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

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

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

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, December 11, 2025 14:35
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Tuesday, December 9, 2025 3:49 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Trump Reversing "Humphrey's Executor" Is NOT Priced In

Tuesday, Dec 09, 2025 - 07:00 AM

By Michael Every of Rabobank

There are key central bank decisions this week, starting with the RBA today. However, the market has already priced in their expected outcomes. What it’s failing to price in, though it’s more important, is the stream of political and geopolitical developments in which it operates...

Rather, the US Supreme Court appears ready to overturn decades of precedent to grant Trump the power to fire a swathe of government officials. Reversing ‘Humphrey’s Executor’ will allow him to overcome legal and bureaucratic resistance to the Gramscian* changes he’s introducing to the political economy. That isn’t priced in. Indeed, despite Justice Kavanaugh’s opposition, it could put the Fed in the firing line too, with Governor Cook’s court case in January and a Fed Chair nominee, likely Hassett, promised within weeks. That isn’t priced in either.

Neither is Friday’s US National Security Strategy (NSS) even if for some countries and many markets it implies staggering changes ahead.

It’s America First, starting with “protecting the country and its way of life” and ending with “restoring US spiritual and cultural health”.

Its working principles are a focused definition of national interests; peace through strength; a predisposition to non-interventionism; flexible realism; the primacy of nations; a balance of power; pro-American worker; fairness; and competence and merit.

MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-reversing-humphreys-executor-n
ot-priced

*I had to look this up. Gramsci was an Italian Communist, and neo-Marxist philosopher fiercely opposed to Mussolini and fascism, jailed and died in prison after 11 years.
Unlike Marx, who thought that economies determined society and social relations between the classes, Gramsci thought that the elite maintained social dominance through cultural institutions instead of violence, economic force, and open coercion.
Personally, I don't think this is an either-or question. The ruling class, oligarchs, use all tools at their disposal to maintain their status.

-----------

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

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Tuesday, December 9, 2025 4:40 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

What they really need to figure out is how to destroy idea of the family unit completely and just grow us in farms like in Brave New World.

Then, just like in that story, everybody who's job it is going to be to break rocks down into smaller rocks is given just enough IQ points to wipe their asses without help and eat without choking themselves.

The "elite"'s problem has always been that there are so many poor people that are smarter than they are, and a few billion more who are at least too smart for their station in life, which leads to depression, misery and civil unrest.

Make everybody too stupid to realize how bad they've got it and most of the problems go away overnight.

Taking the Oligarchs down isn't going to accomplish shit. It's been done before. Quite a few times. And at the end of the day the top 1% are always going to own a majority of everything in the end. It's just the way things go.

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 7:33 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:

Make everybody too stupid to realize how bad they've got it and most of the problems go away overnight.

Everything is perfect. Why aren’t you grateful?

By Paul Krugman | Dec 10, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-says-that-you-are-the-problem

Last night Donald Trump gave an important speech on the economy in Pennsylvania — supposedly in a working-class area, although the actual venue was a luxury casino resort. The event was initially touted as the start of an “affordability tour,” the first of a series of speeches intended to reverse Trump’s cratering approval on his handling of inflation and the economy. A number of news analyses suggested that he would use the occasion to blame Democrats for the economy’s troubles.

That was never going to happen. Trump did, of course, take many swipes at Joe Biden, as well as attacking immigrants, women and windmills. But to blame Democrats for the economy’s problems he would have to admit that the Trump economy has problems. And the speech was important because it revealed that he won’t make any such admission, and will continue to gaslight the public.

On Monday Politico interviewed Trump, asking him, among other things, what grade he would give the current economy. His answer: “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.”

In fact, until very recently Trump wouldn’t even accept the reality that ordinary Americans don’t share his triumphalism. When Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked him a month ago why people are anxious about the economy, Trump replied

I don’t know they are saying that. The polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.

Since then Trump and his minions seem to have come around to admitting that Americans are, in fact, unhappy with the state of the economy. But if the economy is A+++++, why don’t people see it? The problem can’t possibly lie with him — so it must lie with you. “The American people don’t know how good they have it.”

I put that line in quotes because it isn’t a caricature or a paraphrase. It is, in fact, literally what Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said the other day:

We’ve made a lot of gains, but remember, we’ve got this embedded inflation from the Biden years, where mainstream media, whether it’s Greg Ip at the Wall Street Journal, toxic Paul Krugman at New York Times or former Vice Chair, Alan Blinder, all said it was a vibecession. The American people don’t know how good they have it.

Incidentally, I appreciate the personal plug. Trump has already called me a “deranged bum.” Now Bessent says I’m “toxic.” Give me a fake peace prize, and I’ll have all the honors anyone could ask for.

Anyway, I may not be a political strategist, but I don’t think “You’re all a bunch of ingrates” is a winning message. It was, however, really the only message Trump could deliver, given his utter lack of empathy or humility.

At this point I could bombard you with a lot of data showing that the economy is not, in fact, A+++++. But it isn’t a disaster area, at least not yet. So why are Americans feeling so down? The main culprit is Trump himself.

First, during the 2024 campaign Trump repeatedly promised to bring consumer prices way down beginning on “day one.” We’re now 11 months in, prices are still rising, and voters who believed him feel, with reason, that they were lied to. Last night Trump insisted that prices are, in fact, coming way down. Again, “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” is a self-destructive political strategy.

Second, Trump would be in much better political shape right now if he had basically continued Biden’s policies, with only a few cosmetic changes. When he took office inflation was on a declining trajectory. Consumer sentiment was relatively favorable at the start of 2025. Americans were still angry about high prices, but the inflation surge of 2021-3 had happened on Biden’s watch and was receding into the past. My guess is that many voters would have accepted Trump’s claims that high prices were Democrats’ fault and given him the benefit of the doubt about the economy’s future if he had simply done nothing drastic and left policies mostly as they were.

