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

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

He shrugged it off like it deserves to be shrugged off.

Fuck you, Vatican. Fuck you twice on Sunday, dead pope.

How's that?
6ix, I expected you would take a shit on decency because Trump

Why don't you show us how decent you are and tell us one of your assassination fantasies again.

Go fuck yourself.

6ix, you Trumptards are the epitome of depravity, gloating about killing USAID but not mentioning the children who starve to death because USAID was killed.

Quote:
The Death of USAID: These People Are out of Their Freaking Minds

https://newrepublic.com/article/191063/death-usaid-trump-musk-lives

Within hours of taking office, Donald Trump issued a sweeping executive order suspending all U.S. foreign aid. Four days later, his administration followed up with a stop-work order for USAID, demanding that staff and agency contractors cease all work. Almost immediately, hundreds were laid off and USAID-supported organizations around the world closed their doors. HIV patients were turned away from U.S.-backed clinics, medical centers in Gaza shuttered, and first responders in Ukraine told to stand down. Groups fighting malnutrition and famine in Sudan now say they have just days before they run out of supplies.

That was as of last Friday. On Saturday, it got worse. Agents from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency raided the offices of USAID and assumed control of the agency’s personnel and payment files. Soon thereafter, Musk approvingly reposted X users who shared malicious conspiracies about USAID and its work around the world. “USAID is a criminal organization,” Musk posted. “Time for it to die.”

6ix, I expected you would take a shit on decency because Trump and his Trumptards routinely demonstrate the meaning of depravity without knowing yourselves. And I knew Signym would invert the truth by writing: "I thought this was aimed at Zelensky."

The Fatal Impact of Trump’s Foreign Aid Cuts (Neither Signym nor 6ix care)

By John Haltiwanger

https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/04/08/trump-foreign-aid-cuts-danish-ref
ugee-council-usaid/

The Trump administration’s drastic foreign aid cuts and effort to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have had rapid, rippling consequences across the world.

Foreign Policy recently sat down with Charlotte Slente, secretary-general of the Danish Refugee Council, to discuss the far-reaching effects of Trump dramatically slashing foreign assistance.

As the new administration in Washington axes more and more lifesaving programs, Slente warned that “people will be dying.” In a world where the U.S. is no longer seen as a reliable partner, Slente also discussed where aid groups go from here.

Foreign Policy: Where has your work been hit hardest by [U.S. President Donald] Trump’s aid cuts?

Charlotte Slente: The Danish Refugee Council is active in around 40 countries around the world—primarily countries where we see large humanitarian crises and displacement crises, because we are a displacement-mandated organization, which means that we work on these great, big contracts. And among the 40 countries that we are present in, we’ve been hit in 22. It’s across the globe in different environments and a little bit random, depending on where the U.S. funding falls.

The U.S. was our second-biggest donor—20 percent of our income was from the U.S. We’ve been hit in many countries in Africa, we’ve been hit in Latin America, we’ve also been hit in Asia, and in Ukraine. It’s been quite a bumpy road.

FP: What has the immediate impact of these aid cuts been on the ground? What kind of damage has already been done?

CS: In Afghanistan, for instance, we were supporting drinking water for thousands and thousands of people in a number of provinces. That was cut down immediately. So the effect is that these people will not get access to safe drinking water in these provinces.

That can have fatal consequences.

In Congo and Sudan, both countries where there are very severe humanitarian disaster situations ongoing, there were cuts to our ability to help people with support for livelihoods.

Humanitarian assistance saves lives, but we need people to be able to gain an income and be self-sustaining. That kind of support for people being able to grow food or work in agriculture, maybe work in other areas, that growth has all been cut off.

In Cameroon, we were delivering food assistance to pregnant mothers and their undernourished young children, and that has been cut off from one day to the next. In Colombia, a lot of our work on providing shelter, livelihood support, and activities related to mine clearance, which is one of the sectors we work with a lot in, has been stopped.

FP: So, all of this has really had rippling consequences across the world?

CS: In many different countries, it has had quite dramatic consequences.

FP: Is it fair to say that people are dying because of the Trump administration’s choices?

CS: People will be dying, and people will be losing possibilities to sustain their lives in the long term.

