Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too? by 6ixStringJack

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 14, 2025 12:30
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Monday, May 12, 2025 4:36 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Surely Not?

If the US president were a Manchurian candidate, are there things he would hesitate to do?
(Such as not accept a $400 million "gift" of a 747, for example?)

By Christopher R. Browning | May 29, 2025 issue

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/05/29/surely-not-manchurian-cand
idate-president/

Imagine that the president of the United States was a “Manchurian candidate,” an embedded foreign agent determined to wreak maximum damage on the country and limited only by the need not to act so outrageously and preposterously as to blow his cover. What are some of the things that even a Manchurian candidate would hesitate to do? What would be the limit of the self-inflicted wounds that he would dare to attempt?

In foreign affairs he might hesitate to openly undermine the world order established by the US after World War II, of which it has been the major beneficiary. Surely he would not declare Canada—a country with which we have the longest nonmilitarized frontier in the world and that has been our best trading partner—a threat to national security and target it for absorption through economic extortion as our fifty-first state. Surely he would not openly hope for and encourage the dissolution of the EU. Surely he would not disparage our NATO allies and threaten one member that has been extremely supportive of the US—Denmark—with the military seizure of its overseas territory of Greenland. Surely he would not consistently denigrate the leadership of our democratic allies as weak and stupid while praising our authoritarian rivals as smart and tough, thus revealing his own political role models and authoritarian aspirations.

Surely he would not cut off aid to Ukraine—which without the loss of a single American service member’s life has so taxed the military strength of Russia that it had to abandon a dictator it supported in Syria and has depleted its military stockpile to the extent that it is taking Cold War–era tanks out of mothballs—all to save a minuscule percentage of our defense budget (with most of this Ukrainian allotment spent on procuring weapons in the US in any case). Surely he would not seize the Panama Canal, where one homemade rocket fired from beyond the American reoccupation zone could take out just one lock and effectively close the canal to all traffic, thereby inflicting immense economic and strategic damage on the US. Surely he would not openly advocate the ethnic cleansing and American occupation of Gaza—policies that were prosecuted as violations of international law at Nuremberg. More likely, he might attempt to dismantle USAID, precisely because it is an extremely effective but underappreciated institution of American soft power that presents a favorable face of American expertise and compassion to the rest of the world.

Having inherited by far the strongest economy in the world, how far would he dare to go in squandering American prosperity and dissipating America’s leadership in the world economy? With the historic example of the Smoot–Hawley tariffs that aggravated the Great Depression, would he dare to launch a broad and untargeted tariff war on the entire world? And then would those tariffs be announced, suspended, and reimposed in a whiplash fashion for the triple effect of raising prices due to taxing imports, discouraging domestic investment due to uncertainty, and inviting widespread, systemic corruption as various companies scramble to obtain waivers? On top of that, would our Manchurian candidate threaten to politicize the Federal Reserve by firing its chairman, thereby also tanking the stock market, fanning inflation with lowered interest rates, triggering flight from the dollar, and ultimately threatening the dollar’s position as the reserve currency of the world economy and all the advantages of that position?

Would he proclaim eighteenth-century mercantilism as his economic philosophy, viewing all international economic relations as bilateral, win-lose scenarios determined by who has a favorable balance of payments (based on the exchange of goods but not services)? Would he threaten foreign students, revoke their visas, and arrest and deport them arbitrarily, even though the large foreign student population attending American universities both brings foreign payments into the US and provides the opportunity to skim off the world’s top talent to energize our future economy? Would he cripple American economic vitality by attacking the remarkable synergy of the university–government–philanthropy partnership that makes the US a world leader in research? And would he simultaneously cut both taxes and much of the IRS personnel, assuring a twofold drop in tax revenues and a soaring national debt? Would he actually have us behave like Greece, Argentina, and Turkey at their economically most disastrous and foolish?

Faced with the existential threat of a rapidly heating world, would he denounce all efforts to slow climate change as an alleged hoax perpetrated by elite, radical left Democrats/Communists to hinder economic growth and competitiveness? Would he defund and discourage solar and wind energy production while exhorting an economically dubious but climatically ruinous return to coal? Would he dismantle the government-funded institutions that both track and warn about extreme weather threats and produce the models that predict future climate developments, so that “inconvenient truths” remain ignored and we march blindly toward the inferno?

With the Covid-19 pandemic hardly behind us and the bird flu virus rapidly mutating and infecting other animal species, would he dare to dismantle the public health system by decimating its personnel? Would he dismiss an entire cohort of experienced doctors, scientists, and other experts who work for agencies such as the CDC and FDA? Would he appoint a health and human services secretary who grasps at every discredited quack remedy (ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for Covid; cod-liver oil and antibiotics for measles) while rejecting recent vaccines because they always need more testing and older vaccines (polio) because they allegedly killed more people than they saved? Would he really dare to undertake unilateral medical disarmament?

Would he proclaim a campaign of retribution and extend his populist attack targeting allegedly disloyal former employees and so-called elites to include the medical, scientific, and academic professions and institutions, precisely when our country’s competitiveness in the knowledge economy is crucial? Would he, in effect, propose performing a lobotomy on the country’s capacity to produce and disseminate knowledge? And would he extend this attack even to the legal profession, not just barring law firms that have ever opposed him in past court cases from government contracts but going so far as to ban their lawyers from entering federal buildings? (Would this include washrooms in national parks?) Wouldn’t he fear appearing totally petty and ridiculous?

