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

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

Fire Government Employees and Hire Crooks to do the same work, incompetently

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/17/ice-deportation-contracts-us-advis
ors/

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement just signed a contract worth $73 million with a firm whose executives are accused of taking part in a scheme to manufacture evidence against a co-worker during their time working at the Department of Homeland Security.

According to a contract document reviewed by The Intercept, federal contractor Universal Strategic Advisors will provide services pertaining to ICE’s “non-detained docket,” a master list of millions of noncitizens believed to be removable from the United States but not yet in the agency’s custody.

The contract cites President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, an overwhelming glut of potential deportees, and a shortage of officers to process them all as justification for hiring a private vendor to assist with the collection of biometric data, coordinating removals, and monitoring immigrant populations.

The document says that with a fleet of new outsourced employees, ICE can reassign hundreds of officers to tasks that better align with Trump’s recent executive orders aimed at maximizing the agency’s detention and deportation operations. With the contractors onboard, the document says at least 675 ICE officers “will be able to take all appropriate actions to comply with the EO’s by prioritizing conducting at-large arrests, removals, and detention related activities.”

A former ICE official, who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity, said they were concerned by this plan to further privatize the agency’s operations at the same time as the Trump administration has dramatically slashed its workforce and gutted important oversight bodies like the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, as well as the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. “I certainly take issue with them firing career feds and demolishing whole offices, just to hire contractors to do the same work, many of them who are former ICE employees now retired,” the official said.

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

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Thursday, April 17, 2025 8:54 AM

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

The Pardon-to-Prison Pipeline

Trump granted clemency to people who keep ending up back in trouble with the law.

By David A. Graham | April 16, 2025, 6:55 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/04/january-6-pard
on-prison-trump/682485/

Late last month, Jonathan Braun was arrested on allegations of shoving a 3-year-old, “causing a red mark on his back and substantial pain.” This is only his latest brush with the law over the past four years. He was banned by federal and New York State judges from working in debt collection; fined $20 million; and accused of punching his wife and father-in-law, groping a nanny, and attacking a nurse with an IV-bag holder. He also allegedly threatened a man at his synagogue who asked him to pipe down during services.

This crime spree is stunning, but what makes it national news is that it has all happened since 2021, when President Donald Trump commuted Braun’s 10-year prison sentence for smuggling marijuana. Braun, granted clemency during the last hours of Trump’s first term as president, is one of many recipients of a Trump pardon who has found himself back in trouble with the law. Some of them are people convicted of serious offenses on January 6, 2021, and then pardoned at the outset of Trump’s second term in office. Despite Trump’s depiction of the rioters as peace-loving patriots, more than a few of them have proved to be repeat offenders.

Braun, who is now back in prison, is not the only first-term recipient of clemency to be rearrested. Eli Weinstein, a convicted Ponzi schemer who received a last-minute 2021 commutation, was convicted on March 31 in a $41 million fraud case. Philip Esformes, whose sentence for his role in a $1.3 billion Medicare fraud was commuted in 2020, was arrested last year on domestic-violence-related charges, but the state dropped them a month later. The rapper Kodak Black has also been repeatedly arrested since receiving a commutation.

But the group of people convicted in connection with January 6 has been particularly likely to have found more trouble. Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was sentenced to 22 years for seditious conspiracy and other crimes, was arrested for assault just a month after being pardoned—at the Capitol, no less. (D.C. prosecutors declined to pursue charges.) He also tried unsuccessfully to stir up conflict at a conference of Trump critics in February. Matthew Huttle, an Indiana man who received a pardon for entering the Capitol on January 6, was fatally shot by a deputy on January 27 after reaching for a gun. Emily Hernandez, a Missouri woman, was convicted for causing a fatal drunk-driving crash in 2022; the sentencing came days after her pardon for January 6 offenses. Andrew Taake of Texas was pardoned in January, then arrested in February on an outstanding charge for allegedly sending explicit messages to an undercover cop he believed was an underage girl.

It’s not just that clemency recipients have been accused of crimes since their pardons; they’ve also tried to use the pardons to get off for other offenses. Edward Kelley argued that his pardon from Trump for January 6 also covered his plot to kill the FBI agents who investigated him; a judge disagreed. Daniel Ball said that charges of illegally possessing a gun should be thrown out because the weapon was discovered in a search related to now-pardoned January 6 charges, and the acting U.S. attorney agreed, but Dan Wilson, a pardoned Capitol rioter who made a similar argument, had less luck with a federal appeals court. (Other defendants have made similar claims, with varying results.) David Daniel, who was charged with producing and possessing child pornography, also argued that a search that turned up the material was invalid because of his January 6 pardon, but the U.S. attorney in the case disagreed. (Daniel has pleaded not guilty to the charges.)

Seeing so many people who received pardons get back in trouble with the law should be deeply embarrassing for Trump—though to be fair, pardoning people for a violent assault on the Capitol should have been embarrassing to him as well. He is not the first president to issue clemency for personal reasons, but presidential administrations usually carefully administer commutations and pardons, in part to avoid recidivism. The Trump White House, however, has shown little regard for the process. Last month, it fired Justice Department pardon attorney Elizabeth Oyer after she opposed restoring gun rights for the actor Mel Gibson, then tried to block her from testifying to Congress.

Trump, the first convicted felon to serve as president, has long claimed that he will restore “law and order” in America, but his definition is highly selective. Some of the president’s commutations and pardons are simply favors granted to people who are well connected, but in the case of the January 6 commutations, he was eager to reward loyalty and to make a political point: that he and they had both been subjects of political persecution.

This creates a nauseating contrast with statements this week in which administration officials have claimed that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident living under protected legal status who was deported to El Salvador, is a terrorist, despite a total lack of evidence—and despite the fact that the government has previously acknowledged his deportation was “an administrative error.” The search for some offense to pin on Abrego Garcia is also being done to make a political point. If Trump is eager to find dangerous criminals, he could do so more easily by looking at his pardon list.

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

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Thursday, April 17, 2025 9:07 AM

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

Anyone who looked either at Donald Trump’s personal history or the history of authoritarian regimes in general would have realized that there’s no such thing as a deal with this administration. Whatever you think Trump and co. have agreed to, they feel free to make new demands whenever it suits them.

Sure enough, yesterday the New York Times published an article with the headline “Law Firms Made Deals With Trump. Now He Wants More From Them.”

Big Law has just discovered what it should have known all along: Giving Trump what he wants doesn’t buy you lenient treatment. All it does is signal weakness, which leads to even more onerous demands.

And the fact that Trump never, ever keeps his promises is why he will lose his trade war, why the dollar may lose its status as a global currency, and why America may eventually face a debt crisis.

U.S. efforts to build an anti-China trade alliance are doomed to failure. Why? Because nobody with any sense trusts the Trump administration to honor the terms of any deals it makes, whether they’re deals about pro bono work with law firms or tariff deals with other governments.

And as more and more people realize that Trump and his minions can’t be trusted, the damage will spread from trade to finance. The international role of the dollar and, eventually, America’s ability to service its debt are very much at risk.

Why can’t Donald Trump be trusted? Partly because he’s Donald Trump. But even if he weren’t, absolute monarchs — which is what Trump is trying to become — are fundamentally untrustworthy. The ruler may sometimes choose to honor his promises, but it’s always his choice — a choice that can be changed at any moment.

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

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Thursday, April 17, 2025 12:49 PM

TDS is just flowing through you today.

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

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

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Thursday, April 17, 2025 3:30 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
TDS is just flowing through you today.

This is NOT about Trump and has bigger consequences than all the things put together by Trump and Project 2025:

Don't ignore Republicans' awful budget

More debt, big Medicaid cuts, and trillions in regressive tax cuts

By Matthew Yglesias | Apr 17, 2025

https://www.slowboring.com/p/dont-ignore-republicans-awful-budget

To start with some self-criticism: Back when the American Rescue Plan was coming together, I thought that if American fiscal policy “overshot” somewhat on the demand side, that would have positive consequences for American politics. Interest rates would rise to contain inflation (this happened) and people would find the higher interest rates annoying (this also happened), and then, as a result, the political system would return to being worried about debt and deficits.

I thought that this would be good, because it would force us into a more real politics, one that wasn’t so dominated by pure symbolism — we would be dealing with hard fiscal tradeoffs and less culture war nonsense.

This did not happen, at all.

Joe Biden and the Democrats surprised me by not returning to the classic Obama/Clinton message of balanced deficit reduction. I found this incredibly annoying, because when Obama was president, the conventional wisdom among pure political hacks was so strongly in favor of a deficit reduction message that the White House ran with it, even though it was inappropriate to the economic circumstances and Obama’s economic team was mixed on the substance of it. But just a few short years later, the conventional wisdom among political operatives had pivoted so hard against deficit reduction that they weren’t focused on it even when it was substantively warranted. Then came the debate, the candidate swap, and what I hoped would be a chance for Kamala Harris to shake the etch-a-sketch and ditch Biden’s extensive set of proposals for new spending in favor of a “reduce the deficit and bring down interest rates” message.

She declined to go down that road. Trump won. And now, while a million crazy things are happening in the executive branch, congressional Republicans are moving forward with a fiscal agenda that is incredibly irresponsible and will add trillions in debt, despite DOGE’s efforts to saves pennies through measures like refusing to help Milwaukee address unsafe levels of lead in their public schools’ drinking water.

Republicans are telling some people that there will be trillions of cuts to social safety net programs while promising other people that there won’t. But all possible versions of the GOP fiscal agenda result in huge increases to the budget deficit. In some, those increases are partially offset by cuts to programs for the poor; other times the deficits are just really large. But every version involves the opposite of sound Obama-style deficit reduction.

What we should be doing is aiming for balanced fiscal consolidation: higher revenue and lower spending, while trying to shelter the most vulnerable from the impact of cuts.

But Republicans want to reduce revenue, raise the deficit, and ensure that the pain of budget cuts falls on the vulnerable.

Republicans’ confusing budget moves

This has all been a bit hard to keep track of, but the first mover in Republican budget drama this year was the House of Representatives, which passed a resolution calling for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts partially offset by big cuts to Medicaid and SNAP.

This ultimately amounted to roughly $2.8 trillion in deficit increases that they chose to pretend would actually reduce the deficit via magical levels of economic growth.

The way this was written, the biggest spending cut by far is TBD but needs to come from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This is the committee that is responsible for Medicare and Medicaid, and the only way to achieve cuts of that scale would be to cut Medicare or Medicaid. Republicans have sworn up and down that they don’t want to cut Medicare, and their draft “menu” of spending cuts is full of different ways to cut Medicaid, so in practice, this is a plan for huge cuts to Medicaid.

But the Senate didn’t have the stomach for that.

So instead they wrote reconciliation instructions that call for increased military spending, increased spending on immigration enforcement, and $5.3 trillion in tax cuts, offset by a token $4 billion in spending cuts. The fiscal consequences of that plan are truly dire, doubling the pace of debt growth and likely incurring around $1 trillion in extra interest rate costs alone.

Of course, the House and Senate can’t just pass different laws.

So House leadership went back to get their members to agree to the Senate version. Right-wing members of the caucus objected to the absence of spending cuts, but eventually flip-flopped and helped pass it after both House and Senate leaders made informal promises to cut spending.

Right before the vote, Speaker Mike Johnson said, “Our two chambers are directly aligned; we’re committed to finding at least $1.5 trillion in savings for the American people while also preserving our essential programs.”

As pure legislating, this doesn’t make any sense.

The House already passed a budget resolution with $1.5 trillion in cuts, and then the Senate didn’t agree with it, so they came back with the no-cuts budget. Then the House passed the no-cuts budget, even with the Speaker explicitly saying he wants cuts.

They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth in a desperate effort to hold their slender margins together. But turning this into a kind of Schrödinger’s Budget Resolution is also making it harder to criticize them. By continuing to advance this legislation procedurally while hiding the ball in terms of its actual contents, Republicans have thus far managed to avoid it becoming a central political story. I’m always fond of pointing out that the actual low point of Trump’s term one approval ratings was not during any of the major scandals or controversies of his presidency, it was when the news agenda was dominated by ACA repeal and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Suggesting this has been a deliberate effort to keep the budget out of view is perhaps giving too much credit to a shambolic process. So far, though, it has been largely out of view, which is good for Trump and Republicans, but bad for America.

A good time to worry about the deficit

The gyrations in the bond market since “Liberation Day” have attracted a lot of attention. We are accustomed to situations in which stocks go up and bonds go down (“risk on”) or else the opposite, where stocks go down and bonds go up (“risk off”), the presumption being that American government bonds are a quintessential safe asset. Trump’s erratic policymaking seems to have undone this dynamic, and now stocks and bonds either both go down (when Trump does something crazy on trade) or both go up (when Trump backs away from the craziness).

These kind of market moves are interesting and important. But the bigger issue here is the basic cost of financing federal debt.

Interest payments as a share of GDP were really high in the 1980s as a result of Ronald Reagan’s bad fiscal policies, but they fell steadily in the 1990s and were consistently low for the first two decades of the 21st-century. This was a long period in which I thought deficit concerns were overhyped. But then interest rates went up under Biden, so debt service costs soared.

The good news is that by 2024, this was leveling off rather than continuing to rise.

With inflation largely in the rearview mirror, it seemed like we should have been set for interest costs to start declining, and then maybe Congress could do something useful on the budget deficit. Instead, Trump has us heading in the wrong direction. (While the Biden administration’s lack of interest in deficit reduction disappointed me, Harris’s proposals were all “paid for” and designed to at least avoid making things worse. ) Tariffs are poised to push inflation up and make it harder for the Fed to cut interest rates. These GOP tax bills are incurring a ton of new debt that will be much more expensive to finance than the debt originally incurred by the Bush tax cuts or during Trump’s first term. And dumping it into a climate of already rising interest rates and diminished confidence in the basic soundness of the United States risks pushing interest rates up further.

