REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

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

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Monday, June 16, 2025 11:23
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PAGE 47 of 47

Thursday, June 12, 2025 5:10 PM

THG


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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah......


Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah......
GOP Senators Freak Out When Asked About Trump’s Military Parade Costing $145 Million

Out of 14 GOP senators, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was the only one HuffPost talked to who criticized holding the parade. “If you ask me about a military parade, all the images that come to mind, the first images, are of the Soviet Union and North Korea,” he said.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-senators-trump-military-parade-cost
_n_6849b95de4b0cf5f0c9ad0ab

This is the first major national military parade in the U.S. since 1991. President George H. W. Bush held the event on June 8 that year, after the U.S. led a successful coalition in the Gulf War. (But Trump's birthday parade is of the greatest importance.)

https://time.com/7293222/us-national-military-parade-1991-bush-gulf-wa
r-history/

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



I was thinking Gilligan should go to the military parade. Then I remembered he doesn't have a job, a cell phone, a car or enough money to get himself there. Since he doesn't have a girlfriend or a job, he does have the time.

As I've stated here before. Gilligan is not a mover and a shaker; he sits everything out on the sidelines and wines like a child.

T

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Thursday, June 12, 2025 6:55 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I haven't worked for 5 years and I still have more money than you've ever had at any single point of your life, Ted.

Oh... and a paid for house, and a paid for car, and an entire 2 1/2 car garage full of tools. And zero debt to anybody.

Keep pretending like you did well in that sad little lonely apartment you wish your dead whore of a mother were still alive to share with you.



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

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

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Thursday, June 12, 2025 7:01 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


The "whining" part is particularly funny too.

You ever go back and look at your post history, buddy? Even when your guy was in office for 4 years there was nothing but bitching out of you 12 times per day.

Here is the only reply you deserve on any post going forward...



You have no friends. You have no life. And now you are politically homeless.

Congratulations, cunt. You've earned it.



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

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

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Thursday, June 12, 2025 7:36 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


FINALLY

Quote:
House Approves Bill To Codify $9.4 Billion In DOGE Cuts To Foreign Aid, Public Media

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-approves-bill-codify-94-bill
ion-doge-cuts-foreign-aid-public-media

A drop in a swimming pool, but better than nothing.

-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Thursday, June 12, 2025 8:12 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I haven't worked for 5 years and I still have more money than you've ever had at any single point of your life, Ted.

Oh... and a paid for house, and a paid for car, and an entire 2 1/2 car garage full of tools. And zero debt to anybody.

Keep pretending like you did well in that sad little lonely apartment you wish your dead whore of a mother were still alive to share with you.




Me, I'm just enjoying making you dance, jump through hoops Gilligan. I find making you constantly justify your very existence, enjoyable.

Are you starting to get it? Are you beginning to understand?

Laughing in your face again Gilligan.

T

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Thursday, June 12, 2025 8:22 PM

THG


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
FINALLY

Quote:
House Approves Bill To Codify $9.4 Billion In DOGE Cuts To Foreign Aid, Public Media

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/house-approves-bill-codify-94-bill
ion-doge-cuts-foreign-aid-public-media

A drop in a swimming pool, but better than nothing.




"Estimates suggest that if the United States cuts or stops foreign aid, especially in the area of global health, there could be a significant increase in deaths globally. For example, one study estimates that a continued freeze in funding could lead to over 2.2 million additional tuberculosis (TB) deaths and 10.6 million additional TB cases by 2030. Another estimate suggests that if USAID funding cuts are not restored, more than 176,000 additional adults and children could die from HIV. These estimates highlight the potential devastating consequences of reduced foreign aid on global public health."


Yes, foreign aid is a drop in the bucket. Less than 1% of our budget comrade. And you're cheering about ending it. Oh yeah that's right, you are Russian scum. I almost forgot, almost.


T

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Friday, June 13, 2025 8:05 AM

SECOND

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


Reverse Robin Hood and Trumpian Totalitarianism

Trump’s big beautiful bill is a sadistic monstrosity

By Paul Krugman | Jun 13, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/reverse-robin-hood-and-trumpian-tot
alitarianism

House Republicans have passed Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. After having spent decades covering Republican domestic policies, I have a pretty jaundiced view of their intentions. But this bill is so cruelly regressive that it shocked even me. This bill is truly unprecedented in the extent to which it takes away from the have-nots and gives to the ultra-haves. It slashes Medicaid, taking health care away from millions. It slashes food stamps, ensuring that many will go hungry. At the same time it gives huge tax cuts to the wealthy.

Those of us who followed the legislation knew that it would be highly regressive. New estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan agency of economic technocrats, confirm in detail just how bad the OBBBA is.

C.B.O.’s numbers, released yesterday, are startling. Here’s the percentage change in households’ purchasing power by decile of the income distribution caused by the OBBBA:

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-06/61387-Distributional-Effects.
pdf

That 4 percent income decline for the poorest 10 percent of Americans is the scale of economic damage you’d expect from a severe recession. But here it is being deliberately inflicted on the poorest Americans.

In the OBBBA, pain on the least well-off Americans is not a price that is being paid in order to reduce the U.S. budget deficit. Remember, the benefit cuts for those in the bottom decile of the income distribution are being paired with tax cuts at the top of the income distribution. So the net effect will be a large increase in the U.S. budget deficit.

Wait, it gets worse. The CBO’s analysis doesn’t consider the effect of the Trump tariffs on household incomes. This is important because tariffs are taxes — regressive taxes, that fall more heavily on lower-income than higher-income families. I’ll be writing about the distributional impact of tariffs in the future. But for now here’s the Yale Budget Lab’s estimate of the combined effect of the OBBA and Trump tariffs on US household incomes:

What this graph shows is that the tariffs magnify the regressive effect of the OBBA: the poorest households are made even worse off. The loss inflicted on the bottom 10% of the income distribution goes from 4% of their income to 6.5%. Overall, the bottom 80% of households suffer a loss of income from the combined effects of the tariffs and the OBBA. Only the top 10% are clearly better off from a bill that increases the budget deficit. That’s quite a trick.

Republicans have already denounced the C.B.O.’s estimates as fake. (Arithmetic has a well-known liberal bias.) They claim, as they always do, that tax cuts for the rich will supercharge economic growth — a claim that has been tested to destruction, and I do mean destruction, over and over again at both the federal and state levels. It has never yet been vindicated.

The fact is that there’s no reasonable way to dispute the basic conclusion of the C.B.O.’s analysis. The Big Beautiful Bill is an immense exercise in reverse Robin-Hoodism, taking resources away from those who need them and giving the money to the already rich while driving up the deficit, increasing interest rates and crowding out investment..

The OBBBA is, in fact, so terrible that we need to ask how any party in a democracy imagines that it could get away with taking money away from 80% of the American public.