Instead, he brought chaos: Massive and massively unpopular tariffs, DOGE disruptions, masked ICE agents grabbing people off the street, saber-rattling and war crimes in the Caribbean. Many swing voters, I believe, supported Trump out of nostalgia for the relative calm that prevailed before Covid struck. They didn’t think they were voting for nonstop political PTSD.

And there’s more to come. Health insurance costs are about to spike, because Republicans refuse to extend Biden-era subsidies. Inflation may pick up in the next few months as retailers, who have so far absorbed much of the cost of Trump’s tariffs, begin passing them on to consumers.

So the “affordability tour” is off to a disastrous start. And it won’t get better, because while Trump insists that the problem is you, it’s actually him. And he isn’t going to change.

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 7:40 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK

There hasn't been any cratering on Trump's approval. He's still above where Biden, Obama and GWB were all at during this time in their 2nd term.

Keep dreaming, Paul.

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 10:20 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:
There hasn't been any cratering on Trump's approval.

6ixStringJoker, you are a lying sack of shit, as is Trump.

How popular is Donald Trump?
Silver Bulletin approval ratings for President Trump
https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bullet
in

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 10:20 AM

SECOND

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

Just before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. Slaughter—a seismic test of presidential power—on Monday morning, Donald Trump himself showed why the case is so dangerous. The president posted a screed about 60 Minutes’ critical coverage of his administration under its new ownership, Paramount, complaining: “Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!” Anyone familiar with Trump’s playbook would understand the implication of his post. Prior to his rant, news broke that Paramount would try to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, muscling out Netflix’s megamerger bid. The Federal Trade Commission has the power to block the Netflix deal and hand Warner Bros. to Paramount on a silver platter. The FTC was designed by Congress to be an independent agency, so Trump’s Truth Social posts should be meaningless. If Slaughter goes the way SCOTUS is signaling, though, Trump will be able to strongarm the agency into doing whatever he wants—including by rewarding censorship of a news program like 60 Minutes or punishing media companies whose journalists question his absolute rule.

The choice for Paramount will be simple: Want the FTC to block Netflix’s bid and then pave the way for your takeover? Don’t worry about antitrust compliance. Just bring your journalists to heel.

Slaughter supplies the blueprint for this very kind of corrupt regulatory retaliation. The case asks whether the president has constitutional authority to fire FTC commissioners, and virtually any other agency leader, in pursuit of absolute control over the executive branch. Congress has given agencies significant independence from the president since the earliest days of the republic in an effort to shield them from political pressure. Today, more than two dozen agencies are insulated from direct presidential control by removal protections. For the last 150 years, Congress has built much of the modern government around this principle. Now Trump wants to destabilize this foundational framework by seizing the power to fire anyone he wants and assert direct control over independent agencies. As expected, on Monday, six Republican-appointed justices signaled that they are eager to let him do so.

Here is a sampling of who will be better off following this legal earthquake: Trump, Republicans loyal to Trump, corporations kowtowing to Trump, billionaires ingratiating themselves to Trump, media moguls flattering Trump, and foreign governments courting Trump.

Here is a partial list of the casualties: Congress, the First Amendment, journalists, whistleblowers, the civil service, unions, and everyday investors. In short: everyone and everything that this Supreme Court deems a hindrance to Trump’s monarchical consolidation of power. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson put it on Monday: “Under our constitutional design, given the history of the monarchy and the concerns that the Framers had about a president controlling everything,” one might assume that courts should defer to Congress’ decision that the chief executive should not have an iron fist on the administrative state. But the collective will of the people’s representatives is no match for six unelected justices with a trendy political theory they’re itching to superimpose upon the Constitution.

More at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/12/paramount-netflix-fight-su
preme-court-trump.html

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 11:07 AM

SECOND

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

The Enfeebling of the President

Trump is showing signs that he’s lost the physical stamina to do the job.

By David A. Graham | December 9, 2025, 5:56 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/2025/12/trump-lost-physical-st
amina/685203/

The president of the United States can expect to face tough questions, but one that ABC’s Rachel Scott asked Monday wasn’t among them. In fact, it was nothing more than a recitation of his own words. “You said you would have no problem with releasing the full video of that strike on September 2 off the coast of Venezuela,” Scott began. President Donald Trump immediately snapped at Scott: “I didn’t say that. You said that. I didn’t say that. This is ABC fake news.”

In fact, as Scott reminded him, that’s exactly what he said. “I don’t know what they have, but whatever they have, we’d certainly release. No problem,” he said on December 3 in the Oval Office. After Scott pointed that out, Trump shrugged it off, as though he’d simply forgotten. Perhaps this was willful obfuscation. But moments of apparent forgetfulness—whether one calls them senior moments, wandering attention, or spacing out—have been happening a lot recently.

In late October, Trump said he received an MRI. For valid reasons, this has raised questions: MRIs aren’t a routine part of annual physicals, and the president’s most recent physical was way back in April; his doctors’ public disclosures about his medical exams have often been vague but full of puffery; he’s been seen with bruises, makeup, and bandages on his hands, which the White House has attributed to frequent hand shaking and his use of aspirin. Voter concerns about the health and vigor of his predecessor, Joe Biden, were one reason that Biden was forced into a late withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race.

Rather than quiet these concerns with transparency, however, the Trump administration played coy for weeks. When Trump was asked about the MRI on November 14, he insisted both that he didn’t know what it was about and that it had a great result: “I have no idea what they analyzed,” he told reporters. “But whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well, and they said that I had as good a result as they’ve ever seen.” When pressed more recently, he continued to brag that he had “aced” a test designed to assess baseline cognitive function, as though it was an IQ test—a boast that raises more questions than it answers. When the president’s physician eventually released a letter about the procedure, which referred to his October scan only as “advanced imaging,” it was similarly heavy on superlatives and light on detail. (That’s a contrast with the practice prior to Trump’s first term, when administrations publicly shared more medical information. When George W. Bush went through MRI machines during his presidency, for instance, the White House explained that they were intended to understand the reasons for a sore shoulder in one case and assess possible damage to his knees in another.)

