REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

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

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, May 1, 2025 08:45
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PAGE 13 of 36

Sunday, February 23, 2025 2:19 PM

SECOND

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


Trump Uses Lies to Lay the Groundwork for Radical Change

By Peter Baker who is covering his sixth presidency and wrote a book about President Trump’s first term. He reported from Washington.

Feb. 23, 2025, 10:36 a.m. ET

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/trump-alternative-reali
ty.html

In Trump’s Alternate Reality, Lies and Distortions Drive Change

Condoms for Gaza? Ukraine started the war with Russia? The president’s manipulations of the truth lay the groundwork for radical change.

The United States sent $50 million in condoms to Hamas. Diversity programs caused a plane crash. China controls the Panama Canal. Ukraine started the war with Russia.

Except, no. None of that is true. Not that it stops President Trump. In the first month since he returned to power, he has demonstrated once again a brazen willingness to advance distortions, conspiracy theories and outright lies to justify major policy decisions.

Mr. Trump has long been unfettered by truth when it comes to boasting about his record and tearing down his enemies. But what were dubbed “alternative facts” in his first term have quickly become a whole alternative reality in his second to lay the groundwork for radical change as he moves to aggressively reshape America and the world.

If the U.S. Agency for International Development is stupid enough to send prophylactics to a Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza, he claims, then it deserves to be dismantled. If recruiting people other than white men to work in the airline sector compromises safety, such programs should be eliminated. If China controls the strategic passage through the continent, the United States should take it back. If Ukraine is the aggressor, it should make concessions to Moscow.

“One of the biggest presidential powers that Trump has deployed is the ability to shape his own narrative,” said Julian E. Zelizer, a Princeton history professor and editor of a book of essays about Mr. Trump’s first term. “We have seen repeatedly how President Trump creates his own reality to legitimate his actions and simultaneously discredit warnings about his decisions.”

Taking his real-estate hucksterism and reality-show storytelling into politics, Mr. Trump has for years succeeded in selling his version of events. The world according to Mr. Trump is one where he is a master of every challenge and any failure is someone else’s fault.

He claimed to have built the greatest economy in history during his first term so many times that even some of his critics came to accept that it was better than it really was. He dismissed intelligence reports that Russia intervened in the 2016 elections on his behalf so often that many supporters accepted his denial.

Most significantly, Mr. Trump has waged a four-year campaign to persuade Americans that he did not lose the 2020 election when in fact he did, making one false assertion of widespread fraud after another that would all be debunked yet still leave most Republicans convinced it was stolen, according to polls.

At the same time, he has recast the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol by supporters trying to stop the transfer of power from a “heinous attack,” as he originally termed it, to a “day of love,” as he now calls it. This revised interpretation helped him rationalize pardoning nearly 1,600 people who were charged, including many who had beaten police officers.

“Trump is a highly skilled narrator and propagandist,” said Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” and a historian at New York University who specializes in fascism and authoritarianism. “Actually he is one of the most skilled propagandists in history.”

Dr. Ben-Ghiat said what made Mr. Trump’s “easily refutable lie” about the 2020 election so remarkable was that he was “working not in a one-party state or authoritarian context with a controlled media, but in a totally open society with a free press.”

But she and other scholars said some of Mr. Trump’s themes resemble those seen in authoritarian states. “The kind of propaganda and disinformation that we see now is not particularly new and not dependent on the internet,” said Benjamin Carter Hett, a historian of World War II at Hunter College. “Exactly the same kind of thing happened in the very diverse and lively German press of the 1920s and 1930s.”

Mr. Trump’s aides have long recognized his penchant for prevarication and either adjusted or eventually broke with him. John F. Kelly, his longest-serving White House chief of staff in his first term, has said that Mr. Trump would tell his press aides to publicly repeat something that he had just made up. When Mr. Kelly would object, saying, “but that’s not true,” Mr. Trump would say, “but it sounds good.”

Stephanie Grisham, who served as a White House press secretary in the first term, once recalled that Mr. Trump would tell aides that “as long as you keep repeating something, it doesn’t matter what you say.” And that trickled down to the staff. “Casual dishonesty filtered through the White House as though it were in the air-conditioning system,” she wrote in her memoir.

Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump ally who served briefly as his White House communications director, said on Friday that Mr. Trump believes dishonesty works. Mr. Trump, he said, is at “50 years of distorting things and telling lies and he is at 50 years of getting away with it, so why wouldn’t he make the lies bigger and more impactful in this last stretch?”

The exaggerations and falsehoods serve a strategic purpose. While Mr. Trump won a clean victory in November, including in the popular vote, which he lost in 2016, he did not win a majority and his 1.5-percentage-point margin was one of the lowest since the 19th century. But he regularly says that he won a “landslide victory,” which serves not just to stroke his ego but to assert an expansive popular mandate for his agenda.

Mr. Trump, who repeatedly disparaged media fact-checking during last year’s campaign, does not back off after misleading statements and lies are exposed. Instead, he tends to double down, repeating them even after it’s been reported that they are not true.

After reporters determined that the $50 million for condoms story was untrue, Mr. Trump not only repeated it, he increased the supposed total to $100 million. Nor did he back down after falsely claiming that U.S.A.I.D. had provided grants to media organizations as “a ‘payoff’ for creating good stories about the Democrats,” even after learning the money was simply for subscriptions.

Likewise, Mr. Trump made his claim about diversity programs and air safety the day after the midair collision of a passenger jet and Army helicopter in Washington without an ounce of proof, nor did he ever follow up with any. And while a Hong Kong company operates two of five ports adjacent to the Panama Canal, he continues to say the passage is controlled by China when in fact Panama operates it.

And to support his effort to rescind the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, Mr. Trump keeps saying that the United States is “the only country in the world that does this,” even though it has been repeatedly reported that in fact more than 30 countries do.

“Opponents end up arguing about his narratives regardless of how grounded they are in fact,” said Dr. Zelizer. “This has put President Trump in a perpetual position of advantage since he decides the terms of debate rather than anyone seeking to stop him.”

In Mr. Trump’s facts-are-fungible world, conspiracy theories at times are given as much weight as tangible evidence and those who traffic in them are granted access that no other president would give. Just this past week, he talked about going to Fort Knox to see if the nation’s gold really is there, indulging a fringe suspicion that it is somehow missing.

Invited to accompany Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Europe was Jack Posobiec, a far-right influencer who promoted the lie that Democrats were running a pedophile ring out of a Washington pizza parlor, a lie that inspired an armed man to burst in and open fire to save the supposed victims. Mr. Posobiec ended up not going but later accompanied Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Ukraine.

Mr. Trump’s blame-the-victim revisionism over Ukraine in recent days has been among the most striking efforts to translate his alternative reality into policy. Over the course of several recent days, he said that Ukraine “started” the war with Russia in 2022 and called the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “dictator without elections,” while absolving President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, an actual dictator who had invaded his neighbor. He went even further on Friday, saying, “It’s not Russia’s fault.”

By undercutting public sympathy for Ukraine, Mr. Trump may make it easier for him to strike a peace agreement with Mr. Putin giving Russia much of what it wants even over any objections by Mr. Zelensky or European leaders. Since Mr. Zelensky is a dictator responsible for the war, this reasoning goes, he deserves less consideration.

One of Mr. Trump’s claims about Ukraine offers a case study in his mythmaking. He said that the United States has provided $350 billion in aid to Ukraine, three times as much as Europe, but that much of the money is “missing” and that Mr. Zelensky “admits that half of the money we sent him is missing.”

In fact, the United States has allocated about a third of what Mr. Trump claimed, even less than Europe, and none of it is known to be missing.

The dollar figures cited for U.S. aid to Ukraine can vary depending on how government officials present them, what time period they cover and whether they include humanitarian and economic assistance.

How did Mr. Trump arrive at his claim? The White House did not respond to a request for elaboration. But it appears that Mr. Trump was referring to a recent interview with Mr. Zelensky that the president or his staff either misunderstood or distorted.

In the interview, Mr. Zelensky was asked by The Associated Press about exaggerated numbers and he corrected them. “When it’s said that Ukraine received $200 billion to support the army during the war, that’s not true,” Mr. Zelensky said according to a translation by Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news outlet. “I don’t know where all that money went.”

Mr. Zelensky was not saying that there was $200 billion and that he did not know where all of it went. He was saying there never was $200 billion in the first place. Even Mr. Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has indicated no concern over missing money, saying that “we have a pretty good accounting of where it’s going.” Indeed, the vast bulk of U.S. aid approved for Ukraine has been in the form of weapons, not cash.

But that does not comport with the official line at the White House. Once Mr. Trump makes an assertion, those who work for him — and want to keep working for him — are compelled to tailor their own versions of reality to match his. Even if it requires them to abandon previous understandings of the facts.

So there was Michael Waltz, the former Republican congressman from Florida now serving as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, pressed last week to reconcile his past comments about who was responsible for the war in Ukraine with his boss’s current position.

A reporter read aloud from an opinion column that Mr. Waltz had written in 2023 stating that “Putin is to blame, certainly, like Al Qaeda was to blame for 9/11.” Mr. Waltz was asked if he still believed that or whether he now shared Mr. Trump’s assessment that Ukraine had started the war.

“Well,” Mr. Waltz said carefully, “it shouldn’t surprise you that I share the president’s assessment on all kinds of issues. What I wrote as a member of Congress was as a former member of Congress.”