This is of more than just budgetary interest.

Loans to the federal government are inherently safer than any other kind of dollar-denominated loan. So when the federal government’s borrowing costs rise, the interest rates on things like mortgages and corporate bonds go up too.

You can’t “re-industrialize” the country (or even do something more prosaic, like create construction jobs) if you’re wrecking the underlying finances of the country.

And that’s what these budgets would do. Annoyingly, Trump seems to have convinced a healthy share of the public that this is why DOGE is a good idea. In reality, DOGE is saving minimal sums of money — sums that are largely offset by things like Trump’s giveaways to Medicare Advantage plans — while pursuing ideological vendettas and centralization of power. But even Elon Musk’s claim that he can cut spending by $150 billion is trivial compared to the scale of the tax cuts congressional Republicans are aiming for.

Boring us into oblivion

I have to admit that I struggled writing this article.

“They’re going to do a bad budget” is not outrageous in the same way that mistakenly sending a man to prison in El Salvador and then pretending you lack the authority to comply with a court order to bring him back is outrageous. Even in the economic policy sphere, it’s just not as riveting as the tariff drama, where Trump’s endless see-sawing and the whipsaws in financial markets are grimly fascinating.

At the same time, I am extremely concerned that Republicans are either going to bait-and-switch a second time on these budget resolutions and enact draconian Medicaid cuts after all, or else plunge ahead with the hyper-irresponsible Senate version, provoke some kind of bond market crisis, and then push for doomsday cuts to the social safety net.

And while the whole point of the budget reconciliation process is that nobody can stop the Republican Party from doing either of those things if that’s what they want to do, I really do think we have an obligation as a public to pay attention to this and not just treat it as tedious legislative arcana. Health insurance for millions of people and the basic financial wellbeing of millions more is on the line. It’s not an affront to Econ 101 or to the rule of law in the way that so many other Trump outrages are, but it is nonetheless incredibly high stakes for the future of the country.

Right now, though, there is essentially no clarity on what’s actually in this legislation, even though it has cleared several procedural hurdles.

One interpretation of that, highlighted in this Politico story, is that there are just a lot of unresolved questions. At each step down the road, leadership has made promises to different blocs of members — promises that are often contradictory. In principle, that means the whole thing could collapse in a humiliating way at any time.

My concern, though, is that at the last minute, the White House will step in, make a bunch of decisions, and then when Trump says “vote for this,” the whole caucus will go do it the same way they defer to Trump on everything. In this scenario, there will have been almost no scrutiny of exactly how much is added to the deficit and how much is cut from Medicaid and where else those cuts are.

I’m acutely aware drafting this column that it’s hard to make all of this compelling when I can’t tell you exactly whose interests are being threatened.

Are they going to screw with the FMAP formula in a way that is devastating to low-income people in blue states? Or, are they going to mess with Medicaid expansion dollars in a way that screws over West Virginia, Kentucky, and Arkansas? The former makes the vote math easy in the Senate (there are basically no blue state GOP senators) but very hard in the House (a huge share of their vulnerable frontline members are from New York and California). The latter is in some respects safer for the midterms, but asks many GOP Senators to cast votes that would be quite damaging to their own states. Or they can just do it the way that doubles the national debt, with all the downsides that entails.

Whatever choices they make, there will be ample political vulnerability. The suspicion that Republicans favor the interests of rich people and will make your life worse in order to indulge them is the enduring vulnerability of the GOP. And that’s exactly what’s happening here. It’s extremely hard to organize against a budget bill that’s so full of blanks, but I’m afraid that unless we start talking about it now, we’ll have final text sprung on us too late to get anyone engaged.

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

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Thursday, April 17, 2025 4:47 PM

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

Universities Told Students to Leave the Country. ICE Just Said They Didn’t Actually Have To.

By Natasha Lennard / Apr 17, 2025 at 1:10 PM

https://theintercept.com/2025/04/17/international-student-visas-deport
-dhs-ice/

The Department of Homeland Security said this week in a Michigan court that the agency does not have the authority to terminate students’ immigration statuses by terminating their records in the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System. Known as SEVIS, the database allows both universities and authorities to track information about international students on visas in U.S.

Homeland Security’s changes to SEVIS, the Trump administration said, have no bearing on a student’s lawful nonimmigrant status.

“Terminating a record in SEVIS does not terminate an individual’s nonimmigrant status in the United States,” said Andre Watson, assistant director of the national security division for Homeland Security Investigations, in the filing. Watson added that existing laws and regulations “do not provide” the DHS-run Student Exchange and Visitor Program “the authority to terminate nonimmigrant status by terminating a SEVIS record.”

This will be news to many hundreds of students who have had their SEVIS records terminated by DHS in recent weeks — and were then told by their schools or the government that they have thus lost their immigration status and must immediately leave the country.

“Under pressure from ICE, schools have been advising students they are out of status after SEVIS record termination, and in many cases disenrolling them as a result,” said Nathan Yaffe, an attorney representing international students facing deportation in other cases. “Now ICE has submitted sworn declarations that SEVIS record termination has no legal effect on the student whatsoever.”

“Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.”

Based on school officials checking their SEVIS records, hundreds of students have been led to believe that they had lost their student immigration status because a terminated record in the database is broadly taken to mean a student has fallen out of status.

The DHS’s latest claims to the contrary in court are sure to only sow further confusion, but they are strong grounds, Yaffe said, for schools to immediately stop disenrolling students believed to be out of status due to SEVIS record checks.

“Any school that continues to disenroll (and refuses to re-enroll) students is voluntarily punishing students to align itself with the Trump administration’s agenda,” Yaffe said. “Disenrolling students was already a blatant capitulation, and now it is a wholly inexcusable one.”

What Schools Told Students

The DHS declaration was filed in response to a lawsuit brought by four Michigan students, who are suing the Trump administration over the reported loss of their F-1 student statuses. In response, the government argued that the case should be thrown out, since DHS did not remove the students’ statuses when it terminated their SEVIS records.

According to Inside Higher Ed, 16 lawsuits from at least 50 students have challenged the Trump administration over visa revocations and deportation threats. A number of the suits have challenged DHS’s authority to summarily change students’ statuses on SEVIS. It was only for the first time in the Michigan case, however, that the government said that its SEVIS interventions had no bearing on a student’s status.

The admission was an apparent effort by the government to dodge legal challenges. The students are suing to have their legal student immigration status restored, and the government is suggesting that their SEVIS terminations never changed the students’ statuses, so the agency cannot be sued for its actions. Communications from government agencies and school administrations, however, have up until this point taken a SEVIS termination to mean that a student’s status is terminated too.

In an email sent by a school official at the University of Michigan to one of the Michigan plaintiffs, for example, the student was told, “In our daily review of SEVIS, we learned that your SEVIS record was ‘terminated’ by a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official.” The school official continued: “We do not have any additional information, but this termination means you no longer hold valid F-1 status within the United States. You will need to cease any employment immediately. Since this termination does not carry a grace period, we must recommend you make plans to exit the United States immediately.”

The government’s defense in court, however, claimed the direct opposite, noting in a filing: “There are no legal consequences to the termination of a SEVIS record.”

The University of Michigan and Wayne State University — the two schools attended by plaintiffs in the Michigan lawsuit — did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment, nor did DHS, ICE, the State Department, and the Department of Justice, which represents the administration in court.

The War on Immigrants

A student plaintiff in another, similar case filed in California received an email directly from the State Department, informing them that their student visa had been revoked. The email fails to distinguish in any meaningful way between visa status and legal immigration status, which are not the same thing. In one paragraph, the State Department tells the student that their visa has been “revoked under Section 221(i) of the United States Immigration and Nationality Act.”

The email later notes, “Remaining in the United States without a lawful immigration status can result in fines, detention, and/or deportation” — without informing the student that they may very well still have lawful immigration status.

“Given the gravity of this situation, individuals whose visa was revoked may wish to demonstrate their intent to depart the United States using the CBP Home App,” the State Department email told the student.

Ranjani Srinivasan, a Ph.D. candidate at Columbia University fled to Canada in March after being targeted by ICE. After DHS terminated her SEVIS status, Srinivasan wrote in a statement that Columbia “arbitrarily de-enrolled” her, ending her “legal status, worker status, and housing.” She blamed “ICE threats and Columbia complicity” for her decision to flee.

The Homeland Security website, which offers official guidance on international student rules and regulations, suggests that a terminated record indicates that the student’s legal status has been terminated too. The site notes that a terminated record in SEVIS means that a student “loses all on- and/or off-campus employment authorization,” “cannot re-enter the United States on the terminated SEVIS record,” and that ICE agents may investigate to “confirm the departure of the student.”

DHS also says that a terminated record “could indicate that the nonimmigrant no longer maintains” their legal status, but that it is “designated school officials,” rather than ICE and other DHS agents who “mostly terminate” these records.

“That Clearly Is BS”

The State Department has been removing student visas en masse. Over 1,200 student visas have been revoked, almost entirely from nonwhite students, since President Donald Trump announced plans to target international students, particularly those who have expressed support for Palestinian freedom.

The removal of a student visa, however, is not the same as, and does not entail, the removal of legal nonimmigrant status in the U.S. as a student.

A visa is required for an international student to legally enter the country to study here. After entering, however, the visa does not affect the student’s immigration status. A student with an expired or revoked visa can remain in legal nonimmigrant student status while not leaving the country; a university has no legal reason to disenroll that student or prevent their continued study in the U.S..

The DHS declaration in Michigan went further in making the distinction between having a visa revoked and being eligible for deportation.

“Prudential visa revocation, absent other factors, does not make an individual amendable to removal,” wrote Watson, the HSI official.

That is, the revocation of a student visa is not, in and of itself, necessarily grounds for a student to be deported. Yet schools have been reacting to SEVIS terminations, not visa revocations, when they have disenrolled students or advised students to immediately leave the country.

This does not mean that the students currently targeted by Trump’s administration are safe. A student in legal immigration status with a revoked visa is at significant risk should ICE seek to pursue deportation proceedings against them. The agency would have to send the student a notice to appear before an immigration judge, and there would be a hearing about the student’s deportability, at which the student could challenge their visa revocation.

The process can be frightening for students, as the cases of detained legal permanent residents like Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi and visa holders like Rümeysa Öztürk make clear. The Trump administration has shown little compunction about taking the next step toward making individual students deportable, attempting to carry out the mass removal of students for minor legal violations, as well as for entirely legal political speech under spurious “foreign policy” grounds and bunk charges of antisemitism.

In trying to stave off litigation, DHS has been clear in other cases that students who have had their visas revoked and SEVIS records terminated have not fallen out of legal status.

“The issue Plaintiffs seek to avoid is the real issue before this court: the State Department revoked Plaintiffs’ visa,” the government argued in another case filed by students in Georgia, “but those actions are unreviewable here.”

“Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque?”

The government is claiming that the students have directed their legal challenge at the wrong government agency, but that they also cannot sue the State Department, because the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is deploying to summarily remove visas “expressly precludes visa revocations from judicial review.” According to the Trump administration the students could only challenge Rubio’s wide and reckless discretion to revoke their visas “in removal proceedings if the revocation is the sole basis for removal.”

Federal judges hearing students’ cases around the country have so far not been impressed with the government’s arguments. At least five federal courts have issued temporary restraining orders on deportation orders linked to SEVIS terminations. On Wednesday, District Court Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., specifically ordered DHS’s Watson to testify in court over the claims in his declaration, which was also submitted by the government in the case filed by students there.

“I’ve got two experienced immigration lawyers on behalf of a client who is months away from graduation, who has done nothing wrong, who has been terminated from a system that you all keep telling me has no effect on his immigration status, although that clearly is BS,” Reyes told the government. “And now, his two very experienced lawyers can’t even tell him whether or not he’s here legally, because the Court can’t tell him whether or not he’s here legally, because the government’s counsel can’t tell him if he’s here legally.”

The judge said, “Do you realize that this is Kafkaesque?”

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

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Thursday, April 17, 2025 7:06 PM

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

There’s Only One Real Way to Reverse Big Law’s Capitulation to Trump

By Kevin Cope and Rachel Cohen | April 17, 2025 2:47 PM

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/04/big-law-school-trump-excec
utive-order-skadden.html

Shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump began issuing a series of executive orders targeting law firms, penalizing firms that employ—or previously employed—attorneys who have challenged him in court. The orders are plainly retaliatory and amount to state-imposed punishment for speech on matters of public concern—violating the First Amendment’s protections for free speech and free association. And they’re having their intended effect: People and businesses with possible legal claims against the administration are increasingly unable to find representation, as are pro bono clients the president disfavors. Although several firms have resisted the orders and multiple lawsuits are ongoing, other firms continue to concede.

A new approach is needed. We are both former attorneys of the law firm Skadden, Arps. One of us recently resigned her position specifically over Skadden’s capitulation to a threatened executive order; the other of us is now a law professor. Our recent experiences show that law students and junior lawyers have the power to counteract and end the crisis—but only if they act collectively.

One might expect the most powerful law firms in the world to be both well-equipped and deeply motivated to resist such attacks on their independence. And indeed, some firms have mounted legal challenges, prevailing at the initial stages. But others, including Paul, Weiss; Skadden; and Kirkland & Ellis have quickly acquiesced, cutting widely reported-on “settlements” with the administration—not necessarily because the law required it, but because resistance apparently seemed too costly.

Commentators across the political spectrum have criticized the deal-cutters, some calling them “cowards” or “craven.” Former federal appellate judge J. Michael Luttig, a noted conservative appointed by President George W. Bush, lambasted Paul, Weiss for choosing to “cower before the powerful and sell out its firm and the nation’s legal profession to the President.”