Trump has always seemed more interested in the pomp of his office than in doing the actual work, but he’s begun expressing lack of interest more physically in this term. Last week, Trump appeared to doze off repeatedly during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. To be fair, these are boring events: I am also not interested in sitting through several hours’ worth of secretaries and aides delivering obsequious praise, but they’re doing it for his benefit. If he wants more efficient meetings, he has the power to make it so. During one moment, Secretary of State Marco Rubio prattled on about how only Trump could achieve a cease-fire in Gaza. Trump himself slumped slowly forward with his eyes closed, then sat up before his eyelids fluttered again. The president did rouse himself at the end of the meeting, finding the energy for a racist rant about Somalis.

This is not the first instance of Trump appearing to nap during public meetings, as The Washington Post reported last month. When he repeatedly snoozed during his Manhattan trial, last spring, it was a curiosity—especially for someone who had previously seemed so high-energy. But as I wrote at the time, it was also a warning: Was a man who couldn’t stay awake for his own felony trial, during the middle of the day, prepared for the rigors of the presidency? We now have some sense of the answer (and we might also wonder whether he’s even worse at staying awake during meetings that aren’t public).

As my colleague Jonathan Lemire reported recently, Trump has also pulled back on his once-impressive schedule of campaign-style rallies. His daily schedule of events has become narrower. He’s becoming isolated and cloistered; his late-night social-media sprees are not new, but they’ve become a larger part of his public communication. As with Biden, this withdrawal has led Trump to make political arguments that, as David Axelrod writes, are disconnected from reality.

The stranglehold that the elderly have on American politics makes assessing Trump’s struggles without referring to his age impossible. That’s especially true after the Biden debacle. Trump invited the comparison by referring to Biden as “Sleepy Joe,” an epithet he might regret if he continues to drift off in Oval Office meetings. Trump is 79, making him the oldest American president at the time of inauguration. Although polling in 2024 showed that large majorities of Americans believed that Biden was too old to be president, significant numbers believed that Trump was too. In February of last year, for example, an ABC News / Ipsos poll found that six in 10 Americans felt that both men were too superannuated to serve.

What was most troubling about Biden, however, was not his age per se, but its symptoms: the stiffness, the apparent fatigue, and especially the meandering answers he delivered during his debate with Trump in June 2024. The same is true of Trump now. If another president were in his 50s or 60s and seemed unable to remember the details of such an important story as the boat strikes, didn’t know why he’d had a lengthy medical examination, and appeared to routinely doze off during high-profile meetings, the public would have understandable questions about his capacity to do the job. Trump has never displayed the temperament to serve as president, and now he is showing signs that he’s lost the physical stamina too.

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 11:16 AM

SECOND

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

Trump calls media reports on his health 'seditious'

Danny KEMP | Wed, December 10, 2025 at 9:27 AM CST

US President Donald Trump has been seen closing his eyes periodically at a number of events

US President Donald Trump has blasted media reports questioning his state of health as "seditious, perhaps even treasonous," sparking pushback Wednesday by one of the major outlets behind the stories.

In a long, late-night social media post, the oldest elected president in US history raged about stories in The New York Times and elsewhere suggesting that at the age of 79 he is slowing down.

"There has never been a President that has worked as hard as me! My hours are the longest, and my results are among the best," Trump said in the nearly 500-word screed on his Truth Social network.

"I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean 'THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.'"

The Republican added that he had been through "long, thorough, and very boring" medical examinations and had been able to "ace" cognitive tests that he claimed other presidents had not taken.

Trump added that the "best thing that could happen to this Country would be if The New York Times would cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful 'source' of information."

The outburst comes despite the fact that Trump regularly accuses the media of having failed to cover the health of his predecessor Joe Biden, who dropped out of the 2024 election after a shambolic debate performance raised concerns about the Democrat's age.

He has also long contrasted his vigor with that of Biden -- whom he dubs "Sleepy Joe" and described at the rally in Pennsylvania on Tuesday as a "sleepy son of a bitch."

Discover more than you want to know about Trump's hemorrhoids at https://www.aol.com/articles/trump-calls-media-reports-health-15274084
8.html

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 1:21 PM

THG

Keep it real please

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Instrad of reading . . .

SECOND:
Instrad?

GOP says it'll take a lot more than eyewitness testimony, photos, DNA, toxicology reports, victim statements, wire transfers, emails, flight manifests, phone records, surveillance logs, bank records, audio, video, & total confessions for them to believe Trump's Epstein ties were more than coincidental.

Yes, Trump's Epstein ties were "more than coincidental“. But were they CRIMINAL? So far, there's no evidence that Trump was anything more than a creepy peeping Tom with young teens.

This is you just posting bullcrap. TRUMP! RUSSIA! COLLUSION! all over again.

There most be something probative in that pile of info, right?
So if you've got it, post it.
If not STFU.

Trump was convicted of sexual assault which the judge during sentencing told Trump, under our current system of laws what you did was rape.

During the Hollowood tapes he said he, repeatedly grabbed women by the pussy. That is him confessing to many sexual assaults upon women. And then there is this Epstein affair.

Comrade, first you’re disgusting. Second, when you post of any form of corruption, it is not because you are outraged, but instead to fulfill your Russia commie agenda.

It’s gross how you think finding someone doing something wrong somewhere, always lets Trump off the hook. And yes, Putin as well. Where I come from, people like you are considered trash.

T

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 1:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
There hasn't been any cratering on Trump's approval. He's still above where Biden, Obama and GWB were all at during this time in their 2nd term.

Keep dreaming, Paul.

6ixStringJoker, you are a lying sack of shit, as is Trump.

No. I'm not.

You should probably ask yourself how many other times you've allowed them to lie to you today and how many more of their lies you've helped them spread.