And so, Mr. Waltz’s actual reality gave way to Mr. Trump’s alternative version.

Peter Baker is the chief White House correspondent for The Times. He is covering his sixth presidency and sometimes writes analytical pieces that place presidents and their administrations in a larger context and historical framework. More about Peter Baker

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 23, 2025, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Key to Trump’s Success: Knack for Dogged Lying.

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 3:03 PM

SECOND

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


Ex-Russian Intel Agent: KGB Recruited Trump

As Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the Republican party spew Russian misinformation daily, a former Russian intelligence agent says the KGB Recruited Trump in the 1980s.

https://crooksandliars.com/2025/02/ex-russian-intel-agent-kgb-recruite
d-trump

February 22, 2025

Many Americans were roasted for observing that Donald Trump acted like a Russian agent. Now a former Russian intelligence agent confirms what many suspected: Trump is a Russian plant recruited by the KGB since the 1980s. Former Russian agent Alnur Mussayev alleged Trump was given the codename “Krasnov.”

The Masks Came Off This Week

But after this week, it's hard to deny that America's president and likely most of the Republican party are compromised. This week Trump and Rubio abandoned Ukraine while Vance blew up the 80-year alliance with European allies in Munich.

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 3:07 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK




You are so pathetic.

How long are you planning to gnash and moan in your death throes?

Your party is dead. The world you thought you were living in 6 months ago doesn't exist.

And not one single person is buying any of your Russia crap in 2025.

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

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 4:24 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Also, Fuck Ukraine.

I've said that from DAY ONE.

If I'm a Russian asset, I'm the lowest paid asset anyone has ever had since I don't have any income.

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

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 4:30 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


SECOND, you blew your credibility with the "Steele dossier".

Recycling that crap?

So stupid. Cringeworthy, even.

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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Sunday, February 23, 2025 4:38 PM

SECOND

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


‘Chainsaw economics,’ now deployed by Musk, drove more than 50% of Argentinians into poverty

https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2025/02/22/chainsaw-economics-now-dep
loyed-by-musk-drove-more-than-50-of-argentinians-into-poverty/

The music was booming, the ballroom was packed, and Elon Musk was onstage, waving a chain saw in the air.

I had already seen other surreal sights at the Conservative Political Action Conference — a man with a cat on his shoulder, freshly pardoned Proud Boys roaming around — but it was clear that this would be one of the indelible images of the annual MAGA confab.

Musk roared — or was he just making a chainsaw noise? This, he said, was the chainsaw he was taking to the bureaucracy. “Chain saw,” he repeated for effect. He did not turn it on.

It was a gift from Javier Milei, the far-right Argentine president who stormed to power in 2023 and who has drawn effusive, at times almost graphic, praise from Musk.

The episode showed how Musk doesn’t just cozy up to right-wing leaders — he also seems to copy them.

In 2022, Milei, an economist and former media personality, released a “chain saw plan” that would have cut public spending and sharply reduced the number of ministries in Argentina’s government. Milei showed up to campaign rallies with a functioning chain saw — and his supporters followed suit with replicas — that represented his demonization of a group he called “the political caste.”

Once Milei took office, Musk showered him with online compliments and talked business with him behind closed doors, as my colleagues wrote last year. He has done the same with right-wing leaders in India and Brazil, in a convenient marriage of his political beliefs and his desire to make more money for his companies.

And Musk has made a point of talking up Milei’s approach to government cuts, calling them “awesome” in a January post on X and praising Milei for “deleting entire departments.” He’s now calling for the United States government to do the same.

In December, CNN reported:

Javier Milei swept to power in Argentina a year ago on a ticket to tackle chronic hyperinflation and overhaul the long-suffering economy. In one regard — slashing the size of the state — he has proven so successful that Donald Trump’s government efficiency tsars want to replicate his approach.

Under the chainsaw-wielding libertarian economist, the government has posted rare consecutive monthly budget surpluses and inflation has fallen sharply — “better-than-expected results,” according to the International Monetary Fund.

During a meeting with Milei at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month, Trump said Milei had done “a fantastic job” as president.

Investors have also cheered the changes in Argentina: Its flagship Merval stock index, which tracks around two dozen of the country’s most valuable listed companies, has soared almost 140% this year.

But the budget cuts have come at a cost to ordinary Argentines. The poverty rate has jumped above 50% from an already high level, the economy, the third largest in Latin America, has slid even deeper into recession and unemployment is on the rise.

Much more at https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2025/02/22/chainsaw-economics-now-dep
loyed-by-musk-drove-more-than-50-of-argentinians-into-poverty/

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 4:56 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


So, been thinking about where America goes from here.

First of all, this isn't a revolution, it's a power struggle between The Industrialists and The Globalist Financiers, who have been in power since Bill Clinton.

The power structure as it was, was rotten. It was ready to topple on its own, but the war against Russia ... outcome depending on sheer industrial power ... provided the impetus to push it over.

Trump is a disruptor. Musk is a disruptor. This is a time of destruction. Things will be destroyed with a bulldozer, not a scalpel. Mistakes will be made. Parasites will flee the DC rubble.

Not now. But at some point, there will be a time of reconstruction. But the world in which America rebuilds won't be anything like the world of 20, 30, or 80 years ago.

There needs to be a new party that represents us people, not the financier oligarchs or the MAGA oligarchs.



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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Sunday, February 23, 2025 6:09 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, been thinking about where America goes from here.

First of all, this isn't a revolution, it's a power struggle between The Industrialists and The Globalist Financiers, who have been in power since Bill Clinton.

The power structure as it was, was rotten. It was ready to topple on its own, but the war against Russia ... outcome depending on sheer industrial power ... provided the impetus to push it over.

Trump is a disruptor. Musk is a disruptor. This is a time of destruction. Things will be destroyed with a bulldozer, not a scalpel. Mistakes will be made. Parasites will flee the DC rubble.

Not now. But at some point, there will be a time of reconstruction. But the world in which America rebuilds won't be anything like the world of 20, 30, or 80 years ago.

There needs to be a new party that represents us people, not the financier oligarchs or the MAGA oligarchs.


I think we've already got it, Sigs. It's mostly made up of the ex-Democrats that we were talking about just the other day.


And I don't believe that Trump is working for anybody other than himself. I know it's good for him, and he knows that at least some of us are aware of that.

Is he going to reshape America to your image or to my image of what we want it to be. Simply stated, no. He won't. He's going to reshape it in the image that he wants it to be now. We don't have any power outside of our vote. Maybe I shouldn't speak for you, but I have a very small circle of influence and no money, so I know I don't have any power. We've got to just hope that there's plenty of overlap of what we wanted and what ends up happening. More good things come of it all than bad things, and hopefully any of the bad things end up being inconveniences when held up to all of the actual good that gets done.

So far, I believe there is. Though a few things we've discussed before send up red flags and have been on my radar, I can't let those take away from all the good that is being done... at least right now.

At the end of the day I'm always going to come at all of this from the perspective of a voluntary outsider. Until the day that we live in a Perfect World, there's never a reason to align fully with Power.


I get daily reminders from the two idiots here that the Democratic Party is still kicking and screaming and making a huge fuss as it dies off, and until they shut up that's always going to remain a problem.

But I'm doing my best to look at everything that's happening and pointing out things that I'm not crazy about or I just don't agree with.

I'd argue that since what is going on now exists so far out of the realm of the status quo we've been living in for decades that everyone should be paying more attention right now than they've ever paid attention before.

And from what I can tell, they're being very transparent and open about everything they've been doing so far. That and they've welcomed, and even challenged, The People to keep tabs on them and to speak out when they find anything that looks shady.


Maybe it's all just a grift and a game like everything else is, but the current administration and the team behind the President in 2025 speak to us as if they're actually working with us and listening to what we have to say.

I don't recall a time in my life that this ever happened in America, and I don't even think it was possible in the days before the internet, so I doubt it's ever been the case before. It certainly wasn't the case during the former administration that laid down mandates and threats and censored anyone who didn't mindlessly parrot their message of the day.

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

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

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Sunday, February 23, 2025 6:23 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


The closest analogy I can think of is 1776. Many FF were oligarchs in their own right, fighting against the tyranny of King George, the monopoly of the East India Company, and the restrictions against westward expansion required by the British/ French detente.



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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Sunday, February 23, 2025 7:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The closest analogy I can think of is 1776. Many FF were oligarchs in their own right, fighting against the tyranny of King George, the monopoly of the East India Company, and the restrictions against westward expansion required by the British/ French detente.


Yeah.

And as much of a Don't Tread on Me type as I am, I don't live in a bubble and I don't have any real power to change anything outside of my own habits and how I carry myself.

I will never be an oligarch. Even if I won a Billion Dollar Powerball that wouldn't change anything. It's a playing field that's a lot older than I am, and as long as that incoming asteroid doesn't smash into our moon, I suspect that it's going to be around for a long time after I'm gone.

People are getting a huge glimpse into the power structure right now.

Unless all of this is just a bunch of theater that's been orchestrated so well that it's even fooled all of us skeptics, we have to admit that we unleashed a fury here.

One that I, personally, am very much all about.

But that being said... I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone that everything's going to be alright, let alone give any real strong predictions about what everything is going to look like 4 years from now.

I ain't never seen this movie before.