It is a very, very difficult moment because the number of displaced people around the world is over 120 million. The number of people requiring humanitarian assistance around the world is over 300 million people.

Humanitarian response plans, which are U.N. plans where basically you stipulate what is the bare minimum of necessity among the people who need humanitarian assistance in the country, were only partially being performed and funded to the degree necessary. The direct consequence of U.S. cuts could be that those response plans in general will only be funded to a degree of 25 percent, which means many people will potentially lose their lives because they depend on that humanitarian response.

The vast majority of this world’s refugees are actually hosted by neighboring countries who are themselves low-income or low-medium-income countries who need support from the international community to actually accept being hosts to refugees and displaced peoples.

FP: With U.S. funding drying up, where are you looking to fill the gaps?

CS: We’re basically looking everywhere, but these gaps are very difficult to fill.

U.S. development ODA [official development assistance] funding is less than 0.3 percent of U.S. GDP. But nominally, it is 40 percent of all humanitarian assistance provided throughout the globe.

It’s fair to say that it will be very difficult for any of the traditional donors that fund humanitarian assistance to replace that level of funding. But obviously, we are trying our best with a number of donors.

But we also need to look elsewhere—such as non-traditional government donors like the Gulf states. We’re looking toward Asia as well to seek more funding.

We also need to look toward the private sector—there’s no way of escaping that. We’ve been working for a number of years to attract private-sector and foundation funding packages, and creating products that could be interesting for the private sector.

If you look around the U.S., there are a number of very rich people who could potentially replace that funding if there is a willingness, vision, and ambition to actually support what you could call global public goods. I think it is a global public good to support the humanitarian needs of this world’s displaced and needy people, because it is a global challenge that we need to find global solutions for.

FP: What is the best case for why a country like the United States should be heavily involved in providing humanitarian aid?

CS: First and foremost is the altruistic part of it—saving lives around the globe. And supporting the countries that have been asked to host people who basically would not survive if they didn’t host them. These are people who, if they are not hosted by neighboring countries, would be coming to the U.S. and Europe for support. People want to stay close to their homes in order to see when it’s feasible for them to return.

Secondly, there is a security element, there’s a self-interest, which may not be directly transactional. It’s a broader self-interest in international security. There’s these very conflict-prone, fragile settings—where people live in very complicated situations in conflict—that are prone to becoming a problem for the international community. It’s especially in these fragile countries where armed groups enter and terrorism can thrive. A lot of violence will happen because people have a lack of access to resources. And that tends to not stay in these countries. It tends to not even stay in the regions, but actually spreads around the world. That is another very good reason for continuing to support.

The world doesn’t thrive if it’s too unprofitable. We need to eliminate inequality levels to the greatest extent possible. And we need to create the framework conditions for these countries to be able to build their businesses, grow their economies, have transparency in their trade systems, and be able to attract international financing. And that is also in our self-interest. The more open and transparent and trading the world is, the better everyone could be.

It’s counterintuitive to not support the world’s Colombias, Lebanons, Jordans, Ugandas—who really have been extremely generous in hosting many refugees. Colombia hosts millions of Venezuelan refugees and migrants. And many of those that are hosted in Colombia and supported there don’t continue the journey up north through the Darién Gap.

At this moment in time we have a number of crises where people are extremely desperate. I just spoke to the [United Nations] Security Council about the situation in the Democratic Republic of [the] Congo. That is one of the areas where we see a big crisis. We see a country like Sudan being caught up in a crisis, and we see so many cases around the world where conflicts are actually tearing the world down for the civilian populations. We all know that there should be respect for international humanitarian law, which means that the negative impact for civilians should be avoided in any kind of warfare, in any kind of conflict.

We really need the world to step up to solve these crises, build peace, and do the utmost to stop the violence, stop the conflicts—from the Middle East and Africa to Asia and South America. We cannot, as an international community, avoid responsibility. That’s one of my very firm messages at this time.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 12:22 PM

I love watching you wake up every day and realize that you're losing again.

And there's really no end in sight, is there?

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 1:06 PM

THG

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I love watching you wake up every day and realize that you're losing again.

And there's really no end in sight, is there?