Such critiques on principle are well-intentioned, and possibly justified. But if firms see their primary duty as serving their clients and preserving their business—rather than safeguarding legal institutions and constitutional norms—shaming won’t ultimately change behavior. Thus far, it seems that most firms take the former view. Moral appeals, without more, therefore won’t change their incentives. What we’re witnessing is a textbook coordination failure—a form of what political economists call a prisoner’s dilemma. Firms that push back against the administration risk losing clients, lawyers, and revenue to those that don’t. As Paul, Weiss chair Brad Karp put it, the executive order represented “an unprecedented threat” that “could have destroyed [the] firm” had it refused to comply. At first blush, it’s difficult to see how the administration’s unlawful threats could cripple a firm with $7.5 million in profit per equity partner. But in light of reports that peer firms Kirkland & Ellis and Sullivan & Cromwell promptly began pursuing Paul, Weiss’ clients and rainmaker partners, its concerns may seem more understandable.

The threat of an executive order is powerful—but it works only because firms act alone and even in conflict. A failure of collective action makes things worse for everyone. Consider that weeks after trying to poach Paul, Weiss clients, Kirkland & Ellis in turn found itself in the president’s crosshairs. If no firm had conceded, and all had refused to poach Paul, Weiss’ departing lawyers or clients under these conditions, much of the harm might have been avoided. Firms choosing to fight the administration have quickly secured court orders halting enforcement of their executive orders; Paul, Weiss could have done the same. But by defecting individually, Paul, Weiss and others showed the administration that its tactics were working and that more bullying would be fruitful, painting a bigger target on other firms, and soon producing further demands on the settling firms themselves.. And it ensured a collective outcome that’s leaving nearly all worse off than if all had acted together.

There are possible solutions, but they require not just rhetoric, but changing the material consequences of capitulation through collective action. One option would be for firms to legally commit—via binding contract or pledge, with heavy penalties for defection—to resist the executive orders together, to challenge them in court collectively (as with a recent amicus brief joined by 500 firms), and to decline to accept other firms’ departing clients. Such a pact would blunt the effectiveness of coercive pressure by depriving the administration of any leverage over individual firms. But that kind of coordination carries potential legal risks, including antitrust concerns, and it could falter if even a few firms decline to participate.

The more promising strategy may lie with the next generation of lawyers. Law students and junior attorneys can exert real pressure by refusing to work for firms that give in—declining interviews, turning down offers, and encouraging law-school career offices to do the same. Such a move would not be unprecedented; in the 1990s, the Judge Advocate General Corps’ prohibition on openly gay service members led many law schools to formally ban it from campus recruiting. Indeed, law students at Georgetown, Columbia, and elsewhere have already mobilized in recent weeks to refuse contact with certain capitulating firms.

To be sure, such choices carry some short-term costs, and it may seem unfair to ask people just starting their careers to bear this burden. Indeed, in a just world, the most powerful actors would bear the most responsibility for setting things right. Yet throughout history, young people have often been the first—and the most willing—to risk their own privileged status in the name of principle. And importantly, none of the actions above require anyone to quit a current job; they simply require top law students to leave certain firms off of their interview “dance card,” opting for the many comparable firms that haven’t capitulated. And there are even ways that students not interested in big law firms can take action.

If enough do so, these small, individual decisions can be collectively game-changing. Indeed, we’re already seeing many top applicants deliberately prioritizing firms that have stood up to the president over those that have submitted, and additional resignations by existing associates. As these trends grow and firms incur reputational and recruitment losses, the resulting drop-off in top new legal talent and prestige may push firms to reevaluate the long-term costs of short-term concessions. Yet, ironically, the boycott would serve, not harm, firms’ long-term interests. In fact, if conscientious junior lawyers successfully help nudge the legal profession toward collective resistance—instead of fragmented retreat—we all benefit: the firms themselves, clients who need representation, and a constitutional system that depends on an independent bar.

Some have argued that firms that would so quickly shrink from the profession’s core principles are less likely to provide environments conducive to the honorable and ethical practice of law. Perhaps so. Regardless, the measures above can be taken even by those who disagree—who view the firms largely as victims caught in a difficult position. By threatening their independence and viability, it is the president who has unjustly put his thumb on the scale. Junior members of the profession are surely justified in rebalancing it on behalf of the rule of law.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 7:29 AM

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

Trump Is Helping Putin Kill Ukrainians

Trump refuses to sell Patriot missiles for Ukrainian Air Defense

By Phillips P. Obrien | Apr 16, 2025

https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/trump-is-helping-putin-kill-ukr
ainians

When I wrote in early March, “The Week The USA Started Killing Ukrainians”, some people said it went too far. They said that the US not aiding Ukraine was not the same as killing Ukrainians, that Trump still wanted a deal, etc, etc. Well, it turns out that I did not go far enough.

Just in the last few days we have incontrovertible proof of how Trump is helping Putin kill Ukrainians—both some now and many more in the future. Its the combination of what the US will not sell Ukraine (even though Ukraine has the money to buy them), the Russian missile campaign against Ukrainian civilians, and how the two come together. Let’s start with what came out in the last few days.

Ukraine is desperate to purchase Patriot anti-air missiles, as the Ukrainians are running out of this vital system. These were provided (too late) by the Biden Administration in 2023. From the moment they appeared, however, they revealed themselves to be the most effective air-defense weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal. The Ukrainians have used them to great effect—shooting down some of Russia’s most advanced aircraft and, crucially, some of Russia’s most difficult to shoot down missiles that have been fired against Ukrainian cities. Indeed, the Patriots have proven quite effective against Russian Kinzhal missiles, which the Kremlin used to boast could not be intercepted.

Having Patriots allowed the Ukrainians to keep the power on during the Russian Winter attacks in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025. However, they are very expensive to use. Zelensky claimed in February that 10 Patriot missiles were fired to bring down 6 Russian ballistic missiles—and that the cost of the Patriots was around $30 million.

In sum, these are a very effective but expensive system. They have made Ukraine much safer than it would be otherwise.

And the very effectiveness of the Patriots has provided Trump with a weapon to help kill Ukrainians. Even being sparing in their usage, Ukraine is running out. Patriots are an American system and the USA has been the source of most of the missiles. Right now there is no new US aid on its way to Ukraine. All we have had in 2025 is the left-over amounts of Biden Administration aid, whereas Trump and the GOP Congress have made no efforts to get any more aid for Ukraine—and that reality is not changing.

Russia understands this and is trying to make Ukraine use up all of its Patriots missiles. In the last few weeks the Russians have been using some of their advanced ballistic missiles against Ukrainian civilian targets, from Sumy last week (see picture above) to Kryvyi Rih the week before, to Dobropillia a little before that.

This seems very much to be a deliberate, targeted campaign to terrorize Ukrainian civilians and force the Ukrainians to use up their dwindling stock of Patriot missiles.

And it is working. The Ukrainians are desperately trying to get their hands on more Patriots—and its reached the stage that they are willing to pay whatever it takes to get more. Zelensky told CBS news that he wanted to buy up to 10 new Patriot systems and their missiles, which would be a major win for the US defense economy. Zelensky said he wanted to buy 10 U.S.-made Patriot systems — worth $1.5 billion each — to shield Ukrainian cities from relentless Russian missile and drone strikes.

"We will find the money and pay for everything," Zelensky said, stressing that Ukraine is prepared to purchase, not request for free, the $15 billion package.

Trump is refusing to sell them—even though that would benefit US workers and help the US economy. Indeed, in the last few days he has started boasting about the fact that Ukraine is desperate to buy more Patriots, and he is refusing to make a deal. Two days ago he told an Oval Office press conference:

Quote:
"He's always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles."

And it was just reported in Das Bild that the EU made it known that they would support a $50 billion weapons purchase for Ukraine from the USA—including Patriots. Trump has refused to sell to Ukraine, at any price. https://glavnoe.in.ua/en/news-en/trump-refused-to-support-ukraine-even
-in-exchange-for-50-billion-from-the-eu-bild

Remember months ago, when those who said that Trump would definitely be willing to help Ukraine by selling them weapons? Well it turns out that was another lie.

So here we have it. The USA (Trump is the duly elected president with the support of Congress—so this is the official position of the US government) is now working together with the Russian government to see more Ukrainians killed. The USA is encouraging a Russian missile campaign against Ukrainian civilians by letting the Russians know that the US will deprive Ukraine of the means to defend those civilians and no longer provide Ukrainian Patriots.

So, the next time a Russian missile lands in a Ukrainian city and bodies litter the streets, realize this is an act that is being encouraged and supported by the USA. The USA is no longer a defender of democracy in Europe, it is an enabler of dictatorship and death.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 7:47 AM

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

How America Can Avoid Becoming Russia

Political pressure must be brought to bear—through the courts, the press, and the states, but also applied to legislators while they still have any power left.

By Garry Kasparov | April 17, 2025, 6 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2025/04/america-russ
ia-trump-putin/682473/

Based on polls, election results, and the markets, Americans seem to be awakening, if only slowly, to the magnitude and nature of the threat they face. President Donald Trump and his allies in power are trying to erect an authoritarian Mafia state like the one Vladimir Putin and his cronies established in Russia. The American opposition talks of “undermining democracy” and “constitutional crisis”—but for the most part, its legislators, activists, and political strategists are pursuing politics as usual. They shouldn’t be.

If this sounds alarmist, forgive me for not caring. Exactly 20 years ago, I retired from professional chess to help Russia resist Putin’s budding dictatorship. People were slow to grasp what was happening there too: Putin’s bad, but surely he’ll stop short of — and you can fill in the blank with a dozen things he did to destroy Russia’s fragile democracy and civil society, many of which Trump is doing or attempting to do in America today.

Attacking the press as fake news and the enemy of the state? Check. Delegitimizing the judiciary, the last constitutional brake when the legislature is co-opted and feckless? Check. Expanding influence over the economy by threatening businesses and using tariffs to introduce a crisis and a spoils system? Check. Creating a culture of fear by persecuting unpopular individuals and groups? Been there, done all of that.

Putin is still in the Kremlin, and I’m writing this from New York City—my family has made its home there, as well as in Croatia, since we were forced to leave Russia in 2013. America’s institutions and democratic sentiment are far stronger than in the flawed, fragile state Putin took over from Boris Yeltsin 25 years ago. Russia was a mere eight years removed from Soviet totalitarianism when it elected a KGB lieutenant colonel who restored the Soviet anthem and called the fall of the U.S.S.R. the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century.

Americans, by contrast, have a well-stocked toolbox with which to defend their democratic institutions, if only they would use it. The press is still free; its only limitations are self-imposed. The economy is strong, even though Trump is working hard to put a stop to that. (People who feel economically insecure, or who depend on the government for their daily bread, don’t often rise up against it. Instilling a feeling of helplessness, a lack of control, is a key ingredient of authoritarianism. For example, the uncertainty created by Trump’s tariff flip-flops are anathema to consumer and business confidence, but uncertain citizens are more likely to follow a strongman.) American federalism and the separation of powers are not trivial for a would-be autocrat to overcome. Political pressure must be brought to bear—through the courts, the press, and the states, but also applied to legislators while they still have any power left.

The American opposition should spend less time criticizing the content of the administration’s executive actions—eliciting sympathy for a deported individual, say, or decrying the impact of Trump’s tariffs on 401(k) plans—than focusing on its suspect methods. The real crisis is the lack of due process in the deportations, to take the first example, and the president’s assumption of Congress’s power to levy taxes, to take the second. Sure, Trump loves tariffs, in other words—but he mostly loves exercising power, and his slate of arbitrary levies, unilaterally imposed by the executive, is a power grab.

Never lose sight of the fact that the Trump administration’s aim is to weaken and devalue the machinery of government, on one hand, and privatize the levers of power on the other. It is accomplishing all of this at a breakneck pace. Supporting a would-be autocrat because you like his policies (say, on DEI or transgender athletes) is a terrible trap, because soon enough, your opinions and support won’t matter at all. But making opposition to the policies the centerpiece of resistance also risks missing the point. America is hurtling toward the loss of its democratic institutions and the establishment of an authoritarian state where there will be no civil discussion of these issues at all: That’s what a principled opposition must fight with its full might.

Spelling out these stakes every day, like Senator Cory Booker did in his record-breaking 25-hour speech at the beginning of the month, is vital. Call hearings, press conferences, protests—everything that can be done to draw attention to the attacks on institutions. Explain due process, and contrast it with illegal or incorrect deportations, as families are torn apart. Don’t let Elon Musk and his vandals pretend that what they are doing is about efficiency when their actions are a rounding error at best in the budget.

Here is another tactic that makes sense for political give-and-take within a democracy, but not as a means of fighting for democracy’s life: picking your battles. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer may have thought he was doing exactly that when he caved to Republican pressure to pass the budget. He had a legal means of countering Trump’s autocratic agenda—rallying his party to refuse to advance the Republican spending bill—but he declined to use it. In regular democratic politics, passing on one battle to fight again another day is normal. But when fighting for democracy, you never know if there will be another day. Fight everywhere you can, always, or you will soon be as irrelevant as the Russian Duma became under Putin’s centralized executive authority.

Another recommendation: Attacking Trump’s character, however abhorrent critics may find it, is futile. The president is not acting alone. In contrast to his bumbling first term, he now has a professional script, stage managers, and a plan. Project 2025 is the product of political machinery that has sprung up around Trump that seeks to tear out the roots of American democracy and then salt the ground. To accomplish this, the Trump administration, much like Putin’s team in Russia, focuses on fear and enemies, not on constructing a brighter future. It will never be tempted to reconcile or coaxed by bipartisan outreach. So set aside the specifics of Trump’s agenda and your distaste for him as a person. Resist on every level, at every opportunity, instead of picking this or that battle. Shout from the rooftops about the attacks on process and democracy, not just the policy content.