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

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 3:00 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
More USAID Fraud? Billions Of US Tax Dollars Are Missing From Haiti Relief Projects

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/more-usaid-fraud-billions-us-tax-d
ollars-are-missing-haiti-relief-projects

Check the Clinton's pockets. Haiti was their personal gravy train, just like Ukraine was the Biden's.

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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Monday, February 24, 2025 3:02 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
FBI Freak Out As Dan Bongino Named Deputy Director


https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fbi-freak-out-dan-bongino-named-de
puty-director

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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Monday, February 24, 2025 7:53 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, been thinking about where America goes from here.

First of all, this isn't a revolution, it's a power struggle between The Industrialists and The Globalist Financiers, who have been in power since Bill Clinton.

The power structure as it was, was rotten. It was ready to topple on its own, but the war against Russia ... outcome depending on sheer industrial power ... provided the impetus to push it over.

Trump is a disruptor. Musk is a disruptor. This is a time of destruction. Things will be destroyed with a bulldozer, not a scalpel. Mistakes will be made. Parasites will flee the DC rubble.

Not now. But at some point, there will be a time of reconstruction. But the world in which America rebuilds won't be anything like the world of 20, 30, or 80 years ago.

There needs to be a new party that represents us people, not the financier oligarchs or the MAGA oligarchs.


I think we've already got it, Sigs. It's mostly made up of the ex-Democrats that we were talking about just the other day.


And I don't believe that Trump is working for anybody other than himself. I know it's good for him, and he knows that at least some of us are aware of that.

Is he going to reshape America to your image or to my image of what we want it to be. Simply stated, no. He won't. He's going to reshape it in the image that he wants it to be now. We don't have any power outside of our vote. Maybe I shouldn't speak for you, but I have a very small circle of influence and no money, so I know I don't have any power. We've got to just hope that there's plenty of overlap of what we wanted and what ends up happening. More good things come of it all than bad things, and hopefully any of the bad things end up being inconveniences when held up to all of the actual good that gets done.

So far, I believe there is. Though a few things we've discussed before send up red flags and have been on my radar, I can't let those take away from all the good that is being done... at least right now.

At the end of the day I'm always going to come at all of this from the perspective of a voluntary outsider. Until the day that we live in a Perfect World, there's never a reason to align fully with Power.


I get daily reminders from the two idiots here that the Democratic Party is still kicking and screaming and making a huge fuss as it dies off, and until they shut up that's always going to remain a problem.

But I'm doing my best to look at everything that's happening and pointing out things that I'm not crazy about or I just don't agree with.

I'd argue that since what is going on now exists so far out of the realm of the status quo we've been living in for decades that everyone should be paying more attention right now than they've ever paid attention before.

And from what I can tell, they're being very transparent and open about everything they've been doing so far. That and they've welcomed, and even challenged, The People to keep tabs on them and to speak out when they find anything that looks shady.


Maybe it's all just a grift and a game like everything else is, but the current administration and the team behind the President in 2025 speak to us as if they're actually working with us and listening to what we have to say.

I don't recall a time in my life that this ever happened in America, and I don't even think it was possible in the days before the internet, so I doubt it's ever been the case before. It certainly wasn't the case during the former administration that laid down mandates and threats and censored anyone who didn't mindlessly parrot their message of the day.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
6ix, tell the above concerns to your Trumptard neighbors and see what happens. Or are you scared of what they will do to you if you speak as clearly in real life as you do at fff.net?

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 7:53 AM

SECOND

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


Trump job approval numbers are crashing:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/
https://jabberwocking.com/democrats-need-to-do-a-lot-of-nothing/

If Harris had won, the R's would be attacking non-stop, and the airwaves would be filled with Republican lies.

The Democrats on the other hand have plenty of legitimate targets. If I were a Democratic politician who wanted to win, I would be attacking Trump as a Putin stooge who is following Putin's wishes to destroy America. Sure, there is no hard proof of that, but based on Trump's behavior, it is quite believable (and I believe it). You don't really have to prove Trump's a Putin stooge, you can just ask the question: Name one thing Trump has done that a Russian stooge wouldn't do.

I just don't see how letting Trump have the bully pulpit without any pushback is a winning strategy. Words matter, and unanswered words risks having the R views take root among the populace. Maybe I'm wrong, but give me an example where waiting to fight back paid dividends.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 8:24 AM

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

But that being said... I'm not going to sit here and tell anyone that everything's going to be alright, let alone give any real strong predictions about what everything is going to look like 4 years from now.

I ain't never seen this movie before.
Europe knows the plot of the Trump movie: Russia attacks Europe. The sequel will be about whether Russia wins or loses.

Trump is Europe’s worst nightmare
The continent must start to prepare for life without the Transatlantic Alliance

The Economist February 22nd 2025

The past week has been the bleakest in Europe since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Ukraine is being sold out, Russia is being rehabilitated and, under Donald Trump, America can no longer be counted on to come to Europe's aid in wartime. The implications for Europe’s security are grave, but they have yet to sink in to the continent’s leaders and people. The old world needs a crash course on how to wield hard power in a lawless era, or it will fall victim to the new world disorder.

Speaking in Munich last week, America’s vice-president, J.D. Vance, offered a taste of how the home of fine wines, classical architecture and welfare cheques faces humiliation, when he ridiculed Europe as decadent and undemocratic. Its leaders have been excluded from peace talks between the White House and the Kremlin, which began officially in Riyadh on February 18th. However, the unfolding crisis goes far beyond insults and diplomatic niceties.

Mr Trump appears ready to walk away from Ukraine which he falsely blames for the war. Calling its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “dictator”, Mr Trump warned him that he had “better move fast or he is not going to have a country left". America may try to impose an unstable ceasefire on Ukraine with only weak security guarantees that limit its right to re-arm.

That is bad enough, but Europe’s worst nightmare is bigger than Ukraine. Mr Trump intends to rehabilitate Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, ditching a long-standing policy to isolate him. Without any obvious geopolitical benefit to America, he is angling to restore diplomatic relations. He may soon be feted at a glitzy summit. Offering up concessions in Riyadh, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, gushed about co-operation and “historic economic and investment opportunities". (Trump Tower Red Square?)

Mr Trump’s shakedown of Europe and pandering to Russia have cast doubt on America’s commitment to defend nato come what may. One fear is that American forces could be cut, or pulled back to leave eastern Europe exposed. The problem is not that Uncle Sam’s priorities lie in Asia (see International section). The problem is that if Europe comes under Russian attack and seeks American help, Mr Trump’s first and deepest instinct will be to ask what is in it for him. He is due to meet Britain’s prime minister and the French president next week. But don’t take that as a signal that this is just clever talk from a dealmaker: Mr Trump’s readiness to trade everything away is precisely the problem. NATO’s deterrence rests on the certainty that if one member is attacked the rest will come to its aid. Doubt is corrosive, it leaves Europe dangerously exposed.

Let us spell out the reality Europe faces. It is an indebted, ageing continent that is barely growing and cannot defend itself or project hard power. Global rules on trade, borders, defence and technology are being ripped up. If Russia invades one of the Baltic states, or uses disinformation and sabotage to destabilise eastern Europe, what precisely will Europe do?

So far the answer is to curl up in a defensive crouch. After the maga onslaught, a group of European leaders hastily met in Paris on February 17th but managed only to advertise their differences. Three years after Russia’s invasion Europe has not raised military spending nearly enough. It is trapped in an obsolete worldview of multilateral treaties and shared values.

Europe’s urgent task is to relearn how to acquire and wield power; it must be prepared to confront adversaries and sometimes friends, including America, which will still be there after Mr Trump. Instead of cowering, it needs an objective appraisal of the threat. Russia is a war machine with a vast arsenal of nuclear weapons, but also a medium-size economy that is declining (see Europe section). Europe also needs an equally objective appraisal of its own strengths: although it is slow-growing, Europe is still an economic and trade giant with great reserves of talent and knowledge. It needs to use those resources to reinvigorate growth, rearm and assert itself.

What does that mean? In the short term Europe needs a single envoy to talk to Ukraine, Russia and America. It should tighten its embargo on Russia even if America loosens sanctions. Europe should unilaterally exploit the €210bn ($220bn) of Russian cash frozen in European banks. That would pay for Ukraine to fight on or rearm as American funds dwindle.

In the medium term a huge defence mobilisation is needed. If Europe cannot rely on America, it must have its own heavylift aircraft, logistics, surveillance: the lot. Talks must start on how Britain and France can use their nuclear weapons to shield the continent. All this will cost a fortune. Defence spending will need to rise to the 4-5% of GDP that was normal during the cold war. Higher defence outlays, particularly if some are spent on American weapons, may persuade Mr Trump to stay in NATO, but the assumption now must be that American support is not guaranteed.

Paying for this rearmament will take a fiscal revolution. The new target will require extra spending of upwards of €300bn a year. Some of this must come from issuing more common and individual debt. In order to bear that, Europe will have to cut welfare: Angela Merkel, Germany’s former chancellor, used to say that Europe accounted for 7% of the world’s population, 25% of its GDP but 50% of its social spending. To raise growth, Europe must press ahead with obvious but endlessly delayed reforms, from unifying capital markets to deregulation.

A new dream for an old continent

The nightmare that Mr Putin and now Mr Trump have conjured up may ultimately force Europe to change how it organises itself. Its pedantic obsession with process and groupings, including the euro zone, the EU and many others, slows decision-making, omits key actors like Britain and gives weight to countries such as Hungary, which want to sabotage European defence, or Spain that is hesitant to rearm.