*NOTE: I guess my "lie" here was mistakenly putting Joe Auto-Pen Biden* on that list. He was a one term loser and didn't make the graph.

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 1:34 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Trump was convicted of sexual assault

This never happened. Stop saying stupid shit.

It was a civil court and that's not what was voted on.

It was also held in Deep, Deep Blue with a judge and jury with a TDS hate boner as big as yours. That extortion will not stand and will be thrown out on appeal, just like ALL of the other court cases in your dumb court thread, and just as I've always told you.

Lying slut E. Jean Carroll will not see a dime of that money. And hopefully, if there's any justice in the world, she'll be forced to pay Trump's legal fees after the appeal takes place.

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 2:27 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:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
There hasn't been any cratering on Trump's approval. He's still above where Biden, Obama and GWB were all at during this time in their 2nd term.

Keep dreaming, Paul.

6ixStringJoker, you are a lying sack of shit, as is Trump.

No. I'm not.

You should probably ask yourself how many other times you've allowed them to lie to you today and how many more of their lies you've helped them spread.

*NOTE: I guess my "lie" here was mistakenly putting Joe Auto-Pen Biden* on that list. He was a one term loser and didn't make the graph.

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

If Trump were the President of a corporation, he would be fired when less than 50% of the board of directors approve of his performance. That's why some corporations are extremely efficient compared to the government and why Republicans want the government to run like a business. Except that Trump is the Trumptards' president for life, as Hitler was the Nazis' Führer for life, and can't be terminated.

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 3:14 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
There hasn't been any cratering on Trump's approval. He's still above where Biden, Obama and GWB were all at during this time in their 2nd term.

Keep dreaming, Paul.

6ixStringJoker, you are a lying sack of shit, as is Trump.

No. I'm not.

You should probably ask yourself how many other times you've allowed them to lie to you today and how many more of their lies you've helped them spread.

*NOTE: I guess my "lie" here was mistakenly putting Joe Auto-Pen Biden* on that list. He was a one term loser and didn't make the graph.

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.
If Trump were the President of a corporation, he would be fired when less than 50% of the board of directors approve of his performance. That's why some corporations are extremely efficient compared to the government and why Republicans want the government to run like a business. Except that Trump is the Trumptards' president for life, as Hitler was the Nazis' Führer for life, and can't be terminated.

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

If you're going to reply to me and my FACTUAL graph, I don't want to hear anything out of you
other than "Sorry. I was mistaken."

Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

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

Be Nice. Don't be a dick.

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 5:19 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:

If you're going to reply to me and my FACTUAL graph, I don't want to hear anything out of you
other than "Sorry. I was mistaken."

Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

Drop dead, you goddamn Nazi.

Trump’s reality TV tricks can’t hide the affordability crisis

The president's policies cost families $2,250 in 2025 — and the economy is only getting worse

By Amanda Marcotte | December 10, 2025 6:45AM (EST)

https://www.salon.com/2025/12/10/trumps-reality-tv-tricks-cant-hide-th
e-affordability-crisis/

Donald Trump made his money through fraud. So it makes sense, then, that he thinks the quickest way out of the affordability crisis is to rely on the same carnival barker tactics he used for decades to trick banks and investors into giving him money.

The billionaire president was born into wealth and has coasted on his family’s name. But there can be no doubt of his talent as a con artist.

Despite being so good at talking people out of their money, he still managed to go bankrupt multiple times. The scheme that saved his empire was a different flavor of fraud: Being falsely portrayed as a successful businessman on a reality show, NBC’s “The Apprentice.” This fakery netted him nearly a half-billion dollars, but because Trump is as bad at finances as he is at everything else but lying, he lost all that money too. https://www.salon.com/2020/09/28/forget-the-apprentice-trumps-taxes-sh
ow-he-was-really-the-biggest-loser/

He craves a quick fix to this whole economic dilemma — the same disaster he created through chaotic policies that have raised costs on everything from housing to health care to groceries…

Still, Trump’s skill at bamboozling people helped him win not just in 2016, but again in 2024, when he managed to convince swing voters he could somehow lower costs after a few years of pandemic-driven inflation. Instead, he has done the opposite, and now he is clearly annoyed at aides and reporters who insist that the cost of living is a real issue that voters care about. Trump is notoriously lazy, even on issues he cares about, so caring about the concerns of people who weren’t born rich taxes his extremely limited patience. He craves a quick fix to this whole economic dilemma — the same disaster he created through chaotic policies that have raised costs on everything from housing to health care to groceries, often for no other reason than a narcissistic insistence that he knows economics better than economists.

There are the tariffs, which Trump levies chaotically, as an expression of his ego, even as his propagandists pretend there’s some grand economic theory behind his impulsive and constantly changing orders.

As Thomas Edsall of the New York Times demonstrated this week, the self-inflicted inflationary pressure is hurting ordinary people. By combining all these factors, he calculated “an estimated net loss of $2,250 in 2025 spending power” for the median American household — and that’s before the health care premium rise that’s coming.

Trump’s first move was to simply deny that it’s happening by flinging the word “hoax” around. Last week, he declared that affordability concerns are not just a “hoax” but a “con job” and a “scam.” (One of his go-to hustler tactics is to accuse everyone else of his own sins.)

But that’s not working, so Trump moved on to his reality TV tactic of using tricks and empty gambits to create the illusion of doing something, while actually doing nothing. He tried co-opting the message by giving himself a nickname, declaring on Truth Social that he’s “THE AFFORDABILITY PRESIDENT” and whining that people won’t just take his word for it. During an interview with Politico Monday, he returned to the “fake it and and hope they buy it” strategy he used to sell himself on “The Apprentice.”

“Prices are coming down substantially,” he lied. “Prices are all coming down,” he lied again. “Now everything is coming down,” he said again, clearly hoping repetition will erase people’s direct experience with their own checking accounts. He also continued to whine that “Democrats love to say affordability,” spitting out the word as if his political opponents had just made it up.

