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

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
When did this thread become about Hulk Hogan?

Oh, that's right: When SECOND decided to fling more shit against the wall!

It is about who Trump is friendly with. Hulk Hogan is just one example of the horrible people who are Trump's closest friends. Two more examples: Elon Musk (the richest man in the World) and Larry Ellison (the next richest). See here on this thread for Ellison: http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=66397&mid=12241
76#1224176

Besides the horrible people who are Trump's friends, there are the horrible ideas that Trump is friendly toward. One horrible idea in Trump's head is the building of concentration camps as a Final Solution to rid the country of Jews, or in Trump's case, aliens. Trump is building concentration camps faster than Hitler did http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=66397&mid=12241
92#1224192

Another horrible idea that Trump is friendly toward is lower interest rates to reduce inflation. (Trump's "understanding" of how inflation is controlled is as wrong as anything he has done.)

Understanding Interest Rate Policy

By Paul Krugman / Jul 27, 2025 at 5:36 AM

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/understanding-interest-rate-policy

Last week Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, said something stupid. OK, that has been true every week of Johnson’s tenure. But this particular remark was right up this newsletter’s alley and suggested the topic for this week’s primer.

Here’s what happened: Johnson went on TV and supported Donald Trump’s demand that the Federal Reserve cut interest rates. Why should the Fed cut? Because, said Johnson — echoing Trump — “the American economy is hot.”

That sound you hear is thousands of economists slamming their heads on their desks. Interest rate cuts aren’t supposed to be a gold star the teacher gives you when you did well on a quiz. Interest rates are a tool for managing the economy — and a hot economy is a reason to raise rates, not cut them.

But I’m not sure how many people, even among those generally well-informed about public affairs, understand why economists say that. And I’m sure that relatively few people who aren’t economists know either how events and ideas led to the current consensus about interest rate policy or why there are real arguments among serious, non-MAGA people about the Fed’s next move.

So this week’s primer is about interest rate policy. Beyond the paywall I will discuss:

1. Why the Fed matters

2. The (controversial) tradeoff between unemployment and inflation

3. The long search for monetary rules

4. Post-Covid conundrums

5. What is Trump thinking?

Signym, I know all of this is too much for Trumptards, or Trump and Russian sympathizers, to comprehend because I know thousands of those kinds of people. They do nearly everything wrong and are baffled and furious by why life does not bestow upon them good fortune. But if they were even a little more in error, they would be killed by the foolish life they live.

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

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Sunday, July 27, 2025 10:07 PM

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

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 12:51 AM

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

Donald Trump’s Scotland golf trip comes at incredible cost to U.S. taxpayers

https://www.pennlive.com/news/2025/07/donald-trumps-scotland-golf-trip
-will-come-at-incredible-cost-to-us-taxpayers.html

The president’s trip, which it said will feature him participating in a marketing photo opportunity at his golf resort in Aberdeen, will cost taxpayers “at least $10 million.”

Trump is currently visiting his Turnberry resort where he is expected to golf on Saturday. He is then expected to head to Aberdeenshire to open the new 18-hole golf course.

HuffPost reported that the trip is not related to a planned visit to the United Kingdom in September, “making it by far the most expensive golf vacation” for Trump in either of his terms.

“He’s using the presidency to market his golf courses,” Richard Painter, the top ethics lawyer in George W. Bush’s second-term Whtie House told HuffPost. “At the taxpayer’s expense, he’s promoting himself.”

“We’ve reached a point where the Oval Office is an extension of the Trump Organization, and American taxpayers are footing the bill,” Jordan Libowitz, of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, in Washington, told HuffPost. “A president should not be spending time trying to make money in a foreign country while in office, but if they do, at the very least they could pick up the tab for their business trips.”

HuffPost said it asked the White House if Trump planned to reimburse the U.S. Treasury for the trip, but the White House did not respond.

The big number is the estimated tax payer cost for Trump’s trips thus far, and his most recent trips pushed him to another milestone in that department. Per the site, the president has now spent an estimated $60,200,000 golfing since Jan. 20.

Yes, that is $60 million.

And that’s not counting the $600,000 revealed last week that the Secret Service is spending on golf carts and portable toilets for Bedminster. The Independent reported that the agency “signed a pair of definitive contracts with Associate Golf Car Service of Poughkeepsie, New York and Restroom Resources LLC of Wrightstown, New Jersey,” per federal records.

The portable toilets may be a wise investment considering the health department recently deemed eating at the course an “unacceptable risk.”

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 3:32 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
When did this thread become about Hulk Hogan?
Oh, that's right: When SECOND decided to fling more shit against the wall!

SECOND
It is about who Trump is friendly with. Hulk Hogan is just one example of the horrible people who are Trump's closest friends. Two more examples: Elon Musk (the richest man in the World) and Larry Ellison (the next richest).

Rich people get rich, generally speaking, by being horrible people.
Say, YOU'RE rich, aren't you...?

Quote:
Besides the horrible people who are Trump's friends, there are the horrible ideas that Trump is friendly toward. One horrible idea in Trump's head is the building of concentration camps as a Final Solution to rid the country of Jews, or in Trump's case, aliens. Trump is building concentration camps faster than Hitler did

OMFG the hyperbole! Can the gas chambers and ovens be far behind???

Quote:
Another horrible idea that Trump is friendly toward is lower interest rates to reduce inflation. (Trump's "understanding" of how inflation is controlled is as wrong as anything he has done.)

It depends on who gets those preferred rates and what those loans are used for. If home BUYERS get lower interest rates, that throws gasoline on the home price bonfire. If home BUILDERS get preferred rates, that increases supply and reduces inflation, at least in that sector.

Quote:
Mike Johnson...

Don't ask me to explain anyone in Congress, of either party. Most of them are irremediably stupid.

Quote:
Signym, I know all of this is too much for Trumptards, or Trump and Russian sympathizers, to comprehend because I know thousands of those kinds of people. They do nearly everything wrong and are baffled and furious by why life does not bestow upon them good fortune. But if they were even a little more in error, they would be killed by the foolish life they live.