All this sounds outlandish. NATO has been the world’s most successful alliance: its disappearance is hard to imagine. But the old things have passed away; all things have become new. Europe needs to face up to that before it is too late.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 9:14 AM

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


DOGE — the Department of Government Efficiency — acts like a federal agency although, legally, it isn’t and claims to have already saved taxpayers $55 billion, but has presented no evidence to back that claim.

The total savings claimed didn’t come anywhere near $55 billion, but never mind. Several news organizations, including Bloomberg, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal have gone through that DOGE list, and found that it’s a steaming pile of, um, DOGEshit.

As the Times put it

Some contracts the group claims credit for were double- or triple-counted. Another initially contained an error that inflated the totals by billions of dollars. In at least one instance, the group claimed an entire contract had been canceled when only part of the work had been halted. In others, contracts the group said it had closed were actually ended under the Biden administration.

The big error the Times refers to involved counting a canceled contract worth $8 million as $8 billion.

Now, imagine that a publicly held company were to release a statement about its earnings that was riddled with major errors — with all the errors going in the same direction, making the company’s earnings look better than they are. What would you conclude? The answer, surely, would be to suspect that the company’s business is going very badly, but that top executives are trying desperately to hide the bad news while they sell off their own shares and possibly loot the company through sweetheart deals and so on.

In the case of DOGE, it’s pretty clear that Musk is failing more or less comprehensively at his supposed task of saving money by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. But he doesn’t want the public — or, more important, Donald Trump — to figure that out until he’s achieved his real objectives, which seem to involve taking effective control of large parts of the federal government — particularly those parts of the federal government that are trying to regulate his enterprises and those of his tech-bro buddies.

Of course, given the indiscriminate nature of the layoffs he’s been carrying out and the devastating effect they’re having on worker morale, he may end up breaking the federal government rather than taking it over.

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/doge-is-the-theranos-of-cost-cuttin
g

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 9:38 AM

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


Putin can’t win his war against Ukraine unless he persuades Trump to betray it.

By Anne Applebaum | February 24, 2025, 7 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/02/putins-three
-years-of-humiliation/681810/

Out of all the ugly and dishonest things that Donald Trump said about Volodymyr Zelensky last week, the ugliest was not dishonest at all. “I’ve been watching for years, and I’ve been watching him negotiate with no cards,” Trump said of Zelensky. “He has no cards. And you get sick of it.”

Sick of it. Stop and think about that phrase. Trump inserted it into a stream of falsehoods, produced over several days, many of which he must have known to be untrue. He has been lying about the origins of the war, about Zelensky’s popular support, about the levels of U.S. funding for Ukraine, about the extent of European funding, about the status of previous negotiations. But sick of it—that, at least, has the ring of truth. Trump is genuinely bored of the war. He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know why it started. He doesn’t know how to stop it. He wants to change the channel and watch something else.

Also, he has no cards: That probably reflects Trump’s true belief as well. For Donald Trump, the only real cards are big money and hard power. Players, in his world, are people whom no court can block, no journalist can question, no legislator can oppose. People whose money can buy anything, whose power cannot be checked or balanced.

But Trump is wrong. Zelensky might not have money, and he might not be a brutal dictator like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping. Yet he does have other kinds of power. He leads a society that organizes itself, with local leaders who have legitimacy and a tech sector dedicated to victory—a society that has come, around the world, to symbolize bravery. He has a message that moves people to act instead of just scaring them into silence.

Today, on the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, stop and remember what happened on the night it began. I’d had plane tickets to Kyiv that week, but my flights were canceled, and on February 24, 2022, I stayed up and watched the war’s start on television, listening to the sounds of explosions coming from the screen. That night, everyone expected Russia to overrun its much smaller neighbor. But that capitulation never came. Six weeks later, I made it to Kyiv and heard and saw what had happened instead: the hit squads that had tried to kill Zelensky; the murders of civilians in Bucha, a Kyiv suburb; the Ukrainian journalists who had driven around the country trying to tell the story; the civilians who had joined the army; the waitresses who had started cooking for the troops.

Three years later, against all obstacles and all predictions, the civilians, journalists, soldiers, and waitresses are still working together. Ukraine’s million-man army, the largest in Europe, is still fighting. Ukraine’s civil society is still volunteering, still raising money for the troops. Ukraine’s defense industry has transformed itself. In 2022, I saw tiny workshops that made drones out of what looked like cardboard and glue. In 2024, Ukrainian factories produced 1.5 million drones, and this year they will make many more. Teams of people in underground control centers now use bespoke software to hit thousands of targets every month. Their work explains why Russia has taken territory only slowly, despite being on the offensive for most of the past year. At the current rate of advance, the Institute for the Study of War estimates, Russia would need 83 years to capture the remaining 80 percent of Ukraine.

Russia doesn’t have the resources to fight indefinitely against that kind of organization and determination. Putin’s military production is cannibalizing his country’s civilian economy. Inflation has skyrocketed. The only way Putin wins now—the only way he finally succeeds in destroying Ukraine’s sovereignty—is by persuading Ukraine’s allies to be sick of the war.

He wins by persuading Trump to cut off Ukraine, because Zelensky has no cards, and by convincing Europeans that they can’t win either. That’s why Putin’s money bought American influencers in Tennessee and probably many other places, too, and it’s why his propaganda supported the pro-Russian far right in Germany’s elections yesterday, along with other pro-Russian parties across the continent. Putin can’t win on the ground, but he can win in his enemies’ heads—if we let him.

Europeans and Americans, Democrats and Republicans, can resist the temptations of boredom and distraction. We can refuse to give in to the cynicism, nihilism, and lies of Russian propaganda, even when they are repeated by the president of the United States. And we can refuse to believe that Ukraine has no cards, that we have no cards, and that the democratic world has no sources of power other than Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Three years into this war, the stakes are the same as they were on the night it began. Putin, who yesterday launched one of the largest attacks of the entire war, still seeks to destroy Ukraine’s sovereignty, civil society, democracy, and freedom. Putin still wants to show the world that the era of American power is over, that Trump will not defend allies in Europe, Asia, or anywhere else. He still wants to nullify the rules and laws that kept Europe peaceful for eight decades, to create instability and fear, not only in the countries that border Russia but across the continent and even around the world.

The war will only end, truly end, when Putin gives up these goals. Don’t accept any peace deal that allows him to keep them.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 11:04 AM

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


Trump will align himself with whomever he wants — to hell with America’s allies

https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2025/02/23/trump-will-align-himself-w
ith-whomever-he-wants-to-hell-with-americas-allies/

Anne Applebaum writes:

At a major multinational security conference in Munich last weekend, I sat in a room full of defense ministers, four-star generals, and security analysts—people who procure ammunition for Ukrainian missile defense, or who worry about Russian ships cutting fiber optic cables in the Baltic Sea. All of them were expecting Vice President J. D. Vance to address these kinds of concerns. Instead, Vance told a series of misleading stories designed to demonstrate that European democracies aren’t democratic.

Vance, a prominent member of the political movement that launched the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, had to know what he was doing: flipping the narrative, turning arguments upside down in the manner of a Russian propagandist. But the content of his speech, which cherry-picked stories designed to portray the U.K., Germany, Romania, and other democracies as enemies of free expression, was less important than the fact that he gave a speech that wasn’t about the very real Russian threat to the continent at all: He was telling the Europeans present that he wasn’t interested in discussing their security. They got the message.

A few days before the Munich conference, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went to Kyiv and presented President Volodymyr Zelensky with a two-page document and asked him to sign. Details of this proposed agreement began to leak last weekend. It calls for the U.S. to take 50 percent of all “economic value associated with resources of Ukraine,” including “mineral resources, oil and gas resources, ports, other infrastructure,” not just now but forever, as the British newspaper The Telegraph reported and others confirmed: “For all future licenses the U.S. will have a right of first refusal for the purchase of exportable minerals,” the document says.

Europeans have contributed more resources to Ukraine’s military and economic survival than the U.S. has—despite Trump’s repeated, untruthful claims to the contrary—but would presumably be cut out of this deal. The Ukrainians, who have suffered hundreds of thousands of military and civilian casualties, whose cities have been turned to rubble, whose national finances have been decimated, and whose personal lives have been disrupted, are offered nothing in exchange for half their wealth: no security guarantees, no investment. These terms resemble nothing so much as the Versailles Treaty imposed on a defeated Germany after World War I, and are dramatically worse than those imposed on Germany and Japan after World War II. As currently written, they could not be carried out under Ukrainian law. Zelensky, for the moment, did not sign.

The cruelty of the document is remarkable, as are its ambiguities. People who have seen it say that it does not explain exactly which Americans would be the beneficiaries of this deal. Perhaps the American government? Perhaps the president’s friends and business partners? The document also reportedly says that all disputes would be resolved by courts in New York, as if a New York court could adjudicate something so open-ended. But the document at least served to reiterate Vance’s message, and to add a new element: The U.S. doesn’t need or want allies—unless they can pay.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 11:14 AM

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


I Reread Project 2025 Now That We’re in the Thick of It. The Takeaway Is Chillingly Clear.

What Trump really wants is clearer than ever.

By Jill Filipovic | Feb 24, 2025 5:40 AM

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/donald-trump-project-2025-
elon-musk-doge.html

Donald Trump is a notoriously dishonest man, but one of his oft-used slogans has proved absolutely true: Promises Made, Promises Kept. Unfortunately, this time around, the promises being kept weren’t all made by Trump. They were made by the fanatics who penned Project 2025.