Since Trump’s inauguration, Americans have filed numerous legal complaints challenging specific cuts or orders that Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency have made. After all, what authority does Musk, as a private individual, have to collect government data, decide which federal officials to fire, or allocate resources as he sees fit? Musk and Trump have turned their fire on judges who reject the legality of their actions.

Taking DOGE to court is necessary work—by all means, throw sand in the gears at every opportunity—but it’s not sufficient. That’s because Musk, like Russian oligarchs, has proximity to power, but he doesn’t actually have legal authority. To eject his influence means bringing the fight not just to him, but to the elected offices where power still resides.

Americans had probably better get used to learning Russian, so I’ll offer a political term from our lexicon: ponyatie (pon-YAH-tee-yeh), which doesn’t quite have an English equivalent but can be translated roughly as “an understanding.” The understanding of most citizens is that proximity to power is itself a form of power, that “we all know who is really calling the shots.” What we are seeing with DOGE is an example of this phenomenon—the ponyatie that Musk, as a rich man who exercises great influence over Trump, wields tremendous governmental authority despite not having an official title or a constitutional role. The ponyatie that state power can be marshaled against his critics and rivals, while he is immune to it himself. Acquiescence to that kind of thinking must be stopped before it is allowed to permeate the American political system.

To that end, Americans should invest their time and money fighting in the arena where political power still lies: with the American people and in Washington, D.C., with the handful of Republican representatives who could put a stop to the power grab. Go after the weakest links and call them out. Promise to support them against Musk’s threats to fund primary challenges if they defy him—and to raise millions against them if they don’t. Don’t give up on the levers of political power prematurely. Use them, or they will disappear, and marching in the street will be the only recourse—one that I can tell you from painful personal experience doesn’t always work out.

The Trump administration has been cunning in choosing its first targets. Deporting supposed gang members and Hamas supporters without due process may violate any number of statutes, but forcing oppositionists to defend these people’s rights allows the administration to paint them as defending their ideas. Not every battle will be as favorable as standing up for cancer research or veterans’ benefits.

This is why the resistance must center the principles at stake. Does America have rule of law or not? The first line in defense of an incipient police state is: “You don’t have anything to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong.” This fallacy is soon replaced by: “It could happen to anybody,” as the regime sees the value of using arbitrary persecution to spread fear. Again, fear is the autocrat’s goal, as is simply doing many things every day. Even if you don’t like him or his policies, the longer he is there, doing things, the more the autocrat starts to feel inevitable, like the sun rising each morning.

In politics, as in physics, force is mass times acceleration. The administration is mounting a barrage of attacks, with great urgency, to break through the resistance of American legal structures, sometimes by using legal and relatively popular policies (deporting convicted criminals, for example) as cover for likely illegal and relatively unpopular policies (deporting immigrants without due process). The fabricated urgency is a tell: No war, no terrible crisis, compels the president to violate the Constitution. But the administration is breaking down norms and setting precedents faster than judges can stop it. Of course, ignoring judges is also part of the plan.

To fight this onslaught means staying focused. Skip the culture wars, where the ground can easily tilt to favor the MAGA faithful. Concentrate instead on defending American rights and values against billionaires and autocrats who want to take them away. Just because you can’t compete with Trump on populism doesn’t mean you can’t be popular, and polls already suggest that the public believes the president should obey court orders and give Ukraine more aid.

The opposition needs to proudly defend the value system and ingenious framework that made this country great. This may sound corny to cynical Americans who have taken democracy for granted for most of their lives, but it matters. The leaders of the resistance, if such can be found, must serve as spokespeople and examples of these values and institutions if they are to provide a genuine counter to Trumpism.

Rallying to the defense of American constitutional democracy has become alarmingly difficult after years of insistence, from both the far left and the far right, that the system is irreparably broken. The good news is that Trump and Musk may be reminding Americans about what they stand to lose, and to whom, as was evident in the gloating response of Democrats to the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which Musk’s preferred candidate lost.

Americans can just look to their leaders’ avowed models should they wonder whether things could be worse. The GOP has moved so far to the right that it’s ideologically aligned with Turkey and Russia. The Trump administration’s refusal to criticize Putin may well owe to its hopes to emulate him, much as Putin’s rehabilitation of Stalin’s legacy tracked with policies that duplicated the Soviet dictator’s. And Musk has expressed admiration for Xi Jinping’s China, a repressive one-party state where he has business interests.

Four votes in the Senate. Three votes in the House. That’s all it takes. Find the weakest links. Go after them, democratically. Fundraise for them if they stand up, or against them if they don’t. The two-party system in America right now is Traitors versus Losers. Playing to win means asking every red-state legislator if they are fine with being in the Traitor Caucus.

About the Author

Garry Kasparov is the chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative and a vice president of the World Liberty Congress, and he was the 13th world chess champion.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 9:06 AM

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

Trump Needs Someone to Blame
The Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, is that someone.

By David Frum | April 17, 2025, 11:15 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-federal-reserv
e-jerome-powell/682489/

Trump’s all-purpose remedy for economic trouble is cheaper money. When Trump’s first-term trade war crashed the stock market in the fall of 2018, Trump demanded interest-rate cuts to rescue him from his own mistake. In a November 2018 interview with The Washington Post, Trump complained:

Quote:
I am not at all happy with the Fed. I am not at all happy with my choice. I think we have to let it go. You know, if you look at—China is being accommodative. The euro and Europe is being accommodative. We’re not getting any accommodation, and we’re also paying $50 billion, we’re paying down our liquidity, is—you can make the case it’s a positive thing in one way, but another thing, it snaps your liquidity. So I’m doing deals, and I’m not being accommodated by the Fed. I’m not happy with the Fed. They’re making a mistake because I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.

The numbers and the syntax in that quote are gibberish, but the emotion is real. Just in case anybody missed the point, Trump made it personal, saying he was “not even a little bit happy” with his selection of Powell for Fed chairman.

As a businessman, Trump spent a lot of his career profoundly in debt. His bankers often bailed him out, and he seems to believe that the Federal Reserve should do the same for his presidency.

But the Fed has a mandate to preserve price stability. Trump’s trade war threatens enormous price increases for American businesses and consumers. The trade war is also scaring investors into dumping dollar-denominated assets. U.S. bond prices are falling, and the value of the dollar itself is tumbling. Trump has thrust the Fed into a terrible dilemma, one last encountered during the stagflation that occurred in the 1970s. The Federal Reserve can control only short-term rates; a short-term cut during a period of inflation will frighten investors into expecting even higher inflation in the future, and drive up long-term rates. The Fed can change the price of overnight lending, but the markets decide the price of 30-year mortgages. And if the Fed presses down too hard on the lever it does control, that will force an upward surge by the lever it does not control.

The rescue that the economy needs is a change not in monetary policy but in Trump’s economic aggression against trading partners. End the tariffs, let trade recover, and then the Fed can do its convalescent work. But intelligent policy begins by admitting that Trump’s policy was stupid—and Trump will not soon admit that. So Powell must be fingered as the fall guy instead.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 10:21 AM

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

Why You Should Fear a Trumpified Fed
Don’t give an abuser power that’s easy to abuse

By Paul Krugman | Apr 18, 2025

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-you-should-fear-a-trumpified

Sometimes the Federal Reserve has extraordinary power over the economy.

Consider what happened from 1982 to 1984. For most of 1982 the U.S. economy was in grim shape. Employment had plunged, especially in manufacturing. The unemployment rate hit 10.8 percent in December (it was 4.2 percent last month.) And economic pain helped Democrats make major gains in the 1982 midterms.

But everything was about to change, thanks to the Fed. In the summer of 1982 the Fed decided to ease monetary policy. Interest rates plunged, and about 6 months later the economy began a stunning rebound, growing 4.6 percent in 1983 and 7.2 percent in 1984. Ronald Reagan claimed credit for “Morning in America,” but actually it was the Fed that did it.

This episode illustrates the Fed’s power — power that must be insulated from abuse by politicians, especially politicians like Donald Trump.

Over the past few days Trump has been demanding that the Fed cut interest rates and calling for the Fed chairman’s “termination.” It’s worth looking at what he posted on Truth Social to get a sense of how, to use the technical term, batshit crazy he is on this subject:

Quote:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The ECB is expected to cut interest rates for the 7th time, and yet, "Too Late" Jerome Powell of the Fed, who is always TOO LATE AND WRONG, yesterday issued a report which was another, and typical, complete "mess!" Oil prices are down, groceries (even eggs!) are down, and the USA is getting RICH ON TARIFFS. Too Late should have lowered Interest Rates, like the ECB, long ago, but he should certainly lower them now. Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!
8.96k ReTruths 38.2k Likes
Apr 17, 2025,12:12 PM

And we really, really don’t want someone that crazy dictating monetary policy.

The reason we don’t want politicians in direct control of monetary policy is that it’s so easy to use. After all, what does it mean to “ease” monetary policy? It’s an incredibly frictionless process. Normally the Federal Open Market Committee tells the New York Fed to buy U.S. government debt from private banks, which it does with money conjured out of thin air. There’s no need to pass legislation, place bids with contractors, deal with any of the hassles usually associated with changes in government policy. Basically the Fed can create an economic boom with a phone call.

It's obvious that this kind of power could be abused by an irresponsible leader who wants to preside over an economic boom and doesn’t want to hear about the risks. This isn’t a hypothetical scenario. Consider what happened in Turkey, whose Trump-like president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, recently arrested the leader of the opposition. When the global post-Covid inflation shock hit, Erdogan embraced crank economic theories. He forced Turkey’s central bank, its equivalent of the Fed, to cut interest rates in the belief, contrary to standard economics, that doing so would reduce, not increase inflation. You can see the results in the chart:

How can we guard against that kind of policy irresponsibility? After the stagflation of the 1970s many countries delegated monetary policy to technocrats at independent central banks. Can the technocrats get it wrong? Of course they can and often have. But they’re less likely to engage in wishful thinking and motivated reasoning than typical politicians, let alone politicians like Trump.

What makes Trump’s attempt to bully the Fed especially ominous is the fact that the Fed will soon have to cope with the stagflationary crisis Trump has created. Trump’s massive tariff increase will lead to a major inflationary shock:

Moreover, Trump has also created huge uncertainty by radically changing his policies every few days, which will depress spending and may well cause a recession:

Not incidentally, Trump has been able to pursue these destructive policies because U.S. law gives the president enormous discretionary power over tariffs. And now he wants the same kind of discretionary power over the Fed.

As a consequence of Trump’s destructive tariff regime, the Fed will soon face a dilemma. Should it raise interest rates to fight inflation, or should it cut rates to fight recession? It’s a really hard call, and it’s quite possible that Jay Powell will get it wrong. Trump has made Powell’s dilemma even worse with his attempted bullying, because a rate cut would be seen by many as a sign that Powell is giving in to avoid being fired.

But one thing we know for sure is that we don’t want Trump making that call. Like Erdogan, he has embraced crank economic doctrines to justify his policies, in Trump’s case the ludicrous claim that tariffs won’t raise consumer prices. Does anyone doubt that when inflation rises, he’ll dismiss it as “fake news”?

So will Trump’s attempt to bully the Fed succeed? According to the Wall Street Journal, he has spent months talking privately about firing Powell. He doesn’t have the legal authority to do that, but Trump doesn’t worry about pesky things like legal limits to his authority. Yesterday he told reporters that he can easily get rid of Powell: “If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me.”

And given how quickly Trump has been able to subvert or destroy many other government institutions, it’s hard to feel confident that he can’t do the same to the Fed. Fear of market reaction — America is already facing a serious credibility problem, with the dollar falling even as interest rates rise — will probably restrain him, but he may not believe people telling him that taking over the Fed would cause the dollar to plunge while long-term interest rates soar as investors expect higher inflation.

Between Trump’s tariffs, the economic spillover from deportations and terrorization of immigrants and the attempt to politicize the Fed, the upside risk to inflation now looks very high. The bitter irony is that many Americans voted for Trump because they thought he would bring prices down.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 2:56 PM

18 more TDS posts out of you today, huh?

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 7:06 PM

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

A sizable group of Americans agrees with the phrase ‘I think society should be burned to the ground.’

https://theconversation.com/a-need-for-chaos-powers-some-americans-sup
port-for-elon-musk-taking-a-chainsaw-to-the-us-government-253420

April 15, 2025 8:30am EDT

. . . in our data, those higher in need for chaos report holding more trust in Musk, DOGE and Trump than people who score lower in the need for chaos measure.

Who wants to burn it down?

We are political psychologists who study the link between psychological traits and political beliefs. Last month, the University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication ran a national survey that we designed to understand where the public stands on various political issues and how those beliefs relate to psychological traits, including need for chaos.

In our national study of 1,600 Americans conducted between Feb. 27-March 5, 2025, by YouGov, we asked respondents how much they agreed or disagreed with the following statements:

• “I fantasize about a natural disaster wiping out most of humanity such that a small group of people can start all over”

• “I think society should be burned to the ground”

• “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions; we need to tear them down and start over”

• “I need chaos around me – it is too boring if nothing is going on”

Similar to prior work by author Kevin Arceneaux and his colleagues, our data shows that fewer than 20% of the sample agree strongly or agree somewhat with each item.

However, looking at the need for chaos among groups of varying ages, education levels and media habits, we find the highest need for chaos scores among people under age 40, those with less education, and those who pay the least attention to politics.

Burning it down through government policy

Our new data also shows that while people highest in need for chaos report having more trust in Musk, DOGE, and President Trump, these chaos-seeking folks report having less trust in “people in general,” journalists or the federal government. These findings hold even when statistically accounting for other factors, among them party, race, gender, education and ideology.