I'm none of the above. But I also know that classic economic theory is based on the assumptions of rational actors with perfect knowledge reaching equilibrium. None of that is true, and economists - and economic theories- have a political dimension. So anyone pretending that economics is some kind of disinterested bloodless science is just that: pretending.

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

"Constant monitoring of behavior, emotion, and identity breeds conformity, judgment, and fear."

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Monday, July 28, 2025 3:36 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Donald Trump’s Scotland golf trip...

Oh, you know those two busybody "nurses" who diagnosed Trump with heart failure?

They've obviously never dealt with a heart failure patient, bc heart failure patients aren't tromping around on golf courses, either in FL or Scotland.

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

"Constant monitoring of behavior, emotion, and identity breeds conformity, judgment, and fear."

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Monday, July 28, 2025 3:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, I think it's clear by now that I don't agree with everything that Trump is doing. OTOH I'm not about to participate in your endless, pointless barrage of criticism, hyperbole, and lies.

It's obvious that you scrape the internet every morning for any criticism of Trump, no matter how silly or mendacious. You don't care if it is immediately contradicted by your next post. And the only thing you're going to convince people of is that you're a troll with a grotch against Republicans.

So, what ARE you doing here?

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

"Constant monitoring of behavior, emotion, and identity breeds conformity, judgment, and fear."

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Monday, July 28, 2025 7:35 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, I think it's clear by now that I don't agree with everything that Trump is doing. OTOH I'm not about to participate in your endless, pointless barrage of criticism, hyperbole, and lies.

I can't find one Trumptard who would not say the same, and I live in Trumptard country. During the Civil War, there were many complaints from Confederates about how their President Jefferson Davis was handling his duties, but the slave-owners didn't suddenly realize they were personally evil monsters. So a big fuck you to Signym.

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 7:36 AM

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

Trump Is Trying to Hide the Cost of Renovating His New Air Force One

The administration transferred nearly $1 billion dollars to a Pentagon project to modernize nuclear weapons, but those funds will be used to renovate Trump's "flying palace"

By Peter Wade | July 27, 2025

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-hide-cost-re
novate-air-force-one-qatar-1235394763/

How much will it cost to renovate the Boeing 747-8 gifted by Qatar into the next Air Force One? That’s classified information. But a recent $934 million transfer of funds to a Pentagon budget may hold a clue.

The New York Times reported that this “transfer” to an unnamed classified project described in a Pentagon document sent to Capitol Hill likely includes the cost of renovating the gifted plane into a lavish gold-accented flying palace for President Trump. The funds were moved to a budget dedicated to updating America’s ground-based nuclear missiles, and Air Force officials told the paper that at least some of the funds for the renovations will come from the nuclear modernization project.

Making the project even more absurd, because the renovations will take one or two years to complete, Trump will only fly in the plane as president for a short time until he leaves office and the plane is ostensibly transferred to his presidential library in 2029 — at least that is what Trump has said will happen. (Unless, that is, Trump finds a way to extend his time in office beyond this four year term, as he has often hinted at, though that would be extremely unconstitutional.)

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 7:48 AM

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

Zelensky Learned the Wrong Lesson From Trump

Trump withdrew from the fight against kleptocracy, and other countries have absorbed that fact.

By Franklin Foer | July 27, 2025, 1:30 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/zelensky-ukraine-ant
i-corruption-agencies/683672/

Volodymyr Zelensky built a mythic reputation as a lonely bulwark against global tyranny. On Tuesday, the president of Ukraine signed that reputation away, enacting a law that gutted the independence of his country’s anti-corruption agencies just as they closed in on his closest political allies, reportedly including one of his longtime business partners and a former deputy prime minister. To justify the decision, he cloaked it in an invented conspiracy, insinuating that Russian moles had implanted themselves in the machinery of justice. This is a scoundrel’s playbook.

Despite the ongoing war, Ukrainians swamped the streets of Kyiv in protest of their president’s betrayal of democracy, forcing Zelensky to introduce new legislation reversing the bill he had just signed into law. It was a concession of error — and possibly an empty gesture, because the new bill is hardly a lock to pass the legislature. That Zelensky brazenly weakened Ukraine’s anti-corruption guardrails in the first place shouldn’t come as a shock. They were erected only under sustained pressure from the Obama administration as part of an explicit bargain: In exchange for military and financial support, Ukraine would rein in its oligarchs and reform its public institutions. Over time, the country drifted, however unevenly, toward a system that was more transparent, less captive to hidden hands.

But in the Trump era, the United States has grown proudly tolerant of global corruption. In fact, it actively encourages its proliferation. Beyond the president’s own venal example, this is deliberate policy. Brick by brick, Donald Trump has dismantled the apparatus that his predecessors built to constrain global kleptocracy, and leaders around the world have absorbed the fact that the pressure for open, democratic governance is off.

Three weeks into his current term, Trump paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act—loudly declaring that the United States wasn’t going to police foreign bribery. Weeks later, America skipped a meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s anti-bribery working group for the first time since its founding 30 years ago. As the head of the anti-corruption group Transparency International warned, Trump was sending “a dangerous signal that bribery is back on the table.”

For decades, the U.S. did more than prosecute bribery cases; it tried to cultivate civil-society organizations that helped emerging democracies combat corruption themselves. But upon returning to the presidency, Trump destroyed USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, dismantling the constellation of government agencies that had quietly tutored investigative journalists, trained judges, and funded watchdogs.

These groups weren’t incidental casualties in DOGE’s seemingly scattershot demolition of the American state. Trump long loathed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which he described as a “horrible law,” an animus stoked by the fact that some of his closest associates have been accused of murky dealings abroad. Crushing programs and organizations that fight kleptocracy meshed with the “America First” instincts of his base; the likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon abhor the export of liberal values to the world.