He floated the idea of sending Americans a $2,000 “tariff check,” which would actually be paid by borrowing money, as the tariffs haven’t brought in even a fraction of the funds he promised they would. He announced a $12 billion bailout for farmers, once again falsely claiming it’s paid for by tariffs, when it’s actually coming from normal tax revenue. (This will only cover about a third of farmers’ losses and is also dwarfed by the $40 billion Trump gave to Argentina, mostly because he likes the country’s far-right president.)

The president is now hoping he can drown out the bad economic news with a torrent of lies and distractions. On Tuesday, he held a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, to sell his administration’s supposed policies on affordability. But he couldn’t conceal his aggravation at having to talk about money with the proletariat, even a red-hatted audience that loves him.

Sure enough, Trump immediately declared that people’s economic concerns are “a hoax,” falsely asserting that “prices are coming down.”

For those unwilling to pretend that the economy is doing well, Trump is turning to another favorite gambit: scapegoating. Of course, he constantly blames the Democrats, even though the party doesn’t control either the White House or Congress. But he’s also looking for foreigners to accuse. The White House ordered an “investigation” into whether foreign businesses are engaged in price-fixing, which will undoubtably amount to nothing besides giving his propagandists a talking point. Trump has also been yelling at Mexico over a water dispute, while his Cabinet goons go on Fox News and pretend that immigrants are the reason for high housing costs and soaring grocery prices. It’s all lies, but Trump’s faith that people will swallow anything he says, no matter how preposterous, is unyielding.

Lots more at https://www.salon.com/2025/12/10/trumps-reality-tv-tricks-cant-hide-th
e-affordability-crisis/

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 6:13 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

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

If you're going to reply to me and my FACTUAL graph, I don't want to hear anything out of you
other than "Sorry. I was mistaken."

Otherwise, shut the fuck up.
Drop dead, you goddamn Nazi.

OH NOEZ! DON'T CALL ME A NAZI IN 2025!!!!!

Fuck off, retard.

That word holds no meaning anymore. Pat yourself on the back. You did that.

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

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Wednesday, December 10, 2025 6:32 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:

OH NOEZ! DON'T CALL ME A NAZI IN 2025!!!!!

Fuck off, retard.

That word holds no meaning anymore. Pat yourself on the back. You did that.

You are a complete asshole, 6ixStringJoker. It is no surprise that you support Trump:

Denmark lists America as a security threat after Trump suggested doing what Russia did to Crimea

By Olena Mukhina | Dec 10, 2025

https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/12/10/for-first-time-nato-ally-lists-
america-as-security-threat-after-trump-suggested-doing-what-russia-did-to-crimea/

Danish intelligence has identified the US as a potential security threat to the country under the Trump administration, amid ongoing geopolitical disputes over Greenland.

In the forecast for 2025, published on Wednesday, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) stated that the US is increasingly prioritizing its own interests and “currently uses its economic and technological power as a tool of influence over allies.”

“The United States uses economic power, including threats of high tariffs, to enforce its will, and no longer rules out the use of military force, even against allies,” the report said.

The annual threat assessment by DDIS comes after repeated statements by Trump expressing a desire to take control of Greenland, which strained diplomatic relations between Copenhagen and Washington. The US president did not rule out seizing the Arctic island by force.

6ixStringJoker, in case you are too stupid to see the Nazi connection, long before invading, Hitler was publicly demanding that other countries give him parts of their land, which is what Trump is doing.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 6:03 AM

SECOND

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

"While I expected a crowd of a few thousand with the nostalgic sound of MAGA chants echoing off metal bleachers, I tuned into Fox News Tuesday evening to find the president in a conference center ballroom inside a local casino that appeared to hold, generously, 200 people. And even that small crowd seemed hesitant, almost resigned, as Trump ranted for nearly an hour."

Tesfaye adds, "Fox News, of course, dutifully avoided any wide shots. But the truth was clear on screen: The MAGA magic had vanished."

According to Tesfaye, Trump's "gaslighting" on the economy during his Pennsylvania rally did nothing to persuade swing voters.

"The Trump of 2026 is not the Trump of 2024," Tesfaye observes. "The president is clearly tired, angry, confused and incapable of adjusting to a country in economic crisis. Even Fox News can’t spin this."

https://www.salon.com/2025/12/10/trumps-return-to-maga-rallies-is-a-fl
op/

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 7:18 AM

JAYNEZTOWN

he was ass kissing the socialist islamic NYC guy

Honeymoon is truly over

Democrats Win Miami Mayorship for First Time in 30 Years
https://www.novinky.cz/clanek/zahranicni-amerika-demokrate-ziskali-pos
t-starosty-miami-poprve-po-triceti-letech-40552848

‘Trump wreaking havoc on everyday people,’ Virginia Governor-Elect Abigail Spanberger says

Trump says meeting with NYC mayor-elect Mamdani “surprised” him

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 12:10 PM

SECOND

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

Visitors to the U.S. — including those from visa-free countries such as France, Germany and Britain — would have to submit five years of social media activity before being allowed through the border, according to a proposal by the Trump administration published Wednesday:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/12/10/2025-22461/agency
-information-collection-activities-revision-arrival-and-departure-record-form-i-94-and

The new rules, which would also require travelers to provide emails, phone numbers and addresses used in the last five years, would come into effect early next year — shortly before hundreds of thousands of football fans are expected to travel to the U.S. to watch their teams compete in the World Cup, which begins in June. The U.S. is co-hosting the tournament with Mexico and Canada.

“President Trump’s plan to screen visitors to the U.S. based on their past five-year social media history is outrageous,” Irish Member of the European Parliament Barry Andrews of the centrist Renew group said in a statement.