Yes, Elon Musk is Trump’s right-hand man (J.D. who?), and he is on a tear with the Department of Government Efficiency, employing gangs of young men barely out of puberty to decide which pieces of—and people in—the federal government should stay or go. But the mass firings, the power grabs, and the agency shutterings are not just Musk’s doing. They were planned and proposed well before Trump was even elected, right there for everyone to see, in Project 2025.

Trump may have said he had “nothing to do with” the far-right game plan for his presidency—always a dubious claim, given that its architects are either former administration members or people with close ties to it. But now that he’s in office, he’s following their plan almost to the letter.

A month into Trump’s presidency, I went back through the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership.” It was stunning just how closely it tracked with the Trump presidency, not just in content but also in strategy. One of the first arguments the document makes is that new presidents have a narrow window within which to implement their agenda; hesitating while they sort out policy details wastes precious time. And, indeed, Trump has hit the ground running. The only way he has been able to do so much is because the Project 2025 team wrote it all out for him.

As Democrats and the public struggle to even keep up with what the Trump administration is doing to the nation, it’s tempting to get caught up in the play-by-play. And although the details certainly are important, the single message must be this: Trump is trying to be a king or a dictator, and Project 2025 is his monarchical playbook.

This is not a tough argument to make, especially given that Trump is now sharing images of himself in a crown, writing, “LONG LIVE THE KING!” This cannot and will not stand. Trump is not a king, and we don’t have to collectively pretend that he is or act as if this is some sort of joke—just as we don’t have to tolerate unelected lunatics from the Heritage Foundation or unelected egomaniacal billionaires setting the rules for a pluralistic America.

In its first section, the “Mandate for Leadership” sets out Project 2025’s overarching ideology: a theory of an all-powerful president, someone with authority more akin to that of a monarch than an elected democratic leader. The core section on this comes from Russell Vought, now the Trump-appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget, essentially the central nerve center of the federal government. The idea of agency or expert “independence”—with independence rendered in scare quotes—is rejected. “The greatest challenge” ahead, Vought writes, is “aggressive use of the vast powers of the executive branch,” which requires the “boldness to bend or break the bureaucracy to the presidential will.”

If Trump has done one thing so far, it’s break the federal bureaucracy.

The best way to implement the Project 2025 vision, its authors are clear, is to gut the federal bureaucracy, firing career civil servants and those who lack the requisite MAGA loyalty. “The new Administration must fill its ranks with political appointees,” the document flat-out directs. The Office of the White House Counsel, for example, should not be some fair-minded place for smart lawyers to assess presidential actions according to existing law; it should be an “activist” entity, with subordinates who “see their role as helping to accomplish the agenda through problem solving and advocacy.” And forget expertise or qualifications: “While a candidate with elite credentials might seem ideal, the best one will be above all loyal to the President and the Constitution.”

Trump has been in office only a month, and already thousands of federal employees have been fired, some allegedly for performance, though in most cases no proof has been proffered. (And parts of this firing spree may very well be illegal—Trump’s layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for example, have been halted by a judge.)

Many of these workers are veterans or members of military families. Their work includes things like researching cancer, running national parks, responding to natural disasters, ensuring aviation safety, and providing health care to those who served in combat. And these rapid, poorly planned firings have resulted in a bunch of mistakes: Some workers have been fired, only to be told, Whoops, you’re actually still employed! (Some were then fired again.) The administration sacked several Department of Agriculture workers, only to realize that some of them were crucial members of a team protecting the public from bird flu, and quickly walked back the terminations.

Hiring has been more challenging, including when it comes to staffing the administration itself. Finding staffers who show total loyalty to Trump and who aren’t suspected to be ideologically compromised by, say, working for a Republican or even a former Trump official who has fallen out of the president’s favor, leaves precious few qualified candidates to choose from. Loyalty tests and purges are standard; requirements for MAGA fealty are high. Under regimes like this one, competency and qualification tend to be the first things to go. Qualified candidates make way simply for candidates.

There must be a German word to describe this particular combination of ironic and hypocritical: Conservatives obsess over “DEI” supposedly requiring the hiring of unqualified workers and accuse diversity initiatives of causing plane crashes, then turn around and forgo qualifications and competency in favor of unthinking devotion. (When it comes to the people working in the Trump White House, I feel fairly confident in saying that America is not sending her best.)

But this is also part of the strategy, one well practiced by autocrats throughout history: Make it ridiculous. Hire absolute nincompoops. Reward doggish devotion rather than actual qualification. After all, those who are unqualified understand that their power and position come only from the autocrat. With no reputation or future to protect, they have every incentive to stay loyal.

On the campaign trail, Trump claimed to have never read Project 2025. I would bet he still hasn’t—he doesn’t strike me as much of a reader. But he has surrounded himself with its architects. And according to a recent CNN analysis, more than two-thirds of his executive orders seem to stem from Project 2025 mandates. The very existence of this how-to manual has allowed this administration to flood the zone so effectively: The plans were all there, just waiting to be put into action.

This doesn’t mean that Project 2025’s creators have gotten everything they want. They’re hostile to Big Tech, for example, in ways that this administration—now partially run by a tech billionaire—is not. Their plans for the U.S. Agency for International Development involve drastically reshaping the organization in a Christian nationalist image, not totally destroying it. For the most part, though, the strategy has worked exactly as intended.

The job of fighting back is a complicated one. Opponents have to meet these attacks wherever and however they come—the response to flooding the zone cannot be to cede the zone. Democratic Party leaders, though, have a particular task, and that’s to make all this legible to an overwhelmed, exhausted, and largely tuned-out U.S. public. The extremists of the Heritage Foundation and MAGA and DOGE have their narrative: This is about restoring power to a president who should be nearly all-powerful, who has a mandate to lead, whose opponents are enemies not of Donald Trump but of America, and who is going to break through any barrier (including the thin parchment of the Constitution) to get done whatever needs doing.

Democrats need to zoom out and respond with their own: This is actually about protecting America the democracy from a power-drunk mad king and his billionaire boys’ club.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 12:14 PM

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


Zakaria says Trump found a fast way to end the war in Ukraine

Trump’s strategy for ending the war in Ukraine, Trump’s disdain for Ukraine, and more

"The diplomats are more worried about their boss than the adversary."



Zelenskyy reminds Trump of his illegal behavior that he was impeached for, although not convicted. Zelenskyy has qualities that Trump will never possess, such as courage and true patriotism. Lev Parnas, the Ukrainian American who worked with Rudolph Giuliani to pursue Trump's agenda in Ukraine, said to Politico, “So now Trump hates Zelenskyy with passion. And Zelenskyy knows it.”

Ruben Brekelmans - Minister of Defence of the Netherlands - strongly criticized Trump. "Some people think you are strong when you talk to a dictator. But you are only strong when you stand up to a dictator, as Ukraine has been doing for three years," Brekelmans said about the way the Americans are negotiating with Russia about the future of Ukraine.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 12:54 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


More bullshit.

Zelensky is a cokehead puppet, doing Britain's bidding. If he was a true patriot, he would never have poked the bear... repeatedly ... and gotten a million Ukrainians killed. This was a war that never should have been.

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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Monday, February 24, 2025 12:56 PM

SECOND

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


John Cleese, Feb 24 at 4:12 AM

https://substack.com/@johncleese/note/c-95784574

I saw that on the BBC an interviewer asked Stephen Fry whether he would describe President Thump as a ‘fascist’

This is the kind of question that media folk would describe as ‘hard-hitting’

When I was growing up, Mussolini was a fascist and Hitler was a Nazi, but it didn’t seem to matter much

What does matter is that Trump has no respect for ‘The Rule of Law’

He believes he is above the law

This is the nature of his personality. He has never seen a law, or a rule, or a custom, or a ‘gentleman’s understanding’ that he had any intention of honouring.

As a real estate mogul he was notorious for ‘stiffing’ his service providers

He even cheats at golf. (Golf is a game of Personal Integrity… cheating yourself says a LOT about Trump)

It is his clear intention to turn the USA into a dictatorship and to remain in power

He hasn’t even hidden his intentions from the Trumpenproletariat

It we weird to see him telling the truth

Nicholas Kristoff writes movingly about his embarrassment of being America

Exactly as I felt when I learned that London had become the number one financial centre for laundering Russian money, and then realised that the UK was run largely for the benefit of Rupert Murdoch

I wish Denmark was a bit warmer

(It seems incredibly hard for the media to call a spade a spade these days. I argue for consistently referring to Trump as “the felon President” or, maybe a bit long-winded though correct, the “convicted sexual predator and serial fraudster in the Oval Office”. Instead of further normalising this presidential atrocity by calling him “President Trump”, or, worse, selling him as “the honourable Donald John Trump”. As it was done and applauded at his inauguration. People need a constant reminder of what he is. Or else they'll forget. )

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 1:05 PM

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


Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
More bullshit.

Zelensky is a cokehead puppet, doing Britain's bidding. If he was a true patriot, he would never have poked the bear... repeatedly ... and gotten a million Ukrainians killed. This was a war that never should have been.
1) Where is your proof of a cokeheaded puppet?

2) Where is your proof of a million dead Ukrainians?

Signym, this is easy to check. It is also easy to show you are a lying sack of shit, which also describes Trump, truthfully.