Ryan Petersen, CEO of digital freight forwarder Flexport, took to X on Thursday to issue a stark warning, predicting that thousands, and potentially millions, of American small businesses could face bankruptcy in 2025 unless the U.S. reverses its aggressive tariff policies on Chinese imports. In his thread, Petersen outlined how these tariffs, which have already slashed ocean freight bookings from China by up to 50% — SONAR’s Container Atlas data suggests the true number is more like -20% y/y — are poised to devastate small businesses that rely heavily on Chinese manufacturing.

For many small businesses, relocating production outside of China is not a viable option. Petersen noted that alternative manufacturing hubs like Vietnam prioritize large corporations, leaving smaller players struggling to secure production capacity.

“The manufacturers in Vietnam and elsewhere can’t be bothered with small batch production jobs typical of a small business’s supply chain,” Petersen wrote. This bottleneck leaves small businesses vulnerable as tariffs inflate costs and disrupt supply chains.

The economic ripple effects are already evident. Petersen said that Flexport’s own ocean freight bookings from China in the week since the tariffs took effect are down 35%, and guessed that the industrywide number might be 50%. That would translate to roughly $1 trillion in lost economic activity, as U.S. businesses import approximately $600 billion in goods from China annually, generating nearly $2 trillion in retail sales after typical markups.

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tariffs-on-chinese-goods-could-devas
tate-american-small-businesses-warns-flexport-ceo

Wow, Jack is stupid. Wow...No way Jack is American.

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 1:33 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:
Keep cheerleading for the fall of America, Democrats.

It's the only thing you have left.

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

I love watching you wake up every day and realize that you're losing again.

And there's really no end in sight, is there?

Strange that the dumbest Trumptards think they are knowledgeable and irreplaceable. 1928 was a great year for the party of Trump. But every election after that was worse for the party of Trump because they were incompetent people. Failure to govern well had consequences for them.

2024 was not as great as 1928 for the party of Trump, but the next elections will be worse for them because they are retards who will only get votes from other retards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_United_States_presidential_election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_United_States_Senate_elections
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1928_United_States_House_of_Representati
ves_elections

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 1:50 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, you invert the truth about everything you have ever written. It is a reflex that you can't help doing. That's why you didn't get very far in life before running off the road, crashing and burning, leaving you without a vehicle, stuck for the rest of your bitter life.

Your metaphors are puzzling. I don't have plastic body parts, and our cars run fine.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 2:06 PM

THG

Where's my little buddy Jack. I want to talk about the winds of change.

too funny

T

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 2:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

Where's my little buddy Jack. I want to talk about the winds of change.

too funny

I'm right here laughing at your clickbait.

You have no real interest in talking about the winds of change because your party is dead and you still haven't come to terms with the fact that they will never come back.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 3:26 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

About USAID:

Next to my avatar is "I believe in solving problems, not sharing them."

So when it comes to things like poverty, famine, mass migration, refugee flows, rampant disease, and brutal governance, I have to look at WHY these things occur.

Mass refugee flows from wartorn places like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya etc... well, I think we can chalk that up to American military "intervention" on behalf of Israel and/or the petrodollar literally destroying those nations, in the name of "freedom".

When it comes to brutal governance, again, we can look to the USA supporting the "mujahideen", al Qaeda, and the contras and death squads in Indonesia and S America, etc. in the name of "democracy"

When it comes to destabilized nations, the USA is there, fostering color revolutions in Georgia and the former Yugoslavia and Belarus and central Asia and Thailand etc

Especially when it comes to poverty, and flows of "economic refugees", we can look to the USA sucking the wealth out of nations, overturning reform-minded governments like Mossadegh in Iran (1952), literally every nation in South and Central America except Costa Rica (Chile, Nicaragua, the "banana republics") etc. in the name of "anti Communism".

This continues today everywhere, in places you don't even think about like SE Asia and the Philippines (anti-Chinese geopolitics) and central Asia and the Caucasus (anti Russian geopolitics) the mideast and north Africa, the Caribbean and central and south America, where we attempt to stamp out any reform for our (globalist) banking and geopolitical interests.

And USAID, NED, and their multitude of dependent "NGOS" are there, urging this along, in conjunction with the CIA and State Department.

I'm not saying that the USA is the source of ALL of the world's ills.

