Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Thursday, September 10, 2026 23:15
VIEWED: 189535
PAGE 21 of 48
Quote:6ix, I don't have to have lived around the Confederate slave-owners to know they deserved death for what they were. I lived around plenty of Trumptards all my life, and they aren't any better than slave-owners as people.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Your posts are evil. You are retarded.
Keep crying bitch. You're finished.
Today, that fat fucking bastard of a President is bringing back The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), "Star Wars," except he is calling it "Golden Dome". Star Wars could not be built when Reagan was President, and it still cannot be built, but stupid Trumptards want it because they are rotten people who fearfully believe in a fantasy defense system. Essentially, Trumptards are cowards who want a Golden Dome to protect them from even thinking about their well-deserved deaths. Civil War-era slave-owners spent their time in well-deserved fear of being murdered by their slaves. Gee-whiz, it seems to be a theme with evil people to fear they will be killed. Evil people sense that they deserve to die brutally, either from the missiles of their many enemies, or mistreated slaves bashing in the heads of slave-owners, or illegal aliens killing abusive Trumptards. As for me, I never had a psychological reason to fear death, not even a twinge of anxiety. But then I am not a Trumptard.
Star Wars Missile Defense System
https://www.google.com/search?q=star+wars+missile+defense+system
Trump unveils plans for 'Golden Dome' defence system
2 hours ago
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy33n484x0o
Quote:Only a lying sack of shit would say what Trump said. Only a Trumptard would believe him.
"All of them will be knocked out of the air," Trump said. "The success rate is very close to 100%."
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:
But right-wingers simply refuse to accept the reality that almost everyone on Medicaid is either a child, a senior, disabled or between jobs. A recent article in the Times by Matt Bruenig had a very illuminating chart:
Quote:Sometimes, Libtards inadvertently reveal facts about how incompetent they are at administering government.
Only 3 percent of Medicaid recipients were non-disabled working-age adults persistently not working — the kind of people right-wingers imagine infest the program. And it’s a good bet that a fair number of these people had extenuating circumstances of some kind.
This is an interesting chart. It shows those on Medicaid in 2022. No legend on how many are Illegal Alien Invaders that Lord Darth Obiden hoisted onto the Medicaid rolls.
I'm listing the presented figures in case the chart disappears.
The chart does convolute the categories, to try and confuse you.
37% were children
9% were 65 or older
54% were working age.
Out of those 54% working age:
48% worked that year
7% worked the next year
27% were disabled
12% would soon leave Medicaid
6% were not working long term
The 48% that worked that year, times the 54%, equals 26% of the total on Medicaid.
Before Obama, Medicaid was for poor children, seniors, and disabled. Obama added on working people onto an already overburdened system.
The 27% disabled, times 54%, equals about 14.6% of the total. They placed this group separately from children and seniors to confuse you.
So, about 51.6% (37+9+14.6) of the total had been the extent of Medicaid prior to Obama. This had already been a program headed towards insolvency, if not actually there.
You can see that Obama practically doubled the patient load of those on Medicaid.
Just the portion who were working that year accounted for more than 50% piled on top of the 51.6%.
This was what the Democrats did to Medicaid.
So now they need to blame the GoP for trying to fix their mess.
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, I don't have to have lived around the Confederate slave-owners to know they deserved death for what they were.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Your posts are evil. You are retarded.
Keep crying bitch. You're finished.
They were all Democrats. They all voted Democrat.
And all these years later they are the people telling you that black people are too stupid and/or lazy to get a driver's license that they already need to drive. And those no-good, lazy, stupid black people are the only reason we can't have secure elections in this country.
We're done dude. Nobody wants to hear a fucking word out of any of you anymore.
Go to bluesky and you can all cry together about the death of your party and the fact that nobody listens to any of you anymore.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Sometimes, Libtards inadvertently reveal facts about how incompetent they are at administering government.
Originally posted by JEWELSTAITEFAN:Quote:
Originally posted:
But right-wingers simply refuse to accept the reality that almost everyone on Medicaid is either a child, a senior, disabled or between jobs. A recent article in the Times by Matt Bruenig had a very illuminating chart:Quote:
Only 3 percent of Medicaid recipients were non-disabled working-age adults persistently not working — the kind of people right-wingers imagine infest the program. And it’s a good bet that a fair number of these people had extenuating circumstances of some kind.
This is an interesting chart. It shows those on Medicaid in 2022. No legend on how many are Illegal Alien Invaders that Lord Darth Obiden hoisted onto the Medicaid rolls.
I'm listing the presented figures in case the chart disappears.
The chart does convolute the categories, to try and confuse you.
37% were children
9% were 65 or older
54% were working age.
Out of those 54% working age:
48% worked that year
7% worked the next year
27% were disabled
12% would soon leave Medicaid
6% were not working long term
The 48% that worked that year, times the 54%, equals 26% of the total on Medicaid.
Before Obama, Medicaid was for poor children, seniors, and disabled. Obama added on working people onto an already overburdened system.
The 27% disabled, times 54%, equals about 14.6% of the total. They placed this group separately from children and seniors to confuse you.
So, about 51.6% (37+9+14.6) of the total had been the extent of Medicaid prior to Obama. This had already been a program headed towards insolvency, if not actually there.
You can see that Obama practically doubled the patient load of those on Medicaid.
Just the portion who were working that year accounted for more than 50% piled on top of the 51.6%.
This was what the Democrats did to Medicaid.
So now they need to blame the GoP for trying to fix their mess.
Without access to their research and taking the time to go over it, I don't put any stock
at all into that graph. It's just a picture. I can slap the name of any institute I want
on any picture in Paint.NET and it would take me 10 seconds to do it.
In other words, anybody who shows me a graph without any data to me is presenting me with
a document that on face value is less convincing than Obama's birth certificate. (Which
I could also easily recreate just because any birth certificate from that era would be
extremely easy to forge).
Besides... Can't get any real numbers unless they distinguish between those who were on
Medicaid before Covid and the tens of millions more who were put on after Covid.
That's the biggest muck up of the data right now. How could you tell how many illegals
are on there when we don't even know in 2025 how many additional people are still on Medicaid
since Covid rules changed everything?
Every state handles it differently and has different timelines for this stuff. Even in
Indiana this far into 2025 I don't believe they've kicked any of the post-Covid additions
off of the plan yet.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:The "Democrats" of 1860 are not connected to the Democrats of 2025. The word Democrat gets used all over the world by countries that are messed up by the locals' misunderstanding of the words Democrat and Democracy:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, I don't have to have lived around the Confederate slave-owners to know they deserved death for what they were.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Your posts are evil. You are retarded.
Keep crying bitch. You're finished.
They were all Democrats. They all voted Democrat.
People's Democratic Republic of Algeria
Congo, Democratic Republic of the
East Timor – Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
Korea, North – Democratic People's Republic of Korea
Laos – Lao People's Democratic Republic
Nepal – Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
São Tomé and Príncipe – Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe
Sri Lanka – Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
My usual about Trumptards: I have never seen a Trumptard who knew that 1860 and 2025 Democrats are the exact opposite of each other, but that is not surprising because Trumptards can't adapt to the environment they live in, which is why they struggle so hard to prosper and hold their jobs and their families together in America.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:I have heard those same words, approximately, from every Trumptard I have known. None of them can do anything in 10 seconds, 10 minutes, 10 hours, or 10 days because they are dumb as hell and don't know it.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Without access to their research and taking the time to go over it, I don't put any stock
at all into that graph. It's just a picture. I can slap the name of any institute I want
on any picture in Paint.NET and it would take me 10 seconds to do it.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Is Donald Trump doing the world a favour by isolating the United States?
May 20, 2025 11:48am EDT
By Shaun Narine, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada)
https://theconversation.com/is-donald-trump-doing-the-world-a-favour-b
y-isolating-the-united-states-252671
Without the co-operation of the allies alienated by Trump, it may be harder for the U.S. to initiate conflict around the world as it often has since the end of the Cold War.
In response to Trump’s tariffs, China, South Korea and Japan have discussed a renewed free-trade arrangement. President Xi Jinping has toured Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia to encourage a common front against American actions. Asian states are wary of China, but they remain committed to global trade. The U.S. may be retreating from globalization, but the rest of the world is not.
America’s loosening grip
Readjusting the world economy away from the U.S. to a more diverse, evenly distributed economic model will be difficult and disruptive.
Nonetheless, loosening the American grip on global power is an essential first step towards achieving a more just and balanced international order.
For putting this process in motion, the world may owe Trump a measure of thanks.
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:The "Democrats" of 1860 are not connected to the Democrats of 2025.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, I don't have to have lived around the Confederate slave-owners to know they deserved death for what they were.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Your posts are evil. You are retarded.
Keep crying bitch. You're finished.
They were all Democrats. They all voted Democrat.
Neither are the Democrats of 1960.
Wake the fuck up already.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:I have heard those same words, approximately, from every Trumptard I have known. None of them can do anything in 10 seconds, 10 minutes, 10 hours, or 10 days because they are dumb as hell and don't know it.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Without access to their research and taking the time to go over it, I don't put any stock
at all into that graph. It's just a picture. I can slap the name of any institute I want
on any picture in Paint.NET and it would take me 10 seconds to do it.
Awwwwwwwww...
Did somebwody get theiw feewings hwrt today?
Stop being a little bitch and I'll stop treating you like one.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Is Donald Trump doing the world a favour by isolating the United States?
May 20, 2025 11:48am EDT
By Shaun Narine, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, St. Thomas University (Canada)
https://theconversation.com/is-donald-trump-doing-the-world-a-favour-b
y-isolating-the-united-states-252671
Without the co-operation of the allies alienated by Trump, it may be harder for the U.S. to initiate conflict around the world as it often has since the end of the Cold War.
In response to Trump’s tariffs, China, South Korea and Japan have discussed a renewed free-trade arrangement. President Xi Jinping has toured Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia to encourage a common front against American actions. Asian states are wary of China, but they remain committed to global trade. The U.S. may be retreating from globalization, but the rest of the world is not.
This is a bullshit attempt at equivalency.
"Globalism" the way we were doing it was just that. One pure global system. Some sort of United Nations lording over all of us like the how the unelected Bureaucrats of the EU dictate to elected foreign leaders what they are to do.
China talking to Korea and Japan is not globalism. That is international communications that could lead to whatever it leads to. This goes on every single day worldwide despite the attempts of the old US guard and the WEF supervillains, let alone despite who's sitting in the oval office.
Globalism is Americans paying 3000 times for the same medication as the people in other countries do.
Fuck your communist utopia. That dream is dead.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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More racism and black fragility out of some black idiot working at Salon who will be unemployed soon...
https://www.salon.com/2025/05/20/the-next-stage-of-our-democracy-crisi
s-competitive-authoritarianism/
Ya see... Black people were sounding the alarm about saving our country but the evil white devil people didn't listen to them and now we're all fucked.
Fuck you, racist cunt.
Why don't you worry about the record amount of black people who voted for Trump over any other Republican in history before you go blaming the white devil for whatever crying and whining you're going to do today.
Awwwwwww poor baby. You know you're never going to get those reparations you don't deserve a penny of and you hate me for it. I can feel that hate.
I feed off of it.
It is delicious.
If you ever want to start something, the White Devil will be sitting right here waiting to finish it.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
SECOND
Today, that fat fucking bastard of a President is bringing back The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), "Star Wars," except he is calling it "Golden Dome". Star Wars could not be built when Reagan was President, and it still cannot be built, but stupid Trumptards want it because they are rotten people who fearfully believe in a fantasy defense system. Essentially, Trumptards are cowards who want a Golden Dome to protect them from even thinking about their well-deserved deaths ... from the missiles of their many enemies.
Huh?
So, since ALL Americans are potential targets of foreign missiles, are you saying that all Americans are Trumptards? That all Americans deserve to die?
-----------
"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 said it which means the opposite is true: “This design for the Golden Dome will integrate with our existing defense capabilities and should be fully operational before the end of my term, so we’ll have it done in about three years,” Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
SECOND
Today, that fat fucking bastard of a President is bringing back The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), "Star Wars," except he is calling it "Golden Dome". Star Wars could not be built when Reagan was President, and it still cannot be built, but stupid Trumptards want it because they are rotten people who fearfully believe in a fantasy defense system. Essentially, Trumptards are cowards who want a Golden Dome to protect them from even thinking about their well-deserved deaths ... from the missiles of their many enemies.
Huh?
So, since ALL Americans are potential targets of foreign missiles, are you saying that all Americans are Trumptards? That all Americans deserve to die?
https://defensescoop.com/2025/05/20/trump-golden-dome-cost-175-billion
-fully-operational-three-years/
Just so you know, Signym, fully operational means the whole system, for the whole country, not just Washington DC, is up and running. I am not a traveler from the future, but that promise is impossible. Trump only made it to get complete support from the fearful Trumptards, scared of everything.
By the way, the cost will be in the $trillions, not $billions. But then the real point of the project is to make venture capitalists wealthier than ever before. The best part is that nobody will know that the system doesn't work until it is too late and the USA is being hit by thousands of nukes simultaneously dropping from the sky. It is the perfect boondoggle: the price is stupendous, the insane customer (that is Trumptards) will pay any price because the customer is terrorized by the thought of death, and the inadequacy of the product can not be detected.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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A Liz Truss Moment for America?
Financial indicators are flashing yellow
By Paul Krugman | May 21, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-liz-truss-moment-for-america
Despite hitting a few speed bumps, Congress seems likely to pass Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” — legislation that combines big tax cuts for the rich with vicious cuts in social programs — within a few days. This momentous move will take place with almost no public discussion; the final hearing of the House Rules Committee began at 1 AM this morning. That’s right, 1 AM. We’re clearly watching a bum’s rush, an attempt to ram this atrocity through before the public understands what’s happening.
I have already focused on the bill’s cruelty. It’s also deeply irresponsible, undermining America’s hard-won reputation as a country that honors its obligations. The cuts to Medicaid and food stamps won’t come close to offsetting the revenue loss from the tax cuts for the rich. Neither will revenue from tariffs. And can we all now acknowledge that DOGE’s promise to eliminate hundreds of billions in “waste, fraud and abuse” hasn’t just failed? It has ended up being a complete waste of time, which it has tried to conceal with fraudulent claims of achievement, all while abusing dedicated civil servants and driving them out of government in ways that will impoverish America in the long run — and maybe not that long. We’re a world leader in education, science and technology that is systematically destroying the very basis of our success.
So we’re looking at a large increase in an already high budget deficit when we’re already at full employment, interest rates are already at multiyear highs, and future growth prospects are declining.
Financial markets normally cut wealthy nations with stable governments a lot of slack, with reason. Rich, well governed countries have immense ability to raise revenues if needed, especially if, like the United States, you collect a smaller percentage of GDP in taxes than almost any other advanced economy:
Source: OECD
In other words, until now markets have believed that the U.S. has the resources to deal with its deficit whenever it musters the political will. And bond buyers have been willing to assume that we are a serious country that will eventually get its fiscal house in order.
But markets’ patience with American dysfunction isn’t unlimited. Consider how quickly things went wrong for the UK. In 2022 Liz Truss, Britain’s Prime Minister, announced a “mini-budget” that involved cutting taxes and blowing up the budget deficit. Markets freaked out: long-term interest rates soared and the pound plunged. The tabloid The Daily Star famously set up a webcam showing a photo of Truss next to a head of iceberg lettuce wearing a wig, and asked which would last longer.
The lettuce won, because Britain’s parliamentary system allowed it to get rid of a disastrous leader. We, unfortunately, can’t.
So are we facing a Liz Truss moment in America? Long-term interest rates are close to their highest level in many years:
The dollar, which rose after Trump’s election, has now fallen sharply:
Source: xe.com
These market movements, especially in combination, are disturbing and at least hints that something like a Truss moment may be looming. We saw a whiff of that after Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs; what happens when markets realize that the budget is, in its own way, just as bad?
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Trump Says Birthright Citizenship Is Only 'About the Babies of Slaves.' Historical Evidence Says Otherwise.
The 1866 debate over birthright citizenship included a debate over immigration.