Would he attempt quite blatantly and openly to undermine American democratic political culture? In particular, would he dispense with the rule of law and due process, even in defiance of Supreme Court decisions? Would he presume to follow the model of the Third Reich’s “protective custody” decree and allow the government to arrest and incarcerate anyone indefinitely without indictment, trial, and sentence, starting with noncitizens but then moving on to the homegrown? Would he be cynical enough to justify his actions under a rarely used wartime emergency provision of the law, though there is no war? Would he add the innovation of incarcerating the victims of such detention not in domestic concentration camps but in rent-a-cell prisons in El Salvador for life?

Despite the Clinton/Gore model of a successful downsizing of the federal bureaucracy through incremental and targeted measures, would he instead empower the richest man in the world to simply close entire agencies—especially those that combine expertise with a mission to improve people’s lives—and indiscriminately fire swaths of employees from other agencies with the totally undocumented and obviously false claim that each and every one had performed poorly? Would he appoint to his cabinet and other important positions people so clearly unfit for them that he had to exert considerable political pressure on his Senate majority just to get them confirmed and then face immediate blowback from their incompetence (exhibit one being his defense secretary using insecure communications to reveal military attack plans to his wife, his brother, and a journalist)?

No. Surely in a democracy that has survived for 240 years, no foreign embedded Manchurian candidate would dare risk exposing himself by dropping such a cluster bomb of obviously and predictably damaging actions and policies all at once. However, what if our Manchurian candidate president was not in fact an agent of an enemy power at all but acting entirely for his own reasons? And what if his base and his party continued to support him, no matter how disastrous his presidency was proving to be? Then we would be in very big trouble indeed.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 12, 2025 9:46 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

When an Arsonist Poses as a Firefighter
Tariffs: What the hell just happened?

By Paul Krugman | May 12, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/when-an-arsonist-poses-as-a-firefig
hter

Four points:

1. A 30 percent tariff is still really, really high, especially combined with the 10 percent tariff we’re imposing on everyone else. The back of my envelope says that the average U.S. tariff rate will now be around 13 percent, up from around 3 percent when Trump began his trade war. Before all this drama that would have been seen as wildly protectionist.

2. This wasn’t a case of both sides backing down. China only imposed its tariffs as a response to Trump’s gambit, and has reduced them only because he retreated. And retreat he did. This was basically Trump running away from the killer rabbit.

3. The prohibitive tariff has been paused, not canceled. Nobody knows what will happen in 90 days. I’ve long argued that the uncertainty created by Trump’s arbitrary, ever-changing tariffs is at least as important as the level of those tariffs. Well, the uncertainty level has arguably gone up rather than down.

4. This retreat probably hasn’t come soon enough to avoid high prices and empty shelves. Even if shipments from Shanghai to Los Angeles — which had come to a virtual halt — were to resume tomorrow, stuff wouldn’t arrive in time to avoid exhaustion of current inventories.

I guess it’s good news that Trump slammed on the brakes before driving completely off the cliff. But if you think that rationality has returned to the policy process, that the days of government by ignorant whim are now behind us, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 12, 2025 1:26 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
When an Arsonist Poses as a Firefighter
Tariffs: What the hell just happened?

By Paul Krugman | May 12, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/when-an-arsonist-poses-as-a-firefig
hter

Four points:

1. A 30 percent tariff is still really, really high, especially combined with the 10 percent tariff we’re imposing on everyone else. The back of my envelope says that the average U.S. tariff rate will now be around 13 percent, up from around 3 percent when Trump began his trade war. Before all this drama that would have been seen as wildly protectionist.

2. This wasn’t a case of both sides backing down. China only imposed its tariffs as a response to Trump’s gambit, and has reduced them only because he retreated. And retreat he did. This was basically Trump running away from the killer rabbit.

3. The prohibitive tariff has been paused, not canceled. Nobody knows what will happen in 90 days. I’ve long argued that the uncertainty created by Trump’s arbitrary, ever-changing tariffs is at least as important as the level of those tariffs. Well, the uncertainty level has arguably gone up rather than down.

4. This retreat probably hasn’t come soon enough to avoid high prices and empty shelves. Even if shipments from Shanghai to Los Angeles — which had come to a virtual halt — were to resume tomorrow, stuff wouldn’t arrive in time to avoid exhaustion of current inventories.

I guess it’s good news that Trump slammed on the brakes before driving completely off the cliff. But if you think that rationality has returned to the policy process, that the days of government by ignorant whim are now behind us, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

This entire article was written by a simple-minded fool who is completely unable to multi-task
in their own real lives, let alone entertain more than one topic at the same time when
thinking things through.

Either that, or they know their stupid readership like Second is that way.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Monday, May 12, 2025 2:54 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

China Called Trump’s Bluff

There is a lesson here for anyone Trump threatens.

By Jonathan Chait | May 12, 2025, 11:21 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/05/china-tariffs-tru
mp/682776/

When President Donald Trump launched his trade war on the world, he issued a stern warning: “Do not retaliate and you will be rewarded.” China ignored the warning. It was rewarded anyway. This morning, Trump largely suspended his trade war in return for nothing but promises of ongoing discussions. There is a lesson here for everybody Trump threatens, whether countries or businesses or universities.

The unveiling of the Trump global tariff regime was accompanied by a distinct form of dominance theater. The president and his gang assured his targets that if they submitted to his tariffs, he would repay their compliance. Any country that dared defy him would suffer terribly.

“I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump,” posted Eric Trump. “The first to negotiate will win—the last will absolutely lose. I have seen this movie my entire life.”

Most of the world accepted this advice, only to discover the difficulty of making global trade deals with a president who doesn’t seem to understand how trade works. Foreign diplomats expressed repeated frustration as they failed to ascertain what Trump even wanted from them, let alone what he was prepared to offer in return. To date, only the United Kingdom has managed to resolve its trade status with the United States.

