Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Thursday, September 10, 2026 23:15
VIEWED: 186805
PAGE 4 of 48
SECOND is reduced to insulting people he's never met?
I guess that's what happens when his marching orders don't come thru.
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"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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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND is reduced to insulting people he's never met?
You must be new here. Welcome to Firefly Fans dot net. Hopefully our boy JSF comes around later tonight because he's a lot better at the introductions than I am.
Pleased to meet you. We have virtual milk and cookies, so please help yourself. Freshly baked!
Quote:
I guess that's what happens when his marching orders don't come thru.
My problem now is that it comes to a point where I start feeling bad for people and I'm not enjoying any of this half as much as I thought I would.
They fucked up a whole lot of people, our government and the Media.
We've watched it play out every day in here for years now. I've watched it going on for 8 years of sobriety now. I was never joking when I talked about the perpetual state of cognative dissonance that they've got to be walking around with to justify so many contradictory beliefs. That has to be exhausting to keep up 24/7/365, even if it is being done involuntarily now by the subconscious. How could you really do it on that level unless you've been able to compartmentalize aspects of your personality and hide them from each other? Maybe even kill parts of them off over time... the parts that are the most problematic when putting any real thought into what you believe.
Second is mentally ill. We know this.
And that media keeps mindfucking them every single day and making it worse.
This used to be fun when I felt like the weight of the world and all the money and corporations were behind the walls of sanity collapsing on us all, but none of that exists right now. There's nothing but a vacuum where it all used to be, and maybe a few feint voices of 6 months ago desperatly trying to scream loud enough that anyone will hear them... but starting to realize that it's too late and nobody is even listening anymore.
This just really isn't fun anymore.
Genuinely, the only thing that Second has left is personal insults now.
He was never shy about constantly doling them out everyday when things were different, sure, but that was part of what made all of this fun, and why I really thought I would enjoy it so much more when the insanity started to finally start ebbing...
But they left people like Ted and Second out in the cold.
The few voices who are still making noise just look like lunatics, and their DNC has now been 100% coopted by the furthest Left fringes of the party.
I know the dipshit is going to come right back in here and say something that makes me have fun destroying him again in the moment, but at some point you just start feeling like you're kicking a cripple who's wheelchair just turned over.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:I'm new here *laugh nervously* Thanks for the cookies!
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND is reduced to insulting people he's never met?
SIX: You must be new here. Welcome to Firefly Fans dot net. Hopefully our boy JSF comes around later tonight because he's a lot better at the introductions than I am.
Pleased to meet you. We have virtual milk and cookies, so please help yourself. Freshly baked!
Quote:Yes, he is. I'm sure that part of him wants to feel good about himself. That's why he has to keep virtue signalling 24/7/365. I think we're beginning to see the real SECOND come out. So much anger....
SIGNY: I guess that's what happens when his marching orders don't come thru.
SIX: My problem now is that it comes to a point where I start feeling bad for people and I'm not enjoying any of this half as much as I thought I would.
They fucked up a whole lot of people, our government and the Media.
We've watched it play out every day in here for years now. I've watched it going on for 8 years of sobriety now. I was never joking when I talked about the perpetual state of cognative dissonance that they've got to be walking around with to justify so many contradictory beliefs. That has to be exhausting to keep up 24/7/365, even if it is being done involuntarily now by the subconscious. How could you really do it on that level unless you've been able to compartmentalize aspects of your personality and hide them from each other? Maybe even kill parts of them off over time... the parts that are the most problematic when putting any real thought into what you believe.
Second is mentally ill. We know this.
Quote:Not following you...
SIX: And that media keeps mindfucking them every single day and making it worse.
This used to be fun when I felt like the weight of the world and all the money and corporations were behind the walls of sanity [INSANITY?] collapsing on us all, but none of that exists right now. There's nothing but a vacuum where it all used to be, and maybe a few feint voices of 6 months ago desperatly trying to scream loud enough that anyone will hear them... but starting to realize that it's too late and nobody is even listening anymore.
Quote:
SIX: This just really isn't fun anymore.
Genuinely, the only thing that Second has left is personal insults now.
He was never shy about constantly doling them out everyday when things were different, sure, but that was part of what made all of this fun, and why I really thought I would enjoy it so much more when the insanity started to finally start ebbing...
But they left people like Ted and Second out in the cold.
The few voices who are still making noise just look like lunatics, and their DNC has now been 100% coopted by the furthest Left fringes of the party.
I know the dipshit is going to come right back in here and say something that makes me have fun destroying him again in the moment, but at some point you just start feeling like you're kicking a cripple who's wheelchair just turned over.
Well, TBH I think you have a defiant, oppositional streak in you. Now that there's no Goliath to slay, what's gonna get your motor revving?
Yeah, I can see how it used to be fun.
Quote:
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
I guess I never really did.
But I gotta say ... so many of your replies were so pointed and funny I had to read them to hubby.
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"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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Quote:Even Andrew Tobias, meekest nicest fellow in America, is insinuating that this ends with Trump and Co-President Musk as bloody corpses full of bullet holes. That's the Spirit, Andrew!
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody cares. Go tell your mom.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
How Three Geniuses See The Current Situation
February 7, 2025
Garry Kasparov’s Take
This will be dismissed as “hysteria” like many of my warnings about Trump and Musk that are coming true. But this doesn’t end with fights over top-secret documents, budget cuts, and unaccountable agents taking over. It ends with who has the guns when they won’t listen to the judges.
There are many steps between here and there, of course. But eventually they remove enough judges, refuse any access or challenges, and simply ignore the law and court orders the way they’re ignoring Congress now. What then?
More about Musk's Nazi past at https://andrewtobias.com/how-three-geniuses-see-the-current-situation/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Musk’s Treasury incursion puts the entire financial system at risk, former officials warn
February 6, 2025
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/tax-insights-and-commentary/musks-treasu
ry-incursion-puts-entire-financial-system-at-risk
Graham Steele and Emily DiVito write:
Elon Musk’s unprecedented access to the US Treasury’s payment system deserves the public outcry that it has received. As former Treasury officials, we fear the situation is even more dire than it might appear.
Musk’s recent actions, days after the Office of Management and Budget’s government funding pause that a federal judge quickly blocked, suggest a big and broad vision for a dramatically consolidated and politicized Treasury. This could have widespread effects on our nation’s financial stability, jeopardize the livelihoods of millions of Americans, and undermine the public’s confidence in our entire financial system.
Our financial system operates on a foundation of trust. Over the past century and a half, rules and protections have been in place to ensure people can trust that their money will be there when they need it. Few people appreciate, or are even aware of, that the Treasury payment system—and the Bureau of Fiscal Service that oversees it—send billions of payments totaling nearly $6 trillion each year.
And that’s not a bad thing. That most people don’t have to spend time worrying if their money is safe is a testament to how well this system has served us and how often things run according to plan. When people lose that sense of trust, panic, bank runs, and financial crises can happen. That trust has been undermined in recent days with the news that Elon Musk and his allies have accessed the Treasury’s payment system.
It’s important to understand that the US Treasury stands behind our entire banking and financial system. It manages and provides financing for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s program that backstops most customers’ deposits and intervenes in times of crisis to stabilize the banking system. The deposit insurance program stepped up in 2023 when Silicon Valley Bank and others precipitously collapsed.
This administration reportedly is considering eliminating the FDIC, a New Deal-era agency, and consolidating it within Treasury. Like many other financial system tools, the FDIC is most effective when the public trusts that it can and will keep the financial system stable and quickly handle crises should they occur.
If we had another Silicon Valley Bank-style collapse today, there would be deep uncertainty about the Treasury’s role in that process and if people would have access to their money.
The Treasury doesn’t just backstop the banking system. It also provides a foundation for financial markets by issuing US Treasuries. As the world’s safest and most liquid financial asset, Treasuries serve as collateral for financial transactions and a source of stable investment for people and financial institutions alike.
Musk has suggested that he has control over the payments system to deny payments in an attempt to cut what he deems to be wasteful spending. Let’s be clear: The Silicon Valley ethos of “move fast and break things” is a reckless and dangerous approach to the world’s safest financial asset.
The government’s failing to make payments doesn’t amount to cutting spending; it’s a default on our obligations. It would have ripple effects for our nation’s credit rating, borrowing costs, and the Treasury markets. Ultimately, it would destabilize the global financial system.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Law Professor Flags Trump 'Doomsday Scenario' That'll Cause 'Real Constitutional Crisis'
"A lot of lawyers are worried about" it, warned New York University's Ryan Goodman.
By Lee Moran | Feb 7, 2025, 03:49 AM EST
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/law-professor-donald-trump-doomsday-sce
nario_n_67a5bc05e4b011cd6d36e8eb
What happens if Donald Trump decides he will not abide by a court ruling?
Simmons suggested “we’re in a real jam” if Trump simply tells the Justice Department to ignore any court orders that prohibit him from carrying out his agenda.
Goodman agreed.
“That’s right. I think that is the doomsday scenario,” he reiterated.
Goodman pointed out that it “hasn’t happened yet” that the Trump administration has refused to abide by a court order, despite it possibly appearing to some people that they are.
“But what happens come the day that they do lose at the Supreme Court?” he asked. “Because I think some of these cases are just losers. And if they really want to push it, we’re in a real constitutional crisis.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Bad News About Some of Those DOGE Staffers
A Researcher Found More Links Between DOGE Staffers and Far-Right Content
By Ben Mathis-Lilley | Feb 07, 2025 1:56 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/elon-musk-doge-social-medi
a-donald-trump.html
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is running rampant through Washington at the moment. The group, created by executive order, has been trying to close down the U.S. Agency for International Development, a humanitarian agency, and has reportedly gained direct access to the Treasury Department system that distributes federal payments. (Whether either of these acts—or numerous others it’s taken—are legal is very much TBD.)
For all the headlines it’s generated, though, little is known about how many people are working for DOGE, or where they were drawn from. But reporting by Wired and others has identified six staffers, all evidently in their late teens or early 20s, who have backgrounds in computer science and ties to Musk’s private companies.
Using this information, extremism researcher Travis Brown has found a number of apparent connections between three DOGE staffers and the online far-right community that Musk has allowed to run amok on the social media service X, formerly known as Twitter. (Brown has been in the news previously for suing Musk in 2023 after his X account was suspended, but told me that the suit has been dropped. Neither the White House press office nor a spokesperson for DOGE responded to requests for comment on this article.)
An email ordering USAID employees to stay home, for instance, was written by an individual named Gavin Kliger. Per Wired, Kliger works in artificial intelligence and was a college student at the University of California, Berkeley, as recently as 2020. Brown used the Wayback Machine archive to retrieve the activity of a now-private X account which identified itself as belonging to a Gavin Kliger and listed its location as Berkeley. (Note: Some of the archived pages are saved only in the form of XML code.)
The Kliger account, Brown found, recently retweeted a Twitter/X post by Nick Fuentes, a far-right streamer who has said that he pursues the cause of “Aryan victory” and that Jews, who have “bastardized” the United States, do not belong in “Western civilization.” Here’s the Fuentes tweet, and what it was responding to:
Much more about the Nazis working for Co-President Musk at https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/elon-musk-doge-social-medi
a-donald-trump.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Signym, I am sure that you and 6ix have wasted your lives. But you try and try to convince yourselves you haven't by supporting Russia. Or by following Trump.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:Yes, he is. I'm sure that part of him wants to feel good about himself. That's why he has to keep virtue signalling 24/7/365. I think we're beginning to see the real SECOND come out. So much anger....
SIX: Second is mentally ill. We know this.
What should we do with these lives that we have? These existences? Borne out of nothingness, hurtling towards annihilation…. How can we make sense of these fragile, fleeting moments of existence that we have been given? More precisely, how can we do justice to the being that has been bestowed upon us? This incomprehensible, awesome gift that is so easy to lose sight of: buried beneath the detritus of everyday mundanity.
The Human Condition: Struggles of Cosmic Insignificance
https://www.utne.com/mind-and-body/human-condition-ze0z1310zjhar/
Throughout human history, people have repeatedly swung between extremes. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. (1986) noted these swings in his classic book The Cycles of American History. In this book, Schlesinger articulated the continuous political swings in U.S. history, particularly those between conservatism and liberalism, rigidity and permissiveness. However, there are many other forms of such swings in many other times and places.
The usual explanations for the swings of history, as well as individuals, are cultural, political, and biological. The founders of the United States swung away from the British motherland because of political and religious oppression. Certain nineteenth century abolitionists resorted to armed struggle because of unrelenting federal support of slavery. Post World War I Germany amassed a titanic arsenal, in part to avenge the humiliation it perceived at the Treaty of Versailles. McCarthyite anti-communists swelled in number following the advent of Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe. And so on. Schlesinger provides a cogent summation of these various dynamics:
“The roots of…cyclical self-sufficiency doubtless lie deep in the natural life of humanity. There is a cyclical pattern in organic nature — in the tides, in the seasons, in the night and day, in the systole and diastole of the human heart….People can never be fulfilled for long either in the public or in the private sector. We try one, then the other, and frustration compels a change in course. Moreover, however effective a particular course may be in meeting one set of troubles, it generally falters and fails when new troubles arise.”
From The Polarized Mind: Why It’s Killing Us and What We Can Do About It by Kirk J. Schneider, PhD and published by University Professor’s Press, 2013.