From the wreckage of these institutions, a Trump Doctrine has taken shape, one that uses American economic and political power to shield corrupt autocrats from accountability. Benjamin Netanyahu, on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, has been a prime beneficiary. Just as he was preparing to testify under oath, Trump denounced the prosecution as a “political witch hunt” and threatened to withhold U.S. aid if the trial moved forward. Given Israel’s reliance on American support, the threat had bite. Not long after Trump’s outburst, the court postponed Netanyahu’s testimony, citing national-security concerns.

Trump acts as if justice for strongmen is a moral imperative. No retaliatory measure is apparently off limits. To defend his populist ally in Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who faces charges related to an attempted coup, Trump revoked the visa of Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice overseeing the case. Last month, Trump threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian steel, aluminum, and agricultural exports to punish the country for Bolsonaro’s prosecution.

This is hard-nosed realism, not just ideological kinship. To protect himself, Trump must defend the rights of populist kleptocrats everywhere. He must discredit the sort of prosecution that he might someday face. That requires recasting malfeasance as perfectly acceptable statesmanship.

By stripping anti-corruption from the moral vocabulary of American foreign policy, Trump is reengineering the global order. He’s laying the foundation for a new world in which kleptocracy flourishes unfettered, because there’s no longer a superpower that, even rhetorically, aspires to purge the world of corruption. Of course, the United States has never pushed as hard as it could, and ill-gotten gains have been smuggled into its bank accounts, cloaked in shell companies. Still, oligarchs were forced to disguise their thievery, because there was at least the threat of legal consequence. In the world that Trump is building, there’s no need for disguise—corruption is a credential, not a liability.

Zelensky is evidence of the new paradigm. Although his initial campaign for president in 2019 was backed by an oligarch, he could never be confused for Bolsonaro or Netanyahu. He didn’t enrich himself by plundering the state. But now that Trump has given the world permission to turn away from the ideals of good governance, even the sainted Zelensky has seized the opportunity to protect the illicit profiteering of his friends and allies.

Yet there’s a legacy of the old system that Trump hasn’t wholly eliminated: the institutions and civil societies that the United States spent a generation helping build. In Ukraine, those organizations and activists have refused to accept a retreat into oligarchy, and they might still preserve their governmental guardians against corruption. For now, they are all that remain between the world and a new golden age of impunity.

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 9:25 AM

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

Trump Is Making Socialism Great Again
Capitalism needs better advocates.

By David Frum | July 27, 2025, 8 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/capitalism-defense-t
rump-corruption/683679/

The progressive economist Joseph Stiglitz recently remarked, “Trumponomics is ersatz capitalism.” (1) The president and those around him are accumulating huge fortunes by unashamedly preying on the credulity of their followers. (2) Trump insiders have used political power to harass regulatory agencies and cripple tax enforcement.(3) (4) Trump’s big policy moves are accompanied by an avalanche of suspicious trades. “Of the stock and stock fund sales administration officials reported between Jan. 20 and April 30, 90% fell within 10 days of the tariff announcements,” USA Today reported last week. (5) The New York Times suggested in April that if Trump seems to care little about crashing the stock market but a lot about the bond market (6), that may be explained by his own holdings: few stocks, many bonds. (Unlike most past presidents, Trump has not put his holdings in a blind trust.)

While Trump’s behavior discredits markets, his rhetoric vilifies markets. In April, the Trump administration imposed the most crushing tariffs on international commerce since the Smoot-Hawley Act’s regime of 1930. The Trump adviser Stephen Miller explained to Fox News the administration’s reasons: “Our leaders allowed foreign countries to rig the rules of the game, to cheat, to steal, to rob, to plunder,” he said. “That has cost America trillions of dollars in wealth.” Echoing his boss’s grievance-laden language, he said, “They’ve stolen our industries.” It’s not always phrased so vituperatively, but the message is consistent: free exchange is an illusion; there is nothing but exploitation. The only way to protect Americans from exploitation is for the nation’s political leaders to subject more and more of the U.S. economy to state control. If this way of thinking is true, then the severest critics of capitalism are right.

Happily, this way of thinking is not true. Free exchange is a system of cooperation and mutual benefit, the most effective that humanity has yet discovered. But who in the Trump-led United States is arguing the case for free exchange? The most influential intellectuals of the left reject markets as too inequitable; those on the right reject them as too cosmopolitan. On one side, the professional politicians are intimidated by their most radical supporters; on the other, the politicians are under the sway of crooks and con artists, whose idea of capitalism is unregulated permission to bilk and defraud.

Marxists condemn capitalism as “organized robbery.” They could not be more wrong. But who will refute them when the government of the world’s largest capitalist democracy is in the hands of organized robbers?

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/28/the-message-to-democr
ats-is-clear-you-must-dump-neoliberal-economics

(2) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/trump-golden-age-cor
ruption/682935/

(3) https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2025/03/09/behind-musk-s-doge
-a-collection-of-potential-conflicts-of-interest_6738962_13.html

(4) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-05/irs-lost-31-of-tax-
auditors-in-doge-downsizing-watchdog-finds

(5) https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/07/22/trump-admin-st
ock-sales-clustered-tariff-news/84392169007/

(6) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/us/politics/trump-bonds-tariffs.htm
l

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 3:51 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh, I see David Frum wrote this article. Another idiot writing a propaganda piece.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump Is Making Socialism Great Again
Capitalism needs better advocates.

By David Frum | July 27, 2025, 8 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/07/capitalism-defense-t
rump-corruption/683679/

The progressive economist Joseph Stiglitz recently remarked, “Trumponomics is ersatz capitalism.” (1)

We don't have capitalism. We have oligarchic financialism. Capitalism is "the (private) ownership of the means of production", and in classic economic theory ... the theory elites use to justify the status quo... supply, prices, wages, and profits are equilibrated thru competition.

Well, we're missing two aspects of capitalism: production, and competition.