Musk’s penchant for wielding chainsaws as a symbol of DOGE’s work provides some insight into why chaos seekers may like what they see in Musk.

It’s not clear exactly what Musk’s aim is with his work at DOGE, as he eliminates the jobs of hundreds of thousands of government workers.

What is clear, however, is that by many accounts, the mass firings and the gutting of agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Institute for Peace, are sowing chaos. And a significant portion of Americans want just that.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 8:39 PM

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

Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.

https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 10:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.

https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/

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

With $37 Trillion in debt, an illusion that currently costs another $100k per second just to keep up, and everyone around you miserable all the time...

I'm just wondering what it is exactly that you're even defending at this point.

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

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 11:00 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.

https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/

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

With $37 Trillion in debt, an illusion that currently costs another $100k per second just to keep up, and everyone around you miserable all the time...

I'm just wondering what it is exactly that you're even defending at this point.

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

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

Has there ever existed a Trumptard who realized he was bad? Nope. Any Nazis who realized they were bad? Nope. Maybe Confederate slave-owners who realized they were bad? Nope. Ku Klux Klansmen who realized lynching was evil? Nope, nope, nope.

Trump supporters 'must be ostracized' for America to survive: ex-megachurch pastor

By Brad Reed | April 18, 2025 9:27AM ET

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-supporters-2671799614/

Former megachurch pastor John Pavlovitz has written a new piece on his Substack page that takes a distinctly Old Testament attitude toward supporters of President Donald Trump. https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/for-americas-survival-his-support
ers

In his piece, Pavlovitz makes the case that Trump supporters "must be ostracized" going forward due to their complicity in what he sees as the president's ruinous second-term policies.

"The people we love, live alongside; those we work and study shoulder to shoulder with; those we have invited into our hearts and homes. They are as responsible for all of this as he is , as those in his Cabinet are," he writes.

Pavlovitz argues that Trump supporters have had all sorts of chances to correct course over the years despite seeing the president's cruelty and his authoritarian aspirations up close.

"They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse," he contends. "Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him."

He then goes on to advise his followers to simply cut any Trump-supporting friends or relatives out of their lives.

"If we truly believe in bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice at this place and time, his supporters need to become pariahs," he writes. "They should not be welcome where good people gather. They need to be held accountable for unleashing this hell on the rest of us."

Pavlovitz does make an exception for Trump supporters who have "come to their senses" and he advises treating them with a spirit of forgiveness and charity.

"But as far as his cheerleaders, champions, kindred spirits, sycophants, and disciples—they are proving themselves unreachable with reason, impervious to compassion, and mortally allergic to anything that reasonable human beings value," he adds.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 11:05 PM

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

For America's Survival, His Supporters Must Be Ostracized

By John Pavlovitz | Apr 17, 2025

https://johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/for-americas-survival-his-support
ers

His absolute disregard for the Constitution, throwing our nation into perpetual chaos;
his rejection of the rule of Law, stripping elemental rights from tens of millions of Americans;
his unthinkable, unspeakable treatment of human beings rounded up like animals and jailed without probable cause; his capricious and violent crusade against federal workers, universities, law firms, public school teachers, medical professionals, and journalists.

The people we love, live alongside; those we work and study shoulder to shoulder with; those we have invited into our hearts and homes. They are as responsible for all of this as he is, as those in his Cabinet are.

The war crimes in Gaza and Ukraine.
The medical relief, ripped from the poorest of the world.
The scalding panic felt by immigrants, both documented and undocumented.

They are culpable for all of it.

The literal and figurative blood is on their hands.

They may as well be smashing the car windows of a migrant family waiting for their lawyer to ensure due process, joyously ripping the lunches from children living in poverty, unceremoniously terminating federal employees after decades of faithful service, terrorizing transgender students in their school hallways, accosting pregnant women in emergency rooms.

They could have so easily stopped this.

They could have allowed their humanity to come to bear back in the fall, when it was clear that he was cognitively shattered, that his singular goal was a fascist dictatorship, that his agenda would consist solely of retribution against those who sought legal and moral accountability for him.

Instead, our childhood friends, our favorite uncles, and our next-door neighbors ignored revered journalists, Constitutional scholars, renowned economists, and past presidents.

They shunned their responsibility as Americans, they rejected the teachings of their faith tradition, and they abandoned any kind of moral footing by enabling the ascension of a felon-rapist-scumbag mobster who lacks a single noble impulse. Through whatever combination of racism, misogyny, prejudice, intellectual ignorance, and plain old hatred, they willfully coronated him.

And now, they either fully endorse this most vicious and vile season in our nation’s history, or enable it by their cowardice and silence.

And as a result, this senseless waste of life, this asinine global trade war, this stupid squandering of prosperity, this sociopathic predation against citizens and immigrants—they are collaborators on all of it.

And in light of this, they do not deserve proximity with those of us who are hourly pushing back against the criminality, exposing the atrocities, caring for those under duress. They are nothing but barriers to healing and obstacles to justice.

I’m not sure America can even survive the damage we’ve sustained in such a short time. Despite our best efforts, it may not be possible (at least in our lifetimes) to stop the bleeding, reverse course, and repair all that has been damaged since January 20th.

But if any of this is going to happen: if we are going to salvage our Republic from this massive wrecking ball of cruelty, it is going to be necessary for the good people of this nation to sever ties with those still loyal to him. We need to withhold our friendship, exclude them from our holiday gatherings, cut personal and professional ties, and practically speaking, marginalize them.

If we truly believe in bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice at this place and time, his supporters need to become pariahs. They should not be welcome where good people gather. They need to be held accountable for unleashing this hell on the rest of us.

I’m not speaking about those who have or will come to their senses; those with the humility and empathy to admit their errors; those who will be visible and vocal in their resistance to this Administration. While it would have been far better for their souls to have been accessed much earlier, later is still better than never.

But as far as his cheerleaders, champions, kindred spirits, sycophants, and disciples—they are proving themselves unreachable with reason, impervious to compassion, and mortally allergic to anything that reasonable human beings value.

As in other times of historic fascist regimes, there is no ambiguity left now.

The lines are starkly drawn, the factions clearly defined, the opposing values unmistakable.

On one side of this battle for the soul of our nation, the safety of its people, and the welfare of the planet, is the sprawling interdependent community of those committed to healing, kindness, and the common good.

And on the other side stands this historically unredeemable would-be king and those who regardless of the story they tell themselves, still inexplicably stand alongside him.

Compromise is not an option, and because of that many of us are going to need to lean into our convictions and move away from people we know, love, and once respected.

Sadly and tragically, that’s just how this has to be.

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 11:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Steve Bannon, Trump’s first-term whisperer, once described himself as a Leninist because “Lenin … wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Trump was apparently listening and learning.

https://nonsite.org/the-man-who-would-be-king-method-in-trumps-madness
-contradictions-in-trumps-method/

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

With $37 Trillion in debt, an illusion that currently costs another $100k per second just to keep up, and everyone around you miserable all the time...

I'm just wondering what it is exactly that you're even defending at this point.

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

"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Has there ever existed a Trumptard who realized he was bad?

You are brain damaged.

There is something seriously wrong with you.

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

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

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Friday, April 18, 2025 11:48 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Blah blah blah...

I have never seen a megachurch pastor think he was bad. And SECOND doesn't think he's evil either. But he is.

-----------
"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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Saturday, April 19, 2025 3:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Congress Is Looking at Medicaid—What to Know

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/congress-is-looking-at-medicaid-
what-to-know-5840010

-----------
"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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Saturday, April 19, 2025 8:31 AM

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

I’ve read many “news analyses” discussing what they say is the deep thinking behind Donald Trump’s tariff policy. Now, thanks to the Wall Street Journal, we have a scoop on how Trump, having announced a radical tariff plan on April 2, replaced it with an equally radical but completely different plan on April 9:

Quote:
Trump Advisers Took Advantage of Navarro’s Absence to Push for Tariff Pause
Peter Navarro, an adviser to Trump in favor of wide-ranging tariffs, had been a fixture on the president's side after 'Liberation Day'

When I read the headline I assumed that Bessent and Lutnick had pushed for a total revision of Trump’s trade policy while Navarro was out of town for a few days. But no. They rushed in to see Trump while Navarro was having a meeting elsewhere in the White House.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-tariff-pause-navarro-bessent
-lutnick-b9e864fb?mod=hp_lead_pos2

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 8:31 AM

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

Like Turkey’s Erdogan, Trump has embraced crank economic doctrines to justify his policies, in Trump’s case the ludicrous claim that tariffs won’t raise consumer prices. Does anyone doubt that when inflation rises, he’ll dismiss it as “fake news”? A few hours later:

https://bsky.app/profile/thebulwark.bsky.social/post/3ln46ymsdqe2p

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 10:46 AM

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

Trump Worker Reportedly Sent Harvard Letter by Mistake

Published Apr 19, 2025 at 6:25 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/sean-keveney-donald-trump-harvard-letter-2061
699

Sean Keveney, the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, reportedly sent the list of demands that prompted Harvard to openly defy the Trump administration.

In response, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in the college's federal grants, with Trump threatening to abolish the college's tax-exempt status for supporting "political, ideological, and terrorist inspired sickness."

Harvard President Alan Garber said in an open letter on Monday: "The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 12:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump Worker Reportedly Sent Harvard Letter by Mistake

Published Apr 19, 2025 at 6:25 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/sean-keveney-donald-trump-harvard-letter-2061
699

Sean Keveney, the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, reportedly sent the list of demands that prompted Harvard to openly defy the Trump administration.

In response, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in the college's federal grants, with Trump threatening to abolish the college's tax-exempt status for supporting "political, ideological, and terrorist inspired sickness."

Harvard President Alan Garber said in an open letter on Monday: "The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."

I'm glad you agree that schools should be able to teach what they want to teach. That's the exact opposite of what has happened the last 50 years because of the Department of Education that no longer exists.

As for you...

You are constitutionally free to teach whatever the hell it is you want to teach and whoever it is you want to teach it to.

Just not on our dime anymore.

Good luck. You'll need it.

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

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 12:55 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I'm glad you agree that schools should be able to teach what they want to teach. That's the exact opposite of what has happened the last 50 years because of the Department of Education that no longer exists.

Does the Department of Education control curriculum? No. Curriculum decisions are made at the state and local levels. So, where did you get the idea it did, 6ix?

https://www.google.com/search?q=does+department+of+education+control+c
urriculum

State and Local Responsibility:
Education in the U.S. is primarily a state and local responsibility. States and local school districts are responsible for establishing schools, developing curricula, and setting requirements for enrollment and graduation.

Federal Role:
The Department of Education's role is primarily to support states and local districts in achieving their education goals. This includes providing funding, collecting and analyzing data, and identifying best practices.

No Federal Control over Curriculum:
While the federal government has a role in education, it does not dictate the specific content of what is taught in schools. States and local districts have the authority to determine what students learn.

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 2:18 PM

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

The Next Terrorist Attack
And What Comes After

By Timothy Snyder | Apr 19, 2025

https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-next-terrorist-attack

As I will try to show, the present government invites a terror attack. Most of the people directing the relevant agencies are incompetent; the next few layers down have been purged in culture wars; much the remaining personnel have resigned, been fired, or are demoralized; resources have been diverted away from terror prevention; Americans has been distracted by fiction and chaos; and potential attackers have been encouraged.

And so we have to think — now — about what would follow such an attack. Musk, Trump, Vance, and the rest would try to exploit the moment to undo remaining American freedoms. Let me cite Lesson 18 of On Tyranny.

18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.

In just three months, the Trump people have made the unthinkable much more likely. They have created the conditions for terrorism, and thus for terror management. This is true at several levels.

Most obviously, they have debilitated the services that detect terrorist threats and prevent attacks: the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the National Security Agency (NSA). The CIA is a foreign intelligence service. The FBI is the federal police force. The NSA, which specializes in cryptography and foreign signals intelligence, is part of the Department of Defense. Homeland Security is a cabinet-level department that amalgamates a number of functions from immigration control through disaster relief and anti-terrorism.

Overall guidance over the intelligence agencies is exercised by Tulsi Gabbard, who is known as an apologist for the now-overthrown Assad regime in Syria and the Putin regime in Russia. The director of the FBI is Kash Patel, an author of children's books that promote conspiracy theories, and a recipient of payments from sources linked to Russia. Patel plans to run the agency from Las Vegas, where he resides in the home of a Republican megadonor. The deputy director of the FBI is Dan Bongino, a right-wing entertainer who has called the FBI "irredeemable corrupt" and indulged in conspiracy theories about its special agents. He now draws FBI special agents away from their usual duties to serve as a personal bodyguard. The director of Homeland Security is Kristi Noem, who lacks relevant expertise.

Noem has distinguished herself by posing in front of a cell full of prisoners in El Salvador. Homeland Security is focused on spectacular abductions at the expense of its other missions. Its programs to prevent terrorism have been defunded, and it is no longer keeping up its database on domestic terrorism. As one insider put it: “The vibe is: How to use DHS to go after migrants, immigrants. That is the vibe, that is the only vibe, there is no other vibe. It’s wild — it’s as if the rest of the department doesn’t exist.” The obsession with migrants means that local law enforcement, all across the country, is being in effect federalized in the service of an objective that is essentially irrelevant to core missions. That, too, makes life easier for aspiring terrorists.

The National Security Agency sits within the Department of Defense, which is run by Pete Hegseth, a right-wing entertainer and culture warrior. He has fired people who were qualified, and is unable to keep even his own people at work — he just lost four staffers in one day. The “meltdown” at the top of the Pentagon bodes ill.