China, however, retaliated with countermeasures of its own, imposing steep tariffs on American imports. Trump decided to make an example of the country. “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” he announced on Truth Social. (This figure eventually increased to 145 percent.) Other countries, which had showed proper respect, would receive a merciful reprieve. “The world is ready to work with President Trump to fix global trade, and China has chosen the opposite direction,” claimed Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Trump held out for one month before backing down. Under the new 90-day agreement, tariffs on Chinese goods will come down to 30 percent; China’s tariffs on American goods will likewise decline to 10 percent. “The consensus from both delegations is that neither side wanted a decoupling,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced at a press conference in Geneva, as if the whole thing had been one big misunderstanding. The decades of China allegedly “ripping off” the United States were apparently forgotten, along with China’s insolence in retaliating and the supposed need for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on Chinese imports. The administration isn’t even pretending that it forced China to pay any special price for its defiance. It is memory-holing the entire “do not retaliate” episode and moving on as if the point this whole time was to get along better with Beijing.

As an exercise in trade policy, this makes no sense. But to treat Trump’s behavior as if it were narrowly tailored to the objective of reordering global trade misses the symbolic role it plays. Trump is performing a character, the presidential version of the boss he played in The Apprentice, sitting in a plush leather chair doling out justice to quavering supplicants.

His threats of conquest against Canada, Greenland, and Panama, and his unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, advance no practical objective. Indeed, they generate resentment that weakens his leverage over those countries. Trump’s best chance to add Greenland to the United States, for example, would have been to use a soft touch, rather than to insist that he would have it one way or another. The purpose that these gambits seem to serve is to establish Trump as the boss man lording his power over vulnerable targets.

The original target of this ritual was Mexico. Trump’s crowds used to delight when he would respond to any defiance by announcing, “The wall just got 10 feet higher.” Nobody believed that Trump was planning to literally increase the height of the wall. The point was to show that Trump was in charge, and that anybody who tried to stand up to him would be punished.

This makes for an unusual style of governing, to say the least, and even a decade into the Trump era, the president’s targets often respond with confusion. But the evidence suggests a fairly clear pattern: Although Trump instructs his targets to submit, doing so merely sets them up for more humiliation and abuse.

Consider a handful of recent cases. Columbia University agreed to the Trump administration’s invasive demands, only for the administration to come back and issue even more. The powerful pharmaceutical lobby decided not to resist Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose weird ideology poses an existential threat. Not only has Kennedy declined to back down from his extreme positions; the administration has escalated its war on the industry by cutting funding for scientific research and taking steps to impose limited price controls.

By contrast, when Harvard defied Trump’s list of demands, the administration claimed that its letter threatening the university had been released in error, and complained that the famous university had acted unreasonably. True, Trump has escalated by targeting Harvard’s tax-exempt status, but he stands little chance of winning in court, and defying court orders won’t help him make Harvard pay taxes that it does not legally owe. Similarly, after Canadians elected Mark Carney as prime minister and he insisted that his country could never be purchased or taken, Trump responded with a friendly Oval Office meeting in which he seemed to accept Carney’s refusal.

The genuinely complicated factor in these negotiations is that “winning” with Trump is often impossible, because the relationship itself is lose-lose. Trump does not appear to recognize the possibility of a positive-sum engagement, and his attempts to turn a productive connection into an exploitative one create losses for both sides. This is most obvious in trade, where Trump’s protectionist instincts have spread pain around the globe without generating any gains. His extortion of domestic firms and civil society has likewise undermined some of America’s most admired sources of innovation, for no offsetting benefit other than the expansion of Trump’s own power.

Trump is a classic bully who craves submission and fears conflict. His fervent supporters want him to be Michael Corleone, but he’s more like Biff Tannen. Standing up to Trump does not mean that you win. But giving in guarantees that you lose.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 12, 2025 3:09 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

This entire article was written by a simple-minded fool who is completely unable to multi-task
in their own real lives, let alone entertain more than one topic at the same time when
thinking things through.

Either that, or they know their stupid readership like Second is that way.

The Trump Trade-War Scam

How to understand the phony trade deals with Britain and China

By David Frum | May 12, 2025, 1:35 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/trump-trade-war-scam
/682780/

If you’ve ever watched a game of three-card monte, you’ve noticed that the dealer talks nonstop. The chatter serves two functions. First, it distracts the victims. Second, and maybe more important, the dealer is deceiving his victims about what’s befalling them. The spiel invites them to imagine they’re playing a game in which they stand a fair chance. In reality, they are being swindled.

The Trump White House’s press releases about its so-called trade agreements and negotiations—first with the United Kingdom, now with China—are just so much dealer patter.

The tariff numbers go up. Up and up and up. Ooh, now they come down. Up! Down! And all the while, everybody involved is telling contradictory stories about what’s being done and why.

The noise is made even more confusing by the journalists trying to explain the game.

In the street-corner version of three-card monte, the dealer is typically assisted by confederates in the crowd. These confederates help the dealer misdirect the suckers and elbow out of the way anybody who seems wise to the hustle. Pro-Trump media play that same role in the tariff debate.

Meanwhile, the respectable financial media, which actually possess deep expertise on tariffs and trade, struggle as much as anybody else to interpret the seeming chaos. They perceive that the show being performed in no way resembles the negotiations that produced trade agreements in the past. But their own habits and rules forbid them from drawing the correct critical conclusions from the crazy discrepancy they observe.

Turn off the sound. Ignore the cards. Watch the players. And, suddenly, things come into focus.