Download The Cycles of American History from https://libgen.is//search.php?req=The+Cycles+of+American+History
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump appoints Attorney General Pam Bondi to head a task force to “eradicate anti-Christian bias”:
“The mission of this task force will be to immediately halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government, including at the DOJ, which was absolutely terrible, the IRS, the FBI ... and other agencies. In addition, the task force will work to fully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and Earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide. You never had that before, but this is a very powerful document I’m signing.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/06/trump-task-for
ce-christian-religious/78286967007/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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What the Edwardians Could Teach Trump About Trade
Canada yesterday, Japan today: Another bogus trade complaint from Trump
By Paul Krugman | Feb 08, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/what-the-edwardians-could-teach-tru
mp
Trump’s latest trade spat: Telling Prime Minister Shigeru Ishida that Japan must eliminate its trade surplus with the United States.
I guess the campaign to alienate all of our allies continues. Beyond that, however, I think we can do a useful compare-and-contrast between Trump’s new complaint about Japan and his complaints about Canada, which brought us to the brink of a destructive trade war four days ago.
As a number of people finally caught on, Trump’s complaint that Canada’s trade surplus with the United States was somehow evidence that Canada was exploiting us fell apart as soon as you realized that this surplus was entirely explained by exports of oil from the Athabasca tar sands to the Midwest — a benefit to America, not a cost.
The story of Japan’s surplus is different. But like Canada, Japan is entirely innocent of wrongdoing.
Unlike Canada, Japan has been running significant surpluses on its current account — a broad definition of the trade balance that includes services and investment income:
Source: International Monetary Fund
But that’s OK, because Japan is exactly the kind of country that should be running current account surpluses.
Remember the basic accounting identity:
Current account + Net inflows of capital = 0
A nation that has net outflows of capital — that invests some of its savings abroad — must, as a matter of sheer arithmetic, be running a surplus on current account.
So when should a nation be investing a lot abroad? Well, we want and expect capital to flow from places where it earns a low return to places where it earns a higher return. The classic example is Britain in the decades before World War I. Britain was a mature, already industrialized economy that had already accumulated a lot of capital. It made sense for some of that capital to flow abroad to places that needed it.
To a large extent this involved sending capital to places where Europeans were moving in: Canada, Australia, Argentina, southern Brazil and, yes, the United States. The economic logic was clear: These places needed capital for their economic expansion, especially but not only to build railroads.
And so Britain ran very large current account surpluses for decades before World War I:
Source: Bank of England
How does modern Japan fit into this paradigm? Like late Victorian/Edwardian Britain, it’s a mature economy with limited opportunities for domestic investment, above all because of demography: Low fertility and limited immigration have meant a startling decline in Japan’s working age (15-64) population:
Source: OECD
So as I said, Japan is exactly the kind of country that should be running current account surpluses. Claiming that it is doing something wrong, or that America is somehow a victim here, is malicious nonsense.
And pointing this out will, of course, have no impact at all on Trump’s thinking.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Mentally ill.
Sad. :(
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Im sure this is a santized version of govt spending, but I never knew it ecusted.
https://www.usaspending.gov/
The great thing about DOGE, tho, is instead of tackling corruption item-by-item, they went to the source and turned off the tap.
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"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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Biden as brain-dead meatpuppet was apparently the logical extension of how the Presidency has been working since at least "the decider" GWB, with various department heads acting on their own agendas.
No more.
Quote:
These “expert” managers from Bush through Biden were proper figureheads of an unconstitutional counter-state comprising some 78 government agencies and 35,000 lawyers who seek to govern the full span of human existence through rules and regulations. And although the governance-by-committee approach presented it as a more “inclusive” and ethical form of leadership, the truth was that, in practice, administrative managerialism pushed the powers of the American people first to the margin of politics, then out of government completely.
Trump repudiates that paradigm.
There will be no administrative committee that jointly deliberates a course of action and then finds a “compromise” that always amounts to a half-measure with little buy-in. Trump knows exactly what he wants to do and to whom he is obligated. For ten years, Trump has put forward his beliefs and accepted the public’s judgment again and again, modifying some positions but holding firm on most. His election marks the end of an era that put the group over the individual, administration over execution.
Trump’s second term will be fundamentally different from his first. Through the appointments of Hegseth, Patel, Gabbard, and others, Trump is establishing a system of communication that will facilitate his command of the executive branch and the country. By replacing resistors with transistors – highly capable communicators of his energy, ideas, goals, and politics – Trump will project his vision and his achievements to the world. It’s what the American people voted for on November 5.
https://realclearwire.com/articles/2025/02/07/trump_alone_can_fix_it_1
52321.html
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"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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Quote:Indeed, Trump's Tax Plan shows his mental illness:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Mentally ill.
Sad. :(
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Trump Tax Priorities Reduce revenue by $5.0 trillion to $11.2 trillion
Trump Boosts debt to between 132 and 149 percent of GDP by 2035 compared to 100 percent today
Feb 6, 2025
https://www.crfb.org/blogs/trump-tax-priorities-total-5-11-trillion
Fiscal Impact of Trump’s Reported Tax Priorities (2026-2035)
Policy Low Est. High Est.
Extend the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act $3.9 trillion $4.8 trillion
Provide SALT Relief $200 billion $1.2 trillion
Cut Taxes on Tips $100 billion $550 billion
Cut Taxes on Overtime Pay $250 billion $3.0 trillion
Cut Taxes on Social Security $550 billion $1.5 trillion
Cut Taxes for Domestic Production $100 billion $200 billion
| Total $5.0 trillion $11.2 trillion |
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:“If you’re not a woke communist, you have nothing to fear”
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
The great thing about DOGE, tho, is instead of tackling corruption item-by-item, they went to the source and turned off the tap.
By Scott Aaronson | February 8th, 2025
Last week, after I blogged about the freeze in all American federal science funding (which has since been lifted by a judge’s order), a Trump-supporting commenter named Kyle had this to say:
Quote:Read that one more time: “If you aren’t woke or a communist, you have nothing to fear.”
No, these funding cuts are not permanent. He is only cutting funds until his staff can identify which money is going to the communists and the wokes. If you aren’t a woke or a communist, you have nothing to fear.
Can you predict what happened barely a week later? Science magazine now reports that the Trump/Musk/DOGE administration is planning to cut the National Science Foundation’s annual budget from $9 billion to only $3 billion and to shift the little NSF funding that remains from universities to private companies.
More at https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8638
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Why Trump’s Data Purge is a Digital Book Burning
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Trump repudiates that paradigm.
Erasing wokeness, one dataset and line of code at a time.
Using Github, you can watch as government websites are brought into compliance with Donald Trump’s executive orders. Out goes the word “equity;” in comes “fair.” And health and science data, once publicly available, disappears.
More at https://slate.com/podcasts/what-next-tbd/2025/02/donald-trump-is-chang
ing-america-down-to-the-code
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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What Happened the Last Time a President Purged the Bureaucracy
The impact can linger not just for years but decades.
By Clay Risen | 02/06/2025 05:00 AM EST
Clay Risen is the author of RED SCARE: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America, out from Scribner on March 18, 2025
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/06/government-workers-p
urge-1950s-communism-00202336
On Jan. 22, 1953, his first day as secretary of state, John Foster Dulles addressed a group of diplomats at his department’s still-new headquarters in Washington’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood. For years, the State Department had come under fire from Republicans and conservative activists as a haven for Communist spies and sympathizers — and not without reason, since one of its rising stars, Alger Hiss, had been convicted of perjury in January 1950 for lying about giving secret government documents to a Soviet spy.
The failure to find more Hisses, and the fact that Hiss’ actions had taken place over a decade in the past, did nothing to appease men like Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who shot to national prominence just weeks after Hiss’ conviction with his claim to have a list of hundreds of spies within the State Department. By the time Dulles arrived that morning, public faith in the department, and morale within it, had cratered.
With his opening speech to his new employees, Dulles made clear that while he was their boss, he was not on their side. “Dulles’s words were as cold and raw as the weather” that day, wrote the diplomat Charles Bohlen. Dulles announced that starting that day, he expected not just loyalty but “positive loyalty” from his charges, making clear that he would fire anyone whose commitment to anti-communism was less than zealous. “It was a declaration by the Secretary of State that the department was indeed suspect,” Bohlen wrote. “The remark disgusted some Foreign Service officers, infuriated others, and displeased even those who were looking forward to the new administration.”
So began what — until now — was the largest purge of “disloyal” government workers in U.S. history.
Similar scenes soon played out across the federal government under the new administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the first Republican elected president in two decades. Though the State Department was ground zero for the anti-communist purges, FBI agents scoured the files of thousands of employees across the federal government. In April 1953, Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10450, which opened an energetic campaign to investigate thousands of potential security threats throughout the government.
“We like to think we are plugging the entries but opening the exits,” said White House press secretary James Hagerty.
Over the next four months, 1,456 federal employees were fired, despite the fact that no one was ever found to be involved in espionage. Many were removed simply for being gay, which the order had explicitly defined as a security risk. Air Force Lt. Milo Radulovich was forced to resign his commission simply because his sister was a suspected communist. Others, like cartographer Abraham Chasanow, were pushed out on the basis on flimsy rumors of suspicious political beliefs.
The widespread political purges of the early 1950s echo clearly today. Seventy years ago, the reasonable pretext of hunting Soviet agents opened the way to a yearslong, paranoid campaign, motivated by outlandish conspiracy theories, that destroyed countless careers but did nothing to improve America’s security.
Today, a stated desire to check the excesses of diversity, equity and inclusion programs has already been used to justify whirlwind firings and closures of entire federal offices. So it may be wise to consider the consequences of that previous era of purges, part of what came to be known as the “Red Scare.”
At a time of intense geopolitical competition, the United States kneecapped itself, removing thousands of valuable employees and forcing those who remained into unhappy conformity. It is hard not to see the same mistake being
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a Turkic conservative islamic natuional newspaper accuses
when it hits the fan which side will they be on, time to end dual citizenship...
the Cabal is still there, a collection of Saudis, the Israelis, the British pedophiles, the Roman Catholic pedophiles and human traffickers doing their border runnings, the Marxists of the East and Bolseviks, Elon didn’t discover them all, nor will it stop unless foreign powers are named, so then money to Egypt, yo Israel etc Who’s really in control?
Why is there a Foreign Country's Flag in the American Congress Building?
https://x.com/RyanRozbiani/status/1888180986334330928
Israeli Tel Aviv University receives millions in US funding: Report
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/israeli-tel-aviv-university-receives
-millions-in-us-funding-report-3698191
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Trump and his set act carefree in the face of catastrophe—and they give their supporters permission to do the same.
By Ben Tarnoff | February 7, 2025
The week I became a father, two things happened. Fires engulfed the Amazon, and a man who made his living as a columnist for the largest newspaper in the country complained to a university provost that a professor had called him a bedbug on the Internet. This was the world into which I welcomed my first child: a place where people with power behaved like children while the planet burned.
Five and a half years later, our civilizational outlook has not improved. It is not just the fires, floods, zoonotic diseases, and other insignia of ecological emergency. It is also the discomfiting spectacle of a leadership class so extravagantly unfit for the task at hand. Incompetent rulers are nothing new. They are one of human history’s main themes. What feels more specific to our time is the extent to which our leaders have responded to a moment of severe and proliferating crisis by regressing into a childlike state, and encouraging their followers to do the same.
In 1933, the year that Hitler took power in Germany, the psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich proposed that fascism begins at home, in the domestic sphere. The first authoritarian state is the family, he argued, ruled by the father. Here children learn the submission to authority—and the identification with it—that makes a good fascist subject. The idea proved influential for later thinkers trying to map the psychology of authoritarianism, and it has an obvious kernel of truth. In our own extremely desublimated era, one doesn’t have to look very far for verification: “It’s like Daddy arrived and he’s taking his belt off,” a ruddy Mel Gibson gushed the other day on Fox News about Trump’s visit to Los Angeles, during which he had scolded Karen Bass, the city’s mayor and a Black woman, at a press conference.
But Trump is poorly cast for the part of patriarch. While he glowers in his official portraits, his political style is more silly than stern. He babbles. He is a creature of impulse and instinct, fickle and dysregulated. His humor is that of the schoolyard; his train of thought is, at minimum, haphazard. If you have ever heard a toddler tell a story, it sounds like Trump: digressive, bizarre, filled with tonal shifts, often hilarious. His inner circle exudes a similarly infantile affect. Elon Musk is nothing if not a smirking preadolescent. J.D. Vance looks uncannily like a baby, which is presumably why he decided to grow a beard, with the result that he now looks like a bearded baby. “Let me say very simply,” he told an audience of antiabortion fanatics in his first speech as vice president: “I want more babies in the United States of America!”
More at "More Babies!" https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/02/07/more-babies-trump/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Here is More:
Originally posted by second:
Trump and his set act carefree in the face of catastrophe—and they give their supporters permission to do the same.
By Ben Tarnoff | February 7, 2025
More at "More Babies!" https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/02/07/more-babies-trump/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
It is stressful to be young. The world is confusing, the process of fitting oneself into it long and painful. But these difficulties are offset by certain pleasures, chief among them the relative absence of responsibility. If children misbehave they can be punished, but in moral and legal terms they are not accountable for their actions to the same degree as adults are. When people feel nostalgic for their childhoods, even when they had bad childhoods, this is what they miss: to be carefree.