The leadership of the NSA itself was recently changed, under bizarre and troubling circumstances. After a meeting with conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, Trump fired the NSA director, General Timothy Haugh. Wendy Noble, the deputy director, was also fired. This decapitation was part of a larger set of firings initiated by Loomer. It takes place during an ongoing purge of military leaders and national security officials. From the perspective of potential attackers, the culture wars mean vulnerability.

Meanwhile, other Department of Defense agencies that are central to the twenty-first century security of the United States, such as the Defense Digital Service, are destroyed by Elon Musk’s DOGE. It is worth contemplating the reaction of a former Pentagon official: “They’re not really using AI, they’re not really driving efficiency. What they’re doing is smashing everything.” In general, the penetration of the federal government by DOGE has weakened its functions, and likely made critical data available to adversaries who wish to hurt Americans.

The rank and file of the critical institutions are subjected to administrative hostility and chaos. The names of active CIA officers have been sent on open emails to the White House, and in a Signal chat in which a reporter was included. CIA employees have been urged to take early retirement. CIA officers involved in any way in diversity recruitment have been fired (a judge has blocked this, for the time being).

FBI special agents have been exposed to similar indignities. Top FBI officials have been pressured to resign and have done so. Musk-Trump is pursuing FBI special agents who were involved in prosecutions of people who stormed the Capitol on January 6th 2021. Patel proposes that special agents be trained by a company that promotes commercial fights that is based in Las Vegas. Sending FBI special agents to Nevada to simulate Fight Club for Patel’s personal delectation is not going to keep Americans safe.

The Musk-Trump people run national security, intelligence, and law enforcement like a television show. The entire operation of forcible rendition of migrants to a Salvadoran concentration camp was based upon lies. It is not just that Kilmar Abrego Garcia was mistakenly apprehended. The entire thing was made for television. Its point was the creation of the fascist videos. But this is a media strategy, meant to frighten Americans. And a media strategy does not stop actual terrorists. It summons them.

Much more at https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-next-terrorist-attack

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 6:48 PM

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

Since its peak in mid-January the greenback has fallen by over 9% against a basket of major currencies. Two-fifths of that fall has happened since April 1st, even as the yield on ten-year Treasuries has crept up by 0.2 percentage points. That mix of rising yields and a falling currency is a warning sign: if investors are fleeing even though returns are up, it must be because they think America has become more risky.

A currency is only as good as the government that backs it.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/04/16/how-a-dollar-crisis-would
-unfold

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 6:51 PM

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

Rumours are rife that big foreign asset managers are dumping greenbacks.

For decades investors have counted on the stability of American assets, making them the keystones of global finance. The depth of a $27trn market helps make Treasuries a haven; the dollar dominates trade in everything from goods and commodities to derivatives. The system is buttressed by the Federal Reserve, which promises low inflation, and by America’s sturdy governance, under which foreigners and their money have been welcome and secure. In just a few weeks President Donald Trump has replaced these ironclad assumptions with stomach-churning doubts.

This crisis-in-the-making was created in the White House. Mr Trump’s reckless trade war has raised tariffs by roughly a factor of ten and created economic uncertainty. Once the envy of the world, America’s economy is now courting recession, as tariffs rupture supply chains, boost inflation and punish consumers.

What makes this economic downturn and the loss of fiscal discipline so explosive is the fact that markets are starting to doubt whether Mr Trump can govern America competently or consistently. The shambolic, incoherent way the tariffs were calculated, unveiled and delayed was a mockery of policymaking. On-again, off-again exemptions and sectoral tariffs promote lobbying. For decades America has carefully signalled its dedication to a strong dollar. Today some White House advisers are talking about the reserve currency as if it were a burden to be shared—using coercion if necessary.

As America dithered, the shock could spread from Treasuries to the rest of the financial system, bringing defaults and hedge-fund blow-ups. That is the sort of behaviour you would expect in an emerging market.

A currency is only as good as the government that backs it. The longer America’s political system fails to grapple with its deficits or flirts with chaotic or discriminatory rules, the more likely will be a once-in-a-generation upheaval that pushes the global financial system into the unknown. Wherever things settled, the greenback’s diminished role would be a tragedy for America.

https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2025/04/18/the-risk-of-a-dollar-crisi
s-a-currency-is-only-as-good-as-the-government-that-backs-it/

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 7:16 PM

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

The Supreme Court’s Late-Night Rebuke to Trump Is Extraordinary in More Ways Than One

The court didn’t even wait to let Alito write his dissent.

By Mark Joseph Stern | April 19, 2025 2:07 PM

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/04/supreme-court-blocks-depor
tations-donald-trump-alito-dissent.html

Shortly before 1 AM on Saturday, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order halting the Trump administration’s reported efforts to fly Venezuelan migrants to an El Salvador prison before they could challenge their deportation.

A majority of justices signaled that they no longer trust the administration to comply with the law, including the court’s own rulings. We are likely careening toward a head-on conflict between the president and the court, with foundational principles of constitutional democracy hanging in the balance.

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 7:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump Worker Reportedly Sent Harvard Letter by Mistake

Published Apr 19, 2025 at 6:25 AM EDT

https://www.newsweek.com/sean-keveney-donald-trump-harvard-letter-2061
699

Sean Keveney, the acting general counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services, reportedly sent the list of demands that prompted Harvard to openly defy the Trump administration.

In response, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in the college's federal grants, with Trump threatening to abolish the college's tax-exempt status for supporting "political, ideological, and terrorist inspired sickness."

Harvard President Alan Garber said in an open letter on Monday: "The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights. No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."

I'm glad you agree that schools should be able to teach what they want to teach. That's the exact opposite of what has happened the last 50 years because of the Department of Education that no longer exists.

As for you...

You are constitutionally free to teach whatever the hell it is you want to teach and whoever it is you want to teach it to.

Just not on our dime anymore.

Good luck. You'll need it.

Does the Department of Education control curriculum? No. Curriculum decisions are made at the state and local levels. So, where did you get the idea it did, 6ix?

https://www.google.com/search?q=does+department+of+education+control+c
urriculum

State and Local Responsibility:
Education in the U.S. is primarily a state and local responsibility. States and local school districts are responsible for establishing schools, developing curricula, and setting requirements for enrollment and graduation.

Federal Role:
The Department of Education's role is primarily to support states and local districts in achieving their education goals. This includes providing funding, collecting and analyzing data, and identifying best practices.

No Federal Control over Curriculum:
While the federal government has a role in education, it does not dictate the specific content of what is taught in schools. States and local districts have the authority to determine what students learn.

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

So what? You got a Google A.I. Response of 3 paragraphs for what is doubtless tens or even hundreds of thousands of pages of legalese regarding this topic.

Nothing you posted here discounts that the Federal Government absolutely forbids a long list of things being taught in schools, while heavily incentivizing them to stick to what they've determined to be the ideal curriculum, and it punishes them the further they deviate from it.

There's plenty of ways for the Government to bully compliance without needing to put any laws on the books. Money is the number one way to do that.

If you were bright enough to understand any of what I just said, you'd be bright enough to see that Trump is only doing to schools exactly what has been done to them this whole time.

You're only noticing it today because he's enforcing compliance with things you don't agree with after decades of schools propagandizing the youth with your favorite talking points.

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

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 8:05 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Nothing you posted here discounts that the Federal Government absolutely forbids a long list of things being taught in schools, while heavily incentivizing them to stick to what they've determined to be the ideal curriculum, and it punishes them the further they deviate from it.

There's plenty of ways for the Government to bully compliance without needing to put any laws on the books. Money is the number one way to do that.

If you are so certain about that, show the list, give examples of punishment.

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 9:50 PM

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

Nothing you posted here discounts that the Federal Government absolutely forbids a long list of things being taught in schools, while heavily incentivizing them to stick to what they've determined to be the ideal curriculum, and it punishes them the further they deviate from it.

There's plenty of ways for the Government to bully compliance without needing to put any laws on the books. Money is the number one way to do that.
If you are so certain about that, show the list, give examples of punishment.

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

You're witnessing it happening right now, and you're only noticing it because you don't like what's now being enforced by the threat of withholding federal dollars.

This is how EVERYTHING works when it comes to the relationship between the states and the Federal Government.

Where they can't litigate a solution because the Constitution prevents it, they force compliance by withholding of the printing presses. Not just in education either.

Everybody in power was on board with how that all went down until January. You only discovered this is the way things get done now because your propaganda stations talk about it every day today.

I don't have to prove shit to you. If you want to disprove that this just the way it is, then that's incumbent upon you.

Good luck. You're not going to find the proof you're looking for because it doesn't exist.

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

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

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Saturday, April 19, 2025 11:32 PM

I've got an example of a court case that had a direct impact on my life that nobody was talking about except for 2 articles that were written over a few years apart in the Indy Star.

In the State of Indiana, the constitution specifically says that no law shall be enacted that impacts any citizen that does not impact all citizens.

But that didn't prevent a judge who allowed this to be held up in court for YEARS by a REPUBLICAN governor uphold how we go about doing emissions testing in the state. There are only two counties in the entire state that do it. Nobody else in the entire state is forced to comply with vehicle emissions testing, making this a clear victory against the testing, but we're still doing it anyway.

So why would a REPUBLICAN governor fight for this issue and win against DEMOCRATS that were fighting against it?

Seems pretty ass-backward on the face, doesn't it?

It's because all of the Federal Funding to the State of Indiana is predicated on having that program in place. If we said we weren't doing it anymore, that's the end of Federal Funding for Indiana's highway. At least under whatever the current agreement it is.

And why would the Democrats be the ones fighting against vehicle emissions testing in Indiana? Because the people who are most hurt by it in the entire state are the poorest and those least likely to be able to buy a better car in the first place. These emissions tests very disproportionately harm the poorest people in the state. That's why.

And so Asshole Holcumb wins this one and the poor people lose. All so we can keep tearing up the highway every summer and put a new one down and keep the union people working.

Good job everyone. Well Done.

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

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 7:55 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Good luck. You're not going to find the proof you're looking for because it doesn't exist.

I get that Trumptards hallucinate that the Federal government is oppressing them. But what I see is Trumptards screwing up their own lives and denying it is their own fault. Blame it all on the Democrats, do not blame yourself and certainly do not change your own habits. Believe only Trump can fix it.

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 8:05 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I've got an example of a court case that had a direct impact on my life that nobody was talking about except for 2 articles that were written over a few years apart in the Indy Star.

In the State of Indiana, the constitution specifically says that no law shall be enacted that impacts any citizen that does not impact all citizens.

But that didn't prevent a judge who allowed this to be held up in court for YEARS by a REPUBLICAN governor uphold how we go about doing emissions testing in the state. There are only two counties in the entire state that do it. Nobody else in the entire state is forced to comply with vehicle emissions testing, making this a clear victory against the testing, but we're still doing it anyway.

So why would a REPUBLICAN governor fight for this issue and win against DEMOCRATS that were fighting against it?

Seems pretty ass-backward on the face, doesn't it?

It's because all of the Federal Funding to the State of Indiana is predicated on having that program in place. If we said we weren't doing it anymore, that's the end of Federal Funding for Indiana's highway. At least under whatever the current agreement it is.

And why would the Democrats be the ones fighting against vehicle emissions testing in Indiana? Because the people who are most hurt by it in the entire state are the poorest and those least likely to be able to buy a better car in the first place. These emissions tests very disproportionately harm the poorest people in the state. That's why.

And so Asshole Holcumb wins this one and the poor people lose. All so we can keep tearing up the highway every summer and put a new one down and keep the union people working.

Good job everyone. Well Done.

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

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

I have no idea what you are talking about here because you didn't cite anything. I bet if there was an article, I'd see that you don't have any correct idea, either. That is my experience at work: an overly articulate Trumptard describes with complete confidence what he thinks is wrong with a machine but the Trumptard understood nothing, completely misdiagnosing the situation. If Trumptards can constantly be that absurdly wrong with straightforward mechanical problems, they can be even worse with abstractions. But does that make the overly articulate Trumptard more modest about his claimed abilities in the future? Never! I don't have to speculate why Trumptards suffer and don't prosper. They show me why but they can't see the why.

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 8:06 AM

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

The MAGA cinematic universe has gone into full meltdown after the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s latest deportation push — targeting a group of Venezuelan men in Texas — to allow an ongoing ACLU lawsuit against the deportations to play out.

“Generations of lawyers and judges, on both sides of the aisle, have been infected with a parasitical ideology that denies reason and common sense,” the Trump-appointed Department of Homeland Security liaison Paul Ingrassia wrote.

That the justices Trump appointed — Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett — appeared to side against him is an especially bitter pill for the MAGA faithful.

MAGA fury has not been solely reserved for the high court however, as judges across the country are demanding Trump follow proper legal procedures.

“We live in a society where foreign alien terrorists have unlimited free legal representation,” White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Stephen Miller posted.

Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) circulated a clip of Miller telling NewsMax the reason America no longer has a “functioning public school system” is because of “open borders.” “Who will compensate the American people for the lasting damage caused by mass illegal migration?!” she wrote, echoing Miller’s suggestion that “reparations” should be paid.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-goes-into-full-meltdown-mode-over-s
cotus-ruling-on-trumps-deportations/

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 8:16 AM

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

The DOGE leader is offering the Republican Party a very different vision of fatherhood.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Musk is constantly scanning the horizon for new potential mothers for his children, using everything from X interactions and DMs to huge cash incentives to entice would-be incubators, whom he requires to sign legally binding payment agreements with nondisclosure clauses. As a result, Musk has an undisclosed number of children that is likely well above the 14 already publicly known, and he’s shown no obvious intention to stop sowing his seed. But perhaps more interesting than the presence of contracts between Musk and his harem of mothers is the apparent absence of traditional family ties. He appears to acknowledge few, if any, bonds of genuine duty and responsibility among family members, much less bonds of care or love. Musk seems to have reduced traditional family relationships to mere financial arrangements, undermining longtime conservative agreement around the importance of family.