A tariff is a tax, but a tax that differs from other taxes in three important ways.

First, a tariff is a tax that can be imposed by the president acting unilaterally. The normal constitutional rule is that only Congress can impose taxes. With tariffs, however, Congress has delegated much of its authority to the president. Theoretically, this deference is for emergency purposes, but because the president has the sole power to determine whether a trade emergency prevails, tariffs provide a means of raising revenue that he can impose all on his own.

Second, a tariff is a tax that the president can waive unilaterally. A president could never, say, exempt a company from corporate income tax on the condition that the company donate to the president’s inauguration committee; nor can he forgive a taxpayer’s obligation to pay capital-gains tax if that taxpayer buys the first lady’s lifetime rights for a documentary that never gets made. But a president can create tariff exemptions in those ways and for those reasons.

Third, a tariff is a uniquely regressive tax, one that falls most heavily on the least affluent people in society. Imagine a low-income family eating a meal at home. The table is tariffed, the chairs are tariffed, the plates are tariffed, the knives and forks are tariffed, the Canadian wheat in the pasta is tariffed. Now imagine a wealthy family eating a meal in a restaurant. Their tables, chairs, and so on might be tariffed too. But the most important costs in their restaurant meal are the wages of the chef and the servers, the rent the restaurant pays to occupy its premises, and other overheads. Those costs are not tariffed. Basically, the more of your income you spend on services, the less you pay in tariffs. Income that is saved and invested pays no tariff at all, so the richer you are, the more of your income you can save and invest.

The working man’s car is tariffed. The rich man’s chauffeur is not tariffed.

The poor girl’s dolls are tariffed. The nanny hired to play dolls with the rich girl is not tariffed.

Towels are tariffed. Membership fees at the sports club are not.

The doorknob is tariffed. The butler who stands by to open the door is not.

The Trump administration and its allies in Congress are aiming to pass a big tax cut. That tax cut may be decorated with a few symbolic concessions to low-wage workers. Most of its benefit, however, will accrue to the very richest people in U.S. society. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has radically reduced tax enforcement upon the very rich by laying off one-third of the auditors for the IRS. Altogether, Trump’s fiscal plans imply a huge increase in the U.S. government’s deficit and a dramatic surge in federal debt. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/doge-trumps-agenda-calls-adding-
trillions-dollars-us-debt-rcna191665

An administration that genuinely cared about the trade deficit would flinch from these fiscal plans. Economists generally agree that fiscal deficits drive trade deficits. To simplify a complex relationship: The United States borrows in dollars. Lenders buy dollars to lend to the United States. All of those lenders buying at once push up the value of the dollar. With the dollar more valuable, U.S. imports seem cheaper and U.S. exports become more expensive. So the U.S. imports more and exports less. If the goal were genuinely to import less and export more, the Trump administration would stop futzing around with tariffs and would instead balance the federal budget. https://www.piie.com/publications/working-papers/fiscal-and-exchange-r
ate-policies-drive-trade-imbalances-new-estimates

If. But if the goal is to redistribute the cost of government from the richest to the poorest, while enormously augmenting the president’s personal power to the detriment of Congress, then the Trump plans make a lot more sense.

All of this hullabaloo about nonsense deals with Britain and China serves to distract from the brute reality of the Trump and MAGA trade agenda.

There are no real deals. Tariffs on U.S. imports from Britain and China, and the ensuing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports to Britain and China, are all higher than they were the day before Trump’s inauguration. Nothing has been achieved to promote trade, and indeed nothing has truly been tried, because trade promotion is not the goal.

Fiscal redistribution from poor to rich: That is the goal. This goal is advancing.

Maximization of the president’s power—to punish enemies and sell favors—is also the goal. This goal is advancing even more successfully.

The six weeks since Trump’s “Liberation Day,” on April 2, have seen some of the most extreme financial volatility since the global financial crisis of 2008–09. Back then, markets were tossed around by objective financial realities. This time, they are convulsed by one man’s whims. Reporting strongly suggests that some market participants had advance access to that man’s whims, and scored hundreds of billions of dollars of speculative profits from knowing when to buy and when to sell. https://upriseri.com/insider-trading-trump-tariff-announcements/

Non-speculators have also bought and sold influence. CEOs who Trump thinks are “nice” gain extra consideration for their companies: See the way Apple secured a special exemption for iPhone sales. But small businesses that lack the resources and contacts to win Trump’s favor are crushed and ruined.

Meanwhile, the deal patter of jingoistic rhetoric and confusing promises is deployed to conceal the real mechanics of plunder and profit. The only people who say otherwise are the hustlers and their touts. The only people who believe otherwise are the marks.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 12, 2025 3:27 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Evidence Points to Insider Stock Trading Around Trump’s Tariff Announcements

By Greg Brailsford | April 14, 2025, 8:58 am

https://upriseri.com/insider-trading-trump-tariff-announcements/

When the stock market plunged following President Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement earlier this month, short sellers (those betting that the stock market will plummet) pocketed an estimated $127 billion. Days later, when Trump abruptly announced a 90-day pause on those same tariffs, the market rocketed upward, delivering windfall profits to those who had purchased call options (bets that the market will go up) just minutes before the news broke.

The pattern of trading activity surrounding these announcements has raised serious questions about whether Trump’s allies received advance notice of these market-moving policy shifts.

Insider trading – the illegal practice of trading stocks based on material, non-public information – carries severe penalties: up to 20 years in prison and fines up to $5 million. Yet the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rarely pursues such cases against the politically connected, and Congressional representatives routinely engage in suspicious trading.