The desire to be carefree is integral to the psychic allure of Trumpism. It is pleasurable to disinter one’s deepest resentments, to worship power, to go berserk with rage, to be floridly conspiratorial, to know nothing, to hallucinate Marxists under the bed, to picture the people you hate in tears and in chains. But the unifying principle, the rind that envelops and coheres these delights, is the abdication of adulthood’s defining obligation: to take responsibility for oneself and others. It is precisely this responsibility that Trump and his set refuse. They are carefree in the face of catastrophe. And they give their supporters permission to take the same flight from responsibility—indeed, their political appeal depends on it. They want more babies in the United States of America.
*
Reactionary infantilism is not original to Trump. He is not, after all, an especially original figure. His specific genius lies in taking long-festering inflammations within the Republican mind and aggravating the swelling to the point of rupture. Back in 2012 the editors of n+1 identified “the personality type and cultural style of the contemporary right-wing commentator” as “Big Baby.” Rush Limbaugh was the first Big Baby, followed by Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Bill O’Reilly. Trump sits easily in this lineage. Big Baby, the editors explained, was not merely “juvenile, impish, and wounded,” but a devoted hater of women. One of his favorite enemies was the Nanny State, the government imagined as a woman:
Contemporary Big Baby conservatism relies on the conceit that there is someone who wants to legislate against trivial and immature pleasures, who doesn’t want you to have fun — a giant Nanny (with Nancy Pelosi’s face) who regulates for regulation’s sake. Again, as with real babies, it’s only the rule standing between Me and cookie that seems real — not the rationale, nor the collective good that could come of mutual restraint. The future can’t be kept in view. Cookie is too big!
Trump inherits and intensifies this legacy. Meanwhile, the acceleration of environmental breakdown has simultaneously made the escape from adulthood more appealing and given Big Baby new limits to transgress. Lockdowns, vaccinations, electric vehicle “mandates”: Mommy has never been so mean. Fortunately, the joy of defying her grows in proportion. Usually my kids will wait until I’m in the room before they eat some forbidden nub of chocolate.
No picture of Trumpism would be complete without the Democratic Party bumbling about in the background, and here too the logic of Big Baby finds a foothold. The counterpart to the feral puerility of American conservatism is a senescent American liberalism whose grandees are well into their second childhood. Watching Biden’s smooth, uncomprehending face at the debate, as Trump snickered Bart Simpsonishly beside him, we came into possession of a perfect emblem of Democratic babyhood.
It cannot be banished by banishing Biden, as it is a more general condition. The party is run by sundowning seniors who refuse to cede the driver’s seat even though they pose a danger to themselves a
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Here is More:
Originally posted by second:
Trump and his set act carefree in the face of catastrophe—and they give their supporters permission to do the same.
By Ben Tarnoff | February 7, 2025
More at "More Babies!" https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/02/07/more-babies-trump/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
It is stressful to be young. The world is confusing, the process of fitting oneself into it long and painful. But these difficulties are offset by certain pleasures, chief among them the relative absence of responsibility. If children misbehave they can be punished, but in moral and legal terms they are not accountable for their actions to the same degree as adults are. When people feel nostalgic for their childhoods, even when they had bad childhoods, this is what they miss: to be carefree.
Ben doesn't know about bad childhoods. Ben is talking about the childhoods of kids in gated communities.
You don't know shit about nothing with that silver spoon up your ass you were born with, Ben.
I'm smart enough to know that you can't go back to a time that never existed.
And since the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago never actually existed, you should probably finally become an adult and give up on that yourself.
As somebody who has suffered from chronic insomnia since he was 5 years old, I know how much the first time you face adversity can be rough. Especially when you've sailed through life up until this point without ever being around anyone who's faced it, let alone yourself.
Don't worry. It's about to get worse when you are replaced by A.I. and you get to deliver Amazon packages for $15/hr.
Good luck to ya, Ben.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Donald Trump campaigned, in part, on returning political power to American Christians. “If I get in, you’re going to be using that power at a level that you’ve never used before,” Trump promised a room full of religious news broadcasters in February 2024. “With your help and God’s grace, the great revival of America begins on November 5.” At different campaign events, he vowed both that Christian leaders would have a line “directly into the Oval Office — and me” and that he would create a federal task force to “stop the weaponization of our government against Christians.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/catholic-charities-t
rump/681610/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:6ix, you didn't get to the second paragraph:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:As somebody who has suffered from chronic insomnia since he was 5 years old, I know how much the first time you face adversity can be rough. Especially when you've sailed through life up until this point without ever being around anyone who's faced it, let alone yourself.
Originally posted by second:
Trump and his set act carefree in the face of catastrophe—and they give their supporters permission to do the same.
It is stressful to be young. The world is confusing, the process of fitting oneself into it long and painful. But these difficulties are offset by certain pleasures, chief among them the relative absence of responsibility. If children misbehave they can be punished, but in moral and legal terms they are not accountable for their actions to the same degree as adults are. When people feel nostalgic for their childhoods, even when they had bad childhoods, this is what they miss: to be carefree.
The desire to be carefree is integral to the psychic allure of Trumpism. It is pleasurable to disinter one’s deepest resentments, to worship power, to go berserk with rage, to be floridly conspiratorial, to know nothing, to hallucinate Marxists under the bed, to picture the people you hate in tears and in chains. But the unifying principle, the rind that envelops and coheres these delights, is the abdication of adulthood’s defining obligation: to take responsibility for oneself and others. It is precisely this responsibility that Trump and his set refuse. They are carefree in the face of catastrophe. And they give their supporters permission to take the same flight from responsibility—indeed, their political appeal depends on it.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:If Congresspeople were actually doing their jobs DOGE wouldn't be necessary. Instead, they treated the Federal budget ... our taxpayer dollars ... as their personal and party piggybanks.
DOGE's Targets...
Sunday, Feb 09, 2025 - 06:20 AM
Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
As the second Trump administration nears the end of its first three weeks leading the federal government, Elon Musk’s advisory commission, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has deployed teams within multiple agencies to use technology to cut costs and streamline processes.
Moving at breakneck speed as President Donald Trump shakes up the executive branch, Musk’s engineers and advisers have accessed information technology (IT) systems in several federal departments.
Anonymously sourced reports, not yet independently verified by The Epoch Times, allege DOGE is probing several other agencies, and groups are filing lawsuits to bar Musk’s advisers from accessing those departments’ computer systems.
DOGE’s actions, which Musk says are aimed at reducing government spending and waste, have spurred a backlash from some Democratic lawmakers who describe it as a breach of congressional oversight
Quote:The Pentagon. They haven't passed an audit since audits began.
by an unelected “special government employee.”
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) cited cybersecurity concerns if DOGE is connecting to federal databases with “their own unvetted commercial servers.”
This week, during a House Oversight Committee on “Reducing Waste in Government,” Rep. James Comer (R-K.Y.) defended Musk’s unprecedented role in the executive branch, saying “real innovation isn’t clean and tidy.”
President Donald Trump defended DOGE’s access to federal data systems on Friday, adding that the Pentagon and the Department of Education are next.
Quote:
“We’re going to be looking at tremendous amounts of money … being spent on things that bear no relationship to anything and have no value,” Trump said.
“I’m very proud of the job that this group of young people … [are] doing. They’re doing it at my insistence. It would be a lot easier not to do it, but we have to take some of these things apart to find the corruption.”
So far, the DOGE team has accessed IT systems at agencies, including the Treasury Department, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), while a coalition of labor unions has sued to block access at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Additionally, students in California are suing the Department of Education, alleging that DOGE staffers are accessing confidential student data.
The Epoch Times could not independently confirm other agencies—including the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the U.S. Agency for International Development—where DOGE may have received access to internal systems or databases.
Treasury Department
The Treasury Department confirmed in a Feb. 4 letter to Congress that DOGE staff had been given “read-only” access to the agency’s nearly $6 trillion federal payments system.
According to the letter, Cloud Software Group CEO Tom Krause will work with the agency as a “special government employee” to review the Bureau of the Fiscal Service for operational efficiency and prevent abuse, fraud, and waste. The work will be done in conjunction with career Treasury officials.
On Feb. 5, the Justice Department wrote in a court filing that it would, for now, restrict DOGE’s access to Treasury Department payment systems.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
DOGE was also granted access to systems and technology at CMS, the agency said on Feb. 5. CMS will be in direct collaboration with DOGE while two senior agency staffers will direct the effort.
CMS, which is within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, oversees the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Medicare is a health insurance plan for older anNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
(Almost) everyone is getting torched by the Trump meme coin
....more than 810,000 wallets had lost money on [$Trump].... The total losses are almost certainly much larger: The data does not include transactions that took place on a series of popular crypto marketplaces that started offering the coin only after its price had already surged.
....Whether people made or lost money, it was stellar business for the Trumps. Nearly $100 million in trading fees have flowed to the family and its partners.
Trump and his buddies don't need to care about the price of the coin. They'll make $100 million in fees every month as long as there's plenty of churn among the chumps. Or maybe less. But who cares? It's a lot and it's risk-free. Just sit back and let the Oval Office make you rich.
https://jabberwocking.com/almost-everyone-is-getting-torched-by-the-tr
ump-meme-coin/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Pushback Begins Against Trump’s Oil Agenda
By Irina Slav | Feb 08, 2025, 6:00 PM CST
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Oil-Prices/Pushback-Begins-Against-Trumps-
Oil-Agenda.html
President Trump declared a national energy emergency as soon as he took office. The declaration had the goal of facilitating growth in energy supply or, as Trump likes to call it “Drill, baby, drill.” Yet this time, Baby doesn’t feel much like drilling. And it’s saying this loud and clear.
West Texas Intermediate has been trading around $70. Trump has insisted that lower oil prices will force Russia to negotiate peace with Zelensky. His special envoy to Russia and Ukraine has an exact price in mind: $45 per barrel. Unfortunately, that price — while certain to cause Russia economic pain — will also cause pain to U.S. shale drillers.
U.S. oil and gas producers will not do the President’s bidding. There is untapped crude in the shale patch, but drillers are going to tap it in a measured way rather than a burst of activity that saw so many go under when debt burdens became unsustainable. This led to that strict financial discipline everyone’s been praising for years now, and that has become the new normal in shale.
With that discipline, cheap oil may turn out to be one promise Trump can’t keep — because it’s not entirely up to him.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Keep hoping for a Trump failure and cheerleading for that for the next 4 years and see where that gets you.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Since the original article was written so badly .... Where was the editor?
... I'll try to recap ..
Quote:
DOGE's Targets...
Sunday, Feb 09, 2025 - 06:20 AM
Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
As the second Trump administration nears the end of its first three weeks leading the federal government, Elon Musk’s advisory commission, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has deployed teams within multiple agencies to use technology to cut costs and streamline processes.
Moving at breakneck speed as President Donald Trump shakes up the executive branch, Musk’s engineers and advisers have accessed information technology (IT) systems in several federal departments.
the Pentagon and
Department of Education are next
So far, the DOGE team has accessed IT systems at agencies, including the
Treasury Department, the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the
Department of Energy, and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Trump says
the Pentagon and
Department of Education are next
Since a coalition of labor unions has sued to block access at the
U.S. Department of Labor,
that implies that they're on the list, too.
Epoch Times could not independently confirm other agencies like
U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)*
were also on the list.
* Seems like DOGE has already been there.
Seems like most of these invetigations are being done with the cooperation of agency heads.
Don't forget HUD! It's been pointed to as the slush fund for dollar stabilization activities.
-----------
"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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Quote:Remember George Bush, the governor of TEXAS? As governor, Bush was a complete asshole and nothing could stop the inevitable fiasco of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Crash of 2008 because Bush is a negligent asshole. Why inevitable? Republicans won't do what needs doing. Trump is no different. Trump will run up the nation debt (my consolation prize is lower taxes from Trump) and Trump will cause something important to fail out of neglect by the White House. Will it be another Crash? I don't know, but Trump is negligent. There will be an avoidable accident that Trump won't avoid.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Keep hoping for a Trump failure and cheerleading for that for the next 4 years and see where that gets you.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Stock Market Crash of 2008
Explore the Causes and Events at the Heart of the Financial Crisis
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/09/subprime-market-200
8.asp
The Trump Prayer
Trump supporters be like...
He didn't say that
and if he did, he didn’t mean that
and if he did, you didn't understand it
and if you did, it’s not a big deal
and if it is, others have said and done worse.
https://www.thelifedoctor.org/the-narcissist-s-prayer
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Well, your shitshow of a last administration destroyed the country and itself, so what the fuck do you know?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:I don't want to say you are crazy, but that did not happen. Not even a little bit. Where do these Trumptard hallucinations come from? Bad genetics? Is family passing ancient emotional trauma from one generation to the next? Wherever this unreality comes from, it is not helping Trumptards prosper in America.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Well, your shitshow of a last administration destroyed the country and itself, so what the fuck do you know?