My answer is that the G.O.P.’s vicious tax and spending plans can’t be separated from the party’s contempt for democracy. The House has just enacted legislation that is desperately unpopular and would be even less popular if the public understood it fully. Why, then, did House members vote for it? Because they fear Donald Trump more than they fear the voters or because they don’t believe we will ever have fair elections again. Or both.

Also, what’s with the bill’s peculiar name? And yes, it is officially the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” While it might seem odd to focus on its name, there is a real, important link between a certain kind of vulgar tackiness and authoritarian rule. Milan Kundera, author of “The unbearable lightness of being,” called it “totalitarian kitsch.” By giving their bill a ludicrous name, because those were Trump’s words, G.O.P. politicians were engaging in performative self-abasement, demonstrating their willingness to humiliate themselves in order to curry favor with the Leader.

So by calling the legislation the One Big Beautiful Bill Act Republicans were in effect confirming that yes, Washington has turned into Pyongyang on the Potomac, where political survival depends on slavish flattery of the dictator.

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

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Friday, June 13, 2025 8:21 AM

SECOND

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


Putin Has Won: The US Government Now Speaks His Narrative

And Trump Does Not Even Have To Give The Orders

By Phillips P. Obrien | Jun 13, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/putin-has-won-the-us-government
-now

Over the last few days, if you have not noticed, the two most important US cabinet members who have authority for American foreign and strategic policy released or made statements that previously would have been unthinkable and caused massive outrage. In this case, however, the statements caused only tiny ripples of disquiet. This is important—as now the US government is spreading the Russian narrative, and hardly a word of protest is said. And certainly there is never a retraction or walking back of things that would have been seen as extraordinary only a few months ago.

Yesterday the US State Department released an official statement congratulating Russia and Russians on their national day. It was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and couched as a statement by Rubio himself. It started with this quote.

The United States remains committed to supporting the Russian people as they continue to build on their aspirations for a brighter future.
https://www.state.gov/releases/2025/06/russia-national-day/

Actually, the Russian people through their government are making claims to seize Ukrainian territory and kill Ukrainians, so needless to say people in the State Department, including Rubio himself, had to know that this was being deliberately provocative and would be widely noticed at this extraordinary time.

At the same time, in a series of Congressional testimonies over the last few days, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made a few notable statements. When it came to sanctions against Russia, Hegseth admitted that the US was, for all of Trump’s threats, not going to ramp up sanctions on Russia and that he (Hegseth) was fine with that. He claimed that the US did not have to use “every tool” at its disposal to make the Russians agree to peace.

This was only the start of a remarkable series of claims that the Secretary of Defense would make to different Congressional committees. Hegseth, for instance, refused to call Ukraine the victim in the war and refused to say that he wants Ukraine to “win” the war. https://kyivindependent.com/republicans-press-pentagon-chief-over-trum
ps-plan-to-end-russias-war-against-ukraine-politico-reports/

He even prevaricated on the question of whether the US would respond to a NATO article 5 request if Russia invaded a NATO country. https://x.com/PhillipsPOBrien/status/1933281069756793172

All of this has happened in the last few days—which btw saw the expiry of Trump’s two-week deadline during which he was to decide whether to bring in harsher sanctions on Russia. That deadline passed without the slightest comment from Trump or the Press—though the next time Trump makes one of his fake threats, we will undoubtedly hear about how he really, really, really might bring in harsh sanctions that time.

Now why are the Rubio and Hegseth statements worthy of note? They are actually evidence of the same phenomenon—Trump cabinet members are now speaking the Russian narrative instinctively, regularly and without the slightest hesitation. Russian reflexive control has so taken over US government thinking that the US national security state instantly acts in such a way to reinforce the Russian position.

I’m sure Trump did not have to give the State Department orders to congratulate Russia on its national day, nor did Trump tell Hegseth specifically to downplay any new sanctions on Russia or to the try and avoid the question of not honoring the US commitment to NATO—however both the heads of the State and Defense Departments are now operating with these assumptions inbuilt into their positions.

They know that this is what Trump would want them to do—and they do it without hesitation and prompting.

Its represents almost the complete triumph of Russian reflexive control—a concept I started talking about a few years ago.

At that point I mentioned how the Biden Administration’s fears of Russian nuclear escalation had been shaped by the Russian narrative so that the Russians had created a fear narrative that was shaping US policy.

This is worse, far worse. Now the US government on almost every foreign policy question and on a daily basis, speaks the Russian narrative. And they do it without Trump having to give orders for them to do so.

Putin has won.

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

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Friday, June 13, 2025 11:54 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Good.

Fuck Ukraine. Nobody cares.



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

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

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Friday, June 13, 2025 11:57 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I haven't worked for 5 years and I still have more money than you've ever had at any single point of your life, Ted.

Oh... and a paid for house, and a paid for car, and an entire 2 1/2 car garage full of tools. And zero debt to anybody.

Keep pretending like you did well in that sad little lonely apartment you wish your dead whore of a mother were still alive to share with you.




Me, I'm just enjoying making you dance, jump through hoops Gilligan. I find making you constantly justify your very existence, enjoyable.

Are you starting to get it? Are you beginning to understand?

Laughing in your face again Gilligan.

T


You're not laughing in anyone's face, Theodore.

I doubt you've been face to face with anyone in real life for months, loser.

Everybody you know in real life hates you just like they do online.

You have no friends. You drove them all away with your politics. And your family is all dead. All you have left is your politics, and they're dying too.

You're liable to just fade away with them soon. And nobody will even be left to remember you when you do.



The sad truth is, son... I'm the closest thing you've got to a friend. I'm one of two people in your life that show you any attention at all. The other one is Sigs. There once was a third person, but you fucked that up, didn't you?




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

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

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Friday, June 13, 2025 6:26 PM

SECOND

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


'I'm Not Gonna Answer': Sec. Scott Bessent Shuts Down, Stubbornly Refuses To Acknowledge Trump's Budget Bill Will Add Trillions To Deficit

During his testimony before the Senate Finance Committee yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent refuses to answer Senator Ben Ray Luján's questions confronting him on estimates that Trump's 'one big beautiful bill' will add $2.4 trillion to the deficit.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/i-m-not-gonna-answer-sec-scott
-bessent-shuts-down-stubbornly-refuses-to-acknowledge-trump-s-budget-bill-will-add-trillions-to-deficit/vi-AA1GFTzy

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

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Friday, June 13, 2025 6:26 PM

SECOND

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


The lowest-earning 10% of U.S. households are likely to see their financial resources reduced by $1,600 per year, or almost 4% of their annual income, according to the June 12 Congressional Budget Office report.

https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-06/61387-Distributional-Effects.
pdf

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

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Friday, June 13, 2025 6:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Have you got anything worthwhile to say today, Second?

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

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

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Friday, June 13, 2025 6:58 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:
Have you got anything worthwhile to say today, Second?