By Damon Root | 5.20.2025 11:38 AM
https://reason.com/2025/05/20/trump-says-birthright-citizenship-is-onl
y-about-the-babies-of-slaves-historical-evidence-says-otherwise/
Trump may think that birthright citizenship is only "about the babies of slaves." But as these statements from the 1866 debates make clear, the historical evidence proves him wrong.
Congressional debate shows that it was understood that birthright citizenship would apply to the U.S.-born children of unpopular immigrants.
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:
Trump Says Birthright Citizenship Is Only 'About the Babies of Slaves.' Historical Evidence Says Otherwise.
The 1866 debate over birthright citizenship included a debate over immigration.
By Damon Root | 5.20.2025 11:38 AM
https://reason.com/2025/05/20/trump-says-birthright-citizenship-is-onl
y-about-the-babies-of-slaves-historical-evidence-says-otherwise/
Trump may think that birthright citizenship is only "about the babies of slaves." But as these statements from the 1866 debates make clear, the historical evidence proves him wrong.
Congressional debate shows that it was understood that birthright citizenship would apply to the U.S.-born children of unpopular immigrants.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
We're kicking every last one of them out, America-hater.
At least your Liberal shit magazines are admitting that the "immigrants" are "unpopular" in 2025.
They are invaders. None of them belong here. They will all be removed.
Every last one of them and their kids.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly dies at 75
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gerry-connolly-dead-age-75-virginia-democ
rat/
Another dead Democrat. 3 of them, actually.
Quote:
Connolly is the third House Democrat to die this year. Rep. Sylvester Turner of Texas died on March 4, and Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona died on March 13.
I think we can stick a fork in Second's prediction that Democrats never get sick and die because they vote Democrat.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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dbl
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Quote:My prediction was that stupid assholes die early. My observation was that all Trumptards I know are stupid assholes of a special class, the semi-humans who can't adapt to America as it is. I have not known all Trumptards, but of the thousands I have known, all were stupid assholes who were convinced they are smart, competent, and sane, but they aren't.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I think we can stick a fork in Second's prediction that Democrats never get sick and die because they vote Democrat.
The thing that stupid asshole 6ix gets wrong over and over is the erroneous notion that I am claiming only Trumptards are assholes. Some people are sickly and assholes and die early, but they are not Trumptards. For example, the entertainment industry is full of assholes, many of them overdosing or alcoholic or criminally careless about their health, but very few are Trumptards.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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These Law Firms Should Sue Trump for Racketeering From the Oval Office
By Jonathan Zasloff | May 21, 2025 3:21 PM
Jonathan Zasloff is professor of law at the UCLA School of Law
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/sue-trump-oval-office-rack
eteering.html
Donald Trump has never been exactly shy about his criminal behavior, but now he has taken to proudly proclaiming it. In his recent Time magazine interview, the president basically confessed to extortion:
You’ve used threats and lawsuits, other forms of coercion—
Well, I’ve gotta be doing something right, because I’ve had a lot of law firms give me a lot of money.
Now, extortion is a crime. But who cares, right? Trump isn’t going to prosecute himself. The good news is, he doesn’t have to. Holding him legally accountable doesn’t require prosecution. Trump’s actions open up him and his aides to a powerful form of civil liability that will make clear that they are, in fact, criminals: civil RICO.
Enacted by Congress in 1970 to attack organized crime, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act makes it ‘‘unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise … to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity.”
That sounds intricate, and it is: RICO is a complex statute. But it’s a powerful one. Courts have described civil RICO as “an unusually potent weapon—the litigation equivalent of a thermonuclear device,” because it stigmatizes the defendant as a racketeer, opens them up to treble damages, and allows for vast discovery of their criminal network. And here, it suits precisely what Trump is doing. Let’s look at two critical provisions:
What is an “enterprise,” for the purposes of the statute? RICO defines it as “any individual, partnership, corporation, association or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity.” What would that be here? Well, it would be Trump and his aides (and potentially Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officials), who have planned and executed his program of extortion and solicitation of bribery. That could be an “association in fact.”
What is “a pattern of racketeering activity,” per the statute? Simply put, it is two or more commissions of “predicate acts,” which are crimes listed in the statute. Trump’s actions fit snugly within these acts. Consider:
Extortion. As I have argued in these pages, Trump has committed state-law extortion felonies through his threats against and coercion of law firms, as well as universities. RICO includes these crimes as predicate acts.
Bribery and its solicitation. Bribery might be the central operating principle of Trump’s second term, from domestic and foreign sources alike. The marketing of a personal meme coin, and the granting of an audience to a select group of the highest contributors, is essentially a way of funneling money directly to the Trump family and to the president himself—as if the buying up of suites at the Trump Hotel, or the paying of millions of dollars to sit near him at Mar-a-Lago, had not already done so. Not to mention a $400 million plane from Qatar.
Obstruction of justice. 18 USC Section 1503 makes it a felony to endeavor to “influence, intimidate, or impede” any officer of the court (this includes judges) and contains an omnibus clause criminalizing the obstruction of the “due administration of justice.” Here, the endeavors are public. Despite the Supreme Court’s order to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States, the administration has declared that he is never coming home. Stephen Miller has recently threatened to (illegally) suspend habeas corpus unless judges “do the right thing,” and Trump himself has threatened judges with impeachment.
For most of these charges, we obviously lack all the precise details. In the bribery charge, for example, we do not know the exact understandings between Trump and those who just so happen to be lavishing
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:My prediction was that stupid assholes die early.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I think we can stick a fork in Second's prediction that Democrats never get sick and die because they vote Democrat.
No. That wasn't your prediction.
Everybody remembers what you've said about Democrats because you've said it hundreds of times over the years. Fast-Forward to 2025 and here we are watching all of them die off along with your dead party.
Awwwwwww
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
These Law Firms Should Sue Trump for Racketeering From the Oval Office
Do it bitch.
Just more cases for Trump to win at this point.
You're fucked. Your party is dead, the media is abandoning you and you have nothing but the scorn of American Citizens all pointing at you and your kind.
You should pack your bags and leave my country.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:The Republican Party was founded on the principles of Abolishing Slavery. The fervent opponents of such concepts were The Democrat party.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:Neither are the Democrats of 1960.
Originally posted by second:Quote:The "Democrats" of 1860 are not connected to the Democrats of 2025.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:They were all Democrats. They all voted Democrat.
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, I don't have to have lived around the Confederate slave-owners to know they deserved death for what they were.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Your posts are evil. You are retarded.
Keep crying bitch. You're finished.
Wake the fuck up already.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Since then, the Republican Party has fought for, and won, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Voting Rights of former Slaves, the Full Voting Rights of Slaves, the Voting Rights of Women, the Freedoms of All American Citizens, the Civil Rights of All American Citizens, The Freedoms of Speech in media communications and Internet, etc.
The Democrats have always fervently and feverishly fought against these Rights, Liberties, Freedoms, and they always will.
The Democrats are the same as when the GoP was founded. Just because you might not recognize the truth and fact does not make it absent.
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Democrats can't build anything, and most of them are too stupid to operate and maintain what was already built for them.
The Democratic Party has done to America what the blacks in South Africa have done to themselves.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Gaming Out a Sudden Stop
By Paul Krugman / May 22, 2025 at 5:42 AM
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/gaming-out-a-sudden-stop
I used to be an economics ambulance-chaser — someone who raced around the world to wherever there was an interesting economic calamity. And this international experience probably made me more sensitive than most economists to the way economies that seem to be doing OK can suddenly fall off a cliff into economic crisis.
In 2008, of course, America had a financial crisis of its own — and it was a nightmare. But it was very different from the emerging-market crises I used to spend so much time on. And right now I’m worried that the U.S. might be facing an emerging-market-type crisis: A “sudden stop,” an abrupt cutoff of inflows of foreign capital. If we have a crisis like that it could, in particular, cause a severe housing crash.
I wrote a month ago about the possibility of a sudden stop for the United States. Despite growing pressure on both U.S. interest rates and the dollar, we aren’t there yet. I was, however, a disciple of the late, great Rudiger Dornbusch, whose students often quote Dornbusch’s Law:
The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.
So a U.S. sudden stop still looks quite possible, indeed considerably more likely given the grotesquely cruel and irresponsible budget bill Republicans are trying to ram through. It doesn’t help that key players are being utterly dishonest about what they’re doing: House Republicans have been denying that the bill will increase the budget deficit, while Trump claims that “We’re not touching anything” on Medicaid, just eliminating waste, fraud and abuse (and somehow taking away health care for millions in the process.) Low-information voters may be fooled for a little while, but bond markets won’t.
But while I’ve already written about the possibility of a sudden stop, I haven’t said much about what such a stop, if it happens, would look like. So let’s game it out.
More at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/gaming-out-a-sudden-stop
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin. Now it’s gone mainstream.
What wouldn’t Jesus do?
May 22, 2025, 7:00 AM CDT
It’s a provocative idea: that empathy — that is, putting yourself in another person’s proverbial shoes, and feeling what they feel — is a sin.
The Bible contains repeated invocations from Jesus to show deep empathy and compassion for others, including complete strangers. He’s very clear on this point. Moreover, Christianity is built around a fundamental act of empathy so radical — Jesus dying for our sins — that it’s difficult to spin as harmful.
Yet as stunning as it may sound, “empathy is a sin” is a claim that’s been growing in recent years across the Christian right. It was first articulated six years ago by controversial pastor and theologian Joe Rigney, now author of the recently published book, The Sin of Empathy, which has drawn plenty of debate among religious commentators.
In this construction, empathy is a cudgel that progressives and liberals use to berate and/or guilt-trip Christians into showing empathy to the “wrong” people.
Had it stayed within the realm of far-right evangelicals, we likely wouldn’t be discussing this strange view of empathy at all. Yet we are living in an age when the Christian right has gained unprecedented power, both sociocultural and political. The increasing overlap between conservative culture and right-leaning tech spaces means that many disparate public figures are all drinking from the same well of ideas — and so a broader, secular version of the belief that empathy is a tool of manipulation has bubbled into the mainstream through influential figures like Elon Musk.
What “empathy is a sin” actually means
The proposition that too much empathy is a bad thing is far from an idea that belongs to the right. On Reddit, which tends to be relatively left-wing, one popular mantra is that you can’t set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. That is, too much empathy for someone else can erode your own sense of self, leaving you codependent or open to emotional abuse and manipulation.
That’s a pretty standard part of most relationship and self-help advice — even from some Christian advice authors. But in recent months, the idea that empathy is inherently destructive has not only become a major source of debate among Christians, it’s escaped containment and barreled into the mainstream by way of major media outlets, political figures, and influencers.
The conversation began with an incendiary 2019 essay by Rigney, then a longtime teacher and pastor at a Baptist seminary, in which he introduced “the enticing sin of empathy” and argued that Satan manipulates people through the intense cultural pressure to feel others’ pain and suffering.
Rigney’s ideas were met with ideological pushback, with one Christian blogger saying it “may be the most unwise piece of pastoral theology I’ve seen in my lifetime.” As his essay incited national debate, Rigney himself grew more controversial, facing allegations of dismissing women and telling one now-former Black congregant at his Minneapolis church that “it wouldn’t be sinful for him to own me & my family today.” (In an email to Vox, Rigney denied the congregant’s version of events.) Rigney also has a longtime affiliation with Doug Wilson, the leader of the Reformed Christian Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho.
In practice, what Rigney is typically decrying is any empathy for a liberal perspective or for someone who’s part of a marginalized community.
Now well-known for spreading Christian nationalism, and for allegedly fostering a culture of abuse (allegations he has denied), Wilson’s infamy also comes from his co-authored 1996 essay “Southern Slavery: As It Was,” in which he claimed that “Slavery produced in the South a genuine affection between the races that we believe we can say has never existed in any nation before the War or since.” (“My defense of the South does not make me a racist,” Wilson said in 2003.) Rigney appeared on Wilson’s 2019 podcast series Man Rampant to discuss
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin. Now it’s gone mainstream.
What wouldn’t Jesus do?
Where's your empty for white South African farmers who were getting murdered by Mandela's black government for the last 10 years.
Go fuck yourself.
We have zero fucks to give for people who don't deserve any.
Your party is dead. The Media is dead. Empathy is dead.
You milked that empathy bone for every last drop years ago.
Suffer the consequences.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Don't ever change, 6ixStringJack.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin. Now it’s gone mainstream.
What wouldn’t Jesus do?
Where's your empty for white South African farmers who were getting murdered by Mandela's black government for the last 10 years.
Go fuck yourself.
We have zero fucks to give for people who don't deserve any.
Your party is dead. The Media is dead. Empathy is dead.
You milked that empathy bone for every last drop years ago.
Suffer the consequences.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Fact-checking Trump’s claims of white farmer ‘genocide’ in South Africa
(Conclusion: Trump and Musk are lying sacks of shit)
Politics Updated on May 21, 2025 5:19 PM EDT — Published on May 21, 2025 2:51 PM EDT
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trumps-claims-of-w
hite-farmer-genocide-in-south-africa
President Donald Trump confronted South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing him of not protecting white farmers from violence, while playing misleading videos that back up controversial and unfounded claims of white genocide in the country.
After a reporter asked Trump what it would take for him to be convinced that there is no white genocide in South Africa, Ramaphosa said it would take Trump “listening to the voices of South Africans” and reiterated that the claim isn’t true. He said white members of his administration would not have accompanied him to the Oval Office on Wednesday if there were a genocide.
Trump then asked his staff to “turn the lights down,” and play a video showing South African activists and protestors chanting about killing farmers as well as an aerial clip of what he said were large burial sites.
Ramaphosa responded that the clips were of small minority parties, not official government policy, and said South Africa is a “multi-party democracy… that allows people to express themselves.”
“There is criminality in our country,” he said. “People who do get killed unfortunately through criminal activity are not only white people. Majority of them are Black people.”
In recent days, the Trump administration has made a display of accepting Afrikaners, primarily white South African farmers, who feel they are being persecuted because of their race. White South Africans own three-quarters of privately held land in the country, and control about 60 percent of top corporate management jobs, despite comprising only 7 percent of the population.
Afrikaners are the descendants of predominantly Dutch settlers who colonized South Africa centuries ago. They were the architects of apartheid, the racist system of government that prioritized the country’s white minority which officially ended 30 years ago.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History
House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.
By Jonathan Chait | May 22, 2025, 9:21 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/big-beautiful-transf
er-of-wealth/682885/
House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.
That is not a side effect of the legislation, but its central purpose. The “big, beautiful bill” would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the bill’s passage, by a 215–214 margin, would mark the moment the Republicans ensured the loss of their majority in the midterm elections. That may be so. But the Republicans have not pursued this bill for political reasons. They are employing a majority that they suspect is temporary to enact deep changes to the social compact.
The minority party always complains that the majority is “jamming through” major legislation, however deliberate the process may be. (During the year-long debate over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans farcically bemoaned the “rushed” process that consumed months of public hearings.) In this case, however, the indictment is undeniable. The House cemented the bill’s majority support with a series of last-minute changes whose effects have not been digested. The Congressional Budget Office has not even had time to calculate how many millions of Americans would lose health insurance, nor by how many trillions of dollars the deficit would increase.
The heedlessness of the process is an indication of its underlying fanaticism. The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening.
House Republicans are fully aware of the political and economic risks of this endeavor. Cutting taxes for the affluent is unpopular, and cutting Medicaid is even more so. That is why, instead of proudly proclaiming what the bill will accomplish, they are pretending it will do neither. House Republicans spent months warning of the political dangers of cutting Medicaid, a program that many of their own constituents rely on. The party’s response is to fall back on wordplay, pretending that their scheme of imposing complex work requirements, which are designed to cull eligible recipients who cannot navigate the paperwork burden, will not throw people off the program—when that is precisely the effect they are counting on to produce the necessary savings.
The less predictable dangers of their plan are macroeconomic. The bill spikes the deficit, largely because it devotes more money to lining the pockets of lawyers and CEOs than it saves by immiserating fast-food employees and ride-share drivers. Massive deficit spending is not always bad, and in some circumstances (emergencies, or recessions) it can be smart and responsible. In the middle of an economic expansion, with a large structural deficit already built into the budget, it is deeply irresponsible.