Winds of Change: Donald Trump Becomes 1st Sitting President To Attend SUPER BOWL - Access Hollywood. This happened, unlike 6ix's claim that Biden's administration was a "shitshow" "destroying the country". What is so bad about going to the Super Bowl? Trump is always on TV, 24/7, flapping his mouth. Don't his Trumptards understand why he has to always be in the spotlight? Always he has got to be commenting? Never being modest? Can't admit he made a mistake? Pretending he knows what he does not? That psychology will bring on a disaster that could have been avoided.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:6ix, that did NOT happen, but this did happen:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Well, your shitshow of a last administration destroyed the country and itself, so what the fuck do you know?
Trump Sabotages the Pax Americana
Trump and Musk are making us distrusted, friendless and weak
Feb 10, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/sabotaging-the-pax-americana
Source: World Bank
Elon Musk — with Donald Trump’s acquiescence, but clearly Musk was calling the shots — has effectively destroyed USAID, the aid agency that was, aside from its humanitarian role, a major pillar of US foreign policy. This move was clearly illegal, and a court has already put a hold on some of Musk’s actions.
But it may already be too late. The destruction of USAID is a prime example of what Dan Drezner calls Humpty Dumpty foreign policy, as in, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put him back together again. By furloughing the agency’s employees, ordering those working abroad to come home and canceling crucial programs and grants, the Musk/Trump administration undermined decades’ worth of relationship-building. Even if the courts eventually order everything the wreckers did reversed, it will be hard if not impossible to put the structure back together again.
USAID is just the most extreme example of how the Musk/Trump administration is sabotaging the American Empire. For yes, America is or was an imperial power, although in a different way from most past empires — less reliant on force, more reliant on good will and trust. What Musk and Trump have done is to destroy much of the basis for U.S. influence, leaving America far weaker than it was just a few weeks ago.
America’s imperial era — the Pax Americana — began after World War II. With Europe and Japan in ruins and Britain exhausted, the U.S. had no military or economic peers outside the Soviet bloc. As Phillips O’Brien recently noted, America could easily have gobbled up lots of territory if it had thought in conventional Great Power terms.
But our leaders were more sophisticated than that. I don’t know whether they had read Norman Angell’s The Great Illusion about how conquest no longer made sense, but they certainly understood that America needed prosperous, willing allies, not more territory.
Most famously, America not only departed from the ancient tradition of extracting tribute from vanquished foes, we followed our victory in World War II with the Marshall Plan — a large aid program designed to help both our allies and our former enemies get back on their feet. At its peak in 1949, the U.S. government spent about 17 percent of its budget on foreign aid.
Many Americans believe, by the way, that we still give aid on something like that scale. In reality, these days aid is only around 1 percent of the budget. But humanitarian aid to other nations is still a vital part of U.S. diplomacy, and plays — or played — an important role in supporting America’s moral authority, in maintaining our image as a mostly benevolent power.
Beyond providing aid, America set out to create an international trading system that would foster widespread prosperity. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), signed in 1947, set up rules designed to foster gradual tariff reductions and block any reversion to protectionism. These rules constrained the United States the same way they constrained everyone else — that is, we deliberately chose not to rig the system in our own favor.
And we created a system of military alliances, NATO in particular, that were notable in the formal equality they granted to all their members. Everyone knew that America was the senior partner, but we were careful to avoid any hint that we were treating our allies as subject nations, required to obey U.S. orders.
Above all, America
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, that did NOT happen
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Well, your shitshow of a last administration destroyed the country and itself, so what the fuck do you know?
Yeah. It did.
And until you recognize and admit this, you will never win again.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:I hear the same from Texas Trumptards. Their experience is unlike mine because they cannot adapt. They are deep in a rut and aren't steering out. So sad for inflexible Trumptards but they have been like that all their lives and won't change. Tough shit, retards.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, that did NOT happen
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Well, your shitshow of a last administration destroyed the country and itself, so what the fuck do you know?
Yeah. It did.
And until you recognize and admit this, you will never win again.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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A Childhood Neighbor Terrorized My Family. It Prepared Me for Trump’s Takeover.
My Family Had a Stalker. The ordeal prepared me for what we’re all dealing with now.
By Elle Reeve | Feb 10, 2025, 5:45 AM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/trump-musk-alt-right-fasci
sm-psychological-war.html
. . . Before Charlottesville, there had been a struggle for what alt-right meant: Was it a new type of right-wing populism that was anti-war and anti-immigration, or was it neo-Nazis? At the 2016 Republican National Convention, Steve Bannon had told a Mother Jones reporter that the alt-right was nationalist, not white nationalist. “Are there anti-Semitic people involved in the alt-right? Absolutely. Are there racist people involved in the alt-right? Absolutely. But I don’t believe that the movement overall is anti-Semitic,” Bannon said.
After Charlottesville, after the alt-right had been filmed bearing torches and shouting “Jews will not replace us,” that fight over meaning was over. “Unite the Right” participants faced devastating social, financial, and legal consequences, each one compounding the next. They’d been so proud to march barefaced, and now the internet at large was doxing them. They were shunned in their communities, some fired from their jobs. Financial services companies booted them as customers, so they couldn’t raise money online. That made it hard to pay for lawyers when they got sued. Many retreated and disbanded their groups, some denounced white nationalism, some got divorces, some struggled with addiction, a few died by suicide. One started going on Grindr, he told me, to find new interview subjects for his podcast.
And then, a strange shift: While many of my old alt-right sources remained ostracized, the most important people in the world started ripping off their ideas.
The alt-right talked about the “great replacement” conspiracy theory as a plot by Jews to dilute the culture and power of white people through immigration and gay rights; Fox News hosts began to warn of “replacement” as a plot by Democrats to dilute the power of white voters with immigrants. (In 2023 Vivek Ramaswamy referred to it as “the Democratic Party’s platform.”)
“Import the Third World, Become the Third World” was a slogan that circulated on 4chan and other websites for more than a decade before it started creeping into mainstream conservatism. Last fall, when Donald Trump said at a presidential debate that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, Donald Trump Jr. said: “You look at Haiti—you look at the demographic makeup, you look at the average IQ. If you import the Third World into your country, you’re going to become the Third World. That’s just basic. Like, it’s not racist. It’s just fact.”
This fixation on IQ in online conservatism, with increasingly popular insults like “midwit” and “low IQ,” is an echo of the alt-right’s view that IQ is the most important factor to explain individual lives as well as whole societies. That doesn’t mean that everyone who uses this slang was in an alt-right group chat or even within a couple degrees of one. But it does show how completely this subculture has become the main culture. Vice President J.D. Vance recently dismissed a critic for supposedly having an IQ of 110. I’ve been here before. Several men in the alt-right told me their IQ scores; one even sent proof. And the truly bizarre thing is that some of those alt-right guys have since told me that their focus on IQ was a mistake, that it was not a helpful way to evaluate a person or understand the world. “It is ultimately a way to arbitrarily, retroactively justify inequalities,” one told me. “It’s saying, ‘Look at all the science that says I should live like this and you should live like that. Deal with it.’ ”
During inauguration weekend, when I watched Elon Musk put his hand over his heart, then thrust it outward at a peculiar angle, it reminded me of an incident more than eight years earlier, in November 2016. Trump had just won his surprise victory, and Richard Spencer was spe
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I hear the same from Texas Trumptards.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, that did NOT happen
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Well, your shitshow of a last administration destroyed the country and itself, so what the fuck do you know?
Yeah. It did.
And until you recognize and admit this, you will never win again.
Nobody fucking cares about your Texas Trumptards, idiot.
I'm way the hell smarter than you are and the idiots that run in your circles sound to be twice as stupid as you are.
You'd better start listening to smart people, or your Party is dead forever.
You do with that fact what you will. I don't care.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:6ix, are you smart enough to see Trump's error?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody fucking cares about your Texas Trumptards, idiot.
I'm way the hell smarter than you are and the idiots that run in your circles sound to be twice as stupid as you are.
You'd better start listening to smart people, or your Party is dead forever.
You do with that fact what you will. I don't care.
Trump Says Other Countries Caused $36 Trillion U.S. Debt — Is He Right?
Published Feb 10, 2025 at 3:44 PM EST
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-countries-caused-36-trillion-us-de
bt-super-bowl-2029040
President Donald Trump used his pre-Superbowl interview to blame foreign nations for America's $36 trillion debt, claiming other countries had taken advantage of the U.S.
Trump did not explain during the Fox interview the relationship between the U.S. national debt and the actions of foreign nations.
Under President Trump's last administration, gross national debt rose by $7.8 trillion while foreign nations increased their securities by more than $1 trillion.
This is not the first time Trump has connected U.S. debt and trade deficits. In 2017, he said: "The United States has trade deficits with many, many countries, and we cannot allow that to continue," adding, "For many, many years the United States has suffered through massive trade deficits; that's why we have $20 trillion in debt."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Civil War (2024) Ending scene HD | The President's death
List of presidents who have been shot dead or only wounded
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/13/politics/presidents-who-have-been-shot-
or-shot-at/index.html
Shot, but didn’t die:
Theodore Roosevelt
Ronald Reagan
Donald Trump
Four sitting presidents have been killed:
Abraham Lincoln (1865, by John Wilkes Booth),
James A. Garfield (1881, by Charles J. Guiteau),
William McKinley (1901, by Leon Czolgosz),
John F. Kennedy (1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald).
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Before entering WWII, could you imagine President Roosevelt demanding that the United Kingdom give him the Crown Jewels and all the UK's coal, or else FDR welcomes Hitler's conquest of the English? You can't imagine that? Trump can imagine that:
In an interview with Fox on Monday night, Trump said, "They (Ukraine) may make a deal, they may not make a deal. They may be Russian someday, or they may not be Russian someday."
What Ukrainian deal in exchange for US ammo is Trump talking about? This one: Trump Demands $500 Billion in Rare Earth Metals From Kyiv, Says Ukraine ‘May Be Russian Someday’ (if Ukraine doesn't give Trump $500 Billion)
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/02/11/trump-demands-500bln-in-rare
-earth-metals-from-kyiv-says-ukraine-may-be-russian-someday-a87937
Here is the deal in Trump's words: "We are going to have all this money in there, and I say: 'I want it back.' And I told them that I want the equivalent, like $500 billion worth of rare earth," Trump said during the Fox News interview. "And they have essentially agreed to do that, so at least we don't feel stupid."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump hated that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has forced scammers to return billions of stolen dollars.
CFPB was shutdown by Trump with this email:
Good morning, CFPB staff,
As you have been informed by the Chief Operating Officer in an email yesterday, the Bureau's DC headquarters building is closed this week. Employees should not come into the office. Please do not perform any work tasks. If there are any urgent matters, please alert me through Mark Paoletta, Chief Legal Officer, to get approval in writing before performing any work task. His email is Mark.Paoletta@cfbp.gov.
Otherwise, employees should stand down from performing any work task.
Thank you for your attention on this matter.
Best,
Russ Vought
Acting Director
Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection
Read the details at Springtime for Scammers
Financial predation now has friends in high places
By Paul Krugman | Feb 11, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/springtime-for-scammers
Quote:
So what is the real reason? It seems fairly obvious. CFPB was created to protect Americans from financial predation, and has done a very good job of doing so. But now we have government of, by and for financial predators. Trump has famously left behind a trail of bankruptcies and unpaid contractors, and is furiously grifting even now. Musk has faced multiple lawsuits from vendors and former employees over unpaid debts.
And let’s not forget that crypto, which has gained a lot of influence with this administration, has yet to find a real-world use case other than money laundering.
So the best way to explain the sudden closure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as I see it, is as part of an effort to make predatory finance great again.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Efficiency - or empire?
Musk has an enormous corporate empire, ambitions in artificial intelligence, desire for financial power and a long-standing disdain for government oversight. His access to sensitive government systems and ability to restructure agencies, with the opaque decision-making guiding DOGE to date, have positioned Musk to extract unprecedented financial and strategic benefits for both himself and his companies, which include the electric car company Tesla and space transport company SpaceX.
https://theconversation.com/efficiency-or-empire-how-elon-musks-hostil
e-takeover-could-end-government-as-we-know-it-249262
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
So what is the real reason? It seems fairly obvious. CFPB was created to protect Americans from financial predation, and has done a very good job of doing so.
Bullshit. Who's been protecting the American People from the financial predation of our own Government?
Why isn't our government doing its job and preventing monopolies? Or breaking up monopolies?
Our government is fucking worthless. If they were doing half as good of a job as idiot Krugman says they are, Democrats would be running the entire show right now.
Paul Krugman needs to crawl into a hole and die.
Nobody needs to be poisoned by his idiot thoughts anymore.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:6ix, does it occur to Trumptards that they are not understanding the joke President Musk, an immigrant, is telling?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
So what is the real reason? It seems fairly obvious. CFPB was created to protect Americans from financial predation, and has done a very good job of doing so.
Bullshit. Who's been protecting the American People from the financial predation of our own Government?
Why isn't our government doing its job and preventing monopolies? Or breaking up monopolies?
Our government is fucking worthless. If they were doing half as good of a job as idiot Krugman says they are, Democrats would be running the entire show right now.
Paul Krugman needs to crawl into a hole and die.
Nobody needs to be poisoned by his idiot thoughts anymore.
TRUMP'S WIVES WERE IMMIGRANTS -- PROVING THAT THERE ARE SOME JOBS THAT EVEN AMERICANS WON'T DO.
A sign outside a Vermont hardware store sparked more than one wave of internet outrage.