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Higher National Debt. Lower Incomes. Thanks to Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, which he wants to sign by the Fourth of July. Trumptards will have a lot to celebrate! So will I celebrate because this bill is my consolation prize. Lower taxes on me.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/5-hold-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-senat
e/story?id=122752428

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 8:07 AM

SECOND

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


Trump Reacts To 'No Kings' Protests With A 'Hell'-ish Whine

The demonstrations are meant to counter his grand military parade scheduled for Saturday — his birthday.

“I don’t feel like a king,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I have to go through hell to get stuff approved.”

“If there’s any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force, by the way,” he said. “And for those people that want to protest, they’re gonna be met with very big force.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-i-dont-feel-like-a-king_n_684bea2
6e4b0c4fd78ffb8f3

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 8:11 AM

SECOND

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


Trump Remains Guilty. A federal appeals court refused to overturn the verdict

Jun 13, 2025 at 5:23 PM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-setback-e-jean-carroll-defamation-lawsu
it-2085209

The case is one of a handful that Trump faced before his return to the White House, with a court also finding him guilty of defamation and ordering him to pay out $83.3 million.

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 9:28 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:
Have you got anything worthwhile to say today, Second?

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Even Donald Trump Is Starting to See the Absurdity of Stephen Miller’s Deportation Targets

Trump’s mass deportation plans will continue to go up in smoke, whether he likes it or not.

By Shirin Ali | June 14, 2025 5:50 AM

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/06/donald-trump-farmers-steph
en-miller-deportation-fail.html

Trump is desperate. He wants to deport 1 million immigrants by the end of his first year in office.

Trump’s deportation targets were always extreme and impossible to hit. Even Trump himself is beginning to realize this.

It’s necessary to understand some immigration basics to see why Trump’s stated plans are almost comically doomed to failure. . . .

On Thursday, Trump himself told supporters in farming and the hospitality business that more “common sense” was needed in how the Department of Homeland Security approached removals of “very good workers, they have worked for [American farmers] for 20 years.” Trump further acknowledged that his administration “can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back.” Given Trump’s hostility to immigrants, it’s extremely unclear that this promise means anything. Either way, Trump’s mass deportation plans will continue to go up in smoke, whether he likes it or not.

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 10:26 AM

SECOND

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


During his first administration, members of Trump’s own Cabinet often thwarted his efforts to corrupt the Pentagon. This time, Trump has appointed a secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, who is willing to tear down the boundaries separating politics and the management of national defense. Trump and Hegseth claim to be purging the military of politicization instilled by previous administrations and resetting the DOD around the nonpartisan matter of readiness for war. But in reality, they have used this rationale as a cover to insert an unprecedented level of political partisanship into the military.

I have seen the politicization of the military firsthand. Last month, I resigned my tenured position as a philosophy professor at West Point in protest of the dramatic changes the Trump administration is making to academic programs at military-service academies.

Keeping the military a politically neutral servant of the constitutional order, not of the president or his political ideology, is vital to ensuring the security of civil society.

Up until a week ago, the blurring of the boundaries between the administration’s ideology and the military had not yet manifested as an attempt to employ the military directly on Trump’s—or the Republican Party’s—behalf. The steps taken until that point had been mostly symbolic. (The one possible exception was the deployment of the military at the southern border in what is essentially a law-enforcement matter.)

But these symbolic expressions of military politicization have paved the way for that endgame—presidential orders that deploy the military for directly partisan ends. In just the past week, the Trump administration responded to protests against the enforcement of his immigration policies with military deployments. The likelihood that the administration will try to use the military against its political opponents is now very high. If that comes to pass, we will then learn just how successful Trump’s efforts to politicize the military have been.

More at https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-shame-of-trump-s-parade/ar-
AA1GHHkr

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 12:36 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack (January 20th, 2025):
The entire atmosphere surrounding all of this is completely different than it was in 2016 and 2020.

Things just kind of feel normal again.

It's like all the loudest voices either screamed themselves out or they aren't being platformed anymore and/or we just finally, collectively tuned them out for a change.

It's kind of nice, innit?


Happy Inauguration Day!




The normal presidency of Donald Trump

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/3441923/the-normal-presi
dency-of-donald-trump-polling/

Quote:
THE NORMAL PRESIDENCY OF DONALD TRUMP. There’s something interesting going on in President Donald Trump’s job approval rating. The constant attacks and negativity of the Democratic opposition, plus relentlessly negative media coverage, don’t seem to be having much effect. Trump’s approval, at this early point in his second term, is remarkably similar to the two other presidents, one Democrat and one Republican, who have served two terms in the past quarter century.

The RealClearPolitics average of polls keeps a running comparison between the polling of Trump and former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush at the same point in their second terms. Right now, Trump’s job approval stands at 46.6%. On this day in 2013, Obama’s job approval rating was…46.6%. And at this moment in 2005, Bush’s approval rating was a touch lower, at 45.6%.




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

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 12:49 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:

The normal presidency of Donald Trump
Does this feel normal to you?

Keeping the military a politically neutral servant of the constitutional order, not of the president or his political ideology, is vital to ensuring the security of civil society.

Up until a week ago, the blurring of the boundaries between the administration’s ideology and the military had not yet manifested as an attempt to employ the military directly on Trump’s—or the Republican Party’s—behalf. The steps taken until that point had been mostly symbolic. (The one possible exception was the deployment of the military at the southern border in what is essentially a law-enforcement matter.)

But these symbolic expressions of military politicization have paved the way for that endgame—presidential orders that deploy the military for directly partisan ends. In just the past week, the Trump administration responded to protests against the enforcement of his immigration policies with military deployments. The likelihood that the administration will try to use the military against its political opponents is now very high. If that comes to pass, we will then learn just how successful Trump’s efforts to politicize the military have been.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-shame-of-trump-s-parade/ar-
AA1GHHkr

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 1:38 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

The normal presidency of Donald Trump
Does this feel normal to you?

Keeping the military a politically neutral servant of the constitutional order, not of the president or his political ideology, is vital to ensuring the security of civil society.

Up until a week ago, the blurring of the boundaries between the administration’s ideology and the military had not yet manifested as an attempt to employ the military directly on Trump’s—or the Republican Party’s—behalf. The steps taken until that point had been mostly symbolic. (The one possible exception was the deployment of the military at the southern border in what is essentially a law-enforcement matter.)

But these symbolic expressions of military politicization have paved the way for that endgame—presidential orders that deploy the military for directly partisan ends. In just the past week, the Trump administration responded to protests against the enforcement of his immigration policies with military deployments. The likelihood that the administration will try to use the military against its political opponents is now very high. If that comes to pass, we will then learn just how successful Trump’s efforts to politicize the military have been.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-shame-of-trump-s-parade/ar-
AA1GHHkr

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




All I see is you attacking Trump from both sides with two mutually-exclusive arguments in this thread today.

You can't argue both ways.

This is why nobody takes you or the media seriously anymore.

Everybody knows they've been lied to now. Everybody but you, apparently.


Nobody cares in 2025 what you have to say or what you think about literally anything.



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

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 1:45 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:

All I see is you attacking Trump from both sides with two mutually-exclusive arguments in this thread today.