In recent years, deficit spending has been a political free ride. With interest rates high and rising, the situation has changed. Higher deficits oblige Washington to borrow more money, which can force it to pay investors higher interest rates to take on its debt, which in turn increases the deficit even more, as interest payments (now approaching $1 trillion a year) swell. The market could absorb a new equilibrium with a higher deficit, but that resolution is hardly assured. The compounding effect of higher debt leading to higher interest rates leading to higher debt can spin out of control.
House Republicans have made clear they are aware of both the political and the economic dange
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Don't ever change, 6ixStringJack.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Christian nationalists decided empathy is a sin. Now it’s gone mainstream.
What wouldn’t Jesus do?
Where's your empty for white South African farmers who were getting murdered by Mandela's black government for the last 10 years.
Go fuck yourself.
We have zero fucks to give for people who don't deserve any.
Your party is dead. The Media is dead. Empathy is dead.
You milked that empathy bone for every last drop years ago.
Suffer the consequences.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Fact-checking Trump’s claims of white farmer ‘genocide’ in South Africa
(Conclusion: Trump and Musk are lying sacks of shit)
Says lying, American-hating, USAid funded PBS with a grotch against Trump because he took away their federal funding.
Your liars haven't fact checked shit. Ever.
Your media is dead. Your party is dead. You are worthless. You are nothing.
Leave my country.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Trumptards don't have a country because Semi-humans cannot be citizens. But neither can dogs or cats be citizens, just so you know. Trumptards are lumped into the classification "Pets" and are lucky to be tolerated, but if they get to be a problem for real people, animal control officers will take them away, maybe euthanize them if nobody can tolerate the howling, barking, scratching, and marking of territory with urine.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Says lying, American-hating, USAid funded PBS with a grotch against Trump because he took away their federal funding.
Your liars haven't fact checked shit. Ever.
Your media is dead. Your party is dead. You are worthless. You are nothing.
Leave my country.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Air traffic chaos rooted in 'terrible idea' from Trump's first term: report
By Travis Gettys | May 22, 2025 9:39AM ET
https://www.rawstory.com/newark-air-traffic-chaos-terrible/
Aviation insiders blame the recent chaos in the skies on a policy rooted in the first Trump administration.
Air traffic controllers have repeatedly lost contact over the past month with commercial flights at Newark Liberty International Airport, as recently as Monday, and experts told CNN the roots of the issue was transferring control over the airport to a facility more than 100 miles away in Philadelphia connected by outdated equipment.
“The problem isn’t just aging equipment, the problem is the set up at this facility,” said one former air traffic controller familiar with the region. “Commercial telecommunications lines were never built for mission critical data like this, including radar data.”
Documents obtained by CNN, in addition to interviews with air traffic controllers, show that rank-and-file union members opposed moving operations to Philadelphia from Newark, which had been plagued by staffing shortages for decades.
“They’ve (FAA) tried many things over the last 30 years to try to improve the staffing and none of them had actually worked," said David Grizzle, who had been head of the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization during the Obama administration.
The move originated within the ATO with the thought that moving air traffic controllers to a city with a lower cost of living than the New York City area would make it easier to hire air traffic controllers, and the FAA signed off on the plan during the first Trump administration with an expected completion date in early 2022.
"In September 2020, the Trump FAA justified its plan, arguing that 'despite efforts' the agency was still struggling to hire air traffic controllers and that controller levels are 'projected to decline,' according to a separate FAA internal document obtained by CNN," the network reported. "Less than a month before the 2020 election, on October 5, 2020, the FAA in collaboration with NATCA drew up initial engineering plans for the move to Philadelphia, according to the documents."
The air traffic controllers union and the FAA reached a memorandum of understanding about two weeks after president Joe Biden was inaugurated to move control of Newark's airspace to Philadelphia, but a former FAA official said most of the planning for that would have been completed long before that agreement was signed.
“They go through the process and almost brainstorm the bad things that would happen and what can be done to mitigate that,” the former FAA official said. “You don’t sign a memorandum of understanding and then begin studying something.”
However, rank-and-file union members opposed the move, according to multiple air traffic controllers.
“It was a terrible idea, people on the ground knew it was bad,” said one recently retired controller.
The FAA solicited volunteers to move to Philadelphia in February 2021, and kept asking through mid-2022, but there weren't many takers, and the agency started mandating moves in January 2023.
"One month before the FAA moved control of Newark’s airspace from New York to Philadelphia, the air traffic controllers’ union raised serious safety concerns about the feasibility of the plan," CNN reported. "According to internal union PowerPoint documents dated June 2024, that were reviewed by CNN, the union argued that moving controllers to Philadelphia would only make things worse by increasing 'coordination times resulting in delays and jeopardizing safety.'
The plan went live in July 2024, and the FAA's remote feed connected by telecommunications lines was plagued with issues from the start, and communications failed entirely on April 28 when a copper wire burned inside one of those telecom lines.
“Politicizing this only muddies the extent of the problem and the decades-long challenges the FAA has had with air traffic
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trumptards don't have a country because Semi-humans cannot be citizens. But neither can dogs or cats be citizens, just so you know. Trumptards are lumped into the classification "Pets" and are lucky to be tolerated, but if they get to be a problem for real people, animal control officers will take them away, maybe euthanize them if nobody can tolerate the howling, barking, scratching, and marking of territory with urine.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Says lying, American-hating, USAid funded PBS with a grotch against Trump because he took away their federal funding.
Your liars haven't fact checked shit. Ever.
Your media is dead. Your party is dead. You are worthless. You are nothing.
Leave my country.
You're a real hoot.
If things ever go south, you'll be among the first to get eaten.
It's no wonder why you're so scared about the world today.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Trump amplified false claims that White Afrikaners have been victims of a genocide, even showing video of crosses and earthen mounds that he said represented more than 1,000 grave sites of murdered farmers. The mounds were in fact part of a protest against the violence, not actual graves.
I have no problem with Trump raising the issue of the attacks on white South African farmers and his condemnation of Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, a party that advocates giving White-owned land to Black people. However, to accuse Ramaphosa of allowing genocide is obscene and ridiculous.
Here is what I wish President Ramaphosa had said back to Trump:
Mr. President, your accusation that my government is engaged in genocide is false and libelous. Unlike you, we allow free speech in South Africa, even comments as reprehensible as those made by Mr. Malema. I would remind you that there was a time in the United States that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that neo-Nazis had a constitutional right to march, citing freedom of speech and assembly under the First Amendment—even if the speech was hateful and deeply offensive. As you may recall, this ruling concerned a march in Skokie, Illinois that was led by Frank Collin, the head of the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA)—a neo-Nazi group—in the late 1970s.
I am sad to see that you no longer are a defender of the First Amendment of your Constitution. What I find more troubling is that you apparently value the lives of white South Africans over the lives of the Palestinian people. You have welcomed and embraced Bibi Netanyahu in this very office… a man, who by his own words, advocates the slaughter of the Amaleks, a biblical word he now associates with the Palestinian people. More than 60,000 children, women, men and elderly civilians have been murdered by Israeli forces, at the direction of their government, since October 7, 2023. This is the policy of the Zionist government.
Yet, when you welcomed Bibi Netanyahu into your office, you said nothing. By your silence, you endorsed an actual genocide that is taking place now. Shame on you.
The policy of my government is that no violence against civilians, regardless of the color of their skin, is acceptable. However, I will not sit silently in the face of your unfounded accusations that I tolerate or endorse genocide in South Africa. You, as head of the United States, have no moral authority to lecture us. Your government has killed millions of civilians in Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam. Your own government is still supplying weapons to Ukraine that are being used to kill civilians in Russia. I will remind you of the words spoken by Jesus: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.“
Sadly, Ramaphosa let Trump get away with this stunt.
https://sonar21.com/what-president-ramaphosa-should-have-said-to-donal
d-trump/
-----------
"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 think you're right SIX. I think SECOND is basically a coward.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trumptards don't have a country because Semi-humans cannot be citizens. But neither can dogs or cats be citizens, just so you know. Trumptards are lumped into the classification "Pets" and are lucky to be tolerated, but if they get to be a problem for real people, animal control officers will take them away, maybe euthanize them if nobody can tolerate the howling, barking, scratching, and marking of territory with urine.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Says lying, American-hating, USAid funded PBS with a grotch against Trump because he took away their federal funding.
Your liars haven't fact checked shit. Ever.
Your media is dead. Your party is dead. You are worthless. You are nothing.
Leave my country.
You're a real hoot.
If things ever go south, you'll be among the first to get eaten.
It's no wonder why you're so scared about the world today.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
-----------
"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:Quote:I think you're right SIX. I think SECOND is basically a coward.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trumptards don't have a country because Semi-humans cannot be citizens. But neither can dogs or cats be citizens, just so you know. Trumptards are lumped into the classification "Pets" and are lucky to be tolerated, but if they get to be a problem for real people, animal control officers will take them away, maybe euthanize them if nobody can tolerate the howling, barking, scratching, and marking of territory with urine.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Says lying, American-hating, USAid funded PBS with a grotch against Trump because he took away their federal funding.
Your liars haven't fact checked shit. Ever.
Your media is dead. Your party is dead. You are worthless. You are nothing.
Leave my country.
You're a real hoot.
If things ever go south, you'll be among the first to get eaten.
It's no wonder why you're so scared about the world today.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
I'll tell you one thing, Sigs.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm the only person that still posts here that has something to worry about after Trump was elected. There's a very good chance I'm going to be losing my healthcare in the near future. Not only am I at the whims of the Republicans in congress who've been itching to do it, but here in Indiana we did something different to comply with the rules than most states did, and the rules are different here. Even though there are tons more people on it now than there were before Covid, and I've had it since way before covid, because of the fact I'm a single dude with no kids and a long way away from 55, there's going to be some way-of-life changes coming my way that I'm not going to have any control over, while people who got on it years later after the rules changed with Covid are going to keep theirs.
I weighed that possibility out before I made my vote, and I haven't been living under any illusion these last 6 months that it was going to last forever. Looks like the only thing possibly standing between losing my health insurance and keeping it at this point is Josh Hawley.
And yet, you don't hear me freaking out and losing my mind about it once, let alone every day.
It's just another in a very long line of reasons I'm tired of listening to bullshit out of these two losers here everyday. A dozen sky is falling stories out of both of them nearly every day for 12 years straight and none of it fucking matters or has ever negatively impacted their lives in the slightest at the end of the day.
I made a sacrifice when I voted for Trump. I didn't know 100% that is what it would be when I did it, and it's still technically not the case yet... But I think you know me well enough by now to be a person that loves numbers and weighs averages before I make choices on anything important.
I think the best chances I'd given myself for keeping my health insurance as is, and not experiencing a major change of lifestyle going forward as a coin flip that was slightly not in my favor when I cast that vote.
Saving our country was and still is far more important than my health insurance.
And I'd really like to believe that is what I helped be a part of when I made that decision.
But it's also why I get really angry when Kash Patel comes out and tells us that Epstien killed himself, we've barely removed any illegals in 6 months, and then I see a bill coming out that rewards everyone that falls in categories I don't fall in (mostly those involving being married with children and/or being gainfully employed), while taking away my health insurance and then adding $200 Billion to t
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Trump needs to rethink MAGA. He's got a dozen burning bags of dog shit to attend, and it seems like he's busy setting a couple more on fire. A trillion dollars for the DOD? Seriously?
-----------
"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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Bond market shudders as tax bill deepens deficit worries
The New York Times reports:
The market for U.S. government bonds, the bedrock of the global financial system, continued to shudder on Thursday, as President Trump’s bill to extend expensive tax cuts and create new ones without significantly slashing spending passed through the House of Representatives. The bill has unnerved investors, deepening worries that the country’s debt is becoming unmanageable.
Yields on U.S. bonds, which underpin consumer and business interest rates around the world, from mortgages to corporate loans, have been rising in recent weeks. Yields rise as prices fall. Higher yields reflect investors’ concerns that lending to the government by buying its debt has become more risky.
The 30-year Treasury yield on Thursday rose as high as 5.15 percent in early trading, its highest since October 2023, before easing back later in the morning. The 30-year yield is trading about 0.7 percentage points higher than its low in April — a huge move in such a short time in that market.
Christopher J. Waller, an influential governor at the Federal Reserve, said on Thursday that financial markets were looking for more “fiscal discipline” from Washington, warning that investors are likely to continue to demand higher yields in order to hold U.S. assets.
“We ran $2 trillion deficits the last few years — this is just not sustainable, and so the markets are looking for a little more fiscal discipline,” he said in an interview with Fox Business. “They’re concerned.”
More at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/us/politics/bond-market-debt-defici
t.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Today let me address the GOP bust-out budget bill, and how that plays into Moody’s downgrade of US debt last week.
And the bottom line is that, it is bad. The rubber is starting to hit the road.
https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-bond-market-is-not-amused-on.
html
Let me start out with the below graph from the CBO of the past and future projection of the US debt to GDP ratio:
As you can see, until 1980 during periods of peace and prosperity, the US had generally paid down debt as a share of GDP. Debt was incurred during WW1, and paid down during the 1920s. It increased as a result of the Great Depression and WW2, but in the prosperous post-war period was paid down again.
This dynamic changed beginning with Reagan’s “supply side” budget cuts of the early 1980s. Only during Clinton’s Presidency during the prosperous 1990s was debt generally paid down again as a share of GDP. But since the election of George W. Bush a quarter century ago, even during periods of peace and prosperity, the debt shot up.
Now with the latest GOP budget bill, even without any crises, just with continued peace and prosperity, the debt is primed to rise to nearly 250% of GDP in the next several decades!
The Bond Market has noticed. And it is not amused.
Just for example, here is a graph I pulled this morning, showing that yesterday’s 30 year bond auction resulted in yields of 4.96%, close to the highest in almost 20 years:
Many Graphs at https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-bond-market-is-not-amused-on.
html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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What a Decent Budget Would Look Like
By Paul Krugman | May 23, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/what-a-decent-budget-would-look-lik
e
. . . we could vastly improve our fiscal position with a series of easy choices — actions that would mainly spare the middle class and only hurt people most Americans probably believe deserve to feel a bit of pain. So here are four things we could and should be doing.
First, get Americans — mainly wealthy Americans — to pay the taxes they owe. The net tax gap — taxes Americans are legally obliged to pay but don’t — is simply huge, on the order of $600 billion a year. We can never get all of that money back, but giving the IRS enough resources to crack down on wealthy tax cheats would be both fiscally and morally responsible, since letting people get away with cheating on their taxes rewards bad behavior and makes law-abiding taxpayers look and feel like chumps.
Republicans are doing the opposite: They’re starving the IRS of resources.
Second, crack down on Medicare Advantage overpayments. Currently, much of Medicare is run through insurance companies whose payments from the government are based on the health status of their clients — the sicker the people they cover, and hence the higher their likely medical bills, the more the insurance companies receive. Unfortunately, insurers game the system, finding ways to make their clients look less healthy than they really are, and thereby get overpaid.
We’re talking a lot of money here. A Center for American Progress estimate found that
Medicare is at risk of overpaying [Medicare Advantage] plans between $1.3 trillion and $2 trillion over the next decade
It’s astonishing that these overpayments never became a target of Elon Musk’s DOGE — or it would be astonishing if you believed anything Musk has said about DOGE’s real aims.
Third, go after corporate tax avoidance. Much of this involves multinational firms using strategies that are shady and dishonest but legal to make profits actually earned in the United States disappear and reappear in low-tax nations like Ireland.
In 2017 Gabriel Zucman estimated that such maneuvers were costing the U.S. Treasury around $70 billion annually. The number is probably bigger now. There are several strategies that could limit these losses; ideally, major economies would cooperate to crack down both on corporate misbehavior and the nations that enable it.
Finally, we should just get rid of Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cut. That tax cut wasn’t a response to any economic needs, and there’s not a shred of evidence that it did the economy any good. All it did was transfer a lot of money to corporations and the wealthy. Let’s end those giveaways.