By Bethania Palma | April 1, 2021
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-wives-sign/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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LOOK, ALL I’M SAYING IS IF ELON’S ONLY GOAL WAS TO LOOK FOR FRAUD, HE WOULD HAVE HIRED ACCOUNTANTS, NOT PROGRAMMERS.
https://x.com/CitizenJane99/status/1888796507190559057
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Kristi Noem warns the public that they can’t trust the government - then is reminded that she is part of it
Dept. of Homeland Security chief signals that Musk’s team has access to FEMA systems containing Americans’ private information
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/09/politics/noem-homeland-security-doge-mu
sk-cnntv/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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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
LOOK, ALL I’M SAYING IS IF ELON’S ONLY GOAL WAS TO LOOK FOR FRAUD, HE WOULD HAVE HIRED ACCOUNTANTS, NOT PROGRAMMERS.
https://x.com/CitizenJane99/status/1888796507190559057
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
If Elon's only job description was looking for fraud, he'd have already been named employee of the century.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
6ix, does it occur to Trumptards that they are not understanding the joke President Musk, an immigrant, is telling?
We don't laugh at your jokes, because Democrats aren't funny.
We don't listen to your warnings because they are mindless drool coming out of the mouths of lobotomized MSNBC viewers.
Nobody cares about your opinion, Second. On anything.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Signed another beautiful Executive Order, finally getting rid of “Press 2 for Spanish” No more pressing 2 for Spanish. Nobody likes “Press 2 for Spanish” so we’re getting rid of it. In America we only press 2 for “MORE ENGLISH” ... NO MORE SPANISH...NO MAS ESPANOL! #commonsense
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Signed another beautiful Executive Order, finally getting rid of “Press 2 for Spanish” No more pressing 2 for Spanish. Nobody likes “Press 2 for Spanish” so we’re getting rid of it. In America we only press 2 for “MORE ENGLISH” ... NO MORE SPANISH...NO MAS ESPANOL! #commonsense
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Wonderful.
This was probably my 2nd pet peeve "1st World" problem, right behind the sun going down before 5PM when we fuck with the clocks in the middle of winter.
#1 should always be implied and automatic. This is America. If you want to speak Spanish, go home.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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DEI initiatives were not put in place to ensure lower-qualified minorities could get hired instead of more highly-qualified white people.
It was put in place to ensure lower-qualified white people were not hired instead of more highly-qualified minorities.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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America’s First DUI Secretary of Defense
Our military helicopters didn’t collide with commercial aircraft while Lloyd Austin was Secretary of Defense. That only happens with DUI hires like Pete Hegseth.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F03xmmwme5cg
e1.jpeg
Strange that a white guy was flying the plane, a white guy was flying the helicopter, and a white guy gutted the FAA last week but somehow MAGA is blaming "too much diversity."
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Ft075ph4fzag
e1.jpeg
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
DEI initiatives were not put in place to ensure lower-qualified minorities could get hired instead of more highly-qualified white people.
It was put in place to ensure lower-qualified white people were not hired instead of more highly-qualified minorities.
There's 330 Million people here and only about 10 Million jobs that are any good, if we're lucky.
This argument holds no water when 90% of the jobs that anybody from any race or sex in America does are trash.
DEI only puts minorities in women in good jobs by replacing spots that were once held by far more qualified white men.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
America’s First DUI Secretary of Defense
Our military helicopters didn’t collide with commercial aircraft while Lloyd Austin was Secretary of Defense. That only happens with DUI hires like Pete Hegseth.
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F03xmmwme5cg
e1.jpeg
Strange that a white guy was flying the plane, a white guy was flying the helicopter, and a white guy gutted the FAA last week but somehow MAGA is blaming "too much diversity."
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Ft075ph4fzag
e1.jpeg
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
According to Reddit, huh?
You giving up on Legacy Media too? Ted did weeks ago.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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A lot of Democrat voting office workers in the public and private sectors are all going to be out of jobs soon.
They should learn to mine.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Are you feeling like you're living in a strange new world?
One that's very different from the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Feels more like Trump takes a bribe from Ukraine:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Are you feeling like you're living in a strange new world?
One that's very different from the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago?
President Trump claims that Ukraine has “essentially agreed” to give the US half a trillion dollars worth of rare earth minerals as payment for the military aid Washington will provide Kyiv.
By Mariya Yemets | Tuesday, 11 February 2025, 09:29
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/11/7497661/
"I told them that I want the equivalent of like US$500 billion worth of rare earth [minerals – ed.], and they’ve essentially agreed to do that. They have tremendously valuable land in terms of rare earth [minerals – ed.], in terms of oil and gas, in terms of other things. I want to have our money secured, because we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars [in Ukraine – ed.]."
6ixStringJack, in case it is unclear to you, if Russia wins, Ukraine can't pay the $500 billion to Trump. To put money in Trump's bank account, he is on Ukraine's side.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Feels weird that Donald Trump did not offer any concrete policy proposals or timeline on his campaign promise to immediately halt inflation and bring down the price of “everything” during his latest Fox News interview.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Are you feeling like you're living in a strange new world?
One that's very different from the world you thought you were living in 6 months ago?
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-
campaign-inflation-prices-eggs-b2695787.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Six, you really can't lay all the world's ills at the feet of Liberalism.
Going back in time, Liberalism started allowing girls to go to school.
Liberalism, known today as the "social safety net" allowed both Canada and the USA to pull ourselves out of the Great Depression. The programs weren't perfect but they allowed people to feed themselves and clothe themselves and have a roof over their heads.
The Allies after WWII helped rebuild the western half of Germany. The US helped rebuild Japan.
Liberalism allowed in the 50s for women to work for themselves and not just stay at home with children.
Liberalism in the 60s allowed this line from your constitution, "That all men are created equal." to actual mean something.
Liberalism allows your brother with some help to live on his own and not be in an institution.
Liberalism allows you now to live how you like.
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Quote:I couldn't find a pertinent thread that sloppy seconds hasn't sh!t up.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Since the original article was written so badly .... Where was the editor?
... I'll try to recap ..Quote:
DOGE's Targets...
Sunday, Feb 09, 2025 - 06:20 AM
Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
As the second Trump administration nears the end of its first three weeks leading the federal government, Elon Musk’s advisory commission, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has deployed teams within multiple agencies to use technology to cut costs and streamline processes.
Moving at breakneck speed as President Donald Trump shakes up the executive branch, Musk’s engineers and advisers have accessed information technology (IT) systems in several federal departments.
the Pentagon and
Department of Education are next
So far, the DOGE team has accessed IT systems at agencies, including the
Treasury Department, the
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the
Department of Energy, and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Trump says
the Pentagon and
Department of Education are next
Since a coalition of labor unions has sued to block access at the
U.S. Department of Labor,
that implies that they're on the list, too.
Epoch Times could not independently confirm other agencies like
U.S. Office of Personnel Management and the
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)*
were also on the list.
* Seems like DOGE has already been there.
Seems like most of these invetigations are being done with the cooperation of agency heads.
Don't forget HUD! It's been pointed to as the slush fund for dollar stabilization activities.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/02/08/did-a-federal-judge-block
-trumps-treasury-secretary-access-to-his-own-department-n4936820
Apparently Treasury payment data shows $50-100 Billion of payments without Social Security Numbers, nor Account Numbers attached. Some consider these to be suspicious, indicative of fraud.
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Quote:Brenda, 6ix thinks much like the Republican Presidents who try to destroy the programs you mention:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Six, you really can't lay all the world's ills at the feet of Liberalism.
Going back in time, Liberalism started allowing girls to go to school.
Liberalism, known today as the "social safety net" allowed both Canada and the USA to pull ourselves out of the Great Depression. The programs weren't perfect but they allowed people to feed themselves and clothe themselves and have a roof over their heads.
The Allies after WWII helped rebuild the western half of Germany. The US helped rebuild Japan.
Liberalism allowed in the 50s for women to work for themselves and not just stay at home with children.
Liberalism in the 60s allowed this line from your constitution, "That all men are created equal." to actual mean something.
Liberalism allows your brother with some help to live on his own and not be in an institution.
Liberalism allows you now to live how you like.
George W. Bush tried to significantly reduce Social Security spending. Mitt Romney ran on significantly reducing Medicare spending. Trump, in his first term, tried to completely eliminate ACA subsidies, completely eliminate Medicaid expansion, and then cut Medicaid even more to below the pre-ACA level. None of this succeeded.
The DOGE hyper-focus on things like foreign aid and the Department of Education is kind of clever politics, but the cleverness lies precisely in its ability to provide cover for diminished aspirations in the face of these failures. Trump is many things, but he is most of all a showman, who’s doing a good job of performing mastery rather than letting attention fall on the razor-thin GOP majority and their somewhat incoherent policy agenda.
The fact is, Republicans don’t have a politically or economically viable path to creating the level of taxation that they want. Rather than try to reconcile themselves to that reality and come up with a more realistic fiscal agenda, they are lashing out at the pillars of the political system itself.
More at https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-paradox-of-trumps-first-weeks
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Emperor’s New Tariffs
Trump is throwing a tantrum, but the damage will be real
By Paul Krugman | Feb 12, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-emperors-new-tariffs-small-ugly
Many people expected Donald Trump to begin a global trade war soon after taking office. Many people in business, however, believed that after all the huffing and puffing he wouldn’t actually impose much in the way of tariffs.
What we actually have so far is Schrödinger’s trade war: Is it alive? Is it dead? Yes.
It’s hard to believe that just last week Trump seemed dead set on imposing 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, with similar tariffs likely soon against other trading partners. Then, suddenly, he put the whole thing on ice for 30 days. Trump tried to spin it as a victory, claiming falsely that he had won big concessions from our neighbors. But if you looked at what they actually agreed to — basically nothing they weren’t doing already — it was an ignominious retreat.
So is it over? No. This week Trump announced that he was imposing tariffs after all, but only on steel and aluminum.
Before we declare that the trade war is on again, however, there are three things you need to know. First, these tariffs are a much smaller deal than what Trump seemed about to do last week. Second, while they’re small, they’re ugly. Third, as an economic policy they are really, really stupid.
About the size of this week’s tariffs: Steel and aluminum are obviously crucial materials for the modern economy, and a major cost for some industries. But they’re a relatively small share of total imports:
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
More at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-emperors-new-tariffs-small-ugly
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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An eerie prophecy of Trump’s second term — from 1998
Philosopher Richard Rorty predicted that someone like Trump might bring back public cruelty.
by Zack Beauchamp | Feb 12, 2025, 6:00 AM CST
https://www.vox.com/on-the-right-newsletter/399352/marko-elez-elon-mus
k-jd-vance-richard-rorty
Marko Elez, a staffer at Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Oversight, operated an anonymous X account that spewed out-and-out race hatred. He called on Americans to “normalize Indian hate,” said “you could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” and proudly declared that “I was racist before it was cool.”
After the Wall Street Journal outed Elez on Thursday, he resigned. By Friday afternoon, Musk reinstated him at the behest of Vice President JD Vance. “To err is human, to forgive is divine,” Musk posted on his platform.
Yet forgiveness requires contrition, and there’s no evidence Elez has any. He has not publicly apologized or even repudiated his ugly comments. In Trump’s America, you can engage in this kind of publicly performed cruelty without any real consequence.
This, for some, is actually the point of voting for Trump. New York’s Brock Colyar attended a swanky Trump party where one attendee said he voted for Trump because, in Colyar’s paraphrase, “he wanted the freedom to say ‘f**got’ and ‘r****ded.’” An anonymous “top banker” recently told the Financial Times that they felt “liberated” after Trump’s win because “we can say ‘r***rd’ and ‘p***y’ without the fear of getting canceled.”
The new ethos of cruelty reminded me of a passage in the philosopher Richard Rorty’s 1998 book Achieving Our Country. Warning of the rise of a right-wing American strongman in the not-too-distant future, Rorty predicted that such a political shift would also herald an alarming new cultural era:
Quote:Much more at https://www.vox.com/on-the-right-newsletter/399352/marko-elez-elon-mus
One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words ‘n****r’ and ‘k*ke’ will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.
k-jd-vance-richard-rorty
Free download of Richard Rorty's Achieving Our Country from the mirrors at https://libgen.is//search.php?req=Richard+Rorty+Achieving+Our+Country
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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In a passage that was widely cited after Trump’s political victory in 2017, Rorty describes a series of events that sound eerily familiar:
Quote:The rise of this strongman, Rorty predicts, is what will cause “sadism” to start “flooding back.” His election on a platform of vicious cultural warfare encouraging those people who were never comfortable with a more diverse America to start once again openly performing cruelty.
Members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.
At that point, something will crack. The non-suburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots.
Rorty saw that the post-Civil Rights consensus in favor of social equality was far thinner than many expected. Not only did he foresee such a future, but he saw the precise vehicle through which it could be cracked — a right-wing demagogue who claimed to stand for the people against the liberal elites.
https://www.vox.com/on-the-right-newsletter/399352/marko-elez-elon-mus
k-jd-vance-richard-rorty
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Interesting parallel between USAID and the "Federal" Reserve
Quote:
Just like everything else in today’s Orwellian ‘upside-down’ construct—where the term “democracy” is casually tossed about to describe repression of dissenting voices, “peace” used to describe funneling more weapons to overt Nazi and apartheid regimes [Israel, Ukraine] —similarly “independent media” had described what was effectively an almost entirely government funded operation...