1) https://www.google.com/search?q=Is+Zelensky+a+cokehead%3F

2) https://www.google.com/search?q=How+many+Ukrainians+died%3F

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 1:23 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


May not be a cokehead, but he certainly has delusions of grandeur.
Definitely a puppet.
A million Ukrainians killed is my guess.
Millions fled, population reduced to about 20 million. Cities reduced to rubble.
And now Britain and France want him to fight to the last Ukrainian?

The only thing that made him think he could win was the west repeating the bullshit to him that they told themselves and that you repeat here:

Russia is weak.
Russia is a gas station masquerading as a nation.
Russia will collapse.
As long as it takes.

He should have listened to Kissinger.


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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Monday, February 24, 2025 1:45 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


I'd almost feel bad for Second right now if he wasn't a piece of gutter trash.



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

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 2:28 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:
I'd almost feel bad for Second right now if he wasn't a piece of gutter trash.
I'm looking forward to both a tax-cut and a Trump caused stock market crash, which is when I shall buy America at a huge discount. Not sorry that Trumptards don't have money to invest and, simultaneously, are too cowardly to invest. That leaves more of America becoming my property, not Trumptards'.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 2:29 PM

SECOND

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


Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union in Germany, wasted no time after his party's victory in national elections warning about the dangers posed by President Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk.

Politico reports that Merz on Sunday argued that Europeans needed to make a break from the United States, which he said could no longer guarantee their continent's security as it had done for the last 80 years.

“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” Merz said. “I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/friedrich-merz-germany-election-united
-states-donald-trump-nato/

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 2:40 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'd almost feel bad for Second right now if he wasn't a piece of gutter trash.
I'm looking forward to both a tax-cut and a Trump caused stock market crash, which is when I shall buy America at a huge discount. Not sorry that Trumptards don't have money to invest and, simultaneously, are too cowardly to invest. That leaves more of America becoming my property, not Trumptards'.

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


I don't know buddy.

I think your mom ran out of money because of Bidenflation and she won't have any allowance for you.

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

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 2:40 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia

Friedrich Merz, the leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union in Germany, wasted no time after his party's victory in national elections warning about the dangers posed by President Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk.

Politico reports that Merz on Sunday argued that Europeans needed to make a break from the United States, which he said could no longer guarantee their continent's security as it had done for the last 80 years.

“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” Merz said. “I never thought I would have to say something like this on a television program. But after Donald Trump's statements last week at the latest, it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”

https://www.politico.eu/article/friedrich-merz-germany-election-united
-states-donald-trump-nato/

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


Good. As it should be.

SPOILER ALERT: The Muslims are all getting kicked out.



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

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 3:17 PM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I don't know buddy.

I think your mom ran out of money because of Bidenflation and she won't have any allowance for you.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Biden inflation was invented by losers who don't work or work for employers who justifiably hate their crappy employees' guts. I've got Trumptard workers like that. They are kept around since firing would make them suffer cruelly, but they aren't worth their pay. A Trump-caused recession will be a good excuse to terminate them. They doomed themselves by voting for Trump. They deserve to suffer for his stupidity and their job incompetence.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 3:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

I don't know buddy.

I think your mom ran out of money because of Bidenflation and she won't have any allowance for you.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Biden inflation was invented by losers who don't work or work for employers who justifiably hate their crappy employees' guts.


That line of thinking is one of the major reasons you got your ass handed to you in November and you still can't figure it out.



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

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 5:07 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:

That line of thinking is one of the major reasons you got your ass handed to you in November and you still can't figure it out.
Everything is going my way if you count increased wealth and an easier business environment with no fear the Federal government will enforce any rules on the natural gas industry. The angry poor white trash got their asses kicked in November and they are too dumb to know it since wealth and no rules on industry don't mean a thing to those with little wealth and no industry.

(I forgot to mention that exactly like Musk, I can fire anybody for no reason. If Musk can, so can I. There is no Union protecting employees from arbitrary and capricious terminations. But if the power to fire is overused, a manager can destroy a company and a President can kill a government department. Bye-bye FBI for investigating Trump's crimes.)

(The future looks great for those selling Natural Gas. Tough luck for Trumptards who buy gas. Why Natural Gas Prices Have Doubled Over the Last Year https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Why-Gas-Prices-Have-Doubled-Ov
er-the-Last-Year.html )

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 5:08 PM

SECOND

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


OMB director Russell Vought isn’t as flashy as Musk. But it’s his vision of destroying the federal government that’s being put into effect.

By Molly Olmstead | Feb 24, 2025 3:00 PM

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/elon-musk-donald-trump-fed
eral-workers-project-2025.html

The first signs of Donald Trump’s ambitions to dismantle the government actually emerged during the end of his first term, when the Office of Management and Budget tried to use—but ran out of time to implement—his “Schedule F” executive order to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of government workers.

That move, back in 2020, was partly the work of Russell Vought, who is once again leading the OMB. In the four years that Trump was out of power, Vought was busy establishing the framework for the current attacks on the federal agencies and laying out plans for more kinglike powers for the president.

We can credit Vought—an avowed Christian nationalist—for this moment just as much as Musk or the president.

As he explained in a 2024 speech reported on by ProPublica, Vought wanted the assault on civil servants to not just be dramatic but ruthless. “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected,” he said. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. … We want to put them in trauma.”

This is not mere bluster from a culture war crank. Vought is a major power player in the MAGA policy world: He wrote Project 2025’s playbook for the administration’s first 180 days, drafted executive orders for the president to sign, and served as the policy director of the Republican National Committee’s official platform committee for 2024.

Vought termed his philosophy, as he laid it out in a 2022 article, “radical constitutionalism.”

“The Right needs to throw off the precedents and legal paradigms that have wrongly developed over the last two hundred years and to study carefully the words of the Constitution and how the Founders would have responded in modern situations to the encroachments of other branches,” Vought wrote.

It’s also worth noting that Vought’s end goal isn’t just boosting Trump’s agenda: He specifically craves a Christian nationalist version of the United States.

He has said as much, in essays and in his work for the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which he advised and for which he authored a chapter on the executive office of the president.

In 2021, Vought wrote an article for Newsweek in which he proclaimed himself a “Christian nationalist,” vowed to preserve “our country’s Judeo-Christian heritage,” and argued that a “shared religious heritage” is essential to “being a nation.” America, he wrote, should be recognized as an explicitly Christian nation “where our rights and duties are understood to come from God” and where there is “an institutional separation between church and state, but not the separation of Christianity from its influence on government and society.”

Like Musk and Trump, Vought believes in breaking the system. Unlike them, he believes in doing so from an extremist religious position. It’s unclear whether his Christian nationalist worldview will take hold in the larger political machinations of the anti-bureaucracy movement. But regardless, it indicates that one of the architects of this moment feels not dispassionate pragmatism, but a kind of divine righteousness in inflicting a great “trauma” on our entire country.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 5:43 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

That line of thinking is one of the major reasons you got your ass handed to you in November and you still can't figure it out.
Everything is going my way if you count increased wealth and an easier business environment with no fear the Federal government will enforce any rules on the natural gas industry.


Awesome. Great to hear it.

You're just one of them "angry all the time at everyone and everything no matter how things are going" types then.

But we already know that, don't we?


Try some new material. The same rehashed opinions you shit out every day were outdated even in the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago that no longer exists.

It turns out that the more time passes the more right I've been about everything and the more wrong you've been about everything.

You lost. You are a loser. You will always be a loser. There is nothing that you can ever do to change the fact that you are a loser, because the core problem is simply an intrinsic part of who you are. It is the greatest part of your identity.

To ever truly remove the problem, the you that you think of as you would need to simply cease to exist.



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

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 6:21 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia


If only we could be as successful in reviving our economy!


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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Monday, February 24, 2025 7:25 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 SIGNYM:
Quote:
Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia


If only we could be as successful in reviving our economy!
The American economy is doing well with exceptions: the economic parts Trumptards control are as badly managed as their personal lives have been. See for example coal or egg production.

The Russians aren't doing well, either. The Russian economy is smaller than Italy's.
Country comparison Russia vs Italy
https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/russia/italy

There is another way to compare Russia:

Can We Please Stop Comparing Russia’s Economy to Italy’s?
By Carlos Roa | April 17, 2023
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/can-we-please-stop-comparing-russ
ias-economy-italys-206404

The suggested comparison is Germany vs Russia:

Yet error in this comparison lies in the reliance on measuring nominal GDP itself, as it fails to account for exchange rates and purchasing power parity (PPP), which accounts for the standard of living and productivity (and from there, per capita welfare and, importantly, resource use). Renowned French economist Jacques Sapir has pointed out the inadequacy of this metric, arguing that Russia’s GDP, when measured in PPP ($3.74 trillion in 2013, $4.81 trillion in 2021), is closer to Germany’s ($3.63 trillion in 2013, $4.85 trillion in 2021) than Italy’s ($2.19 trillion in 2013, $2.74 trillion in 2021). This is a crucial distinction, and it is both puzzling and troubling that so many continue to parrot the Russia-Italy comparison.

Whichever comparison is used, Germany or Italy, Russia has done a poor job with the vast natural resources it owns and its huge population of paupers/workers.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 7:33 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

That line of thinking is one of the major reasons you got your ass handed to you in November and you still can't figure it out.
Everything is going my way if you count increased wealth and an easier business environment with no fear the Federal government will enforce any rules on the natural gas industry.