“Even the worst authoritarian states in the world do not have such an official policy,” he added. “The plans would of course seriously damage the U.S. tourist industry as millions of Europeans would no longer feel safe … including football fans due to attend next year’s World Cup.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-fifa-world-cup-social-med
ia-technology-politics-europe/

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 12:36 PM

SECOND

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

Trump plans to break up the EU by ‘pulling four MAGA allies’ out of the bloc, report claims

By James C. Reynolds | Thursday 11 December 2025 11:41 EST

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/europe/trump-eu-break-up-it
aly-hungary-bloc-b2882684.html

The Trump administration made plans to pull four friendly countries out of the European Union and into America’s orbit in an effort to “Make Europe Great Again”, according to a report.

The 29-page US National Security Strategy (NSS) sent shockwaves around Europe when it was unveiled last week, condemning Washington’s European allies as “weak” and offering support to far-right political parties.

According to Defense One, a longer and unpublished version of the document suggested taking Austria, Hungary, Italy and Poland out of the EU and into greater alignment with the US, while backing movements supportive of “traditional European ways of life”.

The four nations were cited as countries the US should “work with more ... with the goal of pulling them away” from the EU, according to US-based news channel Defense One, which claimed to have reviewed the document.

Defense One claims that it elaborated on how Trump would like to build Washington’s relationship with ideologically-aligned administrations, as the US focuses on domestic priorities.

“We should support parties, movements, and intellectual and cultural figures who seek sovereignty and preservation/restoration of traditional European ways of life…while remaining pro-American,” it said, according to Defense One.

The alleged document is likely to spark further alarm in Europe, just days after the NSS claimed countries such as France and Germany were “decaying” due to migration and stifled economic growth.

[The White House denies it, but the cat is out of the bag.]

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 12:47 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Visitors to the U.S. — including those from visa-free countries such as France, Germany and Britain — would have to submit five years of social media activity before being allowed through the border, according to a proposal by the Trump administration published Wednesday:

Good.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 12:47 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump plans to break up the EU by ‘pulling four MAGA allies’ out of the bloc, report claims

Even better, if true.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 1:30 PM

SECOND

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

What will America look like after 3 more years of Trump?

By Ed Kilgore | Dec 11, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/what-will-america-look-like-aft
er-3-more-years-of-trump/ar-AA1SaanA

America could get the full MAGA makeover

Let’s say Trump has the power to do what he wants between now and the end of his second term. What might America look like if he fully succeeds, particularly if his policies are either emulated by state and local Republicans or imposed nationally by Washington?

Some of these likely effects from Trump 2.0 are reversible, but only after much time and effort, and against resistance from the MAGA movement he will leave as his most enduring legacy.

And if Trump bequeaths the presidency to a successor (either a political heir like J.D. Vance or a biological heir like Don Jr.), then what American could look like by 2032 or 2036 is beyond my powers of imagination.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 1:39 PM

SECOND

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

What will America look like after 3 more years of Trump?

By Ed Kilgore | Dec 11, 2025

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/what-will-america-look-like-af
ter-3-more-years-of-trump.html

America could get the full MAGA makeover

• A country of millions fewer immigrants, with immigrant-sensitive industries like agriculture, health care, and other services struggling.

• A more regressive system of revenues for financing steadily shrinking public services.

• A fully shredded social-safety net feeding steadily increasing disparities in income and wealth between rich and poor, and old and young, Americans.

• Cities where armed military presence has become routine, particularly during anti-administration protests or prior to key elections.

• Elections conducted solely on Election Day in person, with strict ID requirements and armed election monitors, likely on the scene during vote counting as well.

• A new “deep state" of MAGA-vetted federal employees devoted to carrying out the 47th president’s policies even after he’s long gone.

• A world beset by accelerated climate-change symptoms, particularly violent weather and widespread natural disasters, and a country with no national infrastructure for preventing or mitigating the damage.

• An economy where Al is constantly promoted as a solution to the very problems it creates.

• A scientific and health-care research apparatus driven by conspiracy theories and cultural fads.

• A public-education system hollowed out by private-school subsidies and ideological curriculum mandates.

• And most of all: a debased level of political discourse resembling MMA trash talk more than anything the country has experienced before.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 2:18 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
What will America look like after 3 more years of Trump?

By Ed Kilgore | Dec 11, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/what-will-america-look-like-aft
er-3-more-years-of-trump/ar-AA1SaanA

America could get the full MAGA makeover

Good. Fuck you, Ed. Move out of my country.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 2:33 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:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
What will America look like after 3 more years of Trump?

By Ed Kilgore | Dec 11, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/what-will-america-look-like-aft
er-3-more-years-of-trump/ar-AA1SaanA

America could get the full MAGA makeover

Good. Fuck you, Ed. Move out of my country.

Tough talk from a Joker who spends his day smoking, watching porn, unemployed, and aware that he will die because Medicaid will end for the unemployed, thanks to Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 (OBBBA), which became law on July 4, 2025, requires states to implement Medicaid work requirements for many able-bodied adults, including those who are unemployed, starting in January 2027. This change, along with other cuts, is projected to result in a significant number of people nationwide losing coverage, potentially impacting tens of thousands in Indiana.

Specific Impacts on Indiana

• Work Requirements: Starting January 2027 (or potentially earlier if the state receives a federal waiver), most Medicaid expansion enrollees in Indiana ages 19-64 who are not exempt must work, volunteer, or participate in work-related activities for at least 80 hours per month.

• Potential Coverage Loss: While many current Medicaid enrollees already work, individuals who are unemployed and do not meet the work requirements or qualify for an exemption (e.g., parents of a child under 14, medically frail individuals, pregnant women) could lose their coverage.

• State Funding Challenges: The OBBBA caps or limits the use of certain state funding mechanisms, such as provider taxes, which Indiana uses to fund its share of the Medicaid program (Healthy Indiana Plan, or HIP). This could force the state to make further eligibility rollbacks or service cuts to balance its budget.

• Increased Administrative Burden: The law also increases paperwork and eligibility verification requirements, such as requiring redeterminations every six months for expansion populations (instead of annually), which can lead to eligible individuals losing coverage due to administrative errors or missed notifications.