In short, USAID uses the same cloak of ambiguity as the ‘Federal’ Reserve to conceal true operating motives.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/usaids-demise-sparks-dizzying-acce
leration
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"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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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Six, you really can't lay all the world's ills at the feet of Liberalism.
Going back in time, Liberalism started allowing girls to go to school.
Liberalism, known today as the "social safety net" allowed both Canada and the USA to pull ourselves out of the Great Depression. The programs weren't perfect but they allowed people to feed themselves and clothe themselves and have a roof over their heads.
The Allies after WWII helped rebuild the western half of Germany. The US helped rebuild Japan.
Liberalism allowed in the 50s for women to work for themselves and not just stay at home with children.
Liberalism in the 60s allowed this line from your constitution, "That all men are created equal." to actual mean something.
Liberalism allows your brother with some help to live on his own and not be in an institution.
Liberalism allows you now to live how you like.
I don't have a problem with what Liberalism was.
I have a problem with what Liberalism has come to.
They've thrown away the concept of Equal Opportunity and swapped to outright racism and sexism trying to enforce Equal Outcome.
They've forced women to have to shower with dudes and their big ole dicks flopping around the locker rooms, when the dudes aren't outright destroying these girls in sports.
They forced everyone to get an experimental jab that we've only begun to see the negative repercussions of.
They give trillions of taxpayer dollars to everybody except for the Americans that pay the taxes.
They call everyone Nazis who don't agree with them on any topic.
Meanwhile, while the quality of life for everyone continues to disappear because of their policies, they keep pushing all these unpopular things and nobody can afford anything outside of the bare necessities. And even that's not true when the collective US Credit Card Debt is now well over $1 Trillion.
We're done with Liberalism. Liberalism is dead. The Liberals killed it.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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I think what Trump is doing is "testing" the various national leaders. He proposes something outrageous and observes what he can get away with.
Justin Trudeau folded.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum put up a little bit more of a fight.
Jordan is (publicly) threatening war and refusing to take ethnically cleansed Palestinians (altho what's being said in private may be different.)
Egypt is quiet.
Russia has said "Nyet" but is still willing to talk.
China imposed counter- tarrifs on LNG, oil and farm machinery, started anti-trust investigation on Google, and is blocking exports of five rare earth metals that USA depends on https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/what-are-five-new-critical
-metal-exports-restricted-by-china-2025-02-04/ to the USA, while calling for negotiation.
Denmark is insisting it will not sell Greenland.
Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ refused to increase oil production.
Panama was pressured into ending its BRI contracts with China (There was only one left supposedly) and to (reportedly) waive transit fees for the USA.
India and Brasil indicated they won't pay attention to Trump's threatened secondary sanctions on Russian energy (altho push hasn't come to shove, yet.)
*****
In other words, Trump is causing a lot of chaos and seeing which pieces fall, which stand firm, and which ones wobble.
Not IMHO the best way to represent American interests. A problem with bullhorn diplomacy is, if you make a Big Public Deal about a particular settlement and fail, it's a very public black eye.
And, it coalesces resistance.
I think Trump is blitzing other nations like he's blitzing the Executive branch. The difference is that Trump has a lot of authority over his own fiefdom (altho not unlimited. Limits will be contested in the courts.) but only as much influence over other nations as he can economically or financially impose. Supposedly, Trump is not for using the military.
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"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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Quote:Trump’s purge of public health data
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I don't have a problem with what Liberalism was.
I have a problem with what Liberalism has come to.
They've thrown away the concept of Equal Opportunity and swapped to outright racism and sexism trying to enforce Equal Outcome.
They've forced women to have to shower with dudes and their big ole dicks flopping around the locker rooms, when the dudes aren't outright destroying these girls in sports.
They forced everyone to get an experimental jab that we've only begun to see the negative repercussions of.
They give trillions of taxpayer dollars to everybody except for the Americans that pay the taxes.
They call everyone Nazis who don't agree with them on any topic.
Meanwhile, while the quality of life for everyone continues to disappear because of their policies, they keep pushing all these unpopular things and nobody can afford anything outside of the bare necessities. And even that's not true when the collective US Credit Card Debt is now well over $1 Trillion.
We're done with Liberalism. Liberalism is dead. The Liberals killed it.
Collateral damage from Trump’s war on “DEI.”
By Dylan Scott | Feb 12, 2025, 7:30 AM CST
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/399319/trump-cdc-health-data-remove
d-obesity-suicide
In the initial days of the Trump administration, officials scoured federal websites for any mention of what they deemed “DEI” keywords — terms as generic as “diverse” and “historically” and even “women.” They soon identified reams of some of the country’s most valuable public health data containing some of the targeted words, including language about LGBTQ+ people, and quickly took down much of it — from surveys on obesity and suicide rates to real-time reports on immediate infectious disease threats like bird flu.
The removal elicited a swift response from public health experts who warned that without this data, the country risked being in the dark about important health trends that shape life-and-death public health decisions made in communities across the country.
Some of this data was restored in a matter of days, but much of it was incomplete. In some cases, the raw data sheets were posted again, but the reference documents that would allow most people to decipher them were not. Meanwhile, health data continues to be taken down: The New York Times reported last week that data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on bird flu transmission between humans and cats had been posted and then promptly removed.
Much more at https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/399319/trump-cdc-health-data-remove
d-obesity-suicide
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Maybe you shouldn't have fucked around.
Now you're finding out.
The world you thought you were living in 6 months ago doesn't exist.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:6ix, do you remember how the Confederates were convinced to free the slave workforce? 6ix, the persuasion wasn't verbal because the Confederates would not listen to words. Do you remember how the Nazis were persuaded? Again, not with words because the Nazis would not listen. How about the Japs? Japs couldn't comprehend English, so no words, but firebombs followed by A-bombs. 6ixStringJack, you and Trump are not listening. You will regret that you didn't listen carefully while there were still years to save yourselves.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Maybe you shouldn't have fucked around.
Now you're finding out.
The world you thought you were living in 6 months ago doesn't exist.
Trumptards think they winning now, but the Confederates, Nazis, and Japs thought they were winning for years and years before the wordless truth got to them.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, do you remember how the Confederates were convinced to free the slave workforce?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Maybe you shouldn't have fucked around.
Now you're finding out.
The world you thought you were living in 6 months ago doesn't exist.
Nah. I wasn't alive back then.
I know what some old lady told us happened in history books that change every 5 years, under a strict curriculum that the Department of Education has been forcing to be taught nationwide for the last 50 years.
Quote:
6ix, the persuasion wasn't verbal because the Confederates would not listen to words. Do you remember how the Nazis were persuaded? Again, not with words because the Nazis would not listen. How about the Japs? Japs couldn't comprehend English, so no words, but firebombs followed by A-bombs. 6ixStringJack, you and Trump are not listening. You will regret that you didn't listen carefully while there were still years to save yourselves.
*Gasp!*
I'm terrified, dude.
Please. Oh please no. Please don't send the Soy Pussy Cuck Brigade after me.
Quote:
Trumptards think they winning now, but the Confederates, Nazis, and Japs thought they were winning for years and years before the wordless truth got to them.
You and your opinions became completely irrelevant overnight.
Just like I told you they would.
How does it feel?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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So, continuing Trump's foreign policy success, or not.
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think what Trump is doing is "testing" the various national leaders. He proposes something outrageous and observes what he can get away with.
Justin Trudeau folded.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum put up a little bit more of a fight.
Jordan is (publicly) threatening war and refusing to take ethnically cleansed Palestinians (altho what's being said in private may be different.)
Egypt is quiet.
Russia has said "Nyet" but is still willing to talk.
China imposed counter- tarrifs on LNG, oil and farm machinery, started anti-trust investigation on Google, and is blocking exports of five rare earth metals that USA depends on https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/what-are-five-new-critical
-metal-exports-restricted-by-china-2025-02-04/ to the USA, while calling for negotiation.
Denmark is insisting it will not sell Greenland.
Saudi Arabia and OPEC+ refused to increase oil production.
Panama was pressured into ending its BRI contracts with China (There was only one left supposedly) and to (reportedly) waive transit fees for the USA.
India and Brasil indicated they won't pay attention to Trump's threatened secondary sanctions on Russian energy (altho push hasn't come to shove, yet.)
*********
ABOUT UKRAINE: TALKS WITH PUTIN
Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Trump's envoy in Moscow [Witkof, not Gnl Kellogg] may have had lengthy talks with Putin, Fox News says
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-envoy-moscow-may-had-103422144.htmlQuote:
Russian President Vladimir Putin invites Donald Trump to Moscow to discuss ending the war in Ukraine after ‘lengthy’ phone call
Https://www.skynews.com.au/world-news/united-states/russian-president-
vladimir-putin-invites-donald-trump-to-moscow-to-discuss-ending-the-war-in-ukraine-after-lengthy-phone-call/news-story/7935f29572cc2a8560851be459569326Quote:
Putin invited Trump to Moscow to discuss Ukraine, Kremlin says
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/02/12/putin-trump-mo
scow-to-discuss-ukraine/78463575007/Quote:
Putin and Trump speak by phone: LIVE UPDATES
https://www.rt.com/news/612591-putin-and-trump-speak-phone/
*********
IRAN:
Quote:
Ayatollah Responds To Trump's Big Stick Threats: 'Go Forward' With Military Growth
President Trump kicked off the week saying in a Fox interview that "Iran is very concerned. Iran is very frightened, to be honest with you, because their defense is pretty much gone." He had provocatively laid out that "I think Iran would love to make a deal and I would love to make a deal with them without bombing them."
How is Tehran's top leadership responding to the "big stick" threat? On Wednesday Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged his country to go forward with bolstering military development.
Khamenei said "progress should not be stopped" in the defense sector, amid ongoing threats from Israel and the US. "We cannot be satisfied," Khamenei stressed. "Say that we previously set a limit for the accuracy of our missiles, but we now feel this limit is no longer enough. We have to go forward."
...
Trump had further said in that Fox interview that thwarting Iran's development of nuclear weapons could be achieved either "with bombs or with a written piece of paper."
There are two things missing from this article. The first is that Iran and Russia signed a MILITARY agreement. Russia will be supplying advanced air defenses, and fighter jets. The second is that, as part of that agreement, Russia is insisting that Iran NOT develop a nuclear weapon. (I wonder if they're under Russia's nuclear umbrella)
So 'keeping Iran from developing nuclear weapons is a pretty easy win for Trump.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's e
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Quote:6ix, if you were expecting Trump to not take the $500 billion bribe Ukraine has offered him in exchange for weapons, you will likely be disappointed with Trump:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You and your opinions became completely irrelevant overnight.
Just like I told you they would.
How does it feel?
US presents Ukraine with a draft agreement on natural resources – Zelenskyy
By Daryna Vialko | Wed, February 12, 2025 – 19:36
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/us-presents-ukraine-with-draft-agreeme
nt-1739381155.html
The US has presented Ukraine with a draft agreement on natural resources, which could be finalized at the Munich Security Conference, stated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy said he had just held productive and constructive talks with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and received the first draft of a potential natural resources agreement.
"I know that our team has received the first draft agreement from the United States on a partnership between our countries. I want our team to review this document, and we will do everything to study and sign it as soon as possible," Zelenskyy said.
He added that the agreement could be reached at the Munich Security Conference later this week.
"The United States is our key partner. We will do everything to review all the details of the document in time for the Munich Conference because we do not want to waste time," he noted.
According to Zelenskyy, discussions did not include natural resources in Ukrainian territories occupied by Russia.
As previously reported by The New York Post, Ukraine had "essentially agreed" to provide the US with $500 billion worth of rare earth metals as payment for military aid received from Washington.
Zelenskyy also emphasized the importance of protecting Ukrainian territory from Russian forces not only from a security perspective but also financially. Otherwise, he said, valuable minerals, including rare earth elements, will go to Russia for free.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Sounds like a good deal to me.
What did your guy get for all of the military aid that he gave Ukraine?
Oh right. We paid them to take it.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Well, Trump has to provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons to win. Trump can't collect his $500 billion bribe until after Ukraine wins because Russia would simply bomb the mineral extraction operations during the war. By the time Ukraine wins, Trump might be out of office, unless Trump is super generous with the amount of ammo he sends.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sounds like a good deal to me.
What did your guy get for all of the military aid that he gave Ukraine?
Oh right. We paid them to take it.
The second thing is that the US defense industry will be receiving hundreds of billions for the weapons shipped to Ukraine. The defense industry will provide Trump with a gratuity from that money for his service to Capitalism.
It occurred to me that maybe Trump will decide that history won't admire him for taking a $500 billion bribe. Maybe Trump won't sign the deal out of concern for his posthumous reputation.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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How much did Mayor Eric Adams pay Trump to drop charges? Winds of Change, indeed, 6ix.
New York Mayor Eric Adams is officially off the hook. Months of pandering to Donald Trump — defending him against accusations of fascism, jetting down to Florida to dine with the president, and quietly showing up to Trump’s inauguration — finally paid off Monday night, when the Department of Justice ordered prosecutors to drop their corruption charges against him.