You can't argue both ways.

This is why nobody takes you or the media seriously anymore.

Everybody knows they've been lied to now. Everybody but you, apparently.


Nobody cares in 2025 what you have to say or what you think about literally anything.
You and Trump are overly articulate, but your problem-solving skills are nil. That's why Trump needs so many lawyers; he falls into problems that could have been easily avoided if he would shut up and think before he talks. His lawyers have to clean up the mess that Trump vomited out of his mouth.

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 2:00 PM

SECOND

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


Trump sent out this email with the subject line, quote, ‘Please help me before my military parade!’

Hayes broke into laughter reading that last line aloud, as a screenshot of the email was displayed onscreen. He quickly composed himself and continued his coverage on the impending Washington, D.C., event.

“I’m sorry, that’s a funny sentence,” said Hayes. “‘My military parade.’”

Trump has never served in the armed forces and reportedly avoided the Vietnam War draft with a diagnosis of bone spurs in his feet. The daughter of the doctor who provided the diagnosis later said he had done so as a favor to his landlord — Trump’s father, Fred Trump.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/msnbc-host-cracks-up-over-trum
p-email-about-parade-sorry-that-s-a-funny-sentence/ar-AA1GIaHB

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 2:14 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Grow up. Nobody gives a shit about you or your opinions.

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

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 6:17 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:
Grow up. Nobody gives a shit about you or your opinions.
The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992, when President George H. W. Bush responded to riots in L.A. after four white police officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King. But in that case the state’s Republican governor and the city’s Democratic mayor had both sought federal intervention. Trump is the man who, according to the former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, said of Black Lives Matter protesters in Lafayette Square in 2020, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/23/president-trumps-militar
y-games

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 6:28 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Grow up. Nobody gives a shit about you or your opinions.
The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992, when President George H. W. Bush responded to riots in L.A. after four white police officers were acquitted of beating Rodney King. But in that case the state’s Republican governor and the city’s Democratic mayor had both sought federal intervention. Trump is the man who, according to the former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, said of Black Lives Matter protesters in Lafayette Square in 2020, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/06/23/president-trumps-militar
y-games

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


Nah. It's 2025 now. Let's just shoot them in the face.

Then we never hear another news story about Black Lives Matter again for the rest of our lives by next weekend.


In the mean time, ask real black people what they think of BLM. They hate BLM more than MAGA hat wearing white folk do.




Your party is dead, and you killed it. Thanks for your service, and thank you for continuing your free campaign work every day here for everyone running against your party.



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

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 8:41 PM

SECOND

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


Trump's administration has directed immigration officials to largely pause raids on
farms,
hotels,
restaurants and
meatpacking plants.

Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants, but these are special because I don’t know why. Maybe Oscar Meyer asked for a hot dog exemption? Who knows?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-immigration-officials-told-largely
-pause-raids-farms-hotels-nyt-reports-2025-06-14/

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

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Saturday, June 14, 2025 8:49 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump's administration has directed immigration officials to largely pause raids on
farms,
hotels,
restaurants and
meatpacking plants.

Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants, but these are special because I don’t know why. Maybe Oscar Meyer asked for a hot dog exemption? Who knows?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-immigration-officials-told-largely
-pause-raids-farms-hotels-nyt-reports-2025-06-14/

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


More 4-D chess. He's appealing to what's left of your party.

"Who's going to pick our cotton?"



"Who's going to wipe our asses after we deport our brown slaves???"



And the Democrat voting idiots cheering that racism on be like...







Don't worry about it dude. Once we get your activist judges out of the way they're all going home.



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

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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 5:46 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:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump's administration has directed immigration officials to largely pause raids on
farms,
hotels,
restaurants and
meatpacking plants.

Trump took office in January pledging to deport millions of immigrants, but these are special because I don’t know why. Maybe Oscar Meyer asked for a hot dog exemption? Who knows?

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-immigration-officials-told-largely
-pause-raids-farms-hotels-nyt-reports-2025-06-14/

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


More 4-D chess. He's appealing to what's left of your party.

"Who's going to pick our cotton?"
Machines pick cotton. The machine operator rides in air-conditioned comfort, but since the cotton plantation owners don't pay even minimum wage, illegals drive the machine.



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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 5:47 AM

SECOND

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


Trump vows changes to immigration crackdown to protect migrant farmers, hotel workers.

Well, that’s a start.

Who knows? Maybe he’ll expand it to include health care workers, construction workers — and anyone else who isn’t an actual criminal.

Kind of what Obama did while he waited for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

(The Senate passed it 68-32 in 2013, but House Republicans, knowing it would pass there, too, wouldn’t allow it to come to the floor for a vote.) https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2014/6/30/18080446/immigration
-reform-congress-2014-house-john-boehner-obama

(Biden, too, could have signed a tough bill — the Senate vote was 57-43 — if only Trump hadn’t wanted the crisis to continue, to use as an election issue.)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/republicans-kill-border-bill
-sign-trumps-strength-mcconnells-waning-in-rcna137477

https://andrewtobias.com/a-quick-poem/

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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 6:07 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump vows changes to immigration crackdown to protect migrant farmers, hotel workers.

Well, that’s a start.


You haven't believed a single word that has come out of Trump's mouth in 10 years.

Why start now?



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

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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 6:08 AM

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


The Two Weeks Are Up--But Instead Of Sanctions There Are Kisses

By Phillips P. Obrien | Jun 15, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-137-the-two-week
s

The Trump two-week deadline passed this week, which amazingly did not result in any new sanctions (or indeed discussion of new sanctions) against Russia. Indeed, this week has reinforced the golden rule which Europe and everyone else must keep in mind. If Putin wants something, eventually so does Trump.

So the two weeks which Trump claimed he needed to decide whether to put super, harsh sanctions on Russia passed this week—and no one said a word. If you want to relive the whole (ridiculous) saga—and of course who would not—it started on May 25 with this tweet. I had a good laugh at the time, and wrote a piece calling Trump the “Gaslighter in Chief”.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
I’ve always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him. He has gone absolutely CRAZY! He is needlessly killing a lot of people, and I'm not just talking about soldiers. Missiles and drones are being shot into Cities in Ukraine, for no reason whatsoever. I've always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that's proving to be right, but if he does, it will lead to the downfall of Russia! Likewise, President Zelenskyy is doing his Country no favors by talking the way he does. Everything out of his mouth causes problems, I don't like it, and it better stop. This is a War that would never have started if I were President. This is Zelenskyy's, Putin's, and Biden's War, not "Trump's," I am only helping to put out the big and ugly fires, that have been started through Gross Incompetence and Hatred.
174 ReTruths 614 Likes
5/25/25, 8:46 PM

This was classic Trump virtue-signalling about Ukraine and Russia. Every once and a while he feels the need to appease the pro-Ukraine group in the Republican Party (which he plays with great political skill it must be said) and make them think that he really is irritated with Putin for doing everything Trump said he would stop him doing. Remember, Trump has demanded that Putin agree to a ceasefire and works out a peace deal.

