scapegoat unfairly certain other groups of good people for society's big problems instead of directing all that energy to find actual root causes and effective solutions.

Trump certainly has proven that hypothesis at numerous campaign rallies and impromptu interactions with crowds as well as carefully crafted productions (e.g., beating the crap out of a human CNN logo representing in the flesh reporters who bleed real blood -- just ask the, ahem, honorable gentleman from Montana, Trump-smitten Greg Gianforte). The Don's's new gangsta slogan for the 2020 campaign: "USA-USA-USA, punch ya face, hey-hey-hey!"

And no, the much smaller percentage of violent, so-called left-wing groups (certainly not my interpretation of the "left" or the progressive movement) absolutely do not represent the amazingly principled and peaceful, albeit loud and defiant, mass resistance mounting everywhere against Trump, Republicans, and their cruel and just plain stupid policies. If you're curious, peruse a composite of the many actual statistics on the subject (available free at a reputable site near you). With a few notable exceptions, most domestic terrorist attacks, hate crimes, and the violent street encounters of late have been perpetrated by far-right, self-described Republican, militant, super-white, male, nationalistic, radical Christianists with the stench of hate and anger in their breath and spittle. (The Rep. Steve Scalise shooter, a madman of the left, was a rarer breed of crazy, an exception that proves the rule.)

Nice try, but again, no! Before your strawman argument gets any further down the slippery slope, let's be clear that I do not support a free-for-all border policy just because simple humanity compels one to support a productive, law-abiding dreamer's human (if not technically legal) right not to be arbitrarily ripped from the only life she or he has ever known, from family, friends, community, school, church and, yes, job.

WTF !? Why does Morality 101 need to be explained to the big blob of recycled fat clogging up a toilet at 6 am, tweeting immature, egotistical gibberish? A big king sh*t with a little pawn brain hiding behind funny looking bushy eyebrows under a ridiculous do from the casino-gangster 50's, and little creepy pussy-grabber fingers poking out of his sleeves --LMAO! And THIS is the lying, malignant, narcissistic jerkwad that his starry-eyed idolaters want to normalize in the public eye???

Follow the bouncing ball ~~~ N~E~V~E~R ~!!!

"Houston, we have a problem." ... World, we have a problem!

Anyway, even if ya are a lyin, cheatin, thievin, stinkin, low down, no good, rotten piece of troll sh*t (said with much compassion), you are still interesting and challenging to read. (Thanks for the links; although, the first one didn't get sprinkled with the magic blue fairy dust to make it fly.)

Be safe wherever you are in these troubled times.

};--))

ds,

I agree with you about energy.......reaslised what was going on back in 1972 as I sold donuts, coffee, and newspapers to folks sitting in gas lines. Have read much about the 7 sisters, also Carol Quigleys book Tragedy & Hope.

This is the compassion I was refering to.....https://youtu.be/dwTmN2wbJ0A

Queen bee at her best.

Did you see the article of the latest tunnel found at the boarder? 37 people 7 Mexican and 30 Chinese nationals? ( numbers are close may not be exact. )

The issue is not just about the Dreamers. Do you believe anyone or everyone migrating

is just a wonderful person coming to make America better...no rules needed?

Not all immigrants are Hispanic or Latino. Are you watching whats happening in the EU countries.

Contrary to what you seem to want to believe I detest most Repub politicans as much as I detest Hillary especially the Cheney, Rumsfield crowd. Including the Koch Bros. Soros et all.

Regarding healthcare I believe in single payer....but I don't believe in a lot of what is called health care....to much to try to explain here.

If my statments are false I apoligise...You may be very compassionate I have no way to know. I don't think a few words on a web site represents the totality of who you are.

Neither do a few words represent the totality of all I am.

https://youtu.be/oT57tjz9py8

He ain't heavy he's my brother...the Hollies

HC,

It's nothing personal. Outside truth and reality are not dependent upon agreement. For instance, the laws of physics governing human-induced, catastrophic climate disruption are triggered by collective human behavior regardless if one happens to believe it or not. Agree, disagree, environmental deterioration will only get worse until our species as a whole can change its behavior and quit pouring carbon into the atmosphere. Period.