Would doing all these things be enough to put America on a sustainable fiscal path? Honestly, I don’t know. But they would make a good start toward putting our fiscal house in order. And none of them would involve the “hard choices” fiscal scolds tell us we need to make.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Supreme Court just revealed one thing it actually fears about Trump
The Republican justices draw a line in the sand – in an order that makes absolutely no sense.
By Ian Millhiser | May 23, 2025, 11:45 AM CDT
https://www.vox.com/scotus/414274/supreme-court-federal-reserve-trump-
wilcox
Trump v. Wilcox (2025) is the culmination of a longstanding grudge many Republican legal elites hold against Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court case establishing that Congress may create independent agencies whose members may only be fired for cause.
Though the leaders of these agencies are typically nominated by the president for a term of several years, and confirmed by the Senate, Humphrey’s Executor explained that laws protecting them from being fired while in office are supposed to ensure that they “act with entire impartiality,” and “exercise the trained judgment of a body of experts.”
All six of the Court’s Republicans, however, have made it clear they believe in a theory known as the “unitary executive,” which is incompatible with Humphrey’s Executor.
The Constitution provides that “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” In a 1988 dissenting opinion, which many legal conservatives now treat as if it were a holy text, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that “this does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power.” And thus, if a federal official is charged with executing federal laws in some way, they must be fully subject to presidential control.
If you take this unitary executive theory seriously, then there should be no doubt that Federal Reserve governors may be fired at will by the president. The Fed’s authority over interest rates, after all, derives from federal statutes instructing it to pursue the dual goals of “maximum employment” and “stable prices.” So the Fed is charged with executing federal laws.
But the consequences of stripping the Fed of its independence could be catastrophic.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon pressured Fed chair Arthur Burns to lower interest rates in advance of Nixon’s reelection race — the idea was to juice the economy right while voters were weighing Nixon’s record — and Burns complied. In the short term, this worked out great for Nixon. The economy boomed in 1972, and Nixon won reelection by a historic landslide. But Burns’s action is often blamed for years of “stagflation,” slow economic growth combined with high inflation, in the 1970s.
The Fed, in other words, has the power to effectively inject cocaine into the US economy – giving it a temporary boost that can be timed to benefit incumbent presidents, at the cost of much greater economic turmoil down the road. It’s not hard to see how presidents could abuse their power if they can fire members of the Federal Reserve who refuse to give the economy such a temporary and costly high.
One might think that these risks would be enough to caution the justices against overruling Humphrey’s Executor. But the Republican justices appear quite committed to the unitary executive theory, and they have been that way for quite some time. (If you want to know more about why they feel this way, I can refer you to three separate explainers I’ve written on this subject.)
For at least 15 years, when the Court handed down Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Board (2010), the Republican justices have signaled that they are eager to strip Congress of its authority to create such independent agencies, and give the president full authority to fire these agencies’ leaders at will. Many economists and investors, meanwhile, have warned that it would be particularly dangerous to strip the Federal Reserve — which is supposed to set interest rates based on delicate economic calculations and not based on what will benefit the sitting president — of its independence, as doing so could throw the US economy into chaos.
Thursday’s order is a clear signal that the Court has heard these c
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Trump’s False Fantasy About Afrikaner Land
The U.S. president is fixated on an expropriation policy that isn’t as radical as he thinks.
By Michael Albertus, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
May 23, 2025, 10:09 AM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/05/23/trump-south-africa-afrikaner-land
-crime/
On Wednesday in the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump received South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa. Their initially friendly banter quickly gave way as Trump levied false claims over a genocide of white South Africans, and in particular white farmers. He even cued a misleading video alleging to back up his claim and charged Ramaphosa and his team to watch it.
It was an embarrassing episode of disrespect to a foreign leader, perhaps second only to Trump and U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s fight in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. And it occurred shortly after the Trump administration welcomed its first batch of global refugees: white South Africans. While Trump has shut the door to refugees as part of an across-the-board immigration crackdown, he has cynically and painfully made an exception for white Afrikaners, the group that ruled during South Africa’s apartheid era.
Relations between the United States and South Africa have been deteriorating since the moment Trump returned to the White House. The ostensible reason is an unfolding “white genocide” in South Africa, a false claim pushed by Trump and Elon Musk, who was born in the country. The narrative revolves around white farmers, whom Trump and Musk claim have been systematically targeted for murder and land expropriation because of their race. The claims concerning murder are simply false, with little factual basis at all. The allegations about land appropriation are also wrong, but for more complicated reasons.
At the end of apartheid and decades of forced removals of Blacks from their lands, whites made up only 11 percent of the country’s population but held 86 percent of its farmland. After 30 years of efforts to return land to dispossessed Blacks, that picture has only changed marginally. Notwithstanding some notable successes in land restitution, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party has been struggling to broadly open economic opportunity for Blacks on the land. Today, whites comprise around 7 percent of the population and own about 72 percent of farmland.
That glaring disparity has fueled vocal calls for the ANC to move faster on land returns. After years of debate, in January of this year Ramaphosa signed into law a new bill allowing the government to expropriate land without compensation for the purposes of ongoing land restitution to Blacks. Trump hit back with an executive order that cut off foreign aid to South Africa and that opened up a pathway for white Afrikaners to claim refugee status in the United States.
That law has yet to be exercised, and in practice its scope is quite circumscribed. Expropriations are also subject to judicial review, which is quite strong in South Africa.
Some groups and leaders within the country support a more radical approach to transferring land back to Blacks. Most notable is the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema, who advocates for the large-scale occupation of white-owned land.
Malema featured in the video Trump aired in the Oval Office purporting to show the persecution of Afrikaners. There, Malema was singing “Kill the Boer,” a controversial anti-apartheid song. Ramaphosa pointed out that the South African government does not endorse Malema and that South African citizens enjoy freedom of speech. That song in particular has been examined in the courts for whether it constitutes hate speech, but recent rulings indicate that it is protected speech that, due to its heritage in association with the anti-apartheid liberation movement, should not be taken literally. Trump charged Ramaphosa to arrest Malema during their meeting.
The rest of Trump’s video was a mish-mash of different clips, including a
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Trump’s Trade Deals Are Missing in Action
Halfway through the 90-day tariff pause, almost no progress has been made to avoid global trade carnage.
By Keith Johnson | May 23, 2025, 1:46 PM
https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/05/23/trump-trade-deal-tariffs-pause-ne
gotiations/
At just about the halfway point of the Trump administration’s self-imposed 90-day sprint to reach trade agreements with more than half the countries on Earth, the progress is dire, and the prospects look even worse.
Case in point: On May 23, just as U.S. and European trade negotiators are set to return to the table and sort out a raft of contentious issues, U.S. President Donald Trump did another about-face and threatened 50 percent tariffs on Europe starting next week if the world’s biggest economic bloc doesn’t yield to his dictates, which it hasn’t yet. He also threatened Apple with 25 percent tariffs on its iPhones if the company doesn’t move manufacturing of the product to the United States. Trump previously demanded that Apple shift production away from China, which it is now doing—but it’s moving that production to India, rather than Indiana.
July 8 is the deadline that Trump set for negotiated trade concessions to avoid the arbitrary and sky-high tariffs that he announced in early April, the so-called “liberation day” tariffs that terrified markets and made him temporarily recalibrate. So far, only one has reached an agreement to pacify the Trump administration: the United Kingdom, which signed a small-scale, preemptive truce that will affect a handful of sectors such as fancy cars, jet engines, beef, and ethanol. The United States’ biggest and most important trade partners, including Canada, Mexico, China, the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, are still trying to find a formula to mollify the administration.
“Trump administration officials have been touting the number and significance of the coming trade deals, but so far there is just one announced deal (with the U.K.), which has not even taken effect yet,” said Simon Lester, an international trade lawyer who has been especially diligent in tracking the administration’s progress and transparency on trade talks.
“Maybe they can go on a 4th-quarter run that gets them back in the game, but at halftime it seems like a new strategy might be in order,” he said.
Talks with the EU are exhibit A for the dysfunction, and not just because Trump’s latest tariff threat more than doubles the rate of import duties he threatened on Europe in April. So far, the EU has offered up a cocktail of tried-and-true measures to appease Trump, from buying more U.S. energy (Europe could use a little more U.S. natural gas, but not that much) to strategic cooperation in sectors such as semiconductors, steel, and autos. The latest olive branch was coupled with an offer for zero-for-zero tariffs, meaning that both economic blocs would lower their primary trade barriers.
The U.S. response to Europe’s overture was reportedly one-sided: Europe must slash its tariffs and disembowel its entire regulatory and safety structure, while U.S. tariffs stay in place. Given that the problem, in Trump’s eyes, is that Europe sells more stuff to the United States than it buys, Brussels must budge, but Washington won’t. The progress and prospect of those talks can be measured in Friday’s dramatic threat to put higher tariffs on Europe than those currently on China.
But it’s not just Europe. Deals with almost every other major trading partner are also stumbling down the staircase. India, under Trump-friendly Prime Minister Narendra Modi, may be the closest to the finish line, but hurdles remain. Trump said India offered to remove all tariffs, which India denied. But India has a three-phase plan to calm Trump first, to avoid the immediate threat, and then move to substantive issues.
Other big U.S. trading partners are less blessed with political overlap between Trump and their leaders and have less margin to appease him. Japan and South Korea, both critical U.S. security allies in the Asia-Pacific, are
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Quit spamming your legacy media lies. People have real problems to deal with and don't have time for your dumb shit anymore.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You're a real hoot.
If things ever go south, you'll be among the first to get eaten.
It's no wonder why you're so scared about the world today.
-------------------------------------------------
I'll tell you one thing, Sigs.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm the only person that still posts here that has something to worry about after Trump was elected. There's a very good chance I'm going to be losing my healthcare in the near future. Not only am I at the whims of the Republicans in congress who've been itching to do it, but here in Indiana we did something different to comply with the rules than most states did, and the rules are different here. Even though there are tons more people on it now than there were before Covid, and I've had it since way before covid, because of the fact I'm a single dude with no kids and a long way away from 55, there's going to be some way-of-life changes coming my way that I'm not going to have any control over, while people who got on it years later after the rules changed with Covid are going to keep theirs.
I weighed that possibility out before I made my vote, and I haven't been living under any illusion these last 6 months that it was going to last forever. Looks like the only thing possibly standing between losing my health insurance and keeping it at this point is John Thune.
And yet, you don't hear me freaking out and losing my mind about it once, let alone every day.
It's just another in a very long line of reasons I'm tired of listening to bullshit out of these two losers here everyday. A dozen sky is falling stories out of both of them nearly every day for 12 years straight and none of it fucking matters or has ever negatively impacted their lives in the slightest at the end of the day.
I made a sacrifice when I voted for Trump. I didn't know 100% that is what it would be when I did it, and it's still technically not the case yet... But I think you know me well enough by now to be a person that loves numbers and weighs averages before I make choices on anything important.
I think the best chances I'd given myself for keeping my health insurance as is, and not experiencing a major change of lifestyle going forward as a coin flip that was slightly not in my favor when I cast that vote.
Saving our country was and still is far more important than my health insurance.
And I'd really like to believe that is what I helped be a part of when I made that decision.
But it's also why I get really angry when Kash Patel comes out and tells us that Epstien killed himself, we've barely removed any illegals in 6 months, and then I see a bill coming out that rewards everyone that falls in categories I don't fall in (mostly those involving being married with children and/or being gainfully employed), while taking away my health insurance and then adding $200 Billion to the military budget and making it cost over $1 Trillion per year to maintain for the first time. All that stings even more when this all comes right after the local city Democrats on the other end raised my property taxes 40% via putting the referendum on an off-year primary voting day where the only people who go out to vote are teachers and the parents they conned, to pay even more for the kids of those families who are going to be making out like bandits if the big beautiful bill passes. Bonuses that categories I don't fit in will benefit from in perpetuity this time, to boot.
So... if it happens, thanks for taking my health insurance and using it to fund 0.1% of 1 bomb you're going to build and give to Zelensky or Netanyahu guys. That's exactly what I voted for.
I just hope while ya'll got me over a barrel again and you're rawdawging me, you're also actually doing some ACTUAL, GENUINE things to help make people happy again. It's been a while. I'd like to see that happen again some day be
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Looking forward to it.
I did want to note that at the same time you were making this quote post I was busy making a change to it.
I mistakenly said John Thune when I meant to say Josh Hawley.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Loser-ville Citizens For Trumps! As if Trump has solutions for drunks, and drug addicts, and the mental illnesses of Trumptards.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quit spamming your legacy media lies. People have real problems to deal with and don't have time for your dumb shit anymore.
Trump’s Crypto Dinner
By Emily Singer | Friday, May 23, 2025 at 5:00:18p CDT
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/23/2323959/-Trump-s-crypto-din
ner-was-just-as-corrupt-as-you-thought-it-would-be
President Donald Trump hosted a dinner Thursday night for the biggest spenders on his memecoin, a corrupt affair where rich people—many of them foreign and unable to donate to Trump’s political campaigns—paid for access to the president.
Trump held the event at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia, using a taxpayer-funded military helicopter to get there.
He then appeared before a podium emblazoned with the presidential seal, even though earlier in the day White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that the event was not part of his official duties.
“On the president's dinner tonight, will the White House commit to making a list of the attendees public so people can see who's paying for that kind of access to the president?” NBC News correspondent Garrett Haake asked Leavitt, to which she replied that Trump wouldn’t be releasing the names because, “The president is attending it in his personal time.”
“It is not a White House dinner, it is not taking place here at the White House,” Leavitt said.
In fact, Leavitt’s claim that the dinner was a personal event and not an official one could open Trump up to legal peril, as the right-wing Supreme Court said Trump is only immune from prosecution for official acts.
Meanwhile, the people who attended—many of them foreign nationals who would otherwise be banned by law from donating to Trump's political campaign—explicitly admitted that they spent millions on Trump's shitcoin to gain access to Trump, The New York Times reported. That's as blatant of a "pay-to-play" scandal as it gets.
Among the guests was Chinese crypto magnate Justin Sun, who The New York Times reported spent $40 million to attend the dinner. Yes, FORTY MILLION. Sun was being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission with fraud, but the case was dropped after Sun injected tens of millions into Trump’s pockets.
And at the dinner, Sun received a gold watch from Trump, which Sun then gleefully posted about on X.
“As the top holder of $TRUMP and proud supporter of President Trump, it was an honor to attend the Trump Gala Dinner by @GetTrumpMemes,” Sun wrote in a post on X. “Thank you @POTUS for your unwavering support of our industry!”
Another foreign crypto investor, Sangrok Oh, even described the dinner as a fundraiser for Trump, The New York Times reported.
“He’ll always be good to his sponsors," Oh said, suggesting he expects a return on investment for giving millions to Trump.
And at the dinner, Trump promised to take steps to help line the pockets of the dinner attendees even more, saying “There is a lot of sense in crypto. A lot of common sense in crypto. And we’re honored to be working on helping everybody here.”
Democrats have been raising alarms about just how corrupt Trump's crypto venture is.
“This is the crypto corruption club,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) was heard chanting outside of the event, The New York Times reported, saying that Merkley was chanting so loud he lost his voice.
Already, Congress is helping mainstream the crypto industry with the GENIUS Act, which the Senate advanced earlier this week. The legislation would put a regulatory framework in place for stablecoins—a type of cryptocurrency tied to the value of an actual financial asset such as the U.S. dollar or gold—and legitimize the currency with investors.
But a number of Democratic lawmakers are against that, too.
“Americans didn’t send us to Congress to help Trump turn the White
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quit spamming your legacy media lies. People have real problems to deal with and don't have time for your dumb shit anymore.
Trump’s Crypto Dinner
And you want me to care about any of this when Nancy Pelosi and her Husband get a free pass for blatantly doing the exact same thing in front of you why?
This is just another example of why you lose. Why Democrats can't get a 30% approval from their own voters in CNN polls. Why nobody believes the media anymore. Why you're being ignored.
I'm doing exactly what I said I always do and I'm giving the side I chose to vote for the shit that they deserve.
Meanwhile, we've all watched you for at least 12 years in 100% lock-step with everything your party has every said or done, and the problem with that is you end up looking like a fool in retrospect when all of these conversations are viewed under a microscope.