• State Efforts: Indiana lawmakers had already passed state-level legislation earlier in 2025 seeking to impose work requirements, but federal law has set the effective date for these specific federal mandates for 2027.

The law does not automatically "end" Medicaid for all unemployed individuals in Indiana, as certain exemptions and waiver possibilities exist, but it does establish stricter rules and financial pressures that make it more difficult for unemployed Hoosiers to maintain coverage.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 2:35 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
What will America look like after 3 more years of Trump?

By Ed Kilgore | Dec 11, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/what-will-america-look-like-aft
er-3-more-years-of-trump/ar-AA1SaanA

America could get the full MAGA makeover

Good. Fuck you, Ed. Move out of my country.

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

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Thursday, December 11, 2025 2:35 PM

SECOND

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

The US Is Looking More Like Putin’s Russia Every Day

We may already be on a superhighway to the sort of class- and race-stratified autocracy that it took Russia so many years to become after the Soviet Union collapsed.

By Andrea Mazzarino | Dec 11, 2025

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/putin-russia-trump-autocracy/

It’s strange so many years later, in the United States of America, to feel as if I’m living in a country threatening to become like the Russia of Vladimir Putin that I spent years experiencing earlier in this century. To start, let me tell you a little something about that.

For decades as a young adult, I lived and traveled in Russia. I was an anthropology doctoral student and human rights worker, studying the effects of President Vladimir Putin’s centralizing policies and that country’s Christian nationalist media on the everyday lives of Russians. In one of my last projects, I investigated the government’s practice of separating kids with disabilities (and poorer kids generally) from their parents and detaining them in closed institutions. My report detailed how much changes in society when the government excludes swaths of the population from basic services like healthcare, education, and even just access to city streets. The answer? Everything.

That marginalization was part of a governing process aimed at further enriching the wealthiest few and those in power. It reflected the leadership of figures lacking a basic understanding of what all people need and deserve. I consider that a hallmark of a fascist regime.

One of my last evenings in Russia was a chilly November night in 2014 in the northern city of St. Petersburg. Mothers and children, grandparents and teenagers alike stepped with care to avoid slipping on black ice and bumping into (and possibly falling thanks to) large plastic advertisements for fast food, clothing, cosmetic dentistry, plastic surgery, and even IVF treatments sticking up like weeds on the cobblestoned sidewalks of the city’s center.

Those glowing placards seemed to replace what had once been a slew of different kinds of people when I first traveled to Russia as a college student in the late 1990s. In the same central train stations of that city, old women then sold carrots and beets from cardboard boxes they had lugged from their country homes. Young women could sometimes be seen in bikinis and stiletto heels (even in that weather!) with beer advertisements scrawled across their chests. Uzbek and Tajik men scrambled to finish construction on new stores, restaurants, and apartment buildings before winter set in. Roma mothers, their babies strapped to their backs in jewel-toned scarves, begged for money for food and housing.

Sometimes, when traffic grew too congested for their liking, Russia’s newly rich—aptly dubbed “New Russians” in the country’s popular press—drove their luxury Mercedes and BMWs onto the sidewalks, forcing pedestrians like me, along with mothers pushing strollers and a few wind-worn men and women hurrying to work, to scatter in panic. Despite the chaos and a significant amount of deprivation (more on that later), for many I met then, much seemed possible, including working for ever larger companies, migration, and new luxuries. Electronic remixes of Western songs like “If I Were a Rich Girl” and Cher’s “Believe” blasted from vendors’ tinny sounding boom boxes on repeat.

By the time of my last trip to Russia in 2014, however, shiny buildings had been built, older ones renovated, and developers with close ties to Russia’s political elite were even richer, thanks to the country’s growing oil wealth. Roma (or gypsy) families were no longer anywhere to be seen, as St. Petersburg’s government had conducted “purges” of the city’s informal Roma settlements. Nor were old women selling their wares on the streets, while Central Asian migrants from poorer countries to Russia’s south seemed ever fewer and less visible during the busiest times. Indeed, local authorities were rounding them up and detaining them without warrants, based on appearance and language alone. (Sound familiar?)

Having spent years interviewing families who could no longer access this new cityscape with their kids who used wheelchairs or were blind or deaf, all I could think was: I’m lucky to be able to go home to the United States.

That last night in 2014, I was also nearing the end of the first trimester of my first pregnancy. I rubbed my still barely visible baby bump as I spotted an old friend from St. Petersburg who was waiting to meet me for dinner at a nearby cafe. As I sat down with her, a waitress approached our table. She noted my American accent and told me with gentle, motherly scorn that I shouldn’t be traveling while pregnant. As if on cue, stomach cramps made me double up. After a trip to the restroom revealed that I was bleeding, I started to wonder if the waitress had been right. Was it possible that my relentless travel had caused me to miscarry—and in a country where I knew women sometimes faced withering criticism and blame for poor pregnancy outcomes? Just stay with me until I go home, I implored the baby I carried.

At least, my friend understood. Before she gave birth to her healthy son in the 1990s, when Russia’s newly privatized healthcare system included few viable options for working-class women, it took exhausted, overworked doctors weeks after she started feeling sick during her first pregnancy to determine that the baby inside her had actually died. She had an abortion without anesthesia and returned to her teaching job right away to make ends meet. And stories like hers were anything but unique then.

Politicized Reproductive Health

By 2014, urgent-care clinics and hospitals were plentiful enough in large cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow, but many were exorbitantly expensive even for young Americans like me. Worse yet, the attitudes of medical workers toward women who couldn’t or wouldn’t have babies had not exactly softened under a president—Vladimir Putin, of course—known for describing women as “guardians of the hearth and linchpins of large families with many children.”

Fearing the worst, my friend snapped into action, calling around to several acquaintances until one located an obstetrician she trusted who traveled from her home on the outskirts of the city to a clinic downtown.