There is a difference, after all, between being pro-natalist and being pro-family. Musk is by now infamous for his interest in raising the birth rate, which appears to be driven by his belief that a catastrophic global population collapse is imminent, as well as by his view that intelligent people in particular ought to be breeding more. (“He really wants smart people to have kids,” Shivon Zilis, Musk’s most favored concubine, told a biographer.)

Musk is especially well positioned to use money to fund and structure his preferred familial arrangements, effectively reducing those relationships to a vulgar cash nexus. Musk’s latest consort, the conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair, told The Wall Street Journal’s Dana Mattioli that Musk had offered her a $15 million lump sum, as well as $100,000 per month for living expenses—if she was willing to sign a contract that would require her to keep their arrangement secret. People familiar with Musk’s habits, Mattioli reported, said that this is a well-established practice for the billionaire, who threatens women financially if they hire an attorney or go public: In St. Clair’s case, Musk terminated his proposed $15 million payment and lowered her recurring payments to $40,000 a month (which, it’s fair to note, is still a lavish income) as the two went to court over paternity testing for their child.

“The timing of the reduction in payments from him are timed with disagreements on testing and gag orders,” Dror Bikel, one of St. Clair’s attorneys, told Mattioli, adding that “the only conclusion we can make is that money is being weaponized.” Money appears to be the only means by which Musk can persuade people who are not actually intimate with him and whose preferences and needs are not of much concern to him. Fatherhood, for Musk, ends with conception, except for lingering payouts. There is no discernible sense of mutual duty or responsibility between Musk and his children or between Musk and his children’s mothers, and no expectation of growth in such bonds or fulfillment in them either: A Musk aide told St. Clair that Zilis “goes in and out of finding contentment,” and that Grimes, another mother of Musk’s children, isn’t “ever going to find true happiness.”

That isn’t surprising—Musk’s family values seem similarly detached from the usual ties of familial love. According to Mattioli, Musk instigates what St. Clair called “harem drama” by lending some of his babies’ mothers, such as Zilis, special status both financially and socially, while others, such as St. Clair, struggle to get so much as responses to their texts, or, in Grimes’s case, their desperate X posts. Likewise, he takes an active interest in some of his children—such as X Æ A-Xii, his toddler son with Grimes, whom he totes to public appearances and state events—more than others. He refused to have his name on the birth certificate of St. Clair’s son, and is estranged from his daughter Vivian altogether. Although past generations of conservatives have hailed family as a “haven in a heartless world,” Musk’s relationships with his children and their mothers seem defined instead by a capitalist-inflected competition; Musk’s “entire world is set up to be, like, a meritocracy,” the Musk aide explained to St. Clair, wherein rewards are granted to “people who do good work.”

Musk is rich enough to carry on his pro-natalist project indefinitely, and the world is full of women of childbearing age who could use $15 million. Musk descendants, therefore, may one day inherit the earth. But before then, Musk may inherit the Republican Party, which he has bought and paid for, and in so doing reshape the right’s traditional thinking about the notion of family. The old days are over, superseded by something worse.

https://www.wsj.com/politics/elon-musk-children-mothers-ashley-st-clai
r-grimes-dc7ba05c?mod=hp_lead_pos7

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 9:28 AM

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

Trump’s pick for U.S. attorney, Ed Martin, is a Russian-state-TV darling

April 19, 2025 From https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2025/04/19/trumps-pick-for-u-s-attorn
ey-ed-martin-is-a-russian-state-tv-darling/

Tom Nichols writes:

The United States of America is still a free country, and every private citizen has the right to speak to anyone, anywhere in the world, about anything. If the propaganda arm of an avowed enemy of the West calls and invites you to bash your own nation in public, you are free to do so. It might not be the most patriotic or sensible choice, but it’s your privilege.

If you also would like to join the Department of Justice as a United States attorney, however, you should expect that appearing on the state television outlet of a neofascist dictatorship and engaging in conspiracy-laden anti-American rants might attract some attention—especially if it seems like you’ve tried to hide those appearances from the U.S. Senate committee responsible for voting on your nomination. And if you’re an ordinary American citizen, you should certainly be wary of any aspiring Justice Department official who gladly contributes to Russian propaganda efforts.

Ed Martin is the Trump administration’s nominee to be the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. A failed political candidate and former chairman of the Missouri Republican Party, he is now a right-wing podcaster and social-media figure—and a January 6 truther who believes that Justice Department lawyers are the president’s personal consiglieri. He has also, however, been a regular commentator on RT America, the English-language flagship for the Kremlin’s propaganda efforts until it was dropped by major content providers after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has since gone off the air, but in its time, it featured Larry King, among some lesser American lights. (For example, have you been wondering whatever happened to Scottie Nell Hughes, who years ago shilled for Donald Trump on CNN? Me neither, but in watching Martin’s segments, I learned that she ended up at RT.)

Martin, according to The Washington Post, was a guest some 150 times on RT America and its sister outlet, Sputnik, from 2016 to 2024. Now, everyone can make a mistake; public commentators sometimes find themselves on outlets that turn out to be wifty venues, or unexpectedly paired with guests they might otherwise avoid. But to appear 150 times—occasionally partnered up for friendly banter with unsavory characters such as George Galloway, a pro-Putin British politician who was kicked out of the Labour Party more than 20 years ago for, among other things, encouraging Arabs to fight British soldiers, and who has long been accused of various extremist views—suggests a genuinely comfortable relationship with the outlet. (For the record, over the course of my academic career as a professor of national-security affairs, I was occasionally invited to appear on RT America. I always declined.)

Perhaps, one might hope, Martin agreed to appear so that he could be a voice of probity and reason in the face of Russian disinformation, exactly the qualities one would appreciate in a U.S. attorney. Not a chance: He was more often the source of conspiracy theories and anti-American accusations, all delivered with the kind of cheerful confidence that always translates well on television.

I watched several of his appearances, which are still available on RT’s website. One major theme emerges: Russia is usually right and America (at least when led by anyone other than Donald Trump) is usually wrong.

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 11:04 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The MAGA cinematic universe has gone into full meltdown after the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s latest deportation push — targeting a group of Venezuelan men in Texas — to allow an ongoing ACLU lawsuit against the deportations to play out.

“Generations of lawyers and judges, on both sides of the aisle, have been infected with a parasitical ideology that denies reason and common sense,” the Trump-appointed Department of Homeland Security liaison Paul Ingrassia wrote.

That the justices Trump appointed — Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett — appeared to side against him is an especially bitter pill for the MAGA faithful.

That's not what happened here.

We're creating lasting precedent that you dumb mongoloids aren't going to be able to reverse with a simple executive order the next time you get power, if you ever get power again.

There's a method to this. We can't just throw a court case on their laps if it hasn't gone up through the proper channels.

Thankfully, you dumb assholes have no idea what you're doing and in your panic you're fast-tracking cases you should have left for when you were in power, and the media is goading them into doing it everyday with articles just like this.

This will officially be before the Supreme Court soon enough and you're going to lose everything on this issue. Forever.

We can wait a month or two for that.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed your cheap hit of dopamine from the headline.

Tick Tock

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

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 11:30 AM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The MAGA cinematic universe has gone into full meltdown after the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s latest deportation push — targeting a group of Venezuelan men in Texas — to allow an ongoing ACLU lawsuit against the deportations to play out.

“Generations of lawyers and judges, on both sides of the aisle, have been infected with a parasitical ideology that denies reason and common sense,” the Trump-appointed Department of Homeland Security liaison Paul Ingrassia wrote.

That the justices Trump appointed — Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett — appeared to side against him is an especially bitter pill for the MAGA faithful.

That's not what happened here.

We're creating lasting precedent that you dumb mongoloids aren't going to be able to reverse with a simple executive order the next time you get power, if you ever get power again.

There's a method to this. We can't just throw a court case on their laps if it hasn't gone up through the proper channels.

Thankfully, you dumb assholes have no idea what you're doing and in your panic you're fast-tracking cases you should have left for when you were in power, and the media is goading them into doing it everyday with articles just like this.

This will officially be before the Supreme Court soon enough and you're going to lose everything on this issue. Forever.

We can wait a month or two for that.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed your cheap hit of dopamine from the headline.

Tick Tock

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

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

Perhaps Trump will see that Ted Kaczynski is an intellectual Trumptard and pardon him, posthumously:

Question: Kaczynski writes that “There is good reason to believe that primitive man suffered from less stress and frustration and was better satisfied with his way of life than modern man is.” I think a lot of people could find some truth in that statement. What was he trying to get across with this manifesto?

In the passage, you’ve just quoted, what he’s arguing is basically that human beings are biologically maladapted to the modern world. This is a big claim from evolutionary psychology. The argument is that, biologically speaking, we’re still Stone Age hunter-gatherers. We evolved hunting large animals on the savannah and in the span of just 10,000 years — the blink of an eye in evolutionary terms — we’ve constructed this world of concrete, steel, and screens. So Kaczynski argues that because of this, we suffer from depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance abuse, and so many other psychological pathologies that so-called primitive human beings do not.

Q: And what’s his solution?

His solution is to destroy all modern technology and return ourselves to a more primitive condition, to crash out of the modern world. What he envisions is a group of anti-tech revolutionaries sabotaging the electric grid, blowing up the gas pipelines, and attacking the nervous system, so to speak, of modern society. He wanted to plunge us back into, if not the Stone Age, then something like small-scale agriculture and a shepherd society.

Q: How was this manifesto received in the ’90s when it was published by the Washington Post and delivered to front porches around the country? And how has his reputation changed over time?

Well, there was a lot of debate about it. Many journalists treated Kaczynski as a serious intellectual, and many members of the public, in letters to the editor and on talk radio shows, hailed him as a folk hero. He was often described as a modern-day Thoreau.

Q: Who are the types of people who are glomming on to this manifesto?

During the Unabomber mania of the mid-1990s, Kaczynski gained a following on the radical left, especially among green anarchists. But he’s returned to cultural prominence with the opposite political valence. Today he’s seen more as a figure of the right. As you may have noticed, he spends the first 3,000 words of his manifesto railing against leftism.

And in the context of the culture war in the 2010s, conservatives rediscovered and rehabilitated him and co-opted him onto their side in the culture war. So Kaczynski has now been appropriated by a rag bag of people on the right who are drawn to his critique of leftism.

https://www.vox.com/culture/409617/luigi-mangione-trial-charges-unabom
ber-manifesto

Summary of Kaczynski's philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski#Summary

This is the text of a 35,000-word manifesto as submitted to The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unabomber/mani
festo.text.htm

Quote:
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM

6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology. (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 11:52 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
The MAGA cinematic universe has gone into full meltdown after the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s latest deportation push — targeting a group of Venezuelan men in Texas — to allow an ongoing ACLU lawsuit against the deportations to play out.

“Generations of lawyers and judges, on both sides of the aisle, have been infected with a parasitical ideology that denies reason and common sense,” the Trump-appointed Department of Homeland Security liaison Paul Ingrassia wrote.

That the justices Trump appointed — Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett — appeared to side against him is an especially bitter pill for the MAGA faithful.

That's not what happened here.

We're creating lasting precedent that you dumb mongoloids aren't going to be able to reverse with a simple executive order the next time you get power, if you ever get power again.

There's a method to this. We can't just throw a court case on their laps if it hasn't gone up through the proper channels.

Thankfully, you dumb assholes have no idea what you're doing and in your panic you're fast-tracking cases you should have left for when you were in power, and the media is goading them into doing it everyday with articles just like this.

This will officially be before the Supreme Court soon enough and you're going to lose everything on this issue. Forever.

We can wait a month or two for that.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed your cheap hit of dopamine from the headline.

Tick Tock

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

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

Do not reply to anything I post with a trash Vox article.

Ted Kaczynski has nothing to do with the fact that Democrats are going to lose this issue in the supreme court, and swiftly. And they could have prevented setting this precedent forever, if they weren't in full-blown panic mode and desperate for a win anywhere.

SPOILER ALERT: They're not going to get it here.

Tick Tock

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

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 12:10 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Do not reply to anything I post with a trash Vox article.

Ted Kaczynski has nothing to do with the fact that Democrats are going to lose this issue in the supreme court, and swiftly. And they could have prevented setting this precedent forever, if they weren't in full-blown panic mode and desperate for a win anywhere.

SPOILER ALERT: They're not going to get it here.

Tick Tock

“It would be better to dump the whole stinking system and take the consequences.” — Ted Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

Trump has said the same, but in far more words.

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 2:14 PM

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

Why not cancel SmartPay's contract and give the contract to a startup with no reputation, but you own the startup and can keep the profits for yourself?

Trump Team Eyes Politically Connected Startup to Overhaul $700 Billion Government Payments Program

A little-known firm with investors linked to JD Vance, Elon Musk and Trump could get a piece of the federal expense card system — and its hundreds of millions in fees. “This goes against all the normal contracting safeguards,” one expert said.

By Christopher Bing and Avi Asher-Schapiro | April 17, 2025, 10:30 a.m. EDT

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-peter-thiel-ramp-gsa-smartpay
-expense-payment-system

Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration, financial technology startup Ramp published a pitch for how to tackle wasteful government spending. In a 4,000-word blog post titled “The Efficiency Formula,” Ramp’s CEO and one of its investors echoed ideas similar to those promoted by Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk: Federal programs were overrun by fraud, and commonsense business techniques could provide a quick fix.

It didn’t take long for Ramp to find a willing audience. Within Trump’s first three months in office, its executives scored at least four private meetings with the president’s appointees at the General Services Administration, which oversees major federal contracting. Some of the meetings were organized by the nation’s top procurement officer, Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service.