Competition was the first to go. Even if we had never had the Age of the Robber Barons and the creation of monopolies, economies of scale give bigger businesses the edge. Big refineries make more profit than teapots, big steelmakers over backyard smelters, Windows over Lotus 1-2-3, Walmart and McDonalds and Starbucks over mom-and-pops.

Then the elites also discovered it was far easier to profit thru financial speculation than deal with the headaches of production.

So here we are: a nation that thinks wealth is rising stock prices, and that capitalism is opportunity to go into debt to swim in the same financial pool as the sharks.

Quote:
The president and those around him are accumulating huge fortunes by unashamedly preying on the credulity of their followers. (2) Trump insiders have used political power to harass regulatory agencies and cripple tax enforcement.(3) (4) Trump’s big policy moves are accompanied by an avalanche of suspicious trades. “Of the stock and stock fund sales administration officials reported between Jan. 20 and April 30, 90% fell within 10 days of the tariff announcements,” USA Today reported last week. (5) The New York Times suggested in April that if Trump seems to care little about crashing the stock market but a lot about the bond market

The first two sentences contradict the third. If Trump doesn't care about the stock market, then he's not manipulating it for his administration's benefit

Quote:
(6), that may be explained by his own holdings: few stocks, many bonds. (Unlike most past presidents, Trump has not put his holdings in a blind trust.)

Again, a contradiction.

Quote:
While Trump’s behavior discredits markets, his rhetoric vilifies markets.

WHICH markets? Stock? Bond? Import/ export? Real estate?

Quote:
In April, the Trump administration imposed the most crushing tariffs on international commerce since the Smoot-Hawley Act’s regime of 1930. The Trump adviser Stephen Miller explained to Fox News the administration’s reasons: “Our leaders allowed foreign countries to rig the rules of the game, to cheat, to steal, to rob, to plunder,” he said. “That has cost America trillions of dollars in wealth.” Echoing his boss’s grievance-laden language, he said, “They’ve stolen our industries.”

No, our elites sold them voluntarily. Nonetheless, they're not here anymore.

Quote:
It’s not always phrased so vituperatively, but the message is consistent: free exchange is an illusion; there is nothing but exploitation

The only way to protect Americans from exploitation is for the nation’s political leaders to subject more and more of the U.S. economy to state control. If this way of thinking is true, then the severest critics of capitalism are right.

Happily, this way of thinking is not true. Free exchange is a system of cooperation and mutual benefit, the most effective that humanity has yet discovered..

It takes two to engage in "free exchange". In any case, even "free exchange" isn't beneficial for America.

Quote:
But who in the Trump-led United States is arguing the case for free exchange? The most influential intellectuals of the left reject markets as too inequitable; those on the right reject them as too cosmopolitan. On one side, the professional politicians are intimidated by their most radical supporters; on the other, the politicians are under the sway of crooks and con artists, whose idea of capitalism is unregulated permission to bilk and defraud.

Marxists condemn capitalism as “organized robbery.” They could not be more wrong. But who will refute them when the government of the world’s largest capitalist democracy is in the hands of organized robbers?

Our political class has been in the hands of organized robbers since at least the day of the robber barons.

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

"Constant monitoring of behavior, emotion, and identity breeds conformity, judgment, and fear."

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Monday, July 28, 2025 4:17 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Trump, EU Reach Tariff Deal To Avoid Trade War
Monday, Jul 28, 2025 - 02:25 AM

President Trump said he reached a trade deal with the European Union late on Sunday, avoiding a trade war with the US’s largest trading partner and marking his biggest deal so far in his attempt to remake the global trading system through higher tariffs for U.S. trading partners.

The pact comes less than a week before a Friday deadline for President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs to take effect on August 1. The president in May threatened to impose a 50% duty on nearly all EU goods, adding pressure that accelerated negotiations, before lowering that to 30%.

Trump made the announcement at Trump Turnberry, his seaside golf resort in western Scotland, after meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who leads the EU’s executive body.

Trump said the U.S. would set a baseline tariff of 15% for European goods, including automobiles. He said steel and aluminum tariffs, which are currently at 50%, would remain unchanged. He added that the EU had agreed as part of the deal to buy $750 billion worth of energy products from the US, and the EU would agree to invest $600 billion more than previously in the US, although similar to the $550BN "investment" promised by Japan, this is unlikely to every materialize.

Adding to the list of ludicrously big numbers disclosed (or as the case may be undisclosed) today, Trump also said that the EU would buy "a vast amount" of military equipment, and while he explained that "we don't know what number is" but added that the US makes "the best military equipment in the world so you have to do that."

To summarize, the EU has agreed:

To purchase $750 billion in energy
Invest $600 billion in the US on top of existing investments
Open up countries’ markets to trade with US at zero tariffs
Purchase “vast amounts” of military equipment
...

The deal comes just days after we learned that in June the US collected a new record in tariff revenue, some $26.6 billion: a number which annualizes to an impressive $320 billion.

MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-eu-reach-tariff-deal-avoid-tra
de-war

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

"Constant monitoring of behavior, emotion, and identity breeds conformity, judgment, and fear."

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Monday, July 28, 2025 5:55 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, I think it's clear by now that I don't agree with everything that Trump is doing. OTOH I'm not about to participate in your endless, pointless barrage of criticism, hyperbole, and lies.
I can't find one Trumptard who would not say the same, and I live in Trumptard country. During the Civil War, there were many complaints from Confederates about how their President Jefferson Davis was handling his duties, but the slave-owners didn't suddenly realize they were personally evil monsters. So a big fuck you to Signym.

Awwwwwwww.....

It's pouting. :(

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

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 7:08 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Awwwwwwww.....

It's pouting. :(

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

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

6ix, you keep proving to be a goddamn fool. So is Trump. He made a deal where the USA must sell more to Europe than it is possible for the USA to produce. The man is just fucking evil. So are you, 6ixStringJack.