Well on May 25, Trump reached one of those moments when his normal pro-Putin statements were not going to cut it, as the Russians were daily bombarding Ukrainian cities and causing civilian casualties. So Trump did the minimum, and made this meaningless public statement to show that he was ever so irritated with Putin for continuing to laugh in Trump’s face.

However the press, rather remarkably, made a huge play about the tweet, and acted like these meaningless threats were real. They treated Trump’s statements as a legitimate sign that he was angry with Putin and was really threatening the Russians with sanctions. There were many stories to that effect, if you have the courage to go back and read them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/25/ukraine-war-russia-mis
sile-drone-attack/

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/27/politics/russia-sanctions-trump-ukr
aine-war

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/27/trump-putin-sanctions-patienc
e-00371571

The Russians however, knew this was all a joke, and even made fun of Trump for pretending to be mad at them. In one of the most belittling statements that they have ever made of a US president (the Russians are aware that they have Trump in their back pocket, and so regularly threaten or insult him) they dismissed him as being “emotional”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cvgpj038elyt

This put Trump in a little bit of a bind. He probably had not wanted to seem so angry with Putin that he might have to do something, and being insulted by the Russians did not make anything better. He also still has to deal with the faux-friends of Ukraine such as Lindsey Graham, who are always talking about sanctioning Russia—yet oddly not doing anything.

So Trump played for time, knowing that the GOP will probably never oppose him and waiting for people to move on to the next issue, as they always do. So Trump, on May 28, said he needed two weeks to decide whether to sanction Putin more, claiming that negotiations were about to have a breakthrough and he did not want to scupper a possible deal. Ho-Ho.

Here is a quote from his press conference making the 2-week gambit.

“We’ll find out whether or not he’s tapping us along or not and if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently but it will take about a week and a half to two weeks,” the U.S. president said Wednesday in response to reporters’ questions at the White House. “They seem to want to do something, but until the document is signed I can’t tell you. Nobody can.”

And guess what? the two week time limit passed last week on Tuesday, June 10 and there was no movement on a peace deal. It was clear Putin was “tapping” the USA along, and yet there nary a mention by Trump or his supporters of new sanctions. Indeed, far from discussing being harsh on Putin, this week it was made clear just how much the US government is in Russia’s thrall. Its more than a little depressing/illustrative that two days after Trump was supposed to make up his mind about new sanctions, the US State Department formally congratulated Russians on their national day (I wrote a free piece on this). And to show just how hollow these threats were, the US also opposed a European move to lower the oil price cap that they will pay Russia—which would have deprived Putin of extra income. Once again, Trump is trying to help Putin.

Trump himself is back to discussing how close he is with Putin and how they are working together to settle the world’s problems. He even boasted yesterday about a birthday call he received from Putin—and mentioned that they could not even bother to say much about the Ukraine war.

Donald J. Trump @realDonald Trump
President Putin called this morning to very nicely wish me a Happy Birthday, but to more importantly, talk about Iran, a country he knows very well. We talked at length. Much less time was spent talking about Russia/Ukraine, but that will be for next week. He is doing the planned prisoner swaps - large numbers of prisoners are being exchanged, immediately, from both sides. The call lasted approximately 1 hour. He feels, as do I, this war in Israel-Iran should end, to which I explained, his war should also end.
9.27k ReTruths 47.3k Likes
Jun 14, 2025, 8:01 PM

So there you have it—another cycle, maybe the most extraordinary yet, of completely meaningless Trump threats, the press doing exactly what he wants and amplifying them to appease the pro-Ukraine Republicans, and then the Trump-Putin love fest reappears and, amazingly, it becomes apparent that Trump does not care in the slightest what Putin is doing in attacking Ukrainian civilians but instead that the US government is now set on protecting Russia.

The only question is whether the press falls for it, the next time?

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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 7:13 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK




You're so lost.

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

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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 10:40 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:


You're so lost.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Trump has tricked you:

According to government data obtained by The New York Times, the administration has deported more than 200,000 people since Trump’s return to office, well below the rate needed to meet the White House’s reported goal of removing 1 million unauthorized immigrants in his first year in office. If the pace over the first five months of Trump’s presidency continues through the end of the year, total deportations would only slightly exceed that of President Barack Obama in fiscal year 2012.

The discrepancy is surprising. Given the visibility of Trump’s efforts, you’d be forgiven for believing deportations were unfolding on a never-before-seen scale. The actual numbers don’t diminish the cruelty of Trump’s approach or the pain his administration has caused to those it has targeted. But they do reveal Trump’s ever-increasing mastery of bending perceptions of reality. The administration’s immigration tactics are so shocking, callous, and inescapable that they have generated the appearance of mass deportations.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/politics/ice-la-protest-arrests.
html

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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 11:14 AM

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


The Golden Rule

Phillips P. Obrien | Jun 15, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-137-the-two-week
s

There is something called the Golden Rule, which needs to be understood overall about US policy. The Golden Rule is that Trump wants what Putin wants—even for all his attempted head fakes on the issue. We have just seen one of the best examples of this, and its worth highlighting to try and show how, Europeans in particular, need to understand that Trump is not some even-handed force.

It was seen as starkly on Iran-Israel as it has been in Ukraine. I will not go into the saga in detail here, but its worth noting that after acting all tough on Iran, Trump has actually been wanting to arrange a deal with Iran, very much along similar lines to that which was done by President Obama (and which Trump heavily criticized and then walked away from).

The Netanyahu government had very different ideas, and this week, after a 60-day cooling off period had expired, decided to resort to a massive aerial campaign against Iran to try, at least, to severely damage the Iranian nuclear program and to kill many of Iran’s senior military commanders. I wrote this piece on the campaign from an air power perspective—and what indeed Iran might do in response.

Now, Trump’s responses have been typical, in a macabre kind of way. When the reports started coming in about the Israeli strikes and their initial successes (note—this campaign has a long way to run, and trying to evaluate it now is foolish), Trump seemed to jump on the Israeli bandwagon and claim that he was supportive of the Israeli campaign and that the killed Iranians deserved it.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
I gave Iran chance after chance to make a deal. I told them, in the strongest of words, to "just do it," but no matter how hard they tried, no matter how close they got, they just couldn't get it done. I told them it would be much worse than anything they know, anticipated, or were told, that the United States makes the best and most lethal military equipment anywhere in the World, BY FAR, and that Israel has a lot of it, with much more to come - And they know how to use it. Certain Iranian hardliner's spoke bravely, but they didn't know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse! There has already been great death and destruction, but there is still time to make this slaughter, with the next already planned attacks being even more brutal, come to an end. Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire. No more death, no more destruction, JUST DO IT, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. God Bless You All!
12.2k ReTruths 57.1k Likes
Jun 13, 2025,10:56 AM

And then just a few hours ago—as the Israeli air campaign continues unabated— Trump sent out another tweet which clearly disassociated the US from it.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran, tonight. If we are attacked in any way, shape or form by Iran, the full strength and might of the U.S. Armed Forces will come down on you at levels never seen before. However, we can easily get a deal done between Iran and Israel, and end this bloody conflict!!!
2.49k ReTruths 10.2k Likes
Jun 15, 2025, 5:32 AM

People reading this as a threat against Iran are getting it backwards. It is actually a pledge to Iranians not to attack them if they do not attack US facilities.