Is the above story something that should be concerning?
Yeah. I think it probably could be. Something worth keeping an eye on for sure. I don't like anybody in our government cozying up with anybody over crypto.
My only hope here is that Trump's just setting up a few big nations for the largest rug-pull the world has ever seen.
I'm not going to even pretend to know how all of that is done or how any of it works. But I'm sure as hell not going to allow you to walk around here pretending like you know a fucking thing about cryptocurrecy either.
Do you see the problem here yet? Do you get it?
When you two spam 18 other bullshit clickbait trash articles and videos trashing Trump every day, nobody takes any of it seriously. Not even the stuff that people probably should be taking seriously.
I've told you many times before that you're working for Trump and you're not even on his payroll.
But you just can't help yourself. He lives rent free in your head and is all you ever think about anymore.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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SECOND, you're the last person to talk about mental illness!
*****
Quote:
Clusterfuck Nation
Stumblebum's Legacy
"Every time I watch The View, I become even more misogynistic." — Laura Loomer
James Howard Kunstler
May 23, 2025
Bad as it was, “Joe Biden,” the figment president was merely one manifestation of a nation made mad by power-seeking demons, real-live, ill-intentioned human beings driving a runaway political machine, the party of hoaxes, hustles, and hatred. The country is just now struggling to exit a convulsion of mass mental illness. The demons are still there, though, and still hard at work trying to drag you all back into mass formation.
A central mystery is how the news media made itself the enemy of the people, and this conundrum is not at all explained by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in their book Original Sin. It’s actually just another hustle with overtones of hoax, like everything else in the evil cavalcade of narratives spun out in the news media’s war on reality. Tapper and Marshall want you to believe that a faceless collective they call “the White House” managed to conceal “Joe Biden’s” well-advanced disintegration from the voting public, and that was. . . that. The media wuz fooled! Goll-lee!
Of course, that fails to explain a whole lot — such as: how come anybody watching daily video clips of “Joe Biden” in action, could not fail to see the broken old puppet he is. Alex Thompson, receiving his “award for excellence” from the White House Correspondents’ Association weeks ago said, “We just missed it.” Yeah, sure. . . . They also apparently missed the programmatic devastation to American society that was carried out in the old stumblebum’s name.
I will give you the key to that conundrum, and then you will understand why all this happened, and why the many lingering demons are still at it in their self-styled “resistance” to America-in-recovery. Mr. Thompson lied, you understand. The media connived with the demons. They were in on the gag the whole time.
If there is any “original sin” in the story, it revolves around Hillary Clinton. This monster emerged as the junior partner to her husband, political wonder-boy Bill Clinton. From the get-go, the narrative painted her as a wife sore-beset by her charismatic husband’s infidelities. (Forget that her only child, Chelsea, is a dead-ringer for her former law partner, Webb Hubbell.) However their connubial affairs worked, Hill and Bill had a deal: when he was done, she would eventually rise to become the first woman president, and they would go down in history as two era-defining, Boomer gen, political wonder-geniuses.
It was a flawed plan. For one thing, Hillary utterly lacked Bill’s political charisma, which was his ability to avidly engage with other people and their issues. Hillary didn’t care much for other people, and only pretended to be interested in their issues. Also, people could easily read that in her demeanor. Nobody was fooled. If anything, she had negative charm, anti-charisma. Her own interests were strictly limited to obtaining power and riches. With enough power, Hillary noticed, you didn’t need charm or charisma. You could simply order people around. But the power couple left the White House broke in 2001, and were caught trying to spirit away some of the presidential dinner-ware.
The next phase of Hillary’s career was fortune-building. The Clinton Foundation was set up in 1997, ostensibly to fund Bill’s presidential library. It would become a fantastic grift magnet in the years to come, taking them from broke-ass-broke to demi-billionaires. Her launching pad was a seat in the US Senate. (She ran and won in New York when she was still First Lady in the 2000 election.)
2008 was supposed to be Hillary’s apotheosis from senator to president. The setup was perfect. The country was tired of Double-ya Bush. The time was exactly right for a woman president. Hillary was the obvious choice by a country mile. Except that she was edged out in the primaries by the Democrat
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Quote:Trump received more money in bribes last night than an entire lifetime of accumulation for Pelosi family. And Trump is paying back the bribers by giving them no regulation of bitcoins. The Winds of Change are Blowing, 6ixStringJack.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quit spamming your legacy media lies. People have real problems to deal with and don't have time for your dumb shit anymore.
Trump’s Crypto Dinner
And you want me to care about any of this when Nancy Pelosi and her Husband get a free pass for blatantly doing the exact same thing in front of you why?
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:Trump received more money in bribes last night than an entire lifetime of accumulation for Pelosi family. And Trump is paying back the bribers by giving them no regulation of bitcoins. The Winds of Change are Blowing, 6ixStringJack.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quit spamming your legacy media lies. People have real problems to deal with and don't have time for your dumb shit anymore.
Trump’s Crypto Dinner
And you want me to care about any of this when Nancy Pelosi and her Husband get a free pass for blatantly doing the exact same thing in front of you why?
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
Besides the fucking point, cunt.
But I'm glad that in 2025 we can get you to admit that the Pelosi's have been scamming American Citizens her entire career now.
Fuck you. Nobody wants to hear anything out of you anymore.
You haven't shut the fuck up once in 12 years. I suggest you start now unless you want to lose every election going forward.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Longtime reporters 'almost speechless' over Trump's 'transparent bribery' plot
By Tom Boggioni | May 23, 2025 8:48AM ET
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-crypto-dinner-almost-speechless/
On Friday morning, longtime Washington D.C. reporters Jonathan Lemire and Peter Baker of the New York Times, as well as conservative columnist Matt Lewis, admitted they were stunned that Republicans turned a blind eye to Donald Trump's crypto dinner.
During a segment on the president's much-criticized dinner at his golf club in northern Virginia that took place Thursday night, Lemire prompted guest Baker with, "I mean, you've covered the White House for a long time. I mean, I'm almost speechless at this. Could you imagine if Barack Obama or Joe Biden did anything like it?"
"No, we couldn't, they could –– they never did anything like this," Baker responded. "It's not the first presidential family that kind of profited off the White House; you can certainly find other examples of that in history. But the scale of this, the scope of this is so far beyond anything history has ever seen."
EXCLUSIVE: Trump accused of new grift that puts Qatari plane in shade https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/trump-qatar-plane-2672031382/
"It's not just even this cryptocurrency thing, although hundreds of millions of dollars have gone to the president's family and businesses in fees because of this coin, which is basically, just a reminder, there's nothing to it."
"There's a coin, it's not of value of anything, it's not even a stock," he elaborated, "It's not even a share of a company that's producing something. It's just simply there for people to buy because they want to curry favor with the president and they can do it anonymously, they can do it secretly."
"Why do Republicans not care?" the flummoxed Lemire asked columnist Lewis.
"Because whatever Donald Trump wants to do, Donald Trump does," the conservative replied. "And they saw, whether it's the Access Hollywood video or the indictments, that this guy is magic and he always ends up landing on his feet and their base loves him, so they're afraid of him."
"So some of them may care a little bit, but not enough to do anything about it," he added. "But look, the implications here are serious, right? Democracy isn't dying, it's being rug-pulled. That's basically what the message here is."
He then added, "You see those Democrats standing up there condemning this, and I don't think it's landing yet. And so, you know, yes, Republicans ought to be standing up and holding their president, their standard bearer, accountable. I don't think the Democrats yet have the juice to take what is just transparently bribery and make it matter to the American people."
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-i-told-the-ed-school-graduates
In a commencement address given to graduates from U. Cal. Berkeley’s School of Education earlier this week, Robert Reich said:
Throughout history, tyrants have understood that their major enemy is an educated citizenry. Slaveholders prohibited the enslaved from learning to read. Nazis burned books. Putin and Xi censor the media.
Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.
America’s founders knew this. They saw how easily emperors and kings could mislead uneducated publics. The survival of the new nation required a public wise enough to keep power within bounds. People imbued, in the language of the time, with civic virtue.
Jefferson assured Americans that if they could “enlighten the people generally … tyranny and the oppressions of mind and body will vanish, like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
So America became the cradle of free, universal, public education.
I don’t have any easy answers to the many challenges we’re experiencing today in classrooms across the land, but we must never give up on these three basic educational ideals: free, universal, and public.
If we stop thinking about education solely as a private investment on the way to a good-paying job and see it as a public good, we’d give every child an understanding of the Constitution, the meaning and importance of the rule of law, and why no one should be above it.
This is, after all, what we demand of people who want to become naturalized citizens: They have to pass a civics test covering the organization of the U.S. government and the Constitution.
Civic education should instill in young people a passion for truth — enabling them to think critically, be skeptical (but not cynical) about what they hear and read, find reliable sources of information, apply basic logic and analysis, and know enough about history and the physical world to differentiate fact from fiction.
Such an education would also urge young people to communicate with others. With people of different races, classes, creeds, nationalities.
Teach them how to listen, to open their minds to the possibility their own views and preconceptions may be wrong, to discover why people with opposing views believe what they do.
Yet the current president of the United States does not appear to have learned any of this.
On the campaign trail, he vowed to “liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and perverts who have infested our educational system.”
He has canceled federal exams that measure student progress and ordered his wrestling executive-turned-Education Secretary to shut most of her department.
He is attacking the freedom of speech of university students and professors, trying to deport international students and faculty solely because of what they say or write, and threatening to halt federal funds to universities that practice DEI.
He has gutted the funding of the National Institutes of Health, which provides a large portion of biomedical research, and the National Science Foundation, responsible for much of America’s engineering and computer research.
Along with certain governors, he is attacking the teaching in our schools of America’s shameful histories of slavery and Native American genocide.
He has cut funding for libraries around the country — which will jeopardize literacy development and reading programs, and reliable internet access for those without it at home.
I keep hearing that all this amounts to an “attack on the liberal state” or “the culmination of our culture wars.”
No. What’s really occurring is an attack on the American mind.
You who are soon to graduate from this wonderful school of education have chosen instead to enhance the American mind, to broaden it, to enlighten our young people, to expose them to a world of possibility.
May you educate like democracy depends on it.
The Joss Whedon script for Seren
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Quote:Can Donald Trump build the 'Golden Dome' over the US?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The entire atmosphere surrounding all of this is completely different than it was in 2016 and 2020.
Things just kind of feel normal again.
It's like all the loudest voices either screamed themselves out or they aren't being platformed anymore and/or we just finally, collectively tuned them out for a change.
It's kind of nice, innit?
Happy Inauguration Day!
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No, but the author doesn’t wish to make that clear because he will be kicked out of the White House.
By Bernd Debusmann Jr, BBC News, White House | May 23, 2025
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyvmj6mem70o
Rather than writing that Trump will fail, the article says that what Trump claims he will do is "extremely challenging," a euphemism for failure.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Who Knew?
I’m A Psychologist Who Specializes In Narcissists. Here’s What We Need To Do To Stop Trump.
"The same patterns that destabilize families destabilize democracies."
By Jocelyn Sze | May 23, 2025, 07:52 AM EDT
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/psychologist-how-to-stop-trump-narcissi
st_n_682df1cae4b09b7e5013a586
The Trump administration is planning a June 14 military parade to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army — and the president’s 79th birthday. When your sense of self-exaltation requires tanks, flyovers and up to $45 million for a birthday party, we’re no longer in the realm of cake and candles — we’re squarely in Criterion 1 of narcissistic personality disorder: “a grandiose sense of self-importance.”
To be clear, I can’t diagnose the president or any public figure without personal examination. But research shows that those in positions of power, especially in politics, are more likely to exhibit traits of grandiose narcissism. When narcissistic control seeps into leadership, it distorts truth, erodes trust and destabilizes institutions. The more we understand these dynamics, the better we can protect both the public and the health of our democracy.
As a clinical psychologist who works with trauma and narcissistic abuse, I see echoes of this dynamic every day in my therapy office. The same patterns that destabilize families destabilize democracies: along with the magnetic vision of the grandiose narcissist come denial, attack, reversal of blame and emotional chaos.
I think of one of my patients when she discovered her brother was terrorizing their elderly mother with violent threats and financial abuse. When she named the harm, he flipped the script — denying everything and accusing her of being unstable, all while fiercely protecting his “golden boy” image. Under family pressure to stay quiet, she spiraled into rumination. But armed with awareness and support, she stood firm. Like a broken record, she calmly named the harm until her boundary held. It came at a cost, but her brother was eventually removed from their mother’s home.
This same pattern shows up, magnified, on the political stage. Narcissistic control in government thrives on flipping the script and silencing watchdogs.
Authoritarian leaders, like narcissistic family members, rely on well-worn tactics to manufacture a psychological state of volatile uncertainty — where outcomes aren’t just unknown, but constantly shifting and unpredictable. This overwhelms the brain’s ability to anticipate and prepare, keeping people mentally off-balance and easier to control. The good news: Awareness works like a vaccine, gradually building psychological immunity against further harm.
For another patient, “moving the goalposts” was the favored tactic of her ex-boyfriend to generate such volatility. He would make a demand (under the guise of “improving her”) and then change the expectation once it was met. In government, this looks like constantly reversing policies or public positions so that citizens, the media and allies remain unmoored.
“The White House has no idea what it’s doing on tariffs and keeps flip-flopping... Why even do an exemption if you’re going to reverse it soon?” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) posted on X on April 13, referring to more than 50 flip-flops on tariff policies since Trump’s inauguration.
Many dismiss these reversals as mere incompetence or poor strategy — and it’s true that narcissism is associated with more impulsive, error-prone decision-making. But anyone familiar with narcissistic abuse understands the deeper maneuver: Whether consciously or not, narcissists hold power by keeping others in a state of psychological whiplash. And it works.
At its core, emotional control is the narcissist’s primary goal: to protect a fragile sense of self-importance and entitlement by maintaining the grand illusion that supports it — without empathy for others. While it’s important to note that narcissistic pathology by no means equates to abuse, there are more aggressive versions that use con
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Trump's approval has gone up 5 points in the last week alone.
None of the bad stuff that the Media has said would happen in the last 6 months has happened.
I think even more people are going to start tuning out of the news completely.
.... and The Democratic Party Is Literally Dying
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-democratic-party-is-litera
lly-dying/ar-AA1Fn1Bw
Quote:
The dead hand of gerontocracy is also a symptom of ideological malaise.
...
In a post, the political analyst Lakshya Jain listed some startling facts showing just how sharply elected Democrats skew towards the elderly:
Three of the 215 House Democrats have died this year, all from states that Trump won (TX/AZ) or have a Republican Governor (TX/VA). Six House Democrats have died since April 2024. The last eight House members to die in office have been Democrats, going back to 2022.
I think the question here is whether we realize that this is simply not a coincidence—it’s the result of decisions made regarding seniority and running for re-election.
One last point: 11 of the 14 House members over 80 are Democrats.
Boomers can't destroy our country from the inside forever. Now God will sort them out.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Oh...
I'm also starting to hear that we might be flipping both New York and New Jersey red by mid-terms right now.
We'll have to keep an eye on that.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:There's so much more to the article, and the report, but I really keyed in on this:
RFK Jr. Drops Bombshell 'MAHA' Report Outlining 'Existential Public Health Crisis' And What To Do About It
Quote:
Relying on the "honor system," the report highlights how corporations fund their own safety studies which government agencies use to base approvals upon. Conversely, public tax dollars fund but a small portion of the total research dollars spent on chronic childhood diseases—further "exacerbated" by the revolving door between regulatory agencies, and the corporations they're supposed to regulate.
This happens not just in pharmaceutics and food additives (and genetically modified crops which, BTW, have never been tested for safety) but for literally every chemical introduced into our environment.
There are two examples of how this goes terribly awry. The first is of a medical researcher who was curious to see if she could reproduce a very basic mouse study fundsmental to a drug approval. So she bought the relevant mice, and set up the exoeriment exactly as described in the FDA filing. In her studies, which she repeated multiple times, she could NOT find any sort of efficacy.