Trump’s $750 Billion EU Energy Deal Collides With Market Reality

Story by Georgi Kantchev, Ed Ballard (The Wall Street Journal) July 28, 2025

“Even if the EU were to buy the entirety of U.S. crude and LNG exports, the annual value of its purchases would total only $141 billion,” according to Gavekal Economics. It based its figures on current prices and the U.S.’s estimated year-end LNG export capacity.

Even most long-term LNG contracts with Russia aren’t expected to end before 2027, the target date by which the bloc wants to phase out Russian fossil fuel imports, said Andreas Schröder, head of energy analytics at research provider ICIS.

“The U.S. cannot simply take on all the market share in Europe,” Schröder said.

More at https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-s-750-billion-eu-energy-
deal-collides-with-market-reality/ar-AA1JrY4K

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 7:16 PM

Shut up, idiot.

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

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 8:09 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Shut up, idiot.

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

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

You are special, 6ix:

6ixStringJack wrote on the Superman Reboot thread Sunday, July 20, 2025 10:39 PM

Trying to dance around the minefield on the right side of the equation takes a lot more thought and I think at this point it's probably best that I don't talk to anybody in Real Life about politics, period.

Just because my guy won this time, doesn't mean I'm going to agree with 100% of everything he does. At this point, I consider myself the only person I know in real life or online who is actually going to be directly and negatively impacted by Politics in a life changing way, despite everyone always going on about it day in and day out for over a decade.

Bottom line is with my current health situation, when that Big Beautiful Bill passed, they will now essentially be ordering the death penalty against me in December of next year if I refuse to go back to work. People can spin that however they want and put that blame on me if they want, but these are just the facts. If I refuse to go back to work during or before December of next year, they will strip me of the health insurance that is paying for what I need to live and I will die without it.

But despite this, I believe a lot of good is coming from how last election went and I'm able to overlook this and hold out and hope that things actually are going to get better for Americans, and their overall quality of life does go back to where it was in the 90's instead of where we are today. I still think I made the right choice, even though I knew I had that to lose and it was at least a coin flip that I would be losing it.

So I don't know. The one positive about all of that is I feel that I've actually made a sacrifice and forced myself into a life-changing situation, forcing me to stand behind a choice I despite having to personally suffer because of it. Makes ignoring idiots a lot easier to do when you know that they're just whining and seeking atta'boy's and free dopamine hits without an ounce of skin in the game.

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=36&tid=66910&mid=12237
91#1223791

What always sets Trumptards apart from sane people are Trumptards' explanations for Trump's and their own behavior. Trump is completely evil, but his followers can't grasp that simple idea. Their own struggles (including Trump's ridiculous difficulties getting through life with lawyers protecting him from consequences) are the result of being crazy, crazy, crazy.

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 8:28 PM

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

Ghislaine Maxwell files Supreme Court brief appealing Epstein conviction

Why it matters: The filing by Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison in 2022, comes just three days after she met with a top Justice Department official tapped to re-examine the Epstein case.

The Trump administration has faced weeks of bipartisan backlash after reneging on promises to release all files related to the now-deceased sex trafficker.

Maxwell is appealing as much to the Supreme Court as she is to Trump, who said Friday he hasn't considered — but won't rule out — a pardon for his former Palm Beach associate.

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/28/ghislaine-maxwell-supreme-court-appea
l-epstein-files

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

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Monday, July 28, 2025 9:32 PM

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

Shut up, idiot.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
You are special, 6ix:

6ixStringJack wrote on the Superman Reboot thread Sunday, July 20, 2025 10:39 PM

Trying to dance around the minefield on the right side of the equation takes a lot more thought and I think at this point it's probably best that I don't talk to anybody in Real Life about politics, period.

Just because my guy won this time, doesn't mean I'm going to agree with 100% of everything he does. At this point, I consider myself the only person I know in real life or online who is actually going to be directly and negatively impacted by Politics in a life changing way, despite everyone always going on about it day in and day out for over a decade.

Bottom line is with my current health situation, when that Big Beautiful Bill passed, they will now essentially be ordering the death penalty against me in December of next year if I refuse to go back to work. People can spin that however they want and put that blame on me if they want, but these are just the facts. If I refuse to go back to work during or before December of next year, they will strip me of the health insurance that is paying for what I need to live and I will die without it.

But despite this, I believe a lot of good is coming from how last election went and I'm able to overlook this and hold out and hope that things actually are going to get better for Americans, and their overall quality of life does go back to where it was in the 90's instead of where we are today. I still think I made the right choice, even though I knew I had that to lose and it was at least a coin flip that I would be losing it.

So I don't know. The one positive about all of that is I feel that I've actually made a sacrifice and forced myself into a life-changing situation, forcing me to stand behind a choice I despite having to personally suffer because of it. Makes ignoring idiots a lot easier to do when you know that they're just whining and seeking atta'boy's and free dopamine hits without an ounce of skin in the game.

http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=36&tid=66910&mid=12237
91#1223791

What always sets Trumptards apart from sane people are Trumptards' explanations for Trump's and their own behavior. Trump is completely evil, but his followers can't grasp that simple idea. Their own struggles (including Trump's ridiculous difficulties getting through life with lawyers protecting him from consequences) are the result of being crazy, crazy, crazy.

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

What part of your fucking party ruined the country don't you get yet?

If you had ANYTHING to offer, you wouldn't be so unpopular that Trump would win in a bigger landslide than he did back in November if the election was held today.

Shut the fuck up, retard.

You are nothing. Your party is dead. You helped kill it. Because you're just fucking awful and now all the normies are finally waking up to the fact that ALL of the awful behavior for the last decade has come from you.

And YOU got Trump elected twice.

The more people like you talk the worse things get for Democrats.

Don't believe me?

Keep right on doing what you're doing and watch what happens.

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

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 6:53 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

What part of your fucking party ruined the country don't you get yet?

If you had ANYTHING to offer, you wouldn't be so unpopular that Trump would win in a bigger landslide than he did back in November if the election was held today.

Shut the fuck up, retard.