In the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet empire, the International Monetary Fund and other international lenders pushed Russia to slash public spending and rapidly privatize state functions as part of the deal for their crucial loans to a society then in trouble. In the end, such changes dismantled the Soviet Union’s social safety net, including universal healthcare.

Well-connected elites carved up many of the remaining state assets and used them for their own private gain. Included in Russia’s newly privatized healthcare system were private clinics for the ultra-wealthy offering hotel-like amenities, including private rooms, hot tea, and soft background music. Ordinary Russians who couldn’t afford such ritzy private services used the remaining state clinics, though they were often overcrowded, undersupplied, and understaffed in the austere new world so many Russians had no choice but to navigate, especially outside the big cities. What’s more, as anthropologist Michele Rivkin-Fish has pointed out, private healthcare facilities didn’t mean better quality care, as medical workers and all kinds of public figures tended to encourage married, racially White (Slavic) Russian women to have more children, no matter the dignity and long-term health of women in Russia more broadly.

It would be an understatement to say that, by the time I left there in 2014, politics infused every aspect of Russian life. I’ll never forget, for instance, that a colleague of mine, who researched military abuses against ethnic minorities in Russia’s southernmost republics, had to leave the country to give birth after she received threatening anonymous text messages claiming that she and her unborn child were linked to Islamic insurgents in that part of the country.

While I had some reason to be afraid myself in that context, I wasn’t nearly high profile enough to truly worry and I was lucky as well. After all, my friend had a friend who indeed had a doctor she trusted. So, in the end, I was able to get an ultrasound, which showed that I still had a healthy pregnancy.

I traveled back to the United States and gave birth to my son the very same day that Donald Trump descended that golden escalator to announce his candidacy for president (claiming that thousands of people were awaiting him below when only a few score were there) and launched his bid on the claim that Mexico was sending “rapists” into the country.

Nah, I thought, as I watched the cooing baby in my arms. Probably won’t happen. I took my boy home and, being a military spouse, struggled with the military health insurance system, Tricare (aka Try-For-Care), to get coverage for basic costs like a breast pump. (No such luck, because, as an insurance rep told me, I was supposed to stay home and breastfeed him directly.) As for medicine for a common mouth infection in newborns, I got it but only after multiple appeals. I was then in an America plagued by privatization, ongoing foreign wars, and a lack of corporate accountability, but at least, my family would be okay—for now.

Back in the USA1

And here we all are.

I wish I could say that my family—and yours—live in a reality that’s different from the one I left in Russia when I took my pregnant self home in 2014. I look around at what’s happening in our country and worry that we may already be on a superhighway to the sort of class- and race-stratified autocracy that it took Russia so many years to become after the Soviet Union collapsed.

In particular, in the years since the Supreme Court overturned the right of American women to have abortions in 2022, 41 states have put abortion restrictions into effect, including 14 with outright bans. Some 40 percent of women now live in states with such bans or significant restrictions. In a handful of states like Idaho and Texas, women and expectant parents have had to cross state lines to get routine miscarriage- or pregnancy-related healthcare because doctors can face criminal or civil liabilities for providing it. (It may not be coincidental that in states with severe abortion restrictions, infant mortality has gone up significantly, particularly among people of color.) I could go on about the ways this administration and its allies on the Supreme Court and elsewhere are denying poor and middle-class women basic healthcare, but I’m sure you already get the picture.

Maybe since most Americans haven’t lived under an actual dictatorship the way many Russians have, state capture here is faster and easier, especially in a country with a resurgent Evangelical right (After all, didn’t Jesus say, “Suffer little children…”?)

New Americans?

These days, many people in my community and in my day job as a psychotherapist have lost hope that Donald Trump’s government could change things for the better. Many now tell me that they might not even vote in an upcoming election because government can’t be trusted to tell the truth and act on behalf of ordinary people. I’ve heard folks say that they can rely only on themselves (and maybe loved ones) to help them in crises like driving across state lines for healthcare. Among some of the highly educated parents I know in my DOGE-stricken DC suburb, I see not mass outrage or the urge to mobilize as much as a desire to homestead and foster a post-apocalyptic self-reliance, much in the style of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

Well, good luck, and thanks for helping Trump consolidate power.

But for now, the one thing I think we still do have that Russia doesn’t is mass demonstrations like the recent No Kings Day ones where a record 7 million Americans turned out nationally and a (relatively) free press, which is not to be taken for granted or let go easily. To show up in public as fully human and speak out for others is itself a sign of hope and possibility. Rage-filled political leaders and their minions would not invest so much time in intimidating those who speak out if free speech didn’t matter so much. (Think of that Trump-ordered military flyover while Epstein abuse survivors held a press conference in Washington recently.)

In days marked by so much uncompromising confrontation, I’m reminded of anthropology’s insight that, during a period of upheaval and movement, the people going through it can change significantly, though usually with some risk and pain. Migrations, mass demonstrations, even pregnancy—all of them hold the potential for self-transformation, particularly when people accompany one another on their journeys. The reason we should show up at demonstrations, write op-eds, and protest in any way we can imagine is to stand in solidarity with one another, even if we don’t change the minds of the people watching us. (We might, though!) In other words, collective action is its own form of social transformation. It is a way to forge, if not a new America, then new Americans who will not let democracy die without a struggle. Without it, I fear we’re likely to end up with Donald Trump’s version of Vladimir Putin’s Russia—at least, the one I left in 2014.

That’s why what we all do next matters so much. Remember that, in a democracy, we the people are the government. Whether we’re finding a service for someone who needs it, offering a friend in need a ride, warning of federal police or National Guard in the neighborhood, speaking out against abuse, or just meeting friends for dinner, the exercise of our civil rights is a thread from which our democracy hangs. Such actions also alter the landscapes we hold in our imaginations, whether we like it or not. Simply put, as long as there are more people than military in the streets, the message to those who are scared is simple: this might feel like a foreign land, but you’re not alone.

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

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