The timing is almost impossible to attribute to coincidence. Large purchases of short-dated call options (bets that the stock market will rise within days) on the S&P 500 ETF occurred within 15 to 20 minutes before Trump’s announcement on April 9. These trades yielded profits exceeding $30 million overnight.
The 15-Minute Window

Trading records reveal a particularly damning sequence on April 9. At 1:00 PM, just 18 minutes before Trump’s tariff pause announcement at 1:18 PM, an unusual block of 5,105 bets that the S&P 500 index would rise by the end of the day to a price over $502 changed hands at approximately $4.20 each. Ten minutes later, another batch of these bets with a $509 price traded at around $2.14.

These weren’t small bets. The first block alone represented an investment of roughly $2.1 million. When Trump announced the tariff pause and markets surged, these options exploded in value, turning $2.1 million into more than $30 million in less than 24 hours.

The odds of someone making that specific bet, in that volume, at that precise moment without foreknowledge are virtually zero. We’re talking about an extremely specific, short-dated option position taken minutes before a surprise announcement that sent those exact contracts soaring.

Financial records reveal a suspicious surge in short-selling activity that began on March 31, peaking on April 4 – perfectly positioned to profit from Trump’s initial tariff announcement. The short interest began declining by April 5-7, suggesting traders were closing positions ahead of the April 9 rebound.

This pattern – establishing positions before negative news, then reversing those positions before positive news – represents the hallmark of insider trading.
The Mar-a-Lago Connection

Sources close to the investigation have identified at least three hedge fund managers who attended a private dinner at Mar-a-Lago on March 30, just three days before Trump’s initial tariff announcement. All three funds dramatically increased their short positions in the 48 hours following that dinner.

“We were tracking unusual market moves and noticed a surge in shorting of import-dependent companies starting March 31,” said a senior trader at a major Wall Street bank who requested anonymity. “The positions were so targeted – heavily shorting companies with Chinese supply chains while avoiding domestic manufacturers who would benefit from tariffs. It looked like someone had a detailed breakdown of which sectors would be hit hardest.”

One hedge fund, Bluestone Capital, increased its short position in Tesla by 300% on April 1, one day before the tariff announcement that sent Tesla shares plummeting 17%. The fund then closed most of these short positions on April 8, just before Tesla rebounded 18% on news of the tariff pause.

If someone in Trump’s circle shared information about either announcement before it became public, that’s textbook insider trading. The question isn’t whether the trading looks suspicious – it clearly does – but whether regulators will actually investigate powerful political figures.

Specific sectors most affected by the tariff announcements saw particularly unusual trading. U.S. steel producers like U.S. Steel and Alcoa inexplicably rallied in late March before the tariff announcement that would benefit them. Automotive stocks surged dramatically after Trump exempted Canada, Mexico, and Europe from the tariffs, with Ford jumping 12% and GM 15%.

Most telling was Trump’s own social media post at 9:37 AM on April 9, hours before the official announcement: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!” – effectively signaling to followers that a positive market event was imminent.

Six U.S. Senators, including Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, have sent a letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins urging an investigation into whether the tariff announcements enriched administration insiders.

Yet veterans of Washington politics express skepticism that any charges will result, pointing to a long history of congressional insider trading that goes largely unpunished.

Much more at https://upriseri.com/insider-trading-trump-tariff-announcements/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Monday, May 12, 2025 4:09 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Who is about to look like a giant asshole?
Even if he later turns down the gift, or bribe from the persnickety viewpoint, because someone convinced him not to take it, Trump sees no problem:

Trump defended the move and attempted to see off potential criticism online, by posting on his Truth Social platform: "So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA [Make America Great Again]."

Donald Trump Will Get to Keep Qatar Jet Even After He Leaves Office

May 12, 2025 at 3:06 AM EDT

The jet will then be donated to Trump's presidential library when he leaves office, meaning he can continue to use it (or sell it)

The nature of the gift is unprecedented given its value, estimated at around $400 million.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-qatar-plane-air-force-one-207076
1

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Says who on any of this? The people who always lie to you?

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025 7:35 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Says who on any of this? The people who always lie to you?

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

Why have there always been unethical leaders? Trump for example. Human psychology is why:

Why the Most Foolish People End Up in Power – Machiavelli Knew This

Why Stupid People Gain Power – Machiavelli's Dark Truth in Leadership Psychology

Why do many unqualified individuals become CEOs, politicians, and powerful executives? This video uncovers the psychological and structural forces behind this disturbing trend, revealing how confidence, charisma, and manipulation often beat competence.

Grounded in Machiavelli’s political philosophy and backed by modern leadership psychology, it explores why many of the world’s most powerful figures aren’t necessarily the most capable—and what that means for organizations, institutions, and individuals like you.

What You'll Learn in This Leadership Psychology Masterclass:

The Machiavellian Paradox: Why intelligence can be a liability in power games
The Confidence Illusion: How boldness and charisma outperform actual skill
The Incompetence Network: How weak leaders surround themselves with yes-men
The Simplicity Trap: Why the public prefers clear, wrong answers to complex truths
The Ethical Handicap: How moral integrity blocks advancement in toxic systems
Toxic Environments: Where mediocrity thrives—and how to reverse the dynamic
Mass Distraction Tactics: How manipulative leaders maintain control and appear competent
Breaking the Cycle: Strategies to resist manipulation and promote merit-based leadership

This isn’t just philosophy—it's a roadmap to understanding modern leadership.
By fusing political theory, executive strategy, and organizational psychology, this breakdown equips you to recognize dysfunctional systems and navigate power dynamics more effectively in business, government, and daily life.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025 10:08 AM

THG

Biden went through congress and drug manufactures to lower drug prices. He got some of what he wanted despite Republicans blocking him. That preserves capitalism. Trump just puts out an executive order doing it. That's called communism. And it is illegal. It will get shredded in the courts and won't fly.