You are nothing. Your party is dead. You helped kill it. Because you're just fucking awful and now all the normies are finally waking up to the fact that ALL of the awful behavior for the last decade has come from you.

And YOU got Trump elected twice.

The more people like you talk the worse things get for Democrats.

Don't believe me?

Keep right on doing what you're doing and watch what happens.

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

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

I live in a place that is half Trumptard/half Libtard. The Libtards are doing fine. The Trumptards aren't. But both are in the exact same environment. Why aren't Trumptards prospering? Look at your own life, 6ix, you drunken layabout. Look at Trump's life. He is a tax cheater/glutton/sex-addict/swindler. You goddamn Trumptards have ruined yourselves but won't believe you did it. Instead, you want to blame the government for what you did.

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 6:56 AM

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

Facing Russia’s war on Ukraine, the EU couldn’t risk fighting a trade war with the U.S., analyst says

By Jason Ma | July 28, 2025 (Fortune)

The U.S.-EU trade deal has been blasted as too lopsided in favor of President Donald Trump, as it sets tariffs higher than Europe wanted and pledges hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent in America. But according to an analyst at the Brookings Institution, that ignores a crucial geopolitical angle: The EU needs U.S. weapons to help Ukraine fight Russia.

According to Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the deal isn’t a defeat if you look at it from a different point of view.

“Instead, it’s recognition of economic and geopolitical realities whereby the EU needs the U.S. more than the other way around,” he wrote in a Substack post. “At the end of the day, the EU needs U.S. weapons to keep Ukraine afloat into its struggle for survival against Russia. That just isn’t a setting where you escalate a trade conflict.”

Despite recent transatlantic tensions, there is greater urgency in Europe to rearm as the Russia threat looms over the entire continent, not just Ukraine.

In February, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service assessed the risk from Russia once its Ukraine war stops or freezes in place.

Russia could launch a local war against a bordering country within six months, a regional war in the Baltics within two years, and a large-scale attack on Europe within five years if the U.S. does not get involved, according to a translation of the report from Politico.

“Russia is likely to be more willing to use military force in a regional war against one or more European NATO countries if it perceives NATO as militarily weakened or politically divided,” the report said. “This is particularly true if Russia assesses that the U.S. (Trump) cannot or will not support the European NATO countries in a war with Russia.”

More at https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/facing-russia-s-war-on-ukraine
-the-eu-couldn-t-risk-fighting-a-trade-war-with-the-u-s-analyst-says/ar-AA1Js6sx

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 7:35 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

What part of your fucking party ruined the country don't you get yet?

If you had ANYTHING to offer, you wouldn't be so unpopular that Trump would win in a bigger landslide than he did back in November if the election was held today.

Shut the fuck up, retard.

EU’s $750 Billion Energy Deal With Trump Looks Hard to Reach

The huge figure for energy imports “is meaningless, as it’s unachievable not only because EU demand cannot grow that much, but also because US exporters cannot supply that much either!” said Davide Oneglia, an economist at TS Lombard.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/eu-s-750-billion-energy-deal-w
ith-trump-looks-hard-to-reach/ar-AA1JqBOE

A Trump voter would not read or understand the sentence: The huge figure for energy imports is meaningless, as it’s unachievable not only because EU demand cannot grow that much, but also because US exporters cannot supply that much either! People who would not vote for Trump do understand what Trump did wrong when he set up this energy deal. Those people prosper in America because they can think straight.

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 8:10 AM

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

What part of your fucking party ruined the country don't you get yet?

If you had ANYTHING to offer, you wouldn't be so unpopular that Trump would win in a bigger landslide than he did back in November if the election was held today.

Shut the fuck up, retard.
EU’s $750 Billion Energy Deal With Trump Looks Hard to Reach

The huge figure for energy imports “is meaningless, as it’s unachievable not only because EU demand cannot grow that much, but also because US exporters cannot supply that much either!” said Davide Oneglia, an economist at TS Lombard.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/eu-s-750-billion-energy-deal-w
ith-trump-looks-hard-to-reach/ar-AA1JqBOE

A Trump voter would not read or understand the sentence: The huge figure for energy imports is meaningless, as it’s unachievable not only because EU demand cannot grow that much, but also because US exporters cannot supply that much either! People who would not vote for Trump do understand what Trump did wrong when he set up this energy deal. Those people prosper in America because they can think straight.

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

One random dude who you've never heard of in your life until you read this article says something against Trump which makes you like and trust that person immediately and that's supposed to mean something?

Maybe it did in the world from 6 months ago that is dead now, but it's just as meaningless as every other headline about the economy you've posted here in the last 6 months.

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

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 11:36 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

One random dude who you've never heard of in your life until you read this article says something against Trump which makes you like and trust that person immediately and that's supposed to mean something?

Maybe it did in the world from 6 months ago that is dead now, but it's just as meaningless as every other headline about the economy you've posted here in the last 6 months.

The past is never dead. It's not even past. 6ix, a conviction that the world from 6 months ago is now dead, is stupid. Every time I listen to a Trumptard, or 6ix, the stupidity leaps out of their mouths. When I inspect their work, it is the same, one stupid mistake after another. For some bizarre psychological reasons, Trumptards aren't able to detect their stupidity and evil behavior, nor that of Trump.

6ix, here are two of your stupid mistakes: If the US cannot ship $750 billion in fuel, then the EU cannot buy $750 billion from Trump. If the EU doesn't burn $750 billion in fuel, Trump cannot sell $750 billion to them.

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 11:37 AM

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

Donald Trump is the most dangerous criminal in US history

His most dangerous crime is not simply corruption or obstruction, nor even incitement of insurrection: It’s the deliberate attempted destruction of American democracy itself.

By Thom Hartmann | Jul 22, 2025

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-dangerous-criminal

When historians look back on this era, they’ll inevitably ask how a nation built on principles of democracy, justice, and equality allowed one man to commit such a broad range of crimes and abuses, and whether President Donald Trump is indeed the most dangerous criminal in American history.