Putin clearly wants this issue to be settled. Iran has been a great ally of Russia, providing crucial military capabilities (the original Shahed designs) and strong diplomatic support. The last thing Putin wants is a new government in Tehran that might be less amenable.

As such, Trump is making it clear that he is not part of the campaign and wants to make a deal.

It's the golden rule—what Putin wants, Trump wants.

Please understand that Europeans.

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

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Sunday, June 15, 2025 11:44 AM

SECOND

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


Donald Trump's gaslighting has gone on long enough

By D. Earl Stephens | June 15, 2025 | 06:33AM ET
D. Earl Stephens finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes.

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/trump-is-gaslighting-us/

Photo of U.S. President Donald Trump applauding during the U.S. Army's 250th Birthday parade, on the same day of U.S. President Donald Trump's 79th birthday, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 14, 2025.

As I was typing a piece on Saturday morning, endeavoring to stitch together Flag Day, our army’s birthday, and the peaceful marches against tyranny that were going off all over the United States of America, I got a chilling news bulletin — that two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses had been shot in their homes by a madman impersonating a police officer.

This is what I knew as my fingers hit the keyboard:

State Representative Melissa Hortman and husband, Mark, have died in the attack at their home in the Minneapolis suburbs. State Senator John A. Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, were also shot multiple times at their house in a nearby suburb, but remain alive.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has called this a “political assassination.”

This will be a developing, gruesome, and very American story for some time to come. I want to be careful to honor the victims while channeling my sadness and rage at the state of things in my country in as precise a manner as possible.

So let me start here:

What happened in Minnesota can surprise ABSOLUTELY NOBODY who has been paying even the slightest amount of attention to the sickly state of America in 2025.

It is perhaps the most predictable thing I have seen coming in the roiling wake of a week in which we have seen a U.S. senator — a son of Los Angeles — tackled and handcuffed for simply asking a puppy-shooting, ineffectual wax figure to explain herself, and to stop lying about the reason for her agency’s invasion of the city he grew up in. There were no apologies for this disgusting incident.

We have watched helplessly while human beings, one after another, have been swept off our streets by masked monsters, who may or may not be impersonating government law enforcement officers.

We have watched as this grotesque president whipped young, impressionable soldiers into a frenzy and made sure to empty their pockets and fill his by selling them his warped MAGA memorabilia on one of our army bases.

We have gone so far past the unimaginable, it is impossible to know where to begin to connect with the normal.

But let me be crystal clear on this: ALL OF IT lies at the fat little feet of the convicted felon, who attacked this country on January 6, 2021, did nothing to stop that attack for hours and instead rooted for its success, and has continued to intentionally throw gasoline on the raging fires he has so eagerly stoked, starting in the vicinity of 2010 when he questioned President Obama’s citizenship.

THAT was the catalyst for everything that has followed, and has lead us to lawmakers and their families now being slaughtered in their homes.

IT IS ALL ON HIM.

Perhaps I am not helping right now, but like so many of you I have grown weary and disgusted waiting for people with heft and alleged status to say what we all know to be true.

The gaslighting has gone on long enough.

My God, this mess of a man stood in our nation’s capital in that odd way he does … ample a-- out, jutted, orange chin forward … and did his best Mussolini impression by keeping the tanks running on time on their way down our streets.

Are you reading this????????

TANKS.

All this to honor himself on his 79th birthday. If there is any good news here, and you have to squint hard to see it, he has climbed another notch on the actuarial life table.

I have said enough for now, my friends. Like you I am aching inside. My fury wringing out tears …

I took part in our march here in Madison, Wisconsin, joining tens of thousands of other hearty souls who love their country enough to assemble peacefully on her behalf.

We are still the lucky ones. Nobody has turned their guns on us — yet.

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

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Monday, June 16, 2025 4:44 AM

SECOND

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


Trump Administration Abandons Deal With Northwest Tribes to Restore Salmon

By Tony Schick | June 13, 2025, 1:30 p.m. EDT

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-salmon-columbia-river-tribes-
deal

The Trump administration canceled a deal, signed under President Joe Biden, that would have enabled the removal of four hydroelectric dams along the Columbia River that are considered harmful to salmon.

Less than two years ago, the administration of President Joe Biden announced what tribal leaders hailed as an unprecedented commitment to the Native tribes whose ways of life had been devastated by federal dam-building along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.

The deal, which took two years to negotiate, halted decades of lawsuits over the harm federal dams had caused to the salmon that had sustained those tribes culturally and economically for thousands of years. To enable the removal of four hydroelectric dams considered especially harmful to salmon, the government promised to invest billions of dollars in alternative energy sources to be created by the tribes.

It was a remarkable step following repeated failures by the government to uphold the tribal fishing rights it swore in treaties to preserve.

The agreement is now just another of those broken promises.

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday pulling the federal government out of the deal.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/06/fact-sheet-president-do
nald-j-trump-stops-the-green-agenda-in-the-columbia-river-basin/

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

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Monday, June 16, 2025 4:45 AM

SECOND

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


Republicans in 2025...and in 2009.

“Go out there, do entry-level jobs, get into the workforce, prove that YOU matter. But if you are not willing to do those things...we are not going to continue to pay for Medicaid for those audiences.”
- 6/4/2025 Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
- 9/7/2009 Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin

Dr. Oz on Medicaid cuts: People should ‘prove that you matter’
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5334508-dr-oz-medicaid-cuts-work
-requirements/

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

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Monday, June 16, 2025 4:50 AM

SECOND

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


Trump just got a wake-up call as he tries to escalate his war on defiance

By Sabrina Haake | June 15, 2025 | 06:25AM ET
Sabrina Haake is a 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense.

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/trump-wake-up-call/

Ever since he was ignominiously blocked from shooting George Floyd protesters, Donald Trump has been itching to sic the military on U.S. citizens. Seizing California’s National Guard and sending U.S. Marines into Los Angeles to deliberately escalate violence brings his long-festering fever dream closer to life.

Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper has recounted how, during a White House meeting in 2020, Trump looked at Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and asked why he couldn’t just shoot protesters, adding, “It was (both) a suggestion and a formal question. And we were just all taken aback at that moment as this issue hung very heavily in the air.”

Milley pushed back on that suggestion and other illegal Trump impulses, eventually leading Trump to call for Milley’s execution and revoke his security detail. During Trump 1.0, Trump apparently suggested shooting protesters enough times that Esper issued a public statement opposing the use of the Insurrection Act against protesters, enraging Trump.