The special attention Gruenbaum paid to Ramp raised flags inside and outside the agency. “This goes against all the normal contracting safeguards that are set up to prevent contracts from being awarded based on who you know,” said Scott Amey, the general counsel with the bipartisan Project on Government Oversight. He said career civil servants should lead the process to pick the best choice for taxpayers.

The high level attention Ramp received was unusual, especially before a bid had been made public. “You don’t want to give this impression that leadership has already decided the winner somehow.”

Ramp’s meetings with Gruenbaum — who comes from private equity firm KKR and has no prior government experience — came at an opportune moment. GSA will decide by year’s end whether to extend the SmartPay contract, and preparations are afoot for the next generation of the program. SmartPay has been worth hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for the financial institutions that currently operate it, U.S. Bank and Citibank.

Gruenbaum and acting GSA administrator Stephen Ehikian entered the agency with a strong belief that SmartPay and other government payment programs were rife with fraud or waste, causing huge losses, sources within GSA say — an idea echoed in Ramp’s January memo.

Yet both GOP and Democratic budget experts, as well as former GSA officials, describe that view as ill-informed. SmartPay, which provides Visa and Mastercard charge cards to government employees, enables the federal workforce to purchase office supplies and equipment, book travel and pay for gas.

The cards typically are used to fund travel and purchases up to $10,000.

“SmartPay is the lifeblood of the government,” said former GSA commissioner Sonny Hashmi, who oversaw the program. “It’s a well-run program that solves real world problems … with exceptional levels of oversight and fraud prevention already baked in.”

Jessica Riedl, a GOP budget expert at the conservative Manhattan Institute think tank, said the notion that there was significant fraud in the charge card technology was far-fetched. She had criticized waste in government credit card programs before the latest SmartPay system was implemented in 2018.

“This was a huge problem about 20-25 years ago,” she said. “In the past 15 years, there have been new controls put into government credit card purchases.”

A 2017 audit of the program by the Government Accountability Office concluded there was “little evidence of potential fraud” in SmartPay small purchases.

GSA’s new leaders are convinced SmartPay is entirely broken, a view they shared in private meetings, sources said. In February, they put a temporary $1 limit on government cards and severely restricted the number of cardholders, choking off funds to workers in the field.

Chaos ensued across the government, news organizations reported: Staff at the National Institutes of Health were reportedly unable to purchase materials for experiments, Federal Aviation Administration workers worried they would be unable to pay for travel to test systems in the field, and National Park Service employees could not travel to oversee road maintenance projects.

At the time, GSA released a statement saying the limitations were “risk mitigation best practice” and internally began moving to revamp SmartPay.

“There’s a lot of money to be made by a new company (Ramp) coming in here (replacing SmartPay). But you have to ask: What is the problem that’s being solved?”

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 2:31 PM

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

What If China Wins the Trade War?

The United States could still prevail if it does everything right. The problem is that the Trump administration is doing everything wrong.

By Rogé Karma | April 20, 2025, 7:30 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/04/china-trump-trade-
war/682524/

If Donald Trump were trying to lose his trade war with China, it’s hard to see what he would be doing differently. The president’s gambit is likely to strengthen China’s geopolitical position, embolden Beijing militarily, and diminish both the United States’ global standing and its economy.

Earlier this month, Trump increased tariffs on all goods from China to 145 percent. China, in turn, responded with 125 percent tariffs on American goods, plus more targeted measures. This is a classic trade war: two countries engaged in a tit-for-tat escalation of trade barriers, each with the goal of forcing the other country to back down and, at least in theory, agree to certain concessions.

The Trump administration believes that it has the upper hand in this fight. “We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently remarked, “so that is a losing hand for them.” That view has things backwards. The fact that the American economy is hooked on Chinese goods is a massive weakness for the U.S., not an advantage. For many categories of goods, China is not only America’s top supplier but also the world’s dominant supplier, meaning that the U.S. can’t simply get them from other countries. According to data gathered by Jason Miller, a professor at Michigan State University who specializes in supply-chain management, China produces more than 70 percent of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, air conditioners, and cookware; more than 80 percent of the world’s smartphones, kitchen appliances, and toys; and about 90 percent of the world’s solar panels and processed rare earth minerals, the latter of which are crucial inputs to cars, phones, and several key military technologies.

Pivoting to producing these goods at home would take years, if not decades: It would involve forming new companies, building new factories, creating supply chains from scratch, and training fleets of workers. For it to happen at all, companies would have to be confident that the tariffs would be in place for the long term. China, meanwhile, is only heavily dependent on the U.S. for a small fraction of its imports, and most of those items, such as soybeans and sorghum, can be imported from elsewhere.

Chinese businesses will be hurt by losing access to the American market, but that is an easier problem to solve. China can redirect some of its exports to countries in Europe and East Asia, whose citizens also need phones, toys, and toasters. Beijing could also give money to its own citizens to create more demand for its products at home and provide subsidies to its businesses to help them remain solvent. This asymmetry gives China what the economist Adam Posen calls “escalation dominance”: the ability to inflict disproportionate harm on its economic enemy.

China’s advantage has been bolstered by years of meticulous preparation. Multiple China watchers told me that Trump’s 2018 trade war—in which, at its height, the U.S. imposed an average tariff of about 20 percent on Chinese goods—convinced Beijing that it had to be ready to engage in economic combat at a moment’s notice. Since then, China has invested heavily in such industries as energy, agriculture, and semiconductor production to reduce its dependence on American imports, while pursuing a concerted strategy to consume more goods at home and find new non-U.S. export markets. The goal of these efforts, in the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping, is to “ensure the normal operation of the national economy under extreme circumstances.”

Beijing has also built an arsenal of offensive economic weapons. Already, China has responded to Trump’s trade war by banning exports of several rare earth minerals, a move intended to produce shortages of both major consumer goods (such as cars and phones) and military equipment (such as submarines and fighter jets); launching antitrust investigations into DuPont and Google; and halting all business with Boeing, America’s top aircraft manufacturer. If the situation escalates further, Beijing might block certain high-profile U.S. companies, such as Apple and Tesla, from doing any business in China at all. Then there’s the nuclear option: China, the second-largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, could quickly sell off a sizable chunk of its $760 billion in U.S. Treasuries, a move that would send interest rates soaring, spook investors, and perhaps even trigger a financial crisis.

“China is ready for this fight,” Yeling Tan, a public-policy professor at Oxford University who focuses on Chinese political economy, told me. “It has been busy preparing for an entrenched economic conflict with the U.S. for a long time.”

Despite all of these challenges, the experts I spoke with agreed that the United States could still defeat China in a trade war if it does everything right. The problem is that the Trump administration is doing everything wrong.

China has some advantages in a head-to-head economic matchup with the U.S., but America has a secret weapon: its friends. If the United States were to join forces with its traditional allies in Europe, North America, and East Asia to collectively cut off China while deepening trade relations with one another, then this bloc could inflict much more damage on China (which would have fewer places to sell its goods) while minimizing its own pain (Chinese imports could be more easily and quickly replaced). This would require considerable planning and preparation. The U.S. and its allies would have to embark on a colossal coordinated economic mobilization to quickly develop new industries, develop a monitoring system for global supply chains staffed with an army of well-trained bureaucrats to prevent cheating, roll out the trade restrictions on a gradual timeline to give businesses and investors time to adjust, and establish clear conditions by which they would be willing to end the trade war. That’s a partial list.

Trump has, of course, done nearly the opposite of everything I just described. Instead of spending years, or even months, investing in American industry, Trump is angling to get rid of the major investments in semiconductor and clean-energy manufacturing implemented under the Biden administration. Instead of engaging in a gradual tariff rollout, the administration jacked up tariffs to 145 percent over the course of a few weeks. Instead of providing businesses and investors with clear guidance, the administration has changed its story by the day, if not the hour. And instead of building a coalition of allies, Trump has spent the past few months threatening, feuding with, and tariffing them. Even if the U.S. were to suddenly change course and try to build an anti-China coalition, a prospect recently floated by Bessent, it is likely too late. What country would sign up for economic hardship for the sake of an “ally” that has not only treated it poorly but has also repeatedly demonstrated that it can’t be trusted to honor any bargain?

The outcome of a trade war is determined not only by the pain inflicted but also by each country’s tolerance for that pain. On that front, the United States has one thing going for it: Voters generally support taking on China. One study of Trump’s first-term trade war with China found that voters in places that were most exposed to the effects of import tariffs became more likely to vote for Trump in 2020. A CBS poll in February found that 56 percent of voters supported placing new tariffs on China, even as majorities opposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and Europe.

The question is whether voters’ appetite for punishing China will outweigh the sting of chronic shortages and higher prices. Trump’s first-term tariffs against China were relatively modest, so they didn’t lead to big price increases. This time around, sticker shock will be impossible to ignore. Voters consistently cited inflation as the most important issue in the 2024 election. How will they react when the politician who promised lower prices instead presides over the opposite? According to several recent polls, most voters had soured on Trump’s tariffs before they had even gone into effect. Making matters worse, the combination of Chinese retaliation against American exporters and tariff-induced uncertainty facing businesses may also lead to a broader economic slowdown. Many economists warn of a return to 1970s-style stagflation: the toxic combination of soaring prices and rising unemployment.

Even Trump might lack the stubbornness to persist through that level of economic distress. He has already broken the cardinal rule of trade wars—never tell your opponent where your breaking point is—by “pausing” his global reciprocal tariff policy in the face of chaos in the bond market. Even if Trump were willing to withstand the political pressure for longer this time, he’s unlikely to outlast Xi Jinping, who faces neither term limits nor elections. “Beijing is very good at waiting,” Dan Wang, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, told me. “They might not be able to last forever, but they can certainly last longer than a single election cycle.”

In all likelihood, then, Trump will eventually be forced to back down. This might take the form of a deal in which China agrees to largely symbolic concessions that allow Trump to save face. (This is how the first Trump-China trade war de-escalated.) But China might not be so quick to offer Trump an easy way out. In that case, surrender might instead take the form of a series of tariff carve-outs to different industries, to the point where the exceptions exceed the actual tariffs. In either case, the result would be the same: The U.S. would have inflicted considerable economic pain on itself without getting much in return.

China, however, would have gotten quite a bit. Last week, the Spanish government declared its intent to strengthen relations with China. The European Union recently agreed to restart talks to settle a trade dispute over Chinese EV imports and will be sending a delegation to Beijing in July for a summit with Xi. South Korea and Japan recently revealed that they will be reopening negotiations over a long-stalled free-trade agreement with China. This week alone, Vietnam signed dozens of new economic deals with China, and Xi is currently on a tour of Southeast Asia to solidify relations with other countries in the region.

A Chinese trade-war victory would also embolden Beijing in noneconomic matters. China hawks have long insisted that one of the most important deterrents in preventing Chinese aggression, such as invading Taiwan, is the threat of an economic blockade. But if Beijing demonstrates that it can withstand such a barrage, that threat will lose credibility. China will become more likely to take aggressive actions, and American politicians will lose their appetite for using economic coercion to stop it. In that sense, a failed trade war could make the chances of an actual war more likely. You might even say that Trump’s tariff policy sounds a bit like the “disastrous” American military adventures that he has so often criticized. Only this time, he’s the one leading the charge.

Support for this project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 5:09 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
FDA Removing Pharmaceutical Representatives From Advisory Panels

MORE AT https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/fda-removing-pharmaceutical-represen
tatives-advisory-panels

Woohoo!

Quote:
Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Actions to Lower Prescription Drug Prices

...
It delivers lower drug prices for Medicare and the seniors who rely on it by:

Improving the Medicare Drug Pricing Negotiation Program in order to eclipse the 22% in savings achieved in the program’s first year.
Aligning Medicare payment for certain prescription drugs with the cost by which hospitals actually acquire them, which can be 35% lower than what the government currently pays.
Standardizing Medicare payments for prescription drugs, such as cancer treatments, regardless of where the patient receives care, which can lower prices by as much as 60%.

...
The Order helps states reduce drug prices by:
Facilitating importation programs that could save states millions in prescription drug costs. [but doesn't that run headlong into tariffs?]

MORE AT https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-do
nald-j-trump-announces-actions-to-lower-prescription-drug-prices/
More yay!

Quote:
HHS Stops Funding For Next-Generation COVID-19 Vaccine

An official with HHS told The Epoch Times in an email, “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago when there are other emerging public health threats that we can better prioritize resources for.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/hhs-stops-funding-next-generation-
covid-19-vaccine

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 5:18 PM

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

Do not reply to anything I post with a trash Vox article.

Ted Kaczynski has nothing to do with the fact that Democrats are going to lose this issue in the supreme court, and swiftly. And they could have prevented setting this precedent forever, if they weren't in full-blown panic mode and desperate for a win anywhere.

SPOILER ALERT: They're not going to get it here.

Tick Tock
“It would be better to dump the whole stinking system and take the consequences.” — Ted Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

Trump has said the same, but in far more words.

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

Shut the fuck up. Stupid.

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

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

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 6:30 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
“It would be better to dump the whole stinking system and take the consequences.” — Ted Kaczynski, Industrial Society and Its Future

Trump has said the same, but in far more words.

Only SECOND would try to conflate Trump ... who's trying to reindustrialize America... with Kaczynski, who wanted to destroy industry.

Next thing you know, SECOND will conflate Trump with Hitler! Or Putin! Ot slave owning Confederates!

Oh, wait...

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Sunday, April 20, 2025 9:28 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
US Housing Market May Finally See Relief As Foreign Buyers, Illegals And Airbnbs Disappear

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/us-housing-market-may-finally-see-re
lief-foreign-buyers-illegals-and-airbnbs-disappear

Homes for living in, not as investments?

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

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Monday, April 21, 2025 8:11 AM