Awesome. Great to hear it.

You're just one of them "angry all the time at everyone and everything no matter how things are going" types then.

But we already know that, don't we?


Try some new material. The same rehashed opinions you shit out every day were outdated even in the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago that no longer exists.

It turns out that the more time passes the more right I've been about everything and the more wrong you've been about everything.

You lost. You are a loser. You will always be a loser. There is nothing that you can ever do to change the fact that you are a loser, because the core problem is simply an intrinsic part of who you are. It is the greatest part of your identity.

To ever truly remove the problem, the you that you think of as you would need to simply cease to exist.



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

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 7:39 PM

SECOND

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


With hundreds of better choices, Trump instead settles on the guy who pledged, “I will kill for you, sir.”

Trump said that Caine wore a red MAGA hat during their meeting and that he told the president, “I will kill for you, sir.” That, plus Caine’s nickname, Razin (a play on “Raisin’ Cain”), led Trump to regard him as “a real general.” (One is reminded that Trump in his first term hired Jim Mattis as defense secretary because the general’s nickname was Mad Dog; however, Mattis was at least a retired four-star and a former combatant commander.)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/trump-military-firings-joi
nt-chiefs-chairman.html

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 9:34 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:

That line of thinking is one of the major reasons you got your ass handed to you in November and you still can't figure it out.
Everything is going my way if you count increased wealth and an easier business environment with no fear the Federal government will enforce any rules on the natural gas industry.


Awesome. Great to hear it.

You're just one of them "angry all the time at everyone and everything no matter how things are going" types then.

But we already know that, don't we?


Try some new material. The same rehashed opinions you shit out every day were outdated even in the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago that no longer exists.

It turns out that the more time passes the more right I've been about everything and the more wrong you've been about everything.

You lost. You are a loser. You will always be a loser. There is nothing that you can ever do to change the fact that you are a loser, because the core problem is simply an intrinsic part of who you are. It is the greatest part of your identity.

To ever truly remove the problem, the you that you think of as you would need to simply cease to exist.
6ix, you already told us about your fantasy of murdering your bipolar mother, as Arthur Fleck did to his mother in Joker (2019), your favorite movie.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=36&tid=63327&mid=10857
85#1085785

6ix, it's time for you to see Sigmund Freud about your feelings toward Loony-Mommy. Tell Freud about your alcoholism, your various addictions, your inability to work. But at least you aren't as screwed up as Trump, who has been in numerous Courtrooms for the last 40 years because of his demented behavior.

From a sister to advisers: The litany of people once close to Trump questioning his fitness for office
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/24/politics/trump-maryanne-conway-former-o
fficials/index.html

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 9:43 PM

SECOND

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


Thanks for the money, Trump!

Natural Gas Prices Surged 160% — And They’re Not Coming Down Soon

By Tsvetana Paraskova - Feb 24, 2025, 1:10 PM CST

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/Natural-Gas-Prices-Surged-160A
nd-Theyre-Not-Coming-Down-Soon.html

Those poor sucker Trumptards are making me rich this winter.

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

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Monday, February 24, 2025 10:37 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


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

That line of thinking is one of the major reasons you got your ass handed to you in November and you still can't figure it out.
Everything is going my way if you count increased wealth and an easier business environment with no fear the Federal government will enforce any rules on the natural gas industry.


Awesome. Great to hear it.

You're just one of them "angry all the time at everyone and everything no matter how things are going" types then.

But we already know that, don't we?


Try some new material. The same rehashed opinions you shit out every day were outdated even in the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago that no longer exists.

It turns out that the more time passes the more right I've been about everything and the more wrong you've been about everything.

You lost. You are a loser. You will always be a loser. There is nothing that you can ever do to change the fact that you are a loser, because the core problem is simply an intrinsic part of who you are. It is the greatest part of your identity.

To ever truly remove the problem, the you that you think of as you would need to simply cease to exist.
6ix, you already told us about your fantasy of murdering your bipolar mother, as Arthur Fleck did to his mother in Joker (2019), your favorite movie.


That's never happened.

There really is no bottom to the depths of just how pathetic you will behave, is there?

It's the one way that you've always managed to impress me over the years.

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

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 1:56 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Election winner likens the Trump administration to Putin’s Russia


If only we could be as successful in reviving our economy!
The American economy is doing well with exceptions: the economic parts Trumptards control


And those exceptions are ... ? NYC, Chicago, San Fran, LA, Seattle, Baltimore, DC, Detroit? Last I heard, these hotbeds of libtardism are fucked up, thanks to libtard policies.

Quote:
Crime-Battered NYC McDonald's Starts Carding People At The Door

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/crime-battered-nyc-mcdonalds-start
s-carding-people-door




Quote:
The Russians aren't doing well, either. The Russian economy is smaller than Italy's.
...

Then you immediately contradict yourself...


Quote:
Russia’s GDP, when measured in PPP ($3.74 trillion in 2013, $4.81 trillion in 2021), is closer to Germany’s


But they're both wrong. According to the IMF, Russia is fourth in terms of PPP, after China, USA, and India, ahead of Japan, Germany, Indonesia and Brazil.

Quote:
Whichever comparison is used, Germany or Italy,
...its wrong. Russia is not a nation of paupers, any more than Japan or Germany are nations of paupers.

The USA has a wealth inequality similar to Haiti, Djibouti, Papua New Guinea, and Bolivia. YAY US!

Russia is better, China is better. Even India is better for chrissake!

Try to keep up.



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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 7:41 AM

SECOND

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


Trump Executive Order Shifts the Financial Burden of Climate Change Onto Individuals

by Abrahm Lustgarten | Feb. 21, 2025

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-climate-change-social-cost-of
-carbon-executive-order

The change would effectively transfer financial responsibility from oil drillers, auto manufacturers and others and leave Americans to face greater direct costs as warming continues.

One of President Donald Trump’s most damaging strikes at the foundation of U.S. climate policy is buried deep in a sweeping Inauguration Day executive order focused on “Unleashing American Energy.” Half way through the lengthy document is a directive that would obliterate an obscure but critically important calculation the government uses to gauge the real-world costs that climate change is imposing on the U.S. economy.

Getting rid of the measure, called the “social cost of carbon,” would upend energy and environmental regulations meant to address climate change and could have the long-term effect of shifting costs from polluting industries directly onto Americans as the expenses of climate change rise.

The measure essentially establishes a price for each ton of carbon emitted, based on the long-term damages it is expected to cause in the future. It has become the government’s primary tool to weigh the economic costs of climate change — such as disaster cleanup or health impacts from warming — against the burden of regulations.

The executive order disbanded the working group, which included the treasury secretary, energy secretary and director of national economic policy, that set the social cost of carbon and advised how it should be implemented. It revoked that group’s previous decisions. And it directed the Environmental Protection Agency, which calculates the figure and bases regulatory proposals on it, to reconsider using the social cost of carbon altogether with the goal of eradicating “abuse” that stands in the way of affordable energy production.

The order stems directly from language in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy playbook and is based on work by the conservative think tank, which has consistently opposed climate policy and worked to defend the businesses of fossil fuel industries.

As climate change takes hold — the earth has already warmed more than half the total amount scientists project will cause catastrophic destabilization — the size and frequency of billion-dollar disasters has exploded, and the bills for climate damages have begun to affect people’s lives. Economists warn that it could be the steep financial price of adapting to this rapid shift, as much as environmental change itself, that will prove the most challenging and destabilizing.

If carried out, the shift away from using the social cost of carbon measure would not only make it exceedingly difficult to enact new rules slowing climate change and its growing costs in the future, but it would send the signal that the Trump administration doesn’t believe that climate change carries economic consequences.

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 8:43 AM

SECOND

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


5 signs that a U.S.-Europe split is widening (and Trump is cuddling/snuggling with Russia)

By Scott Neuman | February 25, 2025 5:00 AM ET

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/25/nx-s1-5307012/europe-nato-us-ukraine-ru
ssia-eu

1. Vice President Vance scolds EU leaders - German Defense Minister responds: "This democracy was called into question by the U.S. vice president earlier, not just in Germany but in Europe as a whole. If I understood him correctly, he compares conditions in parts of Europe to those under authoritarian regimes. That is not acceptable."

2. Zelenskyy calls for "an armed forces of Europe" - In response to Vance's speech, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the creation of an "armed forces of Europe," saying that without Ukraine's army, European forces alone would not be sufficient to counter Russian aggression.

3. U.S. holds separate talks with Russia over Ukraine - Following a European Union meeting of foreign ministers in Paris earlier this month, seven European countries said in a statement that "Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations."

4. German leader questions U.S. commitment to Europe's defense - "We must prepare for the possibility that Donald Trump will no longer uphold NATO's mutual defense commitment unconditionally," Merz told a German broadcaster on Friday. "That is why, in my view, it is crucial that Europeans make the greatest possible efforts to ensure that we are at least capable of defending the European continent on our own."

5. At the U.N., the U.S. refuses to condemn Russia for Ukraine invasion - At the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, the U.S. voted against condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 9:24 AM

SECOND

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


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

That line of thinking is one of the major reasons you got your ass handed to you in November and you still can't figure it out.
Everything is going my way if you count increased wealth and an easier business environment with no fear the Federal government will enforce any rules on the natural gas industry.


Awesome. Great to hear it.

You're just one of them "angry all the time at everyone and everything no matter how things are going" types then.