That eventuality can only happen when, or if, a critical mass of the population realizes the futility of mere opinion and faces the harsh reality of scientific fact. Even though most of us are binary thinkers and are conditioned to think of issues as always having two equally valid sides, actually most substantive issues only have one side. Something is either true or it is not. The challenge is to drill down to that singularity and find out.

Similarly, compassion is not a product of thought and thus can neither be defined nor cultivated by thought. It is possible, therefore, to have compassion for the person yet have no intellectual sympathy whatsoever for the person's delusional ideologies, worthless opinions, and destructive attitudes. No one owns thought and no one is owned by thought. It is fair game, one might say it is imperative, to tear each manifestation of our limited understanding of things completely apart down to its basic elements and then challenge its very foundations until every falsehood is burned away and only the kernel of truth remains. It ain't beanbag.

HotCoffee: "I would suggest you not expect all that Dem compassion to trickle down to you.

"After all look how much compassion you have for anyone not agreeing with you."

Both statements are false.

I've learned not to expect anything from anyone and certainly would not expect what you call compassion to trickle down from anywhere. Anyway, what a strange concept to expect such a weird thing, a "trickling" of compassion. Interesting.

Neither have I ever cared whether or not someone agrees with me in a comment thread or anywhere else. That would be the ego talking, which is useless input that evaporates into nothing, a waste of time and energy, not worth a second glance. Another oddity: why, or perhaps how, would compassion be predicated on intellectual agreement?

Wow! I wonder if that's why Trump and the Republicans can, for example, envision stripping healthcare away from the poor to give tax breaks to the rich or deporting almost a million American kids without good cause and yet feel no real compassion for their victims. Is it because they have spent so long living in the intellectual realm of ideology pursuing abstract goals that they are divorced from reality on the human to human level, having lost their capacity to empathize with those who have been reduced to numbers in computers that must be "solved?"

"Strange days indeed
most peculiar, Mama"

-- John Lennon, Yoko Ono

#9 ErinRose

Since government does not understand the "commons" and has subsequently destroyed them and taken the money and milked them, then -

You are sooo right!

This is the attitude that made america

Hillary a pragmatist ...no

Barbara Boxer....yes

people are individuals.

Trump isn't the only one that's only concerned with himself.

You said it: Trump "has no ideological center". He blows hot and cold depending on whether he is having a good day or not. Some days he's feeling magnanimous and generous, and other days he feels like an old grouchy bear. I'm glad he has broken with the GOPpers over aid for storm victims; I hope he is feeling very generous over the next couple of months because A LOT of people are, and are going to be, hurting by the time Irma gets finished with us here in Florida. Only three homes around me have owners who have bugged out; all the rest of us are staying; where can we go? We have animals and elderly parents. I had to move my Mom to a nursing home, while I ride it out here with our pets. When the power goes down, I will probably end up in my SUV with the feathers and fur because I can run the a/c. The heat and humidity here are already unbearable and we aren't even really into it yet. What I want to know is why, knowing this happens to us again and again (every 4-5 years the weather people say,) that we haven't adopted a pro-active position on all of this by training a civilian response team in each district that can get the power back up in a day or two, versus playing the victim, waiting for the power companies to finally get around to us. You KNOW the richy rich power execs don't give a flying Frisbee about us. You KNOW they get their kicks by leaving us languishing in the heat, in the dark, miserable and unable to take care of ourselves waiting for them to do something. Meanwhile, they run skeleton crews to save themselves money and take weeks and weeks to get our antiquated grid system patched together one more time. We really need to stop playing this assigned position and start getting together to form groups that will move into action when needed. I'd also like to see citizen groups getting together to talk about developing our own home power systems based on solar since we can only rely on the energy companies to do only what is in their best interests and lining their own pockets. It's time to walk away from these jailers, set ourselves free, and be able to get the energy we want and need at fair (unpadded for other things like nuclear reactors,) prices. Down with the baloney nonsense!!! Up with independent energy!!!

deepspace: Good job smoking out the troll yesterday. Damn...you whooped on it like the Messer Chups.