Trump made sure that would not happen again in his second administration by appointing a dangerously unqualified defense secretary with few moral qualms. As a Fox News host, Pete Hegseth echoed Trump’s desire to deploy the military against protesters. He defended war criminals who ‘killed the right people in the wrong ways,’ advocating “total war against our enemies… All of ’em, you stack bodies, and when it’s over, then you let the dust settle and you figure out who’s ahead.”

A trillion-dollar defense budget to kill whom, exactly?

Even though the U.S. is not at war, and Trump has shamefully abandoned our NATO military alliances, Hegseth waxes hard on “lethality,” and rails against “woke” laws that punish soldiers for indiscriminate killings. Trump/Hegseth seek a trillion-dollar defense budget, not to defend America from foreign enemies who are now Trump’s mentors, but to attack “enemies within,” i.e., Americans who oppose Trump’s agenda.

None of this, including Trump’s deliberate escalation of violence in LA, was unforeseen. Who can forget how Kamala Harris was panned as histrionic when she said Trump would sic the military on U.S. citizens, following his promise to do just that? In October, 2024, Trump said he’d use the military against the biggest threat to America — Americans who don’t support him.

“I think the (main problem we face) is the enemy from within,” Trump said, adding: “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

Both he and Hegseth have already weeded out military officers who would honor their oaths to the Constitution over illegal orders from Trump. This week, Hegseth inadvertently confirmed that the military, under Trump, will become a domestic force when he testified before Congress, saying, “We’re entering another phase, especially under President Trump with his focus on the homeland, where the National Guard and Reserves become a critical component of how we secure that homeland.”

It’s galling that no congressman has connected the dots and asked about explosive military spending that Trump/Hegseth have signaled will be used against Americans.

Dubious legal grounds

As of this writing, Trump has not declared martial law, but recent Trump history, paired with his glaring mental illness, suggests it’s “when,” not “if.”

Trump’s plan to use troops to impose his domestic agenda is decidedly un-American. Today it includes deportations and manufacturing civil unrest; tomorrow, Trump’s goons will round up journalists who criticize him, judges, Democrats, and political opponents, as just happened Thursday when Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was tackled to the ground for trying to ask Kristi Noem questions.

If you have any doubt, watch Trump’s illegal and partisan address at Ft. Bragg, where he led troops in uniform to wildly “boo” journalists, California’s governor, and LA’s mayor. If you have any lingering naivety, still hoping soldiers will honor their oaths and not follow America’s Hitler, that speech will erase it.

For now, Trump is acting in LA pursuant to a presidential memorandum deploying the National Guard under a rarely used federal law, 10U.S.C.§12406. Under that code, a president possesses the power to federalize the National Guard only when there is “a rebellion or danger of rebellion” against federal authority, or when the president cannot execute federal laws. As Trump sees it, this assessment depends on his own untrained and undisciplined opinion. Under that statute, however, the National Guard can only support other law enforcement officers and defend federal property.

The Posse Comitatus Act also remains in effect, prohibiting the use of the military as a domestic law enforcement agency, except in extraordinary circumstances not yet present in LA despite Trump’s best efforts. The Insurrection Act of 1807, the authority under which Hegseth sent active Marines to LA, is a broader set of statutes granting Trump the power to use military force in specific circumstances, including suppressing armed rebellion, civil disorder, or other extreme circumstances where the states are unable to maintain public order.

Gov. Gavin Newsom formally objected to Trump sending troops, because California in general, and LAPD in particular, have sufficient resources to maintain order. Newsom knows that when US Marines start shooting civilians, whether in LA, Chicago, or New York, violence will ratchet up to the necessary threshold to circumvent Posse Comitatus and allow Trump to declare martial law.

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

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Monday, June 16, 2025 5:47 AM

SECOND

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


Senator Bill Cassidy Failed America on Vaccines

By Nicholas Florko | June 14, 2025

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/06/bill-cassidy-rfk-jr
-vaccines/683191/

It’s easy to forget that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s assault on vaccines—including, most recently, his gutting of the expert committee that guides American vaccine policy—might have been avoided. Four months ago, his nomination for health secretary was in serious jeopardy. The deciding vote seemed to be in the hands of one Republican senator: Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. A physician who gained prominence by vaccinating low-income kids in his home state, Cassidy was wary of the longtime vaccine conspiracist. “I have been struggling with your nomination,” he told Kennedy during his confirmation hearings in January.

Then Cassidy caved.

In the speech he gave on the Senate floor explaining his decision, Cassidy said that he’d vote to confirm Kennedy only because he had extracted a number of concessions from the nominee—chief among them that he would preserve, “without changes,” the very CDC committee Kennedy overhauled this week. Since then, Cassidy has continued to give Kennedy the benefit of the doubt. On Monday, after Kennedy dismissed all 17 members of the vaccine advisory committee, Cassidy posted on X that he was working with Kennedy to prevent the open roles from being filled with “people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.”

The senator has failed, undeniably and spectacularly. One new appointee, Robert Malone, has repeatedly spread misinformation (or what he prefers to call “scientific dissent”) about vaccines. Another appointee, Vicky Pebsworth, is on the board of an anti-vax nonprofit, the National Vaccine Information Center. Cassidy may keep insisting that he is doing all he can to stand up for vaccines. But he already had his big chance to do so, and he blew it. Now, with the rest of America, he’s watching the nation’s vaccine future take a nosedive.

So far, the senator hasn’t appeared interested in any kind of mea culpa for his faith in Kennedy’s promises. On Thursday, I caught Cassidy as he hurried out of a congressional hearing room. He was still reviewing the appointees, he told me and several other reporters who gathered around him. When I chased after him down the hallway to ask more questions, he told me, “I’ll be putting out statements, and I’ll let those statements stand for themselves.” A member of his staff dismissed me with a curt “Thank you, sir.” Cassidy’s staff has declined repeated requests for an interview with the senator since the confirmation vote in January.

With the exception of Mitch McConnell, every GOP senator voted to confirm Kennedy. They all have to own the health secretary’s actions. But Cassidy seemed to be the Republican most concerned about Kennedy’s nomination, and there was a good reason to think that the doctor would vote his conscience. In 2021, Cassidy was one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump on an impeachment charge after the insurrection at the Capitol. But this time, the senator—who is up for reelection next year, facing a more MAGA-friendly challenger—ultimately fell in line.

Cassidy tried to have it both ways: elevating Kennedy to his job while also vowing to constrain him. In casting his confirmation vote, Cassidy implied that the two would be in close communication, and that Kennedy had asked for his input on hiring decisions. The two reportedly had breakfast in March to discuss the health secretary’s plan to dramatically reshape the department. “Senator Cassidy speaks regularly with secretary Kennedy and believes those conversations are much more productive when they’re held in private, not through press headlines,” a spokesperson for Cassidy wrote in an email. (A spokesperson for HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

At times, it has appeared as though Cassidy’s approach has had some effect on the health secretary. Amid the measles outbreak in Texas earlier this year, Kennedy baselessly questioned the safety of the MMR vaccine. In April, after two unvaccinated children died, Cassidy posted on X: “Everyone should be vaccinated! There is no treatment for measles. No benefit to getting measles. Top health officials should say so unequivocally b/4 another child dies.” Cassidy didn’t call out Kennedy by name, but the health secretary appeared to get the message. Later that day, Kennedy posted that the measles vaccine was the most effective way to stave off illness. (“Completely agree,” Cassidy responded.)