To fully grasp the gravity of Trump’s actions, consider the extensive categories of his criminal and potentially criminal conduct, each more disturbing than the last.

First, there’s the relentless financial corruption. Trump has long played fast and loose with the law when it came to his finances. In New York, his company was convicted of tax fraud and financial manipulation designed to deceive lenders and inflate his wealth. Trump University was shuttered after a $25 million fraud settlement, its “students” left feeling defrauded.

His charitable organization, the Trump Foundation, was dissolved following revelations that funds intended for charity were instead used to benefit Trump personally and politically, and to pay off Pam Bondi in Florida where he and Epstein were living (she was AG for almost a decade and never went after Epstein).

But Trump’s shady financial dealings didn’t begin or end with these public scandals. For decades, he was closely associated with New York’s organized crime families. Trump Tower itself was built using concrete provided by mob-linked companies.

Roy Cohn, Trump’s mentor and attorney as I detail in The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink, was a notorious fixer and lawyer for mob figures such as Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano.

Trump’s casinos also regularly skirted the law, drawing scrutiny from federal investigators for potential money laundering linked to organized crime, and his former casino manager recently revealed to CNN that Trump and Jeffrey Epstein once even showed up together with underage girls in tow (the White House denies the story).

Trump’s long relationship with Epstein further exposes his moral bankruptcy and possible criminality. The two were close associates and owned residences near each other in New York and Palm Beach, socializing together frequently.

Trump famously described Epstein as a “terrific guy” who enjoyed the company of beautiful women, some “on the younger side.” Multiple reports suggest Trump knew about Epstein’s exploitation of minors, yet Trump continued their association until public scandal made it inconvenient.

Then there are Trump’s questionable international relationships, with none more alarming than his mysterious affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s first administration consistently favored Russian interests, dismissing election interference findings from American intelligence agencies, undermining NATO, and, in his second administration even withholding military aid from Ukraine, thus benefiting Putin’s geopolitical ambitions.

While the full nature of Trump’s entanglement with Putin remains hidden, Trump’s obsequious behavior toward the Russian dictator raises serious questions about financial leverage or compromised loyalties. For example, the only major country in the world Trump chose not to impose tariffs on this year was Russia.

Trump’s disturbing Russian connections also include his 2016 campaign manager and close confidant, Paul Manafort, whose career was dedicated to installing pro-Putin autocrats and corrupt oligarchs across Eastern Europe, including Ukraine and Albania. Heidi Seigmund Cuda writes about his recent Albania connection in her great Bette Dangerous Substack newsletter.

Manafort was convicted of multiple felonies, including tax and bank fraud, stemming from his shady dealings overseas, actions intimately connected with Putin’s broader geopolitical ambitions, for which Trump pardoned him.

Trump’s choice of Manafort to lead his 2016 campaign wasn’t coincidental; it signaled to Moscow an openness to influence, further raising troubling questions about Trump’s susceptibility to foreign manipulation and complicity in Manafort’s criminal schemes.

Trump’s election interference is equally alarming. It began with hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal to manipulate public perception during the 2016 campaign, for which he was convicted of felony election manipulation charges in Manhattan last year.

More brazenly, Trump attempted to subvert democracy in Georgia when he lost the 2020 election by demanding of Georgia’s secretary of state, “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have.”

His attempts to cling to power by any means necessary reached a terrifying crescendo with the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election, ultimately joined by over 100 Republican members of Congress. This led to a federal indictment, making him the first former president charged with seeking to destroy the very democratic system that put him into power.

Trump’s abuse of presidential authority is chillingly unprecedented. Robert Mueller’s investigation laid out multiple instances where Trump criminally obstructed justice, brazenly interfering with federal investigations. He solicited foreign interference from Ukraine in the 2020 election, a move that led to his first impeachment.

Trump’s presidency was also marred by repeated violations of the Emoluments Clause as he profited directly from foreign governments funneling money through his hotels and golf clubs. He pitched Teslas from the White House in flagrant violation of the Hatch Act (penalty: five years in prison). Even after leaving office in 2021, Trump illegally retained classified documents and obstructed federal efforts to retrieve them, leading to further federal charges.

One of the most grotesque and morally bankrupt chapters of the Trump presidency unfolded in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, when Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly made the political calculation that the virus was “only hitting blue states” and disproportionately killing Black Americans so it could be weaponized.

According to reporting at the time, Kushner convened a secretive White House task force of mostly male, white, preppy private-sector advisors who concluded that a robust federal response to minimize deaths would be politically disadvantageous. Their analysis was clear: Since it was primarily Democratic governors and Black communities suffering the early brunt of the pandemic (New York, New Jersey, Washington), Trump could politically benefit by blaming local leadership and withholding meaningful federal aid.

It was a cynical—and deadly—strategy to let the virus burn through the opposition’s voter base that ultimately led to an estimated 500,000 unnecessary American deaths and gave us as the second-most Covid-19 deaths per person in the world.

This approach not only explains the administration’s chaotic and insufficient response to testing, supplies, and coordination, it exposes a level of callous—morally, if not legally criminal—political calculus rarely seen in modern American history since the days of the Trail of Tears.

Leaked documents and internal communications at the time confirmed that federal resources were distributed unevenly, often favoring Republican-led states.

Trump also regularly lashed out at Democratic governors like Gretchen Whitmer and Andrew Cuomo while ignoring their pleas for ventilators and personal protective equipment. As the death toll mounted, Trump publicly minimized the virus, holding rallies and rejecting masks, while privately admitting to journalist Bob Woodward that Covid-19 was “deadly stuff.”

This wasn’t just negligence: It was targeted neglect driven by racism and partisanship, carried out in the middle of a once-in-a-century public health emergency.

Beyond these abuses of power, Trump openly incited political violence. His rhetoric fueled vigilantism and violent confrontations at rallies.

Most infamously, on January 6, 2021, he incited an insurrection designed to halt the peaceful transition of power in a stunning betrayal without precedent in American history. He encouraged extremist and white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and Oath Keepers, effectively endorsing domestic terrorism.