There are natural catastrophes and illnesses and general lack of development and independently corrupt governments. And Europe is the prime exploiter of Africa.

But as the world's biggest military and financial power for decades and decades, we are responsible for much of the poverty and injustice.

YOU CAN'T TAKE AWAY WITH TEN HANDS AND GIVE BACK WITH ONE. USAID'S "good works" are the "cover story" for its nefarious activities. If you want to help, start by not hurting

Also in "russia invades Ukraine "

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 9:45 PM

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

Marco Rubio claims Canada should be 51st state as PM told Trump they ‘couldn’t survive’ without U.S.

By John Bowden | Sunday 27 April 2025 18:01 EDT

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/marco-
rubio-trump-canada-51st-state-b2740453.html

Mark Carney, Canada’s current prime minister, revealed this past week that Trump raised those same ambitions with him in a recent call.

“The president brings this up all the time. He brought it up yesterday. He brought it up before,” Carney said Thursday at a press conference as he campaigns for a full term as prime minister.

Carney added: “To be clear, as I’ve said to anyone who’s raised this issue in private or in public, including the president, it will never happen.”

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Sunday, April 27, 2025 11:13 PM

Fascinating.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 7:24 AM

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

Did Peter Navarro Save Democracy?

By Paul Krugman / Apr 28, 2025 at 5:36 AM

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/did-peter-navarro-save-democracy

Just a few short weeks ago the prospects for American democracy looked bleak. Donald Trump was elected despite the events of January 6th and his clear threats of retribution against those who had tried to hold him in check. The powerful and extremely wealthy lined up behind him on the inauguration dais and contributed vast sums to his inauguration party. Democrats were stunned, despondent and disorganized. The stock market was climbing. And many of us expected Trump, the ultimate nepo baby, to claim that the solid economy he inherited from Biden was his own handiwork.

Suddenly the march to authoritarian rule is looking much less unstoppable. Trump’s vindictive over-reach has quickly sparked widespread outrage within many institutions, including universities and the courts, and among regular Americans. Polls suggest that the public is making a hard turn against Trump’s tactics.

Moreover, the economy, which was arguably the decisive issue in November, has rapidly turned into a huge Trump liability. It’s actually incredible how fast public views of the economy have soured:

Source: San Francisco Fed

Just to be clear, I am very much not in the camp that urges Democrats to focus on kitchen-table issues and ignore the Trump regime’s other outrages. Polls tell us that Americans aren’t as ignorant and self-centered as some political consultants would have their clients believe. Many ordinary people are outraged at the news of renditions of legal residents to gulags in El Salvador. The public overwhelmingly opposes Trumpist defunding of medical research and attacks on universities, as well as the DOGEing of Social Security.

Democrats shouldn’t give Trump a pass on any of his destructive actions. They should, instead, tell voters that stripping people of their civil rights, annihilating education and science, destroying U.S. trade and poisoning our international relationships has one unifying goal: to destroy civil society in the name of MAGA.

That said, I believe that the administration’s metastasizing economic catasrophe is a critical development.

As I read the history of successful autogolpes, politicians who win an election and then effectively destroy the democracy that elevated them, it is almost always the case that their consolidation of power rests upon the perception of economic achievement.

Take the case of Hitler. And spare me the fake outrage: We’re well past the point where you can say that MAGA/Nazi comparisons are illegitimate.

Many people are probably aware that the Nazi takeover of Germany was made possible by the collapse of the German economy between 1929 and 1933 — a slide into deep depression that was partly due to the Brüning government’s refusal to depart from gold-standard orthodoxy. But I’m not sure how many realize that Hitler was able to consolidate power in part because his heterodox economic policies led to a strong recovery and a rapid fall in unemployment, shown at the top of this post.

Somewhat similarly, Viktor Orban took power in Hungary during the euro crisis, which led to high unemployment and painful austerity imposed by the International Monetary Fund. He was able to consolidate one-party rule in Hungary in part because he ended up presiding over a long period of economic recovery:

Orban doesn’t deserve much credit for that recovery. Large-scale aid from the European Union, which shamefully continued long after Hungary had effectively become a dictatorship, was surely a bigger factor than Orban’s policies. So was foreign investment, especially by German car companies. In any case, however, the improving economy surely helped reconcile Hungarians to his rule.