All things considered, that’s a small victory. Despite Kennedy’s claims that he is not an anti-vaxxer, he has enacted a plainly anti-vaccine agenda. Since being confirmed, he has pushed out the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, hired a fellow vaccine skeptic to investigate the purported link between autism and shots, and questioned the safety of childhood vaccinations currently recommended by the CDC. As my colleague Katherine J. Wu wrote this week, “Whether he will admit to it or not, he is serving the most core goal of the anti-vaccine movement—eroding access to, and trust in, immunization.”

The reality is that back channels can be only so effective. Cassidy’s main power is to call Kennedy before the Senate health committee, which he chairs, and demand an explanation for Kennedy’s new appointees to the CDC’s vaccine-advisory committee. Cassidy might very well do that. In February, he said that Kennedy would “come before the committee on a quarterly basis, if requested.” Kennedy did appear before Cassidy’s committee last month to answer questions about his efforts to institute mass layoffs at his agency. Some Republicans (and many Democrats) pressed the secretary on those efforts, while others praised them. Cassidy, for his part, expressed concerns about Kennedy’s indiscriminate cutting of research programs, but still, he was largely deferential. “I agree with Secretary Kennedy that HHS needs reform,” Cassidy said.

Even if he had disagreed, an angry exchange between a health secretary and a Senate committee doesn’t guarantee any policy changes. Lawmakers may try to act like government bureaucrats report to them, but they have limited power once a nominee is already in their job. Technically, lawmakers can impeach Cabinet members, but in American history, a sitting Cabinet member has never been impeached and subsequently removed from office. The long and arduous confirmation process is supposed to be the bulwark against potentially dangerous nominees being put in positions of power. Cassidy and most of his Republican colleagues have already decided not to stop Kennedy from overseeing the largest department in the federal government by budget. Now Kennedy is free to do whatever he wants—senators be damned.

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

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Monday, June 16, 2025 6:43 AM

SECOND

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


Trump’s parade flopped. No Kings Day was a hit.
Right now, images largely determine the outcome

By Paul Krugman | Jun 16, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trumps-parade-flopped-no-kings-day

America is no longer a full-fledged democracy. We are currently living under a version of competitive authoritarianism — a system that (like Orban’s Hungary or Erdogan’s Turkey) is still democratic on paper but in which a ruling party no longer takes democracy’s rules seriously. As a result those in power violate those rules so often and to such an extent … that the regime fails to meet conventional minimum standards for democracy.

Trumpists, however, haven’t yet fully consolidated their hold. America still has a chance of reclaiming itself from the grip of brazen corruption, mindless destruction, and contempt both for the rule of law and for our erstwhile allies. We don’t have to become a country bullied into submission.

But we’re teetering on the edge, and one of the most important ways we can step back from that edge is for ordinary Americans to engage in mass protests.

On Saturday I, along with friends, joined the No Kings Day protest in New York. The protest was huge despite the rain, but I don’t know how to estimate crowd sizes. Others do, however. And the poll analyst G. Elliott Morris has worked with a number of independent journalists to produce rough estimates of how many people participated in the protests nationwide, and comes up with a number between 4 and 6 million. That’s a huge number. Remarkably, these massive protests were almost entirely peaceful.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump got the military parade he wanted for his birthday. And it was a box-office bust, probably attracting far fewer people than the 250,000 the White House claimed. In fact, the optics were simply embarrassing. As the Washington Post noted,

Some in the crowd filed out as the parade continued, the number of onlookers thinning before the president gave his remarks. Even bleacher seating for VIP guests, positioned directly across from a riser for news cameras, remained half-empty throughout the program.

Why does this matter? Is counting attendance in rival rallies just an exercise in one-upmanship?

No. Right now crowd sizes matter a lot because competitive authoritarianism rests largely on self-fulfilling expectations.

What do I mean by this? While there is a cadre of Trumpist true believers who will obey the Leader under any circumstances, most of those doing the dirty work of undermining democracy and the rule of law are cowards and opportunists. They’re willing to participate in the destruction of America as we know it because they believe that many others will do the same. As a result, they believe that they are unlikely to face any personal consequences for their actions and may even be rewarded for their lawbreaking.

And what of those who oppose Trumpism? While there are heroes willing to take a stand against tyranny whatever the personal cost, most anti-Trumpists are reluctant to stick their necks out unless they believe that they are part of a widespread resistance that will grant them some measure of safety in numbers.

In other words, the victory or defeat of competitive authoritarianism will depend to a large extent on which side ordinary people believe will win. If Trump looks unstoppable, resistance will wither away and democracy will be lost. On the other hand, if he appears weak and stymied, resistance will grow and — just maybe — American democracy will survive.

So what we saw on Saturday was more than just the juxtaposition of a poorly attended parade that was supposed to glorify the Leader against massive, enthusiastic protests. We also saw a body blow to Trump’s image of invincibility and a demonstration that millions of Americans are willing to stand up for democracy.

Furthermore, other developments are also suggesting a serious pushback against Trumpism. One is the remarkable comeuppance of law firms that capitulated to Trump’s threats and signed deals agreeing to do pro bono work on behalf of Trump’s causes. Now they see their top talent and major clients walking out the door, moving to firms that had the courage to stand up to Trump.

Another encouraging sign is the blowback against the administration’s aggressive, lawless roundups of immigrants, with hardly any effort to determine whether they are legally here. Many pundits assumed that the spectacle of arrests and deportations, would work to Trump’s political advantage. But the polling is clear: ICE’s actions have caused Trump’s approval on immigration to plunge, while there is strong opposition to his attempts to militarize immigration policy.

This isn’t the end of the assault on American democracy. It isn’t even the beginning of the end. But it may well be the end of the beginning. Trump spent his first 6 months in office trying to steamroller over all opposition, creating the impression that resistance is futile. Clearly, he hasn’t succeeded. On the contrary, resistance is stiffening, and those who preemptively capitulated seem to be paying a higher price than those who showed some backbone.

Although the tide may be turning, MAGA isn’t simply going to roll over and slink away. On the contrary, the administration’s power grabs will become even more aggressive and desperate, with growing efforts to intimidate, prosecute and even physically harm political opponents, as well as widespread efforts to suppress dissent with force.

Nonetheless, despite the difficult times ahead, America has just passed an important test. May freedom ring.

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

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Monday, June 16, 2025 11:23 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK






Mow 'em all down.



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

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

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