“The Justice Department has reached this conclusion without assessing the strength of the evidence or the legal theories on which the case is based.” — Emil Bove, acting deputy attorney general, in a memo addressed to federal prosecutors in New York
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/trump-news-eric-adams-mayo
r-doj-charges-dropped.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Brenda, 6ix thinks much like the Republican Presidents who try to destroy the programs you mention:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Six, you really can't lay all the world's ills at the feet of Liberalism.
Going back in time, Liberalism started allowing girls to go to school.
Liberalism, known today as the "social safety net" allowed both Canada and the USA to pull ourselves out of the Great Depression. The programs weren't perfect but they allowed people to feed themselves and clothe themselves and have a roof over their heads.
The Allies after WWII helped rebuild the western half of Germany. The US helped rebuild Japan.
Liberalism allowed in the 50s for women to work for themselves and not just stay at home with children.
Liberalism in the 60s allowed this line from your constitution, "That all men are created equal." to actual mean something.
Liberalism allows your brother with some help to live on his own and not be in an institution.
Liberalism allows you now to live how you like.
George W. Bush tried to significantly reduce Social Security spending. Mitt Romney ran on significantly reducing Medicare spending. Trump, in his first term, tried to completely eliminate ACA subsidies, completely eliminate Medicaid expansion, and then cut Medicaid even more to below the pre-ACA level. None of this succeeded.
The DOGE hyper-focus on things like foreign aid and the Department of Education is kind of clever politics, but the cleverness lies precisely in its ability to provide cover for diminished aspirations in the face of these failures. Trump is many things, but he is most of all a showman, who’s doing a good job of performing mastery rather than letting attention fall on the razor-thin GOP majority and their somewhat incoherent policy agenda.
The fact is, Republicans don’t have a politically or economically viable path to creating the level of taxation that they want. Rather than try to reconcile themselves to that reality and come up with a more realistic fiscal agenda, they are lashing out at the pillars of the political system itself.
More at https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-paradox-of-trumps-first-weeks
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Oh, I know Trump is a snake-oil salesman because of the way he talks.
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Oh, do you now?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Well, Trump has to provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons to win. Trump can't collect his $500 billion bribe until after Ukraine wins because Russia would simply bomb the mineral extraction operations during the war. By the time Ukraine wins, Trump might be out of office, unless Trump is super generous with the amount of ammo he sends.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sounds like a good deal to me.
What did your guy get for all of the military aid that he gave Ukraine?
Oh right. We paid them to take it.
Part of the rug pull.
The war is basically already over. And he's got Child Rapist Zelensky to just agree to give us $500 Billion, which should more than cover the tab so far.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh, do you now?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Go back over a 100 years and a man like Trump would be with a medicine show. They travelled from town to town fleecing people out of their money with whatever they had made.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this elixir will cure whatever ails you. Sir, do you have lumbago? Well, sir what's in this bottle will get rid of that right away."
And people would give him their money and the next time they had an ache or whatever they would take some and wait and wait for it do something for them and it never would. The salesman was just taking their hard earned money. Sometimes these shows were run out of town by the local law if there was any and sometimes the people trying to get their money back once they realized they'd been conned.
And that is all Trump is.
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I see SECOND has been instructed to pull the "racism" card.
Obedient little bitch, isn't he?
-----------
"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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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh, do you now?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Go back over a 100 years and a man like Trump would be with a medicine show. They travelled from town to town fleecing people out of their money with whatever they had made.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this elixir will cure whatever ails you. Sir, do you have lumbago? Well, sir what's in this bottle will get rid of that right away."
And people would give him their money and the next time they had an ache or whatever they would take some and wait and wait for it do something for them and it never would. The salesman was just taking their hard earned money. Sometimes these shows were run out of town by the local law if there was any and sometimes the people trying to get their money back once they realized they'd been conned.
And that is all Trump is.
Perhaps you're only hearing one side of the story, purposefully framed in a particular way.
Unlike Joe Biden* who probably only spoke in front of cameras about 100 hours within 4 years, Trump has already been filmed talking that much in 3 weeks.
He's not hiding anything. In fact, I think he's been pretty brutally honest about everything.
You can watch hours upon hours of what he has to say.
But if all you've heard is a few soundbytes here and there, then you're only hearing things framed in such a way to make you have that opinion without you being aware of it.
There is a reason why more minorities voted for Trump than any Republican in history. Quite a few, actually.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh, do you now?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Go back over a 100 years and a man like Trump would be with a medicine show. They travelled from town to town fleecing people out of their money with whatever they had made.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this elixir will cure whatever ails you. Sir, do you have lumbago? Well, sir what's in this bottle will get rid of that right away."
And people would give him their money and the next time they had an ache or whatever they would take some and wait and wait for it do something for them and it never would. The salesman was just taking their hard earned money. Sometimes these shows were run out of town by the local law if there was any and sometimes the people trying to get their money back once they realized they'd been conned.
And that is all Trump is.
BRENDA, which is worse: having a blowhard salesman in office who really believes in making your nation better? Or a smooth-talking salesman who's under undercutting your nation at every step?
Bc I think you underestimate Trump. I know he sounds like a blowhard salesman, but I also believe that he's sincere, about wanting to make America better.
After all, if he was in it for himself, would he have persisted after years of being unfairly villified as a "Putin stooge", and BEING SHOT?
Yes, he's a billion-dollar real estate developer and TV personality with galloping ADHD, so how else do you expect him to sound?
There are things that I think he's wrong about. Being joined at the hip with Israel's genocidal program makes me angry. And in the end I don't believe he can fix our economy the way he wants; I think it would take running roughshod over our own set of oligarchs. But if he manages to control our borders, end our "forever wars" and our ceaseless regime change" operations, stop our unconstitutional censorship and snooping into everyone's lives, and stop the sexism and racism that we practice in the name of "equality" I think we'll be in far better shape. Maybe if a real diversity of opinions is allowed we can craft better policies.
Also, you were wrong about what "liberalism" accomplished. For example, many women sent to work during WWII since there was a labor shortage at home. Don't you remember Rosie the Riviter?
When men came home from war, women were expected to forget all that, put on an apron, and go back into the kitchen.
It was all economics and geopolitics.
BTW that was a nice piece of writing.
----------
"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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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Well, Trump has to provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons to win. Trump can't collect his $500 billion bribe until after Ukraine wins because Russia would simply bomb the mineral extraction operations during the war. By the time Ukraine wins, Trump might be out of office, unless Trump is super generous with the amount of ammo he sends.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sounds like a good deal to me.
What did your guy get for all of the military aid that he gave Ukraine?
Oh right. We paid them to take it.
Part of the rug pull.
The war is basically already over. And he's got Child Rapist Zelensky to just agree to give us $500 Billion, which should more than cover the tab so far.
With the war over, Zelensky can not give Trump the $500 billion bribe. Maybe Putin will give Trump the $500 billion bribe? Or maybe Putin will keep the money for himself. Putin did invade Ukraine to steal its wealth and the $500 billion worth of minerals is part of that wealth.
We will see if Trump realizes that with Russia winning, the American weapon makers can't make money and Trump can't either.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The guy Trump released has plenty of money to pay Trump for the release secretly.
Kremlin Embarrasses Trump With Truth About U.S. Teacher Marc Fogel’s Release
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that the school teacher’s freedom was “not in return for anything.” “There wasn’t some deal here where we had to release, like, 10 spies,” Rubio added.
The deal Donald Trump brokered with Russia to release American school teacher Marc Fogel on Tuesday was, in fact, a prisoner swap — even though the president had tried to suggest otherwise.
The Russian man freed in the deal is Alexander Vinnik, 45, who stands accused of laundering billions through the digital currency exchange website he ran. Vinnik, who ran the exchange BTC-e, was extradited to the U.S. after being arrested in Greece in 2017. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in May 2024.
Trump on Tuesday evaded questions about what exactly the U.S. gave up to free Fogel. The president would only repeat his evaluation that the deal was “very fair.” “I think there’s good will, in terms of the war,” Trump said. “I think this … could be a big, important part in getting the war over.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kremlin-embarrasses-donald-trump-with-tr
uth-about-marc-fogels-release/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Co-President Elon Musk is also selling snake oil:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Oh, I know Trump is a snake-oil salesman because of the way he talks.
Elon Musk Is Faking It
He thinks Americans are stupid. The fraudster who cried “fraud”
Did you hear the one about how USAID spent $50 million — or was it $100 million? — providing condoms to Hamas? This claim played a big role in the public relations campaign to rationalize the sudden, illegal dismantling of an agency that provides humanitarian aid to millions of people, and is also a key element of US foreign policy.
Reporters were puzzled by the claim because there didn’t appear to be any evidence. You will be happy to know that the mystery has been solved. Some DOGE staffers noticed that USAID had disbursed grants to local groups trying to limit the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in Gaza. But they didn’t read far enough in to learn that the Gaza in question isn’t the war-ravaged strip; it’s a province in the African nation of Mozambique. Oh well, southern Africa, the Middle East, what’s the difference?
Elon Musk actually admitted the mistake, albeit with minimal grace, during his extraordinary Oval Office press conference with President Trump on Tuesday. (Trump hasn’t acknowledged the error.) That conference consisted mainly of Musk pacing around, declaiming, while Trump sat passively at his desk, occasionally expressing agreement. Musk behaved as if he were the actual president and Trump merely a heavily made-up prop.
Anyway, the incident demonstrated the level of care and understanding that DOGE is bringing to its alleged mission of identifying waste, fraud and abuse.
But both Trump and Musk insisted that DOGE has already found billions, maybe tens of billions, of waste and fraud. Here’s a complete list of the specific examples Musk gave during the press conference:
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
That’s right: Musk has yet to offer any specific examples of government waste. The closest Musk came to specifics was his assertion that DOGE had done
Quote:Is this true? Can we have some names please? It wouldn’t be a violation of privacy if the people are already dead.
just cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone that's 150? I don't know. They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. So that's a case where I think they're probably dead.
Musk also asserted that
Quote:Is this true? What are these peoples’ stories, if they exist? Sorry, Elon, but why should we believe you when the obvious explanation is that you are taking us for fools?
there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars, but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position, which is what happened at USAID
I am, however, sure that Musk knows that DOGE’s efforts to find waste and fraud have come up empty. If he had anything real to talk about, he would.
Whether Trump realizes that Musk is faking it is less clear. But as Tuesday’s event showed, it’s not clear whether Trump matters at this point.
In any case, Musk imagines that he can con the American people, that he can keep his racket going by talking fast and throwing around what sound like big numbers.
And I wish I were sure that he’s wrong.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/elon-musk-thinks-americans-are-stup
id
Bring Your Children to Work Day in the Oval Office
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
The following are 12 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind…
#1 According to Google AI, our nation has lost almost 70,000 factories since the year 2000…
The United States has lost nearly 70,000 factories since 2000. This is part of a larger decline in the US manufacturing sector that has also resulted in the loss of over 5 million jobs.
#2 In July 1979, 19.5 million Americans had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 12.8 million Americans have manufacturing jobs even though our population is much larger than it was in 1979.
#3 According to a survey that was recently conducted by the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. has lot more than it has gained from free trade.
#4 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. At the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008, manufacturing represented only 11.5 percent of all U.S. economic output. Today, manufacturing represents just 10.3 percent of all U.S. economic output.
#5 More than a billion cellphones are sold worldwide each year. Only a few thousand of them are actually manufactured in the United States.
#6 The size of our trade deficit with China in 2024 was $295,000,000,000.
#7 At this point, China produces approximately 4 times as many vehicles each year than the United States does.
#8 In the early days of the industry, 100 percent of all semiconductors were manufactured in the United States. Today, that number is down to just 8 percent.
#9 Russia is producing three times as many artillery shells as the U.S. and Europe combined.
#10 The United States spends approximately $3.00 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States.
#11 Our stores are absolutely overflowing with products that are made in China. Meanwhile, soybeans are the number one export from the U.S. to China.
#12 More than 36 million Americans are now living in poverty, homelessness in the U.S. is at an all-time record high, and demand at food banks in the U.S. is at record levels all over the nation.
-----------
"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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Quote:Farmers cast their votes for Trump. Now Musk’s cuts are hitting them.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA(N Farmers)
By Simon Montlake | Feb. 13, 2025, 5:15 a.m. ET
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2025/0213/elon-musk-trump-voter
s
It’s no exaggeration to say that America’s farmers helped put Donald Trump in the White House. Of the 444 counties classified as farm-dependent by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), most of which are located west of the Mississippi and east of the Rockies, Mr. Trump won all but 11 last November.
But now, some of these same communities are reacting with a sense of dismay and concern as they watch the Trump administration dismantle federal agencies and freeze Biden-era financing programs that directly impact their own economic livelihood.
Farmers who sell surplus crops to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for overseas distribution are fretting about future purchases and calling their state delegations. Business owners that qualified for USDA grants and invested in renewable energy technology and climate-resistant crops are unsure if they will be paid. Contract lawyers are getting involved.
“When you start ripping wires out of the federal government ... the unintended consequences could be strong and unexpected,” says Dante Scala, a political scientist at the University of New Hampshire.
Impact on farmers
Farmers who signed contracts with the USDA under programs funded by President Joe Biden’s 2022 clean energy law, the Inflation Reduction Act, are now calling on lawmakers to defend them. The law provided grants and loan guarantees for farmers to invest in renewable energy systems and plant crops that could withstand climate change. After Mr. Trump signed an executive order to rescind Biden-era initiatives, the USDA and other agencies were instructed to freeze funding in order to comply with new policies.