But we already know that, don't we?


Try some new material. The same rehashed opinions you shit out every day were outdated even in the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago that no longer exists.

It turns out that the more time passes the more right I've been about everything and the more wrong you've been about everything.

You lost. You are a loser. You will always be a loser. There is nothing that you can ever do to change the fact that you are a loser, because the core problem is simply an intrinsic part of who you are. It is the greatest part of your identity.

To ever truly remove the problem, the you that you think of as you would need to simply cease to exist.
6ix, you already told us about your fantasy of murdering your bipolar mother, as Arthur Fleck did to his mother in Joker (2019), your favorite movie.


That's never happened.

There really is no bottom to the depths of just how pathetic you will behave, is there?

It's the one way that you've always managed to impress me over the years.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
All the Trumptards I interact with are impressive, too, by which I mean they are completely crazy. For examples from the Trumptards next door:

1. Levi was jailed for a year in Galveston for attempted car theft. (He couldn't even succeed at that despite, according to his father Larry, being a 40 y.o. genius with computers.)

2. Son Lance was jailed for 10 years on negligent vehicular homicide charge.

3. Mother Linda was murdered by drinking ethylene glycol. Probably Levi was trying to receive an early inheritance. Father Larry did not die.

4. Larry died of stroke, a delayed result of a one-car crash.

I have many more one and two line horror stories about Trumptards. Funny thing is that the Trumptards don't see their suffering as being directly caused by their actions and beliefs. Instead, the Trumptards say it is Democrats causing their hardships, disappointments and shortened lifespans. Trumptards are deluded about themselves, Trump and Democrats.

The more details I learn about how particular Trumptards conduct their lives the more I learn about illness and insanity. I can see why Trump is appealing to Trumptards. By comparison, Trump is highly functional despite being completely crazy.

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 9:44 AM

SECOND

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


Matthew Yglesias | Feb 25, 2025

https://www.slowboring.com/p/how-were-thinking-about-covering

There’s been intense attention to the vibe shift associated with Trump, most of which ignores the fact that the central planks of the shift — the collapsing self-confidence of the left, the rightward trajectory of young men, the disalignment of Silicon Valley CEOs and venture capitalists from their former affiliation with progressive politics — would all be true and significant even if Kamala Harris had won narrowly rather than lost narrowly.

Elections are weird tipping point phenomena. All the broad trends in American culture and society would be exactly the same if Harris had gotten 49.7% of the vote and Trump 48.2% rather than the other way around. But the fate of capital regulation for large banks at the Federal Reserve would be completely different. Right now, there is a high chance that we’ll see significant cuts to Medicaid and an even higher chance that we’ll see significant cuts to SNAP. I’ve seen remarkably little coverage of the fact that the odds are overwhelmingly high that the ACA enhanced premium subsidies will be allowed to expire, which almost certainly would not have happened if Harris had won.

Most strikingly, the basic foundations of American democracy are now swaying in the wind.

Washington, DC, where I live, is not a state and doesn’t have normal state criminal courts. We have a local court system and local criminal laws, but constitutionally speaking, these are federal courts. As a result, local felonies are prosecuted by a United States Attorney. I had kind of hoped that Trump would give us a tough-on- crime prosecutor who would help keep illegally carried handguns off the street. Instead, we have Ed Martin, a lifelong conservative activist with no prosecutorial experience, who participated in Stop The Steal rallies and raised funds for the 1/6 rioters and is now abusing his power by threatening to prosecute opposition party members of Congress. This has attracted less attention than the more spectacular abuses of power in the Eric Adams case, but it’s bad. The “vibes” are in favor of free speech, but the actual practice is in the opposite direction.

Be the change

I’ve seen lots of people get pulled into debates about whether Trump is an actual fascist and whether Elon Musk is an actual Nazi, and one question I always have is what difference does it make to your conduct?

If, to you, Trump being a “real” fascist means you’re determined to support a big tent movement that maximizes our odds of defeating him, then I am on your side. If it means you think we should stage anti-Trump riots, then I don’t think we’re on the same page. But if it means you think we should encourage people to organize disciplined acts of non-violent, non-destructive civil disobedience, I might agree with you again. Not because ordinary electoral politics and non-violent civil disobedience are the only ways to fight fascism — my grandfather fought fascism by flying ship-based bomber missions in the Mediterranean. It’s just that right now, there are anti-Trump things we can do that will be constructive, and there are anti-Trump things that are likely to backfire and cause harm, and I think discussions about which actions fall into which category are important and worth engaging in.

Worrying about exactly how bad Trump is doesn’t really accomplish anything, while worrying about what kinds of opposition activity are likely to be useful is important.

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 10:07 AM

SECOND

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


“Elon Musk is asking us to trust him to wield enormous power on our behalf. He is undoubtedly brilliant and accomplished, but every day he fails to display the normal human virtues — honesty, loyalty, humility, concern for the welfare of others — that would earn that trust.”

https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1892705898994208773

The tweet included screenshots of Musk getting fact-checked for some false claims about the International Space Station and of Grimes pleading with him to get in touch with her about a medical crisis impacting one of their kids. Various left-wing people challenged the claim that Musk is brilliant and accomplished. I really do think the evidence suggests that Musk is quite brilliant — and also dishonest and evil.

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 11:03 AM

SECOND

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


The devastating consequences of Trump's Postal Service privatization plan

There’s many reasons USPS must remain independent from politics, just ask the Constitution.

Feb. 25, 2025, 5:00 AM CST
By Ray Brescia, professor of law, Albany Law School

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-post-office-postal-s
ervice-usps-rcna193554

In one of many sweeping changes to the functioning of the federal government, reports suggest that President Trump plans to take control over yet another independent agency, the U.S. Postal Service. Not content to have his handpicked postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a holdover from the first Trump presidency, in place, Trump has signaled a desire to fundamentally alter the agency by bringing the service under direct executive branch control within the Commerce Department.

The purported goal of such a takeover is to make it operate with greater efficiency. But any Trump-controlled version will just bring us closer toward post office privatization, or serve as a means by which the administration could control a critical channel of communication among Americans that has largely protected our privacy for centuries.

The postal system has been a political flashpoint at different moments in our nation’s history. Andrew Jackson threatened to censor abolitionist tracts sent over the mails into slave states, claiming such information would result in a slave revolt.

Bringing the Post Office under direct control of the executive branch would make crippling it even easier, lead to the destruction of the civil service and union protections of its hundreds of thousands of workers, and open the door for companies, like Amazon — that both deals in e-commerce for itself and other e-commerce companies, and whose CEO has been cozying up to and palling around with the president of late — to have a field day. They could raise rates and fill in the void created by a severely weakened postal system.

Such a system would also serve, like the colonial postal system, as a source of surveillance and monitoring of the president’s critics.

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

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 11:27 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
SIX: You lost. You are a loser. You will always be a loser. There is nothing that you can ever do to change the fact that you are a loser, because the core problem is simply an intrinsic part of who you are. It is the greatest part of your identity.

To ever truly remove the problem, the you that you think of as you would need to simply cease to exist.

SECOND: 6ix, you already told us about your fantasy of murdering your bipolar mother, as Arthur Fleck did to his mother in Joker (2019), your favorite movie.

SIX: That's never happened.
But the fact that SECOND would post so tells us something about his mental state.

Quote:
SIX: There really is no bottom to the depths of just how pathetic you will behave, is there?
Nope! There isn't!

Quote:
SIX: It's the one way that you've always managed to impress me over the years.


SECOND: All the Trumptards I interact with are impressive, too...

Levi .... Lance ... Linda .... Larry ...

And now we got to read more made-up shit from SECOND'S roster of delusions.

SECOND, you should live in LA and meet some of the Dem voters I've known. Drug addicted, dysfunctional, crazy. They'll beat your fantasy neighbors any day.


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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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Tuesday, February 25, 2025 12:51 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Elon Musk is a genius and he's the richest man in the world, but he's also a disrupter. He was SO disruptive to PayPal (which he co-founded), the other officers bought him out. So he took his $$$ and made a ton more. He's manic, and his ideas are usually brilliant but... sometimes ... crazy. Let's hope he's taking his meds.


Trump is also a disrupter, but of a different kind. He's a political disrupter, from outside the established web of mutual backscratching and cozy deal-making. Willing to upset the apple cart.

As I posted before, I believe this is a time of destruction. The "blob" has gotten so big, so self serving, so corrupt, it's metastasized throughout DC, the media, the world, and needs to be rooted out. Not a believer in things like "The Fourth Turning" but what is happening is the result of the "blob" having censored, screwed, grifted, and gaslit us Americans for so long that most of us finally woke up.

This is destruction with a bulldozer, not a scalpel. Mistakes will be made. The end result might not even benefit us. We may wind up simply exchanging globalist oligarchs for American ones.

But this is what you wrought, SECOND. By plastering yourself slavishly to a rotten corpse, and failing to provide a reasonable alternative.

Burn, baby, burn.

Burn it down to the Constitution.

Remove that rotten stuff that's been built up over time: the spook state snooping on us everywhere, the grift, the malicious prosecution, the government-tech-media censorship-propaganda complex, the imperialism and hubris and plain stupidity, the MICC, the globalist agenda ....

Then we can rebuild.



And, finally: WHAT ARE AMERICANS' INTERESTS? WHAT IS THE PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE?

THAT, you never have an answer for. THAT is what betrays you.


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


AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA


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