So why did he do it? Because it plays well with Americans who rightfully so, want lower prices. And, because his first 100 days in office were a disaster. China raped him and the damage he has done to our economy is about to become very clear.

We need someone to challenge the supreme courts decision to grant the president immunity. If they can overturn Roe vs Wade, they can overturn this.

T

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025 1:04 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Biden went through congress and drug manufactures to lower drug prices. He got some of what he wanted despite Republicans blocking him. That preserves capitalism. Trump just puts out an executive order doing it. That's called communism. And it is illegal. It will get shredded in the courts and won't fly.

So why did he do it? Because it plays well with Americans who rightfully so, want lower prices. And, because his first 100 days in office were a disaster. China raped him and the damage he has done to our economy is about to become very clear.

We need someone to challenge the supreme courts decision to grant the president immunity. If they can overturn Roe vs Wade, they can overturn this.

T

Loser crying because he just lost the chess match.

The Democratic Party is official dead.

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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Tuesday, May 13, 2025 1:05 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Says who on any of this? The people who always lie to you?

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Why have there always been unethical leaders?

...

What You'll Learn in This Leadership Psychology Masterclass:

I don't need any classes from you, dummy. You just keep being wrong about everything every day and being more miserable every morning as you realize you lost even more relevance than the day before.

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025 7:04 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump’s Brain Drain Will Be Europe’s Gain

May 13, 2025, 10:04 AM | By Daniel B. Baer, the senior vice president for policy research at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/05/13/trump-science-technology-research
-universities-education-brain-drain-talent-entrepreneurship/

French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a conference at Sorbonne University in early May aimed at attracting U.S. scientists to France. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave him an assist, announcing a two-year, 500 million euro ($556 million) effort to support U.S. scientists moving to Europe. It’s a smart start, but Europe should go bigger—much bigger—to take advantage of the Trump administration’s monumental own goal of attacking the U.S. scientific, technical, and broader academic research communities just as global competition around cutting-edge innovation accelerates.

While cozying up to Russia, starting a global trade war, and threatening to annex the United States’ closest neighbor have gotten more attention, among U.S. President Donald Trump’s most consequential actions for the United States’ long term international power has been the assault on science at home. By slashing federal funding for basic research, mounting attacks against universities, and sowing chaos in the visa system for foreign students, Trump has undermined one of the United States’ most important strategic advantages: the best basic research ecosystem in the world, one that drives U.S. commercial innovation and competitive success.

This ecosystem is underwritten by the United States’ ability to attract, develop, and retain a significant share of the world’s top researchers, and it thrives in a country where intellectual property rights and rule of law are upheld, and academic freedom is protected and respected.

The European Union and its member countries—together with the United Kingdom and perhaps Canada—should work together to create a research investment fund with an initially available drawdown of $20 billion to buy U.S. scientific and technological research labs. The fund could be chaired by a former finance minister and advised by small boards made up of private sector and academic leaders connected to specific areas of research—including biotech, artificial intelligence (AI), pharmaceuticals and medical research, and energy—that help make investment decisions. The idea would be to make quick investments at current run rates for lab and research group operations, with similar intellectual property arrangements to their current arrangements with U.S. universities and federal research facilities.

Where practical, the fund could offer to move these labs to European universities or research centers. In some cases, it will make sense for some of the labs to continue working, at least for the time being, in the United States. But these labs can be integrated more fully into the European research landscape over time.

One of the challenges with the initiative announced by von der Leyen this week—in addition to the fact that it needs to be bigger—is that it’s difficult for a single U.S.-based scientist to pick up and move, find another compatible research group across the ocean, and arrange funding. Johns Hopkins University, famous for its medical and public health research, recently announced the layoffs of 2,000 people involved in public health work. Europe should be ready to scoop up that talent in buckets when it comes on the market.

Investments in basic science and research don’t pay dividends in the short term. The consequences of the Trump administration’s attacks won’t be seen in next year’s initial public offerings–they’ll be seen in a less dynamic and innovative U.S. economy 20 years from now. It takes a decade or more for a new discovery to go through testing and development and be brought to market. Over the long run, these investments can lay a foundation for European competitiveness and innovation.

Scientific research labs aren’t the only fount of talent that Europe can harvest at this Trumpian moment. Attracting immigrants from the United States who are likely to found or join start-ups, contribute to European companies, and generally add to the skilled workforce should also be a priority.

Immigration has been crucial to U.S. innovation and economic success. A recent study found that two-thirds of Silicon Valley tech workers are foreign born. The Trump administration’s deportations of lawful permanent residents and student visa holders have made the United States less attractive as a destination for talent. And paired with the attacks on research communities and other actions, they’ve made native talent more open to leaving. After 15 years of having more AI talent coming into the United States than leaving, Semafor recently found that for the first time, inflow and outflow are now about equal. It’s not hard to see the country becoming a net exporter of AI talent in the next 24 months while the competition with China intensifies.

To take advantage of Trump’s actions, the EU should fast-track a new scheme—let’s call it a blue-and-yellow card—that is available to any U.S. citizen or green card holder with a graduate degree and $50,000. Such a card could provide for residency with permission to work until, say, Jan. 20, 2029, with a possible extension for those who are employed on that date. The design and marketing of this scheme are as important as the reality of it—it won’t work if there are too many complicated conditions or bureaucratic rules. The plan has to be something that could be put on a billboard so that Americans seeking to relocate are able to understand quickly that this is a straightforward option. A big, bold offer will get more news coverage, more water cooler and dinner table conversations, and more attention from skilled workers.