Another case, the mfr of a brand name thyroid medication, Synthroid, hired a reseaercher to show that their brand name was better than generic. Thry had her repest the studies until, FINALLY, one study showed a positive result. So they published that and ditched the other nine. When the researcher made all of the study results public, she was sued for breach of confidentiality.
Yanno, it would be interesting if we could get pharma A to test pharma B's products. That would really take the bias out of testing.
-----------
"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've had to hear about second hand smoking all my life...
But nobody ever bitches about all the mind-altering drugs I'm ingesting in my tap water after Ted and Second flush theirs down the toilet.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:You should be bitching about "forever chemicals" like PCBs and dioxins and PFAS.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've had to hear about second hand smoking all my life...
But nobody ever bitches about all the mind-altering drugs I'm ingesting in my tap water after Ted and Second flush theirs down the toilet.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
-----------
"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:Quote:You should be bitching about "forever chemicals" like PCBs and dioxins and PFAS.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've had to hear about second hand smoking all my life...
But nobody ever bitches about all the mind-altering drugs I'm ingesting in my tap water after Ted and Second flush theirs down the toilet.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
There's no shortage of ways our government kills us to bitch about.
It's why I don't really worry about smoking. It doesn't matter. I've got so many microplastics inside of me you could melt me down and make a LEGO set out of me when I'm gone.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Oh, yeah... microplastics too!
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:You should be bitching about "forever chemicals" like PCBs and dioxins and PFAS.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've had to hear about second hand smoking all my life...
But nobody ever bitches about all the mind-altering drugs I'm ingesting in my tap water after Ted and Second flush theirs down the toilet.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
There's no shortage of ways our government kills us to bitch about.
It's why I don't really worry about smoking. It doesn't matter. I've got so many microplastics inside of me you could melt me down and make a LEGO set out of me when I'm gone.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
-----------
"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:
Declassified: Biden Admin Labeled COVID Dissenters 'Domestic Violent Extremists'
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/declassified-biden-admin-labeled-c
ovid-dissenters-domestic-violent-extremists
-----------
"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:
One technique I teach is called “gray rocking”: refusing to feed the narcissist’s need for drama, attention or emotional reactivity. Gray rocking means becoming sturdy and repetitive — not reactive or maximalist — a boring target for someone addicted to power. Reacting with hyperbole or hysteria only emboldens narcissists. Deny them the fuel they seek. This is hard work. But it’s how an abuser loses power.
In other words: Don't feed the troll.
That's why I generally don't get into pissing matches with SECOND. He's a sociopath/ troll/ narcissist.
-----------
"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:Quote:Oh, yeah... microplastics too!
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:You should be bitching about "forever chemicals" like PCBs and dioxins and PFAS.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've had to hear about second hand smoking all my life...
But nobody ever bitches about all the mind-altering drugs I'm ingesting in my tap water after Ted and Second flush theirs down the toilet.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
There's no shortage of ways our government kills us to bitch about.
It's why I don't really worry about smoking. It doesn't matter. I've got so many microplastics inside of me you could melt me down and make a LEGO set out of me when I'm gone.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
And unfortunately for us, we got the best of both worlds. Up until I was around 10 years old we were all getting plenty of lead in our lungs and losing about 10 to 20 IQ points on average for it. Not only that, but all that increased lead levels we've been walking around with from all that leaded gasoline we were poisoning ourselves with, we're all quite a bit more aggressive than we otherwise would be too. (The flip side of that is believing that maybe the boys actually need a little more lead in their diets with what we've been breeding the last 20 or so years... amiright?)
Oh... and don't forget about DuPont shoving all those Teflon atoms in our bodies and sticking them there for safe keeping for the rest of our lives too. That's a big one.
Nothing sticks to teflon, but teflon sticks to everything. Especially if it's wet, has a lot of folds to get lost in and never sees the light of day.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Yep! We got the crap they didn't know about then .... lead, asbestos, PCBs, PAHs, DDT, chlordane etc etc .... and by the time they started controlling those it was just in time for us to get exposed to the 10,000 other chemicals introduced into the environment.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've had to hear about second hand smoking all my life...
But nobody ever bitches about all the mind-altering drugs I'm ingesting in my tap water after Ted and Second flush theirs down the toilet.
SIGNY: You should be bitching about "forever chemicals" like PCBs and dioxins and PFAS.
SIX: There's no shortage of ways our government kills us to bitch about.
It's why I don't really worry about smoking. It doesn't matter. I've got so many microplastics inside of me you could melt me down and make a LEGO set out of me when I'm gone.
SIGNY: Oh, yeah... microplastics too!
SIX: And unfortunately for us, we got the best of both worlds. Up until I was around 10 years old we were all getting plenty of lead in our lungs and losing about 10 to 20 IQ points on average for it. Not only that, but all that increased lead levels we've been walking around with from all that leaded gasoline we were poisoning ourselves with, we're all quite a bit more aggressive than we otherwise would be too. (The flip side of that is believing that maybe the boys actually need a little more lead in their diets with what we've been breeding the last 20 or so years... amiright?)
Oh... and don't forget about DuPont shoving all those Teflon atoms in our bodies and sticking them there for safe keeping for the rest of our lives too. That's a big one.
Nothing sticks to teflon, but teflon sticks to everything. Especially if it's wet, has a lot of folds to get lost in and never sees the light of day.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Hard to believe, but when I was a kid there was no such thing as plastic containers or bottles or bags. Meat came wrapped in butcher paper, bread in paper bags, frozen vegetables and juices were (somehow) frozen in cardboard boxes or tubes, milk and soda and beer came in glass bottles.
-----------
"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 said no one wanted to join the military under Biden while speaking to an entire graduating class at West Point, who joined under Biden.
Kermit the Frog gave a speech to students at Maryland University, which far exceeded Trump’s in intelligence:
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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At least the Pantomime Might Be Over.
Phillips P. OBrien
May 25, 2025
One final point—we still have US diplomats, in their attempts to con Europeans, say that Trump is sincerely upset at the loss of life in the war. This was in a story just released in The Guardian:
A former US diplomat close to the Ukraine talks urged Europeans to be patient with Trump, saying, “Trump genuinely wants a ceasefire and the killing to stop.”
This is one of the greatest lies of this whole period which needs instant rebuttal. Trump is a narcissistic sociopath—he cares not a whit for other people. He uses them for his own gain. The idea that he cares about dead Ukrainians or Russians is nonsensical. He would care if it impacted him (all he is probably thinking about now is the rest of his life and his money—and maybe a little of his family) but he is spending not a moment losing sleep over the war deaths in Europe.
He called Americans who died for the USA “suckers”. Do you think he actually cares about Ukrainians and Russians dying for their countries?
This lie needs to be confronted. Once its understood that Trump really has no interest or moral qualms about all the deaths occurring—it might be easier to understand what US policy is.
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/weekend-update-134-the-week-whe
n
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump is exploiting his office for personal gain in unprecedented ways
By Peter Stone in Washington
Sun 25 May 2025 07.00 EDT
Donald Trump’s push to sharply ease oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, while he and his sons have fast expanded crypto ventures that have reaped billions of dollars from investors including foreign ones, is raising alarm about ethical and legal issues.
Some Republicans have levelled a firestorm of criticism at Trump for hawking his own memecoin $Trump, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value, by personally hosting a 22 May dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of $Trump and a private “reception” for the 25 biggest buyers.
To attend the two events, the $Trump buyers spent about $148m, which will benefit Trump and partners, according to the crypto firm Inca Digital.
Further, the Trump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial that launched last fall, which his two oldest sons have promoted hard, was tapped this month to play a key part in a $2bn investment deal by an Abu Dhabi financial fund in the crypto exchange Binance which in 2023 pleaded guilty to US money laundering and other violations.
The new WLF deal was announced at an Abu Dhabi crypto conference that drew Eric Trump two weeks before Trump’s mid-May visit to the United Arab Emirates capital, sparking other concerns of improper foreign influence and ethics issues.
Trump’s ardent pursuit of crypto fortunes was highlighted in a report last month from the watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Fund that estimated his crypto ventures as of mid-March to be worth about $2.9bn. That is a striking sum since Trump’s crypto ventures are less than a year old.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/25/trump-crypto-corruptio
n-ethics
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump's tax cut plan will be cripplingly expensive for most Americans
The House-passed Republican tax cut will likely exceed the combined cost of the three most expensive laws over the past decade.
Over the past decade, Washington has enacted President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a bipartisan $1.7 trillion pandemic-response CARES Act and President Joe Biden’s $1.8 trillion American Rescue Plan. Yet the cost of the House-passed Republican tax cut will likely exceed all three of these expensive laws — combined.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) officially scores the GOP tax cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as costing $3.8 trillion over the next decade. But the tab rises to $5.3 trillion when removing the deceptive expiration dates included to cover up the bill’s exorbitant long-term cost. Add in the additional tax savings added at the last minute to win more Republican votes, as well as the resulting interest costs, and the true 10-year tax cut cost likely approaches $6.5 trillion. The House bill would offset just $1.3 trillion with savings from programs such as Medicaid, SNAP and student loans — and the Senate is likely to strip many of those offsets.
By Jessica Riedl, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-tax-cuts-will-cost-a
mericans-rcna208852
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:
Trump said no one wanted to join the military under Biden while speaking to an entire graduating class at West Point, who joined under Biden.
Telling a class of privileged future officers at West Point that no civilians want to sign up to die in pointless wars for other people is what happened here.
The disingenuous way that you frame your non-argument with no data behind it is exactly why you're seeing articles like this today.
Confused, Starving Reporters Now Desperate for Food After Killing American Journalism
https://johnkassnews.com/confused-starving-reporters-desperate-for-foo
d-after-killing-and-devouring-journalism/
You did this. Pat yourself on the back. You aided and abetted the death of your party and American Journalism, and you can't put the brakes on your awful behavior and the brain you allowed them to damage so thoroughly is just on auto-pilot at this point.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Trump and you deliberately misunderstand very simple things, then you both get upset when corrected, insisting you are right despite being wrong. For example:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump said no one wanted to join the military under Biden while speaking to an entire graduating class at West Point, who joined under Biden.
Telling a class of privileged future officers at West Point that no civilians want to sign up to die in pointless wars for other people is what happened here.
The disingenuous way that you frame your non-argument with no data behind it is exactly why you're seeing articles like this today.
Confused, Starving Reporters Now Desperate for Food After Killing American Journalism
https://johnkassnews.com/confused-starving-reporters-desperate-for-foo
d-after-killing-and-devouring-journalism/
You did this. Pat yourself on the back. You aided and abetted the death of your party and American Journalism, and you can't put the brakes on your awful behavior and the brain you allowed them to damage so thoroughly is just on auto-pilot at this point.
Trump's South Africa 'genocide' claim is wrong
By Astrid Prange de Oliveira | May 23, 2025
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-trumps-evidence-videos-do-not-show-ge
nocide/a-72642309
During his visit to the White House, US President Donald Trump confronted South Africa's head of state Cyril Ramaphosa with claims that white farmers are being mass murdered in South Africa.
The narrative that white population groups are being systematically and deliberately killed is not supported by facts and official statistics. It has been circulating in right-wing circles for years and is linked to the racist conspiracy myth of the "Great Replacement."
Claim: "These are the -- these are burial sites right here," Trump said (White House video minute 24:25), while describing a footage during a meeting with Ramaphosa at the White House on May 21.
"Each one of those white things you see is a cross. And there's approximately a thousand of them. They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers," added Trump.
Trump's claim was already circulating on social media before Ramaphosa's state visit to the US. On May 12, a user on X explained that every cross stands for a murdered white farmer in South Africa. The video post has been viewed almost 55 million times at the time of publishing.
A reverse image search shows that the footage used by Trump with the white crosses on the side of the road was already shared on social media in 2020 and 2023. These are not, as Trump claims, the gravesites of more than a thousand murdered farmers.
Much more at https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-trumps-evidence-videos-do-not-show-ge
nocide/a-72642309
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:Trump
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump said no one wanted to join the military under Biden while speaking to an entire graduating class at West Point, who joined under Biden.
Telling a class of privileged future officers at West Point that no civilians want to sign up to die in pointless wars for other people is what happened here.
The disingenuous way that you frame your non-argument with no data behind it is exactly why you're seeing articles like this today.
Confused, Starving Reporters Now Desperate for Food After Killing American Journalism
https://johnkassnews.com/confused-starving-reporters-desperate-for-foo
d-after-killing-and-devouring-journalism/
You did this. Pat yourself on the back. You aided and abetted the death of your party and American Journalism, and you can't put the brakes on your awful behavior and the brain you allowed them to damage so thoroughly is just on auto-pilot at this point.
Shut the fuck up.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Mike Johnson Doesn’t Care About Trump’s Business Conflicts, Crypto Dinner Because They’re ‘Out In The Open’
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
By Alison Durkee | May 25, 2025, 11:28am EDT
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2025/05/25/mike-johnson-does
nt-care-about-trumps-business-conflicts-crypto-dinner-because-theyre-out-in-the-open/
TOPLINE
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., brushed off concerns Sunday about President Donald Trump’s alleged business conflicts in office and recent dinner with top investors in his meme coin, claiming Republicans don’t have to investigate the president’s business dealings like they did for former President Joe Biden because Trump does everything “out in the open.”
KEY FACTS
• Johnson was asked on CNN about Trump’s crypto dinner Thursday, which has raised concerns about transparency—as the guest list remains under wraps—and about presenting a possible conflict, as attendees could intentionally invest in Trump’s meme coin and attend the dinner in an effort to wield influence with the president on crypto policy.
• The House speaker claimed he “[didn’t] know anything” about the dinner but defended the president, saying Trump is “very active, very engaged... he’s one of the greatest dealmakers of all time.”
• CNN host Jake Tapper noted he had a “difficult time” believing Johnson wouldn’t be “outraged” if a Democratic president had held a similar dinner, pressing the House speaker about his lack of interest in Trump’s business dealings after Johnson and his colleagues previously led investigations into Biden’s son Hunter Biden and the family’s alleged business conflicts.
• Johnson alleged the former president and Hunter Biden kept their alleged dealings under wraps and used “fake LLCs” while the former president’s family profited by being “on the president’s dole,” though House investigations uncovered no evidence of Biden doing anything wrong.
• The House speaker claimed Trump, by contrast, is doing everything “out in the open” regarding his business, claiming he’s “putting it out there, so everyone can evaluate for themselves” and alleging Trump “is the most transparent president in history” and “has nothing to hide.”
What Happened At Trump’s Crypto Dinner?
Trump invited the top 220 investors in his $TRUMP meme coin to the dinner, which was held Thursday at Trump National Golf Club near Washington, D.C. The top 25 investors were also invited to a special pre-dinner and tour. Trump reportedly attended the event only briefly, according to attendees, delivering an address in which he told guests, “I always put the country way ahead of the business ...You become president of the United States, and you want to see people thrive and succeed.” “The Biden Administration persecuted crypto innovators and we're bringing them back into the USA where they belong,” Trump added, according to a video of the event cited by Reuters. While the White House has maintained the dinner was a private event outside the scope of Trump’s presidential duties, his podium during the address featured the presidential seal—which could violate federal laws forbidding the seal being used to “convey a false impression of sponsorship of approval by the government.” The event’s guest list has not been publicly released, but reported attendees included billionaire Chinese crypto investor Justin Sun, retired NBA player Lamar Odom, BitMart crypto exchange founder Sheldon Zia, 25-year-old marketing director Nick Pinto and a crypto security specialist who goes only by the name of Ogle. More than half the dinner’s attendees are believed to be based outside the U.S., according to a blockchain analysis cited by Reuters, raising concerns from Democrats about possible foreign influence on the president. Crypto intelligence firm Inca Digital estimates attendees invested a combined $148 million on the $TRUMP token in order
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Mike Johnson Doesn’t Care About Trump’s Business Conflicts, Crypto Dinner Because They’re ‘Out In The Open’
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Oh good. I'm so used to all of the politicians doing all their shady shit in the shadows.