Trump is in a very different position. He inherited an economy that, whatever Trumpists claim, was in quite good shape. Inflation and unemployment were both low, while real wages — especially for less well-paid workers — were up substantially.

U.S. voters elected Trump anyway. But as of January 20 the U.S. economy had far more room to get worse than it did to get better.

And it is indeed getting worse, with remarkable speed. The insane tariff plan Trump announced on April 2 — which appears to have been devised by Peter Navarro, his trade czar — was a huge shock to the system. The different but equally insane plan he announced a week later was no better. The 145 percent tariff on China seems set to create supply-chain disruptions comparable to those caused by Covid:

We will almost surely see dramatic price increases and empty shelves within weeks, along with the failure of many small businesses that depend on imports, trucking companies and more. A recession later this year looks more likely than not. And there are more shoes to drop: Wait until Social Security starts failing thanks to inadequate staffing and the public becomes aware of the savage Medicaid cuts that are central to G.O.P. budget plans.

Trump and his minions will try to blame other people for their woes, claiming falsely that the Biden economy was terrible and/or that it’s all Jerome Powell’s fault. But I don’t think their whining will play with most Americans. It’s a good bet that Trump’s approval numbers, which have already plunged, will go even lower.

Does any of this matter in the face of an authoritarian movement that already controls most of the levers of power? Yes, it does. Trump can’t, unfortunately, be removed from office no matter how badly he performs. But people who might have stood aside as he dismantled democracy if he were delivering prosperity will be more inclined to take a stand because he’s failing as an economic manager.

It's much too soon to predict that U.S. democracy will survive. But Trump and his economic advisers, by screwing up so completely, have given us a chance. Thank you, Peter Navarro.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 10:50 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:
The entire atmosphere surrounding all of this is completely different than it was in 2016 and 2020.

Things just kind of feel normal again.

It's like all the loudest voices either screamed themselves out or they aren't being platformed anymore and/or we just finally, collectively tuned them out for a change.

It's kind of nice, innit?

Happy Inauguration Day!

Donald Trump promised Americans a “boom like no other” if they elected him president. But based on the stock market’s performance during his first 100 days in office, it depends on what you mean by “boom.” The action certainly has been explosive — just not in the way investors were hoping. By April 30, Trump will have closed out his first 100 days in office. Despite last week’s rally, the S&P 500 Index is down about 8% since his inauguration and on track for its worst run during a president’s first 100 days since Gerald Ford in 1974, following Richard Nixon’s resignation.

It’s a U-turn few on Wall Street saw coming after two straight years of over 20% gains and what was expected to be a pro-growth agenda. Instead, markets swung wildly as Trump slapped tariffs on basically every country where US companies operate — and then suspended some, carved out exceptions for certain industries, and ratcheted up the trade war with China.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-promised-markets-boom-100-2300008
47.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 11:05 AM

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

Poll after the poll shows the president with record-low approval ratings as his administration approaches the 100-day mark.

How is Trump handling disapproval? Badly, which is normal for him:

Trump Demands Investigations Into Pollsters After Humiliating Results: ‘THEY ARE SICK’

By Janna Brancolini | Apr. 28 2025 9:31AM EDT

https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-demands-investigations-into
-pollsters-after-humiliating-results-they-are-sick/

“The Failing New York Times Poll, and the ABC/Washington Post Poll, about a person named DONALD J. TRUMP, ME, are FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS.”

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 1:39 PM

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

Trump calls on Canada to vote for becoming 'cherished' 51st US state

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Good luck to the Great people of Canada. Elect the man who has the strength and wisdom to cut your taxes in half, increase your military power, for free, to the highest level in the World, have your Car, Steel, Aluminum, Lumber, Energy, and all other businesses, QUADRUPLE in size, WITH ZERO TARIFFS OR TAXES, if Canada becomes the cherished 51st. State of the United States of America. No more artificially drawn line from many years ago. Look how beautiful this land mass would be. Free access with NO BORDER. ALL POSITIVES WITH NO NEGATIVES. IT WAS MEANT TO BE! America can no longer subsidize Canada with the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year that we have been spending in the past. It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!