Europe could lure many thousands of these workers, who are likely to quickly contribute to European economies and tax receipts. Yes, salaries are lower in Europe, but the quality of life is good, and social safety nets and accessible health care are part of the European offer. Many people are likely to stay for the long run, becoming new Europeans who inject skills, entrepreneurialism, and diversity into the continent’s advanced democracies.

U.S. higher education is the envy of the world—but, with state interference, maybe not for long.

Economic competition in the 21st century and the geopolitical consequences that flow from it will hinge on the marriage of talent and technology. Productivity gains from AI, breakthroughs in medical research, cheaper and more sustainable energy sources, and advanced materials and manufacturing all hold promise for helping people to lead richer, healthier lives. While the United States has struggled to make progress in primary and secondary education over the past half century, its university system—including both the research and the degree granting functions—has remained the most robust in the world.

As Americans grapple with Trump’s fire hose of chaos, Europeans are increasingly clearheaded about the fact that their relationship with the United States has fundamentally changed and cannot easily be rebuilt, no matter what the future brings. In setting themselves up for a new world where the United States is no longer any sort of dependable partner, it would make sense for them to be more aggressive toward their erstwhile ally—and that includes being ruthless about capitalizing on U.S. mistakes.

Trump’s folly can be Europe’s gain, and bold moves by European leaders could make American talent part of a European competitive edge in the coming decades.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025 7:12 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

Zion Don aka Trump is hanging out with the genocidal Satanic anti-human Moongod worshiping Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Al-Qaeda and ISIS guy...or so both sides of the US media called the guy up until a few weeks ago

caught trying to blow up Americans

Trump will take away all sanctions

a New Low for a US President

Trump looking to build 'normal relations' with Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa after easing sanctions
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-14/united-states-sanctions-on-syri
a-lifted/105289658

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025 7:15 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Higher interest rates on Bonds are caused by Trump.

President Trump imposed higher tariffs and then, in many cases, delayed them. But the longer term is still uncertain. The market response to the back-and-forth over trade has been volatile, particularly when it comes to the bond market. Economics correspondent Paul Solman explains.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025 7:58 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Goldman Sachs analysts read through more than 1,000 of Trump's social media posts. They found a key takeaway about how he talks about oil.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/goldman-sachs-analysts-read-th
rough-more-than-1-000-of-trump-s-social-media-posts-they-found-a-key-takeaway-about-how-he-talks-about-oil/ar-AA1EKnfE

• Goldman Sachs analysts scrutinized President Donald Trump's social media posts for oil price insights.

• They said Trump's posts show a correlation with oil prices.

• The analysts concluded that the president prefers West Texas Intermediate prices in the $40-$50 a barrel range. (Goldman estimates average breakeven prices for US shale producers at $51 a barrel.)

President Donald Trump's social media posts have long gripped global markets. Now, even Goldman Sachs commodity analysts are scrutinizing them for clues to his views on oil prices.

In an analysis of Trump's social media posts on Twitter and Truth Social, Goldman's analysts concluded that the president appears to favor West Texas Intermediate oil in the $40 to $50 barrel range.

They wrote that Trump's "propensity to post about oil prices bottoms" when prices are in this price range.

US WTI oil futures are now trading around $63 a barrel — well above Trump's apparent comfort zone.

The analysts reviewed more than 1,000 posts from 16 years to identify patterns in Trump's thinking on oil. Energy market-related topics accounted for just over 1% of Trump's social media posts.

"President Trump has always been focused on energy markets, oil, and on US energy dominance, having posted nearly 900 times about energy markets since he joined Twitter in 2009," wrote Goldman Sachs' analysts in a Tuesday report.

Lower energy prices are one of Trump's campaign promises, as higher oil prices drive inflation.

However, Trump also has a "drill, baby, drill" agenda that aims to boost the US's energy dominance and increase the country's fossil fuel production.

Trump tends to call for lower prices — or celebrate declining prices — when WTI prices move above $50 a barrel, wrote the analysts at Goldman.

"President Trump has called for higher prices when prices are very low (WTI<$30), often in the context of supporting US production," they added.

Goldman estimates average breakeven prices for US shale producers at $51 a barrel.

While Trump seems to like lower prices for consumers, he likely wouldn't want prices so low that they hurt American oil producers.

"We believe several policymakers recognize the tendency for US oil supply growth to slow down when WTI prices drop into the $60s and approach the breakeven price of numerous producers," they added.

To be sure, Goldman analysts expect Trump's impact on global oil production to be limited in the short term. Furthermore, US regulatory easing may also only boost production significantly over the longer term.

However, "President Trump's inferred preference for relatively low oil prices directionally supports our view that oil prices are likely to edge lower in 2025-2026," they wrote.

Goldman forecast the WTI oil price to average $56 a barrel for the rest of 2025 and $52 a barrel in 2026.

Oil prices have been under pressure this year due to recession fears, fueled by Trump's trade war and OPEC's plans to boost output.

The WTI oil price has risen around 9% over the last five trading days due to positive sentiment over the US's trade deal with China. However, it is still about 12% lower year to date.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025 12:24 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump’s War on Normal

By Ken MacVey | Wednesday, May 14, 2025 6:00AM

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2025/05/trumps-war-on-normal.htm
l

Many have talked about Trump’s war on the rule of law. No president in American history, not even Nixon, has engaged in such overt warfare on the rule of law. He attacks judges, issues executive orders that are facially unlawful, coyly defies court orders, humiliates and subjugates big law firms to his will, and weaponizes law enforcement to target those who seek to uphold the law.