As they say... Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
I'm sure Mrs. Durke is going to get off of her ass and do some real hard hitting journalism and investigation now and get to the bottom of this instead of just rewriting whatever wikipedia article she "wrote" from the safety and comfort of her office that you just regurgitated for everyone here... containing a topic that you're extremely likely to never bring up again in your lifetime. As per usual.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:Trump and JD Vance frequently claim Pres. Andrew Jackson did his shady shit in the Sunshine and, therefore, the historic precedence justifies them doing the same shit. But Jackson didn't do the shady shit his enemy, Horace Greeley, falsely claimed was done. If Jackson had been alive when Greeley was poisoning history with lies, Greeley would have died in a duel fought with pistols, not words:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh good. I'm so used to all of the politicians doing all their shady shit in the shadows.
As they say... Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
I'm sure Mrs. Durke is going to get off of her ass and do some real hard hitting journalism and investigation now and get to the bottom of this instead of just rewriting whatever wikipedia article she "wrote" from the safety and comfort of her office that you just regurgitated for everyone here... containing a topic that you're extremely likely to never bring up again in your lifetime. As per usual.
J. D. Vance has cited Andrew Jackson to justify the idea that a president can disobey the federal judiciary’s rulings. The historical record says no such thing.
By Sean Wilentz | April 25, 2025
Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton. His books include No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation’s Founding .
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2025/04/25/vances-junk-history/
When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency of Andrew Jackson. Trump dropped Jackson’s name often during his first White House term, trying to assimilate Old Hickory’s stature to his own populist politics. “Jackson’s life was devoted to one very crucial principle,” he declared in Nashville in 2017. “He understood that real leadership means putting America first.” On Inauguration Day 2025, as Trump began signing the executive orders that have undermined American democracy and stretched the rule of law to the breaking point, he had Jackson’s portrait reinstalled to its prideful place on the Oval Office wall, where Joe Biden had replaced it with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. Now smitten by the eccentric idea that high tariffs are the key to American greatness, Trump has also embraced the champion protectionist president, William McKinley. But Jackson remains, symbolically, Trump’s presiding hero.
Vice President J.D. Vance has gone even further, not merely claiming Jackson’s mantle for Trump but citing him as the progenitor of the blatantly unconstitutional idea that a president can disobey the federal judiciary with impunity. In 2021, on a right-wing podcast, Vance advanced the then-outlandish proposition that Trump, if reelected, should peremptorily fire the entire midlevel federal workforce—hundreds of thousands of experienced and dedicated public servants performing indispensable work—and replace them with MAGA loyalists (“our people”). Vance had presumably paid enough attention at Yale Law School to understand that even the conservative Roberts Court would likely strike down such a directive. But if that happened, he asserted, Trump should follow what Vance claimed to be Jackson’s example and simply ignore the ruling: “Stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did,” he declared, “and say the chief justice has made his ruling, now let him enforce it.” Asked by a Politico reporter in January 2023 whether he still held to this view, Vance glibly reiterated his point: “Yup.”
It’s time to put this canard permanently to rest. As has often been noted, Jackson never said the words to which Vance was alluding. The quotation in question—“Well: John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”—was invented and ascribed to Jackson by the New York journalist Horace Greeley (who as a partisan Whig had despised Jackson) in the first volume of his The American Conflict, published in 1864, nearly twenty years after Jackson died. Yet even criti
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The Gaslighter In Chief
How we went from everyone knowing Trump would not sanction Putin to fooling ourselves that he would
By Phillips P. Obrien | May 26, 2025
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-gaslighter-in-chief
Since Trump was elected, he has acted like he could at any moment impose sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s Russia for the Russo-Ukraine War. Just last night, we had another example of this. After a weekend of Russia attacking civilian targets in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, killing many innocents, Trump once again wielded the threat of sanctions in a tweet.
The amazing thing is that after six months of toothless threats, people were still talking about Trump sanctioning Russia, when he has no intention of doing so. To give you an idea of the extraordinarily repetitive nature of the threats, and why people should have never taken them seriously in the first place, I think it's worthwhile going through the last year chronologically—to see just how preposterous the sanctions threat pantomime has become. Apologies if this is long—but it's been an extraordinary process and does need to be understood.
The dozens of times Trump threatened to sanction Russia (but did nothing) are listed at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-gaslighter-in-chief
Trump’s threats are helping Putin. They are part of Trump’s plan to gaslight Europeans into thinking he might do something, and are delaying tactics to keep others from acting.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Economic Consequences of Destroying Harvard
By Paul Krugman | May 26, 2025 at 5:36 AM
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-economic-consequences-of-destro
ying
from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19830859 Cultural Revolution photos
Harvard is easy to dislike. It’s rich. It’s elitist. It rejected my application back when I was a high school senior.
But the Trumpist effort to destroy Harvard and other elite universities — for that is clearly their intention — will do vast damage to our nation’s future.
The most important aspect of this campaign of intimidation and disruption is, of course, the attack on freedom of thought. I hope that nobody actually believes the MAGA line that universities are indoctrinating their students in wokeness, DEI, Marxism, whatever. The real complaint, obviously, is that these institutions aren’t indoctrinating their students — that they are exposing young people to a variety of ideas and encouraging them to think for themselves, when they should be preaching right-wing dogma and obedience to whatever The Leader says they should believe.
Given this terrifying reality of the Trumpian war on learning, indeed on scientific thought itself, it may seem crass to examine the economic consequences of the attacks on higher education. Yet it’s important to understand that these consequences will also be disastrous – both for the current economy and for the economy’s long-term future.
Harvard is a major U.S. exporter. The foreign students that the Trump administration is trying to ban usually pay their own tuition — money that shows up as a credit in the US trade balance. But arguably the much larger issue is that Harvard is a crucial element within the Greater Boston economy. This regional economy is one of the crown jewels of the U.S. economy, one of the most important generators of high incomes, specialized knowledge and innovation.
Metropolitan economies are always more than the sum of their parts. Businesses clump together, forming a metropolitan economy, because their positive interactions create an industrial ecology of mutually reinforcing strengths, usually built around some kind of core competence. One famous example is the San Francisco Bay Area, a nexus of global leadership in digital technology. Another is Greater New York, the world’s leading financial center.
What is so special about Greater Boston? The economy of Greater Boston can seem confusing, because its world-beating sectors look quite different from each other on the surface. First, there are the schools: Colleges and universities employ 87,000 people in the Greater Boston area, accounting for a far higher share of employment than they do in America as a whole. Second, there’s a world-class medical complex, treating patients from around the world and also training many of the world’s top doctors. Third, Greater Boston is a leading player in both AI and “tough tech,” which emphasizes how information interacts with the physical world. Fourth, Greater Boston is the world’s leading biotech hub.
What do all these activities have in common? The answer, surely, is that they’re all linked by intellectual curiosity, rigorous thinking, scientific discipline, and an openness to new ideas. All of these qualities engender an openness to the very best talent around the world – students, researchers and entrepreneurs. Moreover, all of the parts are mutually supporting: the intellectual ferment within the universities and medical complex is a prime source of business innovation, and business success brings financial support and acclaim for the schools.
Harvard is by no means the dominant player in this intellectual and economic universe. It may not even be the most important player. At a guess M.I.T. has, in a direct sense, been a larger incubator of new businesses than its neighbor two miles up
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The Economic Consequences of Destroying Harvard
By Paul Krugman | May 26, 2025 at 5:36 AM
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-economic-consequences-of-destro
ying
from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19830859 Cultural Revolution photos
Harvard is easy to dislike. It’s rich. It’s elitist. It rejected my application back when I was a high school senior.
But the Trumpist effort to destroy Harvard and other elite universities — for that is clearly their intention — will do vast damage to our nation’s future.
The most important aspect of this campaign of intimidation and disruption is, of course, the attack on freedom of thought. I hope that nobody actually believes the MAGA line that universities are indoctrinating their students in wokeness, DEI, Marxism, whatever. The real complaint, obviously, is that these institutions aren’t indoctrinating their students — that they are exposing young people to a variety of ideas and encouraging them to think for themselves, when they should be preaching right-wing dogma and obedience to whatever The Leader says they should believe.
Given this terrifying reality of the Trumpian war on learning, indeed on scientific thought itself, it may seem crass to examine the economic consequences of the attacks on higher education. Yet it’s important to understand that these consequences will also be disastrous – both for the current economy and for the economy’s long-term future.
Harvard is a major U.S. exporter. The foreign students that the Trump administration is trying to ban usually pay their own tuition — money that shows up as a credit in the US trade balance. But arguably the much larger issue is that Harvard is a crucial element within the Greater Boston economy. This regional economy is one of the crown jewels of the U.S. economy, one of the most important generators of high incomes, specialized knowledge and innovation.
Metropolitan economies are always more than the sum of their parts. Businesses clump together, forming a metropolitan economy, because their positive interactions create an industrial ecology of mutually reinforcing strengths, usually built around some kind of core competence. One famous example is the San Francisco Bay Area, a nexus of global leadership in digital technology. Another is Greater New York, the world’s leading financial center.
What is so special about Greater Boston? The economy of Greater Boston can seem confusing, because its world-beating sectors look quite different from each other on the surface. First, there are the schools: Colleges and universities employ 87,000 people in the Greater Boston area, accounting for a far higher share of employment than they do in America as a whole. Second, there’s a world-class medical complex, treating patients from around the world and also training many of the world’s top doctors. Third, Greater Boston is a leading player in both AI and “tough tech,” which emphasizes how information interacts with the physical world. Fourth, Greater Boston is the world’s leading biotech hub.
What do all these activities have in common? The answer, surely, is that they’re all linked by intellectual curiosity, rigorous thinking, scientific discipline, and an openness to new ideas. All of these qualities engender an openness to the very best talent around the world – students, researchers and entrepreneurs. Moreover, all of the parts are mutually supporting: the intellectual ferment within the universities and medical complex is a prime source of business innovation, and business success brings financial support and acclaim for the schools.
Harvard is by no means the dominant player in this intellectual and economic universe. It may not even be the most important player. At a guess M.I.T. has, in a direct sense, been a larger incubator of new businesses than its neighbor two miles up Massachusetts Ave. But M.I.T. wouldn’t be what it is without Harvard nearby, and vice versa. The same goes for the dozens of other fine universities in the area, and th
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Fuck Harvard and anything you've been "learning" Ted.
I bought my first house with cash when I was 32. What has your college "education" done for you besides make you miserable?
I know 10 times more than you about anything that is important, and when I need to do things like fix a car or do an emergency sump pump install while the ship is sinking, I learn them quickly and get them done.
You don't know shit about shit, dummy. You have no personal skills or emotional intelligence either, and you couldn't write a paragraph to save your life.
'
Nobody wants to hear anything out of you.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Trump
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Oh good. I'm so used to all of the politicians doing all their shady shit in the shadows.
As they say... Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
I'm sure Mrs. Durke is going to get off of her ass and do some real hard hitting journalism and investigation now and get to the bottom of this instead of just rewriting whatever wikipedia article she "wrote" from the safety and comfort of her office that you just regurgitated for everyone here... containing a topic that you're extremely likely to never bring up again in your lifetime. As per usual.
Shut the fuck up.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:All About Ed Martin, Interim US Attorney
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Shut the fuck up.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
By Timothy Snyder | May 20, 2025
https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-weaponization-czar
Between 2016 and 2024, Ed Martin was a star of both RT and Sputnik, which are propaganda arms of the Russian state. Putin himself has made this completely clear. One of the central missions of RT and Sputnik is to weaken the standing and power of the United States. Anyone who goes on RT or Sputnik, as Martin did more than a hundred times, knows what he is doing. For eight years, on any issue of the day, Martin was there to spread mendacious propaganda about Americans and to defend Putin and Trump. His Russian work surpassed any media exposure in the United States.
Trump as American president can do, says Martin on Russian propaganda television, whatever he wants. Martin proposes that we should live in the alternative reality provided by the Russian propaganda he serves, since American media cannot be trusted. He instructs us that American elections are rigged and that the January 6th criminals are political prisoners.
Martin's authoritarian past and loyalties are a matter of public record. He helped build an alternative reality around Trump's Big Lie and coup attempt, treating the January 6th criminals as heroes deserving of financial support and pardons. As interim US attorney, he described himself as President Trump's lawyer, and abused his position to send letters to people who displeased the president in some way. He threatened journalists, universities and scientists.
Martin, to use the historical term, is taking an ostentatious part in the ongoing attempt at what the Nazis called a Gleichschaltung of institutions: of dropping the distinction between the law and the leader, and of attempting to force everyone in public life into line with the leader's latest statements. The reference is not accidental. Martin is on the far right, and an advocate of great replacement theory: the spurious idea that a conspiracy seeks to replace white Americans with immigrants. He had a very supportive relationship with a known American Nazi.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:You bought a house with money from drug dealing. You got out of that business because you were stabbed in the kidney. Your pile of hidden cash is getting smaller so you have to economize, limiting expenses to less than $9,999 per year. But Trump will save you because you sure as hell won't go to work and pay taxes.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Harvard and anything you've been "learning" Ted.
I bought my first house with cash when I was 32. What has your college "education" done for you besides make you miserable?
I know 10 times more than you about anything that is important, and when I need to do things like fix a car or do an emergency sump pump install while the ship is sinking, I learn them quickly and get them done.
You don't know shit about shit, dummy. You have no personal skills or emotional intelligence either, and you couldn't write a paragraph to save your life.
'
Nobody wants to hear anything out of you.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
(Funny how Trump doesn't pay tax, either. Trump reported millions in negative income in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2020, and he paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. )
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trumps-tax-returns-relea
sed-house-committee-years-legal-battles-rcna62408
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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When it comes to ending the war in Ukraine, President Donald Trump’s statements and social media posts have become meaningless.
Receding chances for a ceasefire and peace deal soon will depend instead on whether he finally finds the steel to reinforce his rhetorical lashing of President Vladimir Putin over the weekend with action.
The Kremlin is betting he won’t.
It dismissed Trump’s frustration with the most intense Russian drone attacks on Ukraine as a symptom of “emotional overload.” And experience suggests Putin can get away with calling the US president’s bluff. After all, Trump’s Truth Social critique of the Russian leader as “crazy” on Monday was leavened with a characteristic rebuke of the victim — Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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:You bought a house with money from drug dealing.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Fuck Harvard and anything you've been "learning" Ted.
I bought my first house with cash when I was 32. What has your college "education" done for you besides make you miserable?
I know 10 times more than you about anything that is important, and when I need to do things like fix a car or do an emergency sump pump install while the ship is sinking, I learn them quickly and get them done.
You don't know shit about shit, dummy. You have no personal skills or emotional intelligence either, and you couldn't write a paragraph to save your life.
'
Nobody wants to hear anything out of you.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
No I didn't. I bought a house because when I made good money I had a 5 year run of over 30% returns in the very aggressive 401k plan, while getting a 100% company match on my 7% I was putting into it, on top of the yearly $3k bonus I was getting funneled in there too. All the while, I was putting around $1.3k in the bank every month and not spending it like you retards do. Every dime of that money was legit, fully accounted for by the IRS and I have zero concern that anybody could ever claim anything to the contrary.
By the time the layoff came, I had doubled my starting salary in only 5 years. None of that even began until around 4 years after I was stabbed. I was making great money back then too, but I'd pissed it all away and learned a valuable lesson about what not to do with my money next time.
Bought Google back when it was $200 per share too.
Then the housing market cratered and I bought a house with cash for a little over 1/3rd of the price that the previous owners paid for it. Even got to take advantage of the 1st time Homebuyer's credit on part of my early retirement withdrawal.
I haven't held credit card debt since 2005. I haven't had a car loan since 2001. I never had any student debt. I've managed to do all of this despite, not including unemployment benefits, I've only made around $250,000 in nearly 30 years since I began working, with about 15 of those years not spent working at this point.
The only reason assholes like you need to make as much money as you do is because 3/4 of the money you're going to spend by the time you're dead was on taxes and interest payments.
I'm 10 times smarter than you are, and 1,000 times better with impulse control.
Don't make up stories about other people's lives because you were an utter failure at your own.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:6ix, you are a fucking criminal telling imaginary stories and Trump uses the same techniques to disguise his criminality:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
No I didn't.