Right up until he took office and corruptly shut them down, investigations continued into potential wire fraud and misuse of funds from Trump’s “Save America” PAC, alongside scrutiny into financial irregularities involving his Truth Social platform.

Investigations into obstruction, witness intimidation, and potential bribery—now blocked as the Supreme Court has put him above the law, or shut down by his toadies—further compound his record of potential crimes.

Yet Trump’s ultimate crime goes beyond mere lawbreaking. He has methodically eroded democratic institutions, weaponized disinformation to undermine public trust, and attacked the traditionally nonpartisan independence of the judiciary, intelligence agencies, military, and law enforcement. His assaults on the press are right out of Putin’s playbook. Trump’s relentless assault on truth and democracy normalizes authoritarianism and political violence.

Thus, his most dangerous crime is not simply corruption or obstruction, nor even incitement of insurrection: It’s the deliberate attempted destruction of American democracy itself. This crime, far more profound than any individual act, threatens the survival of the republic itself.

If America is to survive as a free nation, we must confront the reality of Trump’s actions. He isn’t merely a criminal; he’s become the most dangerous criminal in American history precisely because his actions imperil the very foundations of our democracy.

Allowing such crimes to go unpunished risks setting a precedent that future would-be autocrats may follow, forever tarnishing the promise of American democracy. Once he’s out of power, our nation’s new mantra must become, “Never forget, never forgive, never again.”

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 6:34 PM

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

Full List of GOP Bills to Put Trump's Name or Face on Things

By Jesus Mesa | Jul 28, 2025 at 11:02 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/full-list-gop-efforts-put-trumps-name-face-th
ings-2105146

Republican lawmakers have spent the past six months introducing a steady stream of bills designed to honor President Donald Trump—and, in some cases, his family.

The proposals range from renaming Washington Dulles International Airport to creating a $250 bill bearing Trump's portrait. Others seek to make Trump's birthday a national holiday, rebrand the Washington Metro system as the "Trump Train," and even carve his likeness into Mount Rushmore.

Federal honors of this magnitude are usually given long after a president leaves office, often posthumously, once history provides perspective. Historians say the current effort to immortalize Trump is almost unprecedented in U.S. politics, driven by a core group of GOP loyalists.

Kennedy Center Opera House Renaming for Melania Trump

The most recent effort came on Tuesday, when Representative Mike Simpson, a Republican of Idaho, tucked an amendment into a spending bill to rename the Kennedy Center's Opera House in Washington, D.C., the "First Lady Melania Trump Opera House." Simpson argued it was a fitting tribute to Melania Trump's "support and commitment in promoting the arts."

The House Appropriations Committee advanced it on a 33–25 vote.

Democrats called the move a partisan stunt. "I was surprised to find the Kennedy Center provision in the amendment," said Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat of Maine, to reporters. If enacted, it would be the first time one of the Kennedy Center's main theaters has ever been renamed.

A Transit System in Trump's Image

Two months earlier, Representative Greg Steube of Florida rolled out the Make Autorail Great Again Act. His bill would rename the Washington, D.C., Metro the "Washington Metropolitan Authority for Greater Access" and rebrand its trains as the "Trump Train."

The measure even threatened to cut federal transit funding unless the changes were made, turning Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan into a transit acronym.

Steube said in a statement that the bill would hold agencies accountable by tying federal funding to reforms that push them away from bureaucracy and toward better public service and patriotism.

New Currency Proposals

The spring of 2025 brought a rush of Trump-themed currency bills. Representative Joe Wilson, a Republican of South Carolina, proposed creating a new $250 bill bearing Trump's portrait, calling it a tribute to his "transformational leadership."

Donald Trump Bill

Going a step further, Representative Brandon Gill of Texas introduced the "Golden Age Act of 2025," which would replace Benjamin Franklin on the $100 bill with Trump's image. Gill argued Trump had ushered in "a golden age for America," deserving of commemoration on the most widely used U.S. banknote.

"Featuring him on the $100 bill is a small way to honor all he will accomplish these next four years," Gill said. If the bill passes, all $100 bills printed after December 31, 2028, would feature Donald J. Trump's picture.

A Birthday Made National

That same month, Representative Claudia Tenney of New York put forward the Trump's Birthday and Flag Day Holiday Establishment Act to make June 14—a date that is both Trump's birthday and Flag Day—a combined national holiday.

"President Trump is the most consequential President in modern American history," Tenney said, likening the proposal to the federal holiday for George Washington's birthday.

A Mount Rushmore Proposal

In one of the boldest moves, Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida introduced a bill directing the Interior Department to add Trump's face to Mount Rushmore.

The National Park Service has said there is no uncarved rock left suitable for another figure, but Luna's proposal symbolized the zeal among Trump's allies to immortalize him alongside Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

Renaming a Major Airport

Months before Trump's second inauguration, Representative Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania proposed renaming Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.

"As millions of domestic and international travelers fly through the airport, there is no better symbol of freedom, prosperity and strength than hearing 'Welcome to Trump International Airport,'" Reschenthaler said when introducing the bill.

Higher-Value Cash for Trump

In June 2024, before he was even re-elected, Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona introduced the Treasury Reserve Unveiling Memorable Portrait (TRUMP) Act to issue $500 bills with Trump's face. Gosar framed it as both symbolic and practical.

"As Bidenflation continues to devalue our currency, the issuance of $500 bills featuring President Trump offers several practical advantages," he said

Renaming U.S. Waters

That same month, Representative Greg Steube of Florida arguably started the trend with a proposal to rename all U.S. coastal waters the "Donald John Trump Exclusive Economic Zone of the United States."

Timed to Trump's 78th birthday, the measure would require the name to be used in all federal maps, documents and laws. "I'm honored to introduce legislation that will rename our coastal waters after President Trump," Steube said.

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

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Tuesday, July 29, 2025 6:35 PM