Apr 28, 2025, 7:36 AM

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114415618596069518

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 2:21 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I listened to a very left-wing Canadian, Matt Ehret, talk about Canada, and what he said was surprising. The opinion that came thru, over and over, is that Canada is a "fake country" with a fake Constitution. The Canadian constitution supposedly mandates that Canada be managed for the good of the crown, and that Canada has been managed like that throughout most of its history. According to him, despite its vast natural resources, Canada has been kept in a pristine, "no development" state, and only Alberta shows a spark of vitality. That the Canadian railroad was built only bc a group of west coast Canadians threatened to secede. "National health care is not a national identity". He was pretty harsh on Canada.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 2:22 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
The entire atmosphere surrounding all of this is completely different than it was in 2016 and 2020.

Things just kind of feel normal again.

It's like all the loudest voices either screamed themselves out or they aren't being platformed anymore and/or we just finally, collectively tuned them out for a change.

It's kind of nice, innit?

Happy Inauguration Day!

Donald Trump promised Americans a “boom like no other” if they elected him president. But based on the stock market’s performance during his first 100 days in office, it depends on what you mean by “boom.” The action certainly has been explosive — just not in the way investors were hoping. By April 30, Trump will have closed out his first 100 days in office. Despite last week’s rally, the S&P 500 Index is down about 8% since his inauguration and on track for its worst run during a president’s first 100 days since Gerald Ford in 1974, following Richard Nixon’s resignation.

It’s a U-turn few on Wall Street saw coming after two straight years of over 20% gains and what was expected to be a pro-growth agenda. Instead, markets swung wildly as Trump slapped tariffs on basically every country where US companies operate — and then suspended some, carved out exceptions for certain industries, and ratcheted up the trade war with China.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-promised-markets-boom-100-2300008
47.html

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

Fuck Wall Street.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 2:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Poll after the poll shows the president with record-low approval ratings as his administration approaches the 100-day mark.

Not even close to true.

Joe Biden* 1st (only) term aggregated Job Approval average by year:

2021 +4.2
2022 -12.9
2023 -11.7
2024 -15.7
1st Term -9.3

The spread for Joe Biden*'s average approval rating for 4 full years (or 1,459 days) was over two points worse than Trump's is on this single day, or any day of this 2nd term so far. And that's despite having a +4.2 spread for the 1st year to balance some of that out.

Joe Biden* left office with a -18.1 approval aggregate spread.

Trump's current approval aggregate: -7.1 after 4 straight Liberal polls in negative double digits, at least half of them being from outfits that are currently being sued for libel. Not one of them singularly is worse than Joe's aggregate was for the entirety of 2024.

So what the fuck are we even talking about now, Headline-Reader?

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-
rating

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/joe-biden/approval-rat
ing

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 2:35 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
"Here We Are Again": Federal District Courts Piling On Injunctions To Stop Trump
Monday, Apr 28, 2025 - 07:05 AM

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

“Here we are again.”

Those words of Senior U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick may be the only uncontested line in his opinion this week, enjoining the Trump Administration from withholding federal funds to “sanctuary jurisdictions.”

In President Trump’s first term, efforts to implement sweeping changes on immigration and other issues were met by a slew of injunctions.

In 2017, one of those orders was from Judge Orrick, an Obama appointee in San Francisco.

Trump has already faced a record number of national injunctions by district courts.

His administration has objected to forum- and judge-shopping by political opponents by bringing the majority of such challenges in overwhelmingly Democratic states like California.

Such injunctions did not exist at the founding, and only relatively recently became the rage among district court judges. Under President George W. Bush, there were only six such injunctions, which increased to 12 under Obama.

Both Democratic and Republican presidents have complained about district judges tying down presidents like so many judicial Lilliputians. However, when Trump came to office, the taste for national injunctions became a full-fledged addiction. Trump faced 64 such orders in his first term.

When Biden and the Democrats returned to office, it fell back to 14. That was not due to more modest measures. Biden did precisely what Trump did in seeking to negate virtually all of his predecessors’ orders and then seek sweeping new legal reforms. He was repeatedly found to have violated the Constitution, but there was no torrent of preliminary injunctions at the start of his term.

Now, however, with less than 100 days in office, Trump 2.0 has already surpassed that number for the entirety of Biden’s term.

The Supreme Court bears some of the