America seems to be waiting for a clear indication that the country is in a constitutional crisis. Perhaps President Donald Trump will say, “I am defying a court order, and good luck trying to do anything about it.” But short of that, America’s constitutional crisis was always going to be a bit subtler—and that subtler crisis is already here. The administration is already flouting court orders. It’s just that, rather than admitting so, executive-branch officials are saying one thing but doing another.
We have spent the past few months surveying the second Trump administration’s practice regarding court orders and reviewed dozens of cases. We observed a clear pattern: The administration uses the language of the law as cover to claim that it is complying with court orders when in fact it is not. We call this “legalistic noncompliance,” a term intended to capture how the administration has deployed an array of specious legal arguments to conceal what is actually pervasive defiance of judicial oversight. It is a powerful strategy, as it obscures the substance of what the administration is doing with the soothing language of the law.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/legalistic-noncompli
ance/682927/
I see a commonality between Trump's rotten behavior and that of his Trumptards.
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're more asinine than Trump.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The only reason assholes like you need to make as much money as you do is because 3/4 of the money you're going to spend by the time you're dead was on taxes and interest payments.
A Letter to Europe
You’re stronger than you think. Act like it.
Paul Krugman | May 27, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/a-letter-to-europe
On Friday Donald Trump, claiming that he was unhappy with European negotiating tactics, announced his intention to impose 50 percent tariffs on goods imported from the European Union. A rate that high would virtually shut down trans-Atlantic trade. But on Sunday, after talking with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, he announced that the tariffs would be postponed until July 9.
I have no idea what von der Leyen said, and I’d also note that a huge threatened tariff that may or may not happen in 6 weeks does a lot to increase destructive uncertainty. But let me offer some advice to the Commission and the EU as a whole: Don’t try to appease Trump. You can’t make any substantive concessions because your policies toward U.S. exports are already quite favorable. And even giving Trump some kind of symbolic, meaningless win will only embolden him, confirming his false belief that “they’ve treated us very badly over the years.”
Above all, Europe needs to overcome its learned helplessness and act like the great power it is, especially given America’s apparent determination to destroy the pillars of its own strength.
About trade: the EU and the US both have significant tariffs on a few of each others’ products, but until Trump went on his rampage, average tariffs were very low — less than 2 percent — in both directions. Trump and those around him rant about European value-added taxes, and it’s true that US producers have to pay, for example, 19 percent to sell to German consumers. But so do German producers! A VAT is a sales tax, not an import barrier.
Trump rages about Europe’s trade surplus with America, but bilateral imbalances are normal and innocuous: I run a large deficit with the bodega around the corner, because I buy a lot of their groceries while they do not, as far as I know, subscribe to this Substack.
Furthermore, there’s less to that European surplus than meets the eye. Yes, Europe sells us more goods — physical stuff like cars and olive oil — than it buys. But we sell them a lot more services, things like financial services and software design. Trump only talks about our deficit in goods, but our deficit in goods and services is significantly smaller..
Besides, some of our reported deficit in goods is probably fictitious. According to the official numbers Ireland is responsible for 1/3 of the EU’s trade surplus with America. That’s because according to these numbers Ireland sells 6 times as much to the US as it buys. But this is almost certainly a figment of accounting trickery designed to avoid taxes.
Here’s how it works: an Irish subsidiary of a multinational company that manufactures, say, pharmaceuticals sells the drugs at inflated prices to the US subsidiary that markets the drugs here. That reduces reported profits and hence taxes in America, while creating big but basically imaginary profits in Ireland, where corporate taxes are much lower.
These accounting maneuvers make it look as if Ireland, and hence the EU to which it belongs, is exporting a lot, but no jobs are created; it’s only about the corporate bottom line.
Yes, the EU should crack down on Ireland’s role as a tax haven. But that hasn’t been one of Trump’s demands.
When all is said and done, the EU’s true trade surplus is probably less than $100 billion, which is basically rounding error compared with Europe’s $19 trillion GDP.
So America has no legitimate grievances against the EU. Nor does America, as Trump likes to imagine, “hold the cards.” The EU isn’t highly dependent on the US market, which buys only around 3 percent of what it produces; U.S.
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Dinner with Trump: It’ll set you back $1 million
By Bill Press | 05/27/25 10:30 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/5318915-trump-president-fundra
iser-golf/
What a great country we live in. You tell me: in whatever other country could you receive a personal email from your president? Yet that’s what happened to me this weekend.
I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited when this message popped up among incoming emails: “Email from the President.” Of course, I opened it right away. I couldn’t wait. Was President Trump asking my advice on ending the war in Ukraine? Or how to get his “big, beautiful bill” out of the Senate? No, no. Nothing so important.
It turned out Trump was just asking for money. “I signed collectible golf balls for you,” read the email. “BUT we’ll only have a few of these left in stock, so if you want them, you’ve got to ORDER BEFORE MIDNIGHT.”
There they were, the president emailed, just waiting for me: three “Trump Signature Golf Balls” (not actually signed by him) for anywhere from $35 to $3,300, depending on how big a check I wanted to write. As much as I hate to disappoint the Don, I decided to pass.
Actually, I felt lucky. At least I didn’t get an email inviting me to have dinner with Trump last Thursday night at his golf club in Potomac Falls, Va. That would have set me back a bit more than $35. The minimum price for steak and halibut was a cool million, for which you didn’t even get a handshake.
But 220 fat cats did show up, specially invited because they were the biggest investors in Trump’s latest money-making scheme, which he launched just before his second Inauguration: a $Trump meme coin. Buyers from China, Germany, Singapore, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and around the world flew in for the dinner with the explicit intent, they told reporters, “of influencing Mr. Trump and U.S. financial regulations.”
In addition to dinner with the president, the top donors were given a private tour of the White House the next morning. And, to be clear, this was not a campaign fundraiser. This event was a Trump family business venture from which, according to the New York Times, they have already collected $320 million in fees.
Stop! That rumbling sound you hear? It’s the sound of Thomas Jefferson, or Abraham Lincoln, or Jimmy Carter, or any of our other 42 deceased presidents rolling in their grave. It’s no stretch of the imagination to conclude that anyone of them would be appalled at the way Trump has turned the presidency from the highest form of public service to a display of personal enrichment.
After all, last week’s dinner is hardly the first money-making scheme Trump has launched recently. In January, in addition to hawking Bibles, trading cards, sneakers and watches, he unveiled a new crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, with a $2 billion investment from Abu Dhabi.
Since the inauguration, sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. have been bouncing around the world, signing a breathtaking bounty of new business deals for the family. That includes a $1 billion, 80-story luxury hotel in Dubai; a second high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; a new golf course and villa complex in Qatar; a Trump skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City; and a $1.5 billion golf complex outside Hanoi. They’ve also opened a private club in Washington, the “Executive Branch,” where for a $500,000 entrance fee, members can rub elbows with members of the Trump administration.
Again, all of these projects have one purpose only: to exploit the office of the president to funnel money to Trump and his family. Eric Lipton, investigative reporter for the New York Times, concludes: “Mr. Trump is estimated to have added billions to his personal fortune, at least on paper, since the start of his new term, much of it through crypto.”
How times have changed. There’s hardly a peep of protest this time about Trump’s money-grubbing. Yet not that long ago, Hillary Clinton was roasted for having made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle fu
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, you are a fucking criminal
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
No I didn't.
Prove it you whiny little cunt loser.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, you're more asinine than Trump.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The only reason assholes like you need to make as much money as you do is because 3/4 of the money you're going to spend by the time you're dead was on taxes and interest payments.
He follows up with an article by paid liar and serial wrong-with-every-prediction-he's-ever-made Paul Krugman.
SPOILER ALERT: Nothing Paul Krugman wrote in the above post negates the fact that the reason assholes like Second need to make as much money as they do is because 3/4 of the money he will spend by the time he is dead was on taxes and interest payments.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
This is a good read. Too bad those that could use a little wisdom, are against learning.
Only retards would look back at Paul Krugman's article history and claim that anything he writes in 2025 was a good read.
Keep following those lemmings off the cliff guys.
You're cooked.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:6ix, you are a fool. So is Trump:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody cares what you think or believe.
You are an idiot, and everything you have ever said here has been proven wrong, whether it was merely an outright lie when you said it, or given enough time.
You worthless. You are nothing. And I own you.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Donald Trump Makes Canada a New Offer to Become 51st State
May 27, 2025 at 7:47 PM EDT
President Donald Trump issued a new ultimatum to Canada on Tuesday, saying it can either pay $61 billion to be covered by the proposed U.S. "Golden Dome" missile defense system — or become the 51st state and get access to it free of charge.
Trump announced his latest offer to Canada on Truth Social, writing, "I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State."
"They are considering the offer!" he added. (The Canadian government is not.)
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump told reporters he expects the system to be "fully operational before the end of my term," which ends in 2029. He also claimed the defense system would be able to intercept missiles "even if they are launched from space." (None of Gold Dome will be ready by 2029 and it won't work when "completed.")
Trump expects the cost to be $175 billion. $542 billion is the projected cost by the Congressional Budget Office. (You decide who you believe.)
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-makes-canada-new-offer-become-51
st-state-2077734
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump announces pardon for Todd and Julie Chrisley after reality TV stars' fraud, tax evasion convictions
'Chrisley Knows Best' stars Todd and Julie Chrisley are currently serving 12 and 7-year sentences for bank fraud and tax evasion
By Brie Stimson Fox News | May 27, 2025 6:01pm EDT
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/trump-announces-pardon-todd-juli
e-chrisley-after-reality-tv-stars-fraud-tax-evasion-convictions
"It could have been me." -- 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:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ix, you are a fool. So is Trump:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Nobody cares what you think or believe.
You are an idiot, and everything you have ever said here has been proven wrong, whether it was merely an outright lie when you said it, or given enough time.
You worthless. You are nothing. And I own you.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Donald Trump Makes Canada a New Offer to Become 51st State
May 27, 2025 at 7:47 PM EDT
President Donald Trump issued a new ultimatum to Canada on Tuesday, saying it can either pay $61 billion to be covered by the proposed U.S. "Golden Dome" missile defense system — or become the 51st state and get access to it free of charge.
Trump announced his latest offer to Canada on Truth Social, writing, "I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State."
"They are considering the offer!" he added. (The Canadian government is not.)
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump told reporters he expects the system to be "fully operational before the end of my term," which ends in 2029. He also claimed the defense system would be able to intercept missiles "even if they are launched from space." (None of Gold Dome will be ready by 2029 and it won't work when "completed.")
Trump expects the cost to be $175 billion. $542 billion is the projected cost by the Congressional Budget Office. (You decide who you believe.)
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-makes-canada-new-offer-become-51
st-state-2077734
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
How's that rail in California going? I wonder which one will end up costing more and which will be completed first.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:California High Speed Rail is failing to be completed because Democrats are pussies who won't kick the asses of people who are stopping the project. On the other hand, Trump's Golden Dome can't be built at the speed of Trump's mouth because of physics.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
How's that rail in California going? I wonder which one will end up costing more and which will be completed first.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Also, China will shoot down Golden Dome before it is operating in orbit in the best tradition of a James Bond movie, except this James is Chinese. Does anybody think China will allow a dozen Death Stars to orbit above China, ready to shoot down missiles launched from China?
Unlike California Democrats, the Chinese are not pussies. The Chinese will pull the trigger and shoot down Trump's new version of Ronald Reagan's old version of Star Wars' Death Stars. But Golden Dome is only Trump distracting Americans with a shiny object made from recycled aluminum covered with an extremely thin layer of gold leaf. That's in the name: Golden Dome.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump's distraction machine is working
Trump continues to win the information war. Democrats, the media and the American people are left overwhelmed
By Chauncey DeVega | May 27, 2025 9:01AM (EDT)
https://www.salon.com/2025/05/27/distraction-machine-is-working/
Lee McIntyre, author of the book “On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy,” explained to me: "I doubt that Trump has ever taken a course in psyops or that he reads disinformation training manuals in his spare time, but he is nonetheless a master, near-genius-level propagandist. He uses the exact same techniques of disinformation on an American audience that Putin uses on his citizens."
When Donald Trump, his MAGA Republicans and the larger antidemocracy movement encounter difficulties with their "shock and awe" campaign and blitzkrieg against American democracy and society, they amplify the power and reach of their disinformation and propaganda experience machine. The mainstream news media, the Democrats and other members of the responsible political class (and many among the general public) have been conditioned to respond almost like Pavlov’s dogs. They chase the newest outrage or spectacle and react like it is a surprise instead of focusing on the bigger picture and goals that these controversies and “shocking” events are advancing and/or hiding.
In a recent New York Times opinion essay, Ezra Klein explained how disorientation and a lack of focus are the intended outcome of Donald Trump and his agents’ “flooding the zone” strategy and tactic:
Quote:What is the purpose behind Trump’s distractions? Trump's “big beautiful bill” is set to take trillions of dollars away from the American people and give it to the richest people and corporations. If enacted, it will be one of the largest — if not the largest — transfers of wealth in American history and further gut the social safety net. Trump's "big beautiful bill" is unpopular with the American people and would likely trigger a huge backlash — given any sustained attention.
Focus is the fundamental substance of democracy. It is particularly the substance of opposition. People largely learn of what the government is doing through the media — be it mainstream media or social media. If you overwhelm the media — if you give it too many places it needs to look, all at once, if you keep it moving from one thing to the next — no coherent opposition can emerge. It is hard to even think coherently….
The flood is the point. The overwhelm is the point. The message wasn’t in any one executive order or announcement. It was in the cumulative effect of all of them. The sense that this is Trump’s country now. This is his government now. It follows his will. It does what he wants. If Trump tells the state to stop spending money, the money stops. If he says that birthright citizenship is over, it’s over.
Or so he wants you to think. In Trump’s first term, we were told: Don’t normalize him. In his second, the task is different: Don’t believe him.
Trump knows the power of marketing. If you make people believe something is true, you make it likelier that it becomes true…
It is a strategy that forces you into overreach. To keep the zone flooded, you have to keep acting, keep moving, keep creating new cycles of outrage or fear. You overwhelm yourself. And there’s only so much you can do through executive orders. Soon enough, you have to go beyond what you can actually do. And when you do that, you either trigger a constitutional crisis or you reveal your own weakness.
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:California High Speed Rail is failing to be completed because Democrats are pussies who won't kick the asses of people who are stopping the project.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
How's that rail in California going? I wonder which one will end up costing more and which will be completed first.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
That would be funny watching them kick their own asses though.
Democrats are the people who are stopping the project, stupid.
http://fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=66792
But it didn't stop them from burning through BILLIONS over 17 YEARS to get absolutely nothing done so far though, did it?
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump's distraction machine is working
Trump continues to win the information war. Democrats, the media and the American people are left overwhelmed
Shut the fuck up, cunt.
We get 20 stories of meaningless bullshit and predictions that never come true out of you and Ted every single day for 12 years straight. And that didn't let up at all for a second the entire time Joe Biden* was president either.
You two can't even think like rational people anymore because your brains have been put in a blender and your smartphones do 90% of your thinking for you now.
It has nothing at all to do with Trump. You are mental. Get some help.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:The prediction that Trump would sell pardons came true:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump's distraction machine is working
Trump continues to win the information war. Democrats, the media and the American people are left overwhelmed
Shut the fuck up, cunt.
We get 20 stories of meaningless bullshit and predictions that never come true out of you and Ted every single day for 12 years straight. And that didn't let up at all for a second the entire time Joe Biden* was president either.
Trump pardoned man 1 month after mother attended $1M per person fundraiser
by Julia Mueller - 05/27/25 12:43 PM ET
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5319932-trump-pardon-paul-
walczak/
Walczak had pleaded guilty back in November, shortly after Trump’s election, to not paying employment taxes and not filing his individual income tax returns, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). He’d withheld nearly $7.5 million in taxes from workers at his health care companies but did not pay those over to the IRS.
In early April, the Floridian was sentenced to 18 months in prison and two years of supervised release, and he was ordered to pay more than $4 million in restitution. His pardon spares him both from serving time and paying the fees.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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