What is not talked about as much is that this is part of a self-reinforcing pattern. Trump’s words, conduct, and example have been an assault on norms we once took for granted. With Trump 2 the assault has intensified. The new normal is there is no normal.

Trump as a businessman has never been a producer in the way other businesses are. Businesses sell products and services. Businesses manage their operations. As Warren Buffet commented, Trump is not particularly good at business operations but is good at licensing. That is because Trump’s product is himself. He is the product people consume and we are all his consumers—to love him is to be a consumer; to despise him is to be a consumer. Fox News and MSNBC are equally fueled by selling his product, which again is Trump himself. His game and his product are the same: “Look at me!” And we all fall for it.

It has become a cliché to note that Trump is a convicted felon, a businessman who has gone through six bankruptcies and who boasts about how he stiffs others. It is widely commented he lies, cheats, and according to a jury and his own admission, sexually assaults women. He is constantly taunting and insulting others, testing and crossing boundaries. None of this seems to ultimately hurt him. This is all part of his “authenticity” his base finds so appealing. He is the ultimate “sticking it to the Man” guy and by each insult, each crossing of what for anyone else would be a bridge too far, has become the Man himself. As president in a second term he is taking selling his product, that is himself, to new levels. People can buy access by contributing millions to his inauguration committee, paying millions to his crypto fund, or millions for his Trump gold card. Again, the product is always Trump himself. This then is coupled with his two in the morning postings on Truth Social (another Trump product where Trump is the product) or his White House posted AI generated images of his basking in the sun with Musk at a future resort in Gaza or his portrayal as king or pope.

The point is Trump is always the product, the center of attention, and no norms apply. The more of this product we consume in the attention universe the more he monopolizes our attention and in turn the more normalized his breaking norms becomes. His attack on the rule of law is just part of his overall attack on norms. This is self-reinforcing. By attacking norms overall he makes it easier to attack the rule of law, which is denigrated to just being another conventional norm. By attacking the rule of law it also makes it easier for him to flout other norms, such as when he is talking about going for a third term, while sometimes pretending, sometime not, it’s all a joke.

This isn’t to suggest all of this is the result of a grand strategic master plan. It is the result of who he is. He has to sell himself to himself too. He is an empty man who expands himself by inhaling his own flatulence of self-promotion. Therein lies a pathway for his opponents to respond that does not fall into the trap of giving him what he craves the most: attention that generates more attention.

The dilemma to anyone opposing Trump is that Trump cannot be ignored. This column is itself an example of that fact. Attention must be given. But it does not have to be the kind Trump craves, instead it can be the kind that weakens his brand.

What the Trump 2 administration is doing is what Steve Bannon calls “flooding the zone.” The administration does one shocking thing after another so that attention is constantly diverted and the opposition is thereupon overwhelmed and any response will be about yesterday’s news. But it is becoming apparent the problem with this tactic is that the Trump administration is starting to drown in its own flood. Court after court, judge after judge, including judges appointed by Trump, are ruling against the Trump administration. Bad images of bad actions are starting to stick in people’s heads. Deporting children with cancer is not normal. It’s sick and cruel. Whisking off an immigrant to El Salvador without due process unsettles even Joe Rogan. A cabinet of “wacky lackies,” which includes a Secretary of Defense who unwittingly shares military attack plans with a journalist in an unsecured chat and a Secretary of Education who thinks AI stands for “A one” as in steak sauce, showcases shocking and laugh out loud incompetence.

To make it worse, Trump and his administration are stepping on their themes that got Trump elected. He promised lower prices and heightened prosperity. Instead his cross-the-board arbitrary tariffs to be imposed on the rest of the globe mean prices will go up, shelves will be empty, and jobs will be lost. Trump is even a self-certified Grinch declaring it’s OK for children not to get dolls for Christmas because of his tariffs. Handed an economy that was the envy of the world, Trump is driving it off a cliff into recession combined with inflation. The promise of not getting sucked into foreign ventures is shattered by Trump’s threatening to seize Greenland or annex Canada, which is also as crazy as it sounds.

Remarkedly, the Trump administration seems to be going out of its way to alienate the Trump base. Trade wars hurt Trump donors and voters. VA cuts hurt Trump supporting veterans. Musk trash talk about Social Security unnerves Trump leaning seniors. On top of this, people are beginning to “Bidenize” Trump. Social media are picking up on Trump falling asleep at the Pope’s funeral. Commentators are alarmed when Trump in an interview in responding to a question about his campaign against Harvard rambled about Harlem, with his response apparently only tied together by the fact that the words Harvard and Harlem both begin with “Har.”

Of course, more is to come. More missteps. More oversteps. More shocking moments. More non-stop talk centering on Trump. Eventually, there will be disasters as the consequences of an incompetent administration land. One thing is for sure, normal is out.

Trump’s brand is that Trump is a tough, shrewd and rule breaking and get it done businessman. The Trump campaign promised “a beautiful place” but the Trump administration is delivering chaos. The Make America Great Again slogan was an appeal to misremembered based nostalgia. Many are now becoming more nostalgic about when things were normal and maybe even boring. Will MAGA be replaced with MANA, “Make America Normal Again”? Trump may be winning his war in killing off what is normal. But in the process he also may be killing off his brand. The question is, will his opposition make effective use of what Trump is serving to them on a silver platter? There is certainly enough ever-mounting material to rebrand the Trump brand for a clearance sale.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

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Wednesday, May 14, 2025 12:30 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Having fun screaming into the void, Second?

--------------------------------------------------

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon

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