Among the funds frozen by the Trump administration is a $3 billion program called the Partnership for Climate-Smart Commodities. The Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) said last week that its members were at financial risk because of suspended reimbursements.
Farmers “are contractually owed $11 million for practices implemented in 2024,” the association’s president, Brent Swart, wrote in a letter to Iowa’s congressional delegation, all of whom are Republicans. “We ask for your support in advocating USDA honor its contractual obligation to ISA and its commitment to Midwestern farmers.”
Skylar Holden, a cattle farmer in Missouri, said he had invested in new fencing and a well on his farm after signing a $240,000 contract with the USDA to share costs, and had been told that he would have to wait on reimbursement. In a series of TikTok videos, he said he’d already spent more on materials for further improvements on his farm, including for water systems, and was counting on the promised federal funding. “I’ve already done a bunch of the work, already paid for the material and the labor, so I’m out all that cost,” he said.
In addition to the funding freeze, farmers also stand to lose out from Mr. Musk’s dismantling of USAID, which distributes food aid globally, including U.S.-grown crops. Republicans in Congress are reportedly preparing legislation to salvage a $1.8 billion USAID crop-purchasing program by transferring it to the USDA. The bill’s sponsors include GOP lawmakers from Kansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, and Arkansas. The program, called Food for Peace, is the largest donor of food to the United Nations’ World Food Programme.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump fired the inspector general of USAID, a Biden appointee, after he issued a report that detailed how DOGE’s abrupt dismissal and recall of employees made it impossible to guarantee safe delivery of food aid.
At some point, Mr. Musk’s “sledgehammer approach” to government programs could become a political liability for Republicans, warns Mr. Wylie, the GOP strategist who is based in South Carolina.
GOP lawmakers who don’t assert c
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Quote:I'm not gonna correct you, Signym, because you never understand anything, but I will point out that manufacturing is following the same path that farming did. What path? Fewer farms and farmers and yet more food. Fewer factories and factory workers and yet more manufactured goods.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
The following are 12 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind…
#1 According to Google AI, our nation has lost almost 70,000 factories since the year 2000…
The United States has lost nearly 70,000 factories since 2000. This is part of a larger decline in the US manufacturing sector that has also resulted in the loss of over 5 million jobs.
#2 In July 1979, 19.5 million Americans had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 12.8 million Americans have manufacturing jobs even though our population is much larger than it was in 1979.
#3 According to a survey that was recently conducted by the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. has lot more than it has gained from free trade.
#4 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. At the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008, manufacturing represented only 11.5 percent of all U.S. economic output. Today, manufacturing represents just 10.3 percent of all U.S. economic output.
Millions of farmers have lost their jobs. That must mean Americans are starving! Or maybe not. A whopping 40% of all food grown and produced in the U.S. is never eaten. Farming accounts for about 1% of the U.S. gross domestic product.
https://www.fb.org/newsroom/fast-facts
Percentage of Labor Force in Agriculture
1860 53%
1870 52%
1880 51%
1890 43%
1900 40%
1910 31%
1920 26%
1930 21%
1940 23.1%
1950 15.2%
1960 8.7%
1970 4.7%
1980 2.7%
https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teacher-resources/stat
istics-trends-american-farming
The oats for my oatmeal breakfast were grown in Canada. Oh my goodness! Canadians are stealing American farm jobs and they could starve us if they wanted to. Grow Oats In America To Make America Great Again!
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:With the war over, Zelensky can not give Trump the $500 billion bribe. Maybe Putin will give Trump the $500 billion bribe? Or maybe Putin will keep the money for himself. Putin did invade Ukraine to steal its wealth and the $500 billion worth of minerals is part of that wealth.
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Well, Trump has to provide Ukraine with sufficient weapons to win. Trump can't collect his $500 billion bribe until after Ukraine wins because Russia would simply bomb the mineral extraction operations during the war. By the time Ukraine wins, Trump might be out of office, unless Trump is super generous with the amount of ammo he sends.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Sounds like a good deal to me.
What did your guy get for all of the military aid that he gave Ukraine?
Oh right. We paid them to take it.
Part of the rug pull.
The war is basically already over. And he's got Child Rapist Zelensky to just agree to give us $500 Billion, which should more than cover the tab so far.
We will see if Trump realizes that with Russia winning, the American weapon makers can't make money and Trump can't either.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Trump doesn't need to make any money. He isn't a career Democrat who got rich rapeing the American Public.
Speaking of which, Nancy had better make sure her passport is up to date.
We're looking into how these rich politicians made their money next.
Tick Tock
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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'The Trump Swamp Is Growing': President Fires Ethics Chief as DOJ Moves to Drop Eric Adams Charges
"Nothing says corruption like firing the top ethics cop on the beat," said Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday fired the director of the Office of Government Ethics as his administration — packed with billionaires and riddled with conflicts of interest — abandons even the pretense of opposing corruption and lawlessness, a course underscored by the Justice Department's push to drop bribery charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The removal of OGE chief David Huitema was announced in a brief statement on the office's website, which was inaccessible as of Tuesday morning.
By Jake Johnson | Feb 11, 2025
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-fires-ethics-director
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
'The Trump Swamp Is Growing': President Fires Ethics Chief as DOJ Moves to Drop Eric Adams Charges
"Nothing says corruption like firing the top ethics cop on the beat," said Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert.
If you displayed one ounce of ethics in the past up until now, you might have an argument.
This line of reasoning isn't going to save the Department of Education which has driven America down to the bottom of every measurable education list of 1st World Nations over the last 50 years.
Why the fuck would you think any American is going to cry about the current "Ethics Cop" losing his job?
He's fucking terrible at it.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Exactly. If the "top ethics cop" had actually been DOING HIS JOB, we wouldn't have had Biden and his son grifting across the globe, Congresspeople making beaucoup bucks on insider trading, "foundations" gathering pay-to-play money, ex-officials becoming multi multi millionaires who knows how, FBI/CIA/DOJ routinely violating our Constitution, etc etc.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
'The Trump Swamp Is Growing': President Fires Ethics Chief as DOJ Moves to Drop Eric Adams Charges
"Nothing says corruption like firing the top ethics cop on the beat," said Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert.
If you displayed one ounce of ethics in the past up until now, you might have an argument.
This line of reasoning isn't going to save the Department of Education which has driven America down to the bottom of every measurable education list of 1st World Nations over the last 50 years.
Why the fuck would you think any American is going to cry about the current "Ethics Cop" losing his job?
He's fucking terrible at it.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
It's like the Inspectors General who were fired. Apparently they never inspected much of anything.
You reap what you sow.
-----------
"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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Quote:WRONG.
Originally posted by second:Quote:I'm not gonna correct you, Signym, because you never understand anything, but I will point out that manufacturing is following the same path that farming did. What path? Fewer farms and farmers and yet more food. Fewer factories and factory workers and yet more manufactured goods.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
The following are 12 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind…
#1 According to Google AI, our nation has lost almost 70,000 factories since the year 2000…
The United States has lost nearly 70,000 factories since 2000. This is part of a larger decline in the US manufacturing sector that has also resulted in the loss of over 5 million jobs.
#2 In July 1979, 19.5 million Americans had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 12.8 million Americans have manufacturing jobs even though our population is much larger than it was in 1979.
#3 According to a survey that was recently conducted by the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. has lot more than it has gained from free trade.
#4 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. At the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008, manufacturing represented only 11.5 percent of all U.S. economic output. Today, manufacturing represents just 10.3 percent of all U.S. economic output.
There's a lot of manufacturing going on, BUT NOT HERE.
I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU POST OBVIOUS LIES.
A trip thru Amazon, or any department store, home improvement store, apppliance store, "superstore", auto sales lot, while inspecting country of origin will tell you who manufactures "stuff" and WHO DOESN'T.
Even ordering specialty chemicals, as I did, led me to China most often, and Germany second.
STEEL PRODUCTION
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343071585/figure/fig1/AS:916467897860097@1595514382257/World-steel-production-historical-data-from-3.png
ALUMINUM PRODUCTION
SPECIALTY CHEMICALS
Top 50 specialty chemicals, by headquarter location
https://cen.acs.org/sections/global-top-50.html
CHIP PRODUCTION
https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/25552.jpeg
You're such a tool.
-----------
"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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I knew it would be bad, but not this bad. My heart sank when I read this
Quote:
UAE Ambassador Says Arab World Has 'No Alternative' To Trump's Gaza Plan
Thursday, Feb 13, 2025 - 10:10 AM
In an extraordinarily surprising development, the United Arab Emirates (UAE has signaled the possibility of removing all Palestinians from Gaza, in accordance with Trump's controversial Gaza plan.
UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba in a fresh interview called the plan "difficult but inevitable" and said he's sees "no alternative" but Trump's plan to expel Gaza's population and undertake massive economic redevelopment of the Strip. He had been asked by a reporter whether the UAE is working on a separate plan, to which he responded no, there's no other plan.
MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uae-ambassador-says-arab-world-
has-no-alternative-trumps-gaza-plan
Turkiye and Arab states, especially the Gulf monarchies, often say they'llsupport Palestinians, but if they smell money they'll do the opposite.
This is deeply, deeply shameful. And all to bolster a nation that IS NOT THE UNITED STATES.
-----------
"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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On the brighter side
Quote:
MAHA: RFK Jr. Confirmed To Lead HHS Despite 'Traitor' McConnell Siding With Democrats.
-----------
"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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Quote:I picked farming and farmers to make a point that a Signym can't understand about employment and purchases by consumers. I'm staying with food. Back in 1900, Americans were spending 40% of their income on food. In 2024 the spending was 10%.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:WRONG.
Originally posted by second:Quote:I'm not gonna correct you, Signym, because you never understand anything, but I will point out that manufacturing is following the same path that farming did. What path? Fewer farms and farmers and yet more food. Fewer factories and factory workers and yet more manufactured goods.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
The following are 12 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind…
#1 According to Google AI, our nation has lost almost 70,000 factories since the year 2000…
The United States has lost nearly 70,000 factories since 2000. This is part of a larger decline in the US manufacturing sector that has also resulted in the loss of over 5 million jobs.
#2 In July 1979, 19.5 million Americans had manufacturing jobs. Today, only 12.8 million Americans have manufacturing jobs even though our population is much larger than it was in 1979.
#3 According to a survey that was recently conducted by the Pew Research Center, 59 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. has lot more than it has gained from free trade.
#4 In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of all U.S. economic output. At the beginning of the Great Recession in 2008, manufacturing represented only 11.5 percent of all U.S. economic output. Today, manufacturing represents just 10.3 percent of all U.S. economic output.
There's a lot of manufacturing going on, BUT NOT HERE.
I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU POST OBVIOUS LIES.
A trip thru Amazon, or any department store, home improvement store, apppliance store, "superstore", auto sales lot, while inspecting country of origin will tell you who manufactures "stuff" and WHO DOESN'T.
Even ordering specialty chemicals, as I did, led me to China most often, and Germany second.
STEEL PRODUCTION
Percentage of Labor Force in Agriculture was 40% in 1900 and 2% in 2024. The point is that food became abundant and cheap (see the word cheap) when the labor input approached zero. The same is true for the manufacturing of any item. To make the item cheap enough to satisfy the most gluttonous consumer means the labor input to make the item has to approach zero.
Signym, if your preferred future is for millions of Americans to switch work and to go into a manufacturing job, all of America will be poorer because the labor input will increase rather than approach zero.
Because the average American Trumptard does not know that in 1900 the average American was working 60 hours per week, poor and underfed compared to the fat, lazy Trumptards of 2025, none of this will be understood by them.
In 1900, the average American worker worked around 10-12 hours per day, which translates to a workweek of roughly 60 hours, as most jobs required six days of work per week; this was due to the prevalent long working hours in the industrial era, with many factory workers putting in even longer shifts.
https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+hours+did+people+work+in+1900
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Fixed it for you.
I picked farming and farmersto make a point that a Signym can't understand about employment and purchases by consumers.because it skirts around the manufacturing story
-----------
"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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Trump says Russia should be readmitted to G7, adding it was a mistake for Moscow to be expelled
https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-russia-should-be-readmitted-g
7-2025-02-13/
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I knew it would be bad, but not this bad. My heart sank when I read thisQuote:
UAE Ambassador Says Arab World Has 'No Alternative' To Trump's Gaza Plan
Thursday, Feb 13, 2025 - 10:10 AM
In an extraordinarily surprising development, the United Arab Emirates (UAE has signaled the possibility of removing all Palestinians from Gaza, in accordance with Trump's controversial Gaza plan.
UAE Ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba in a fresh interview called the plan "difficult but inevitable" and said he's sees "no alternative" but Trump's plan to expel Gaza's population and undertake massive economic redevelopment of the Strip. He had been asked by a reporter whether the UAE is working on a separate plan, to which he responded no, there's no other plan.
MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/uae-ambassador-says-arab-world-
has-no-alternative-trumps-gaza-plan
Turkiye and Arab states, especially the Gulf monarchies, often say they'llsupport Palestinians, but if they smell money they'll do the opposite.
This is deeply, deeply shameful. And all to bolster a nation that IS NOT THE UNITED STATES.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal." - Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
Relocate them into the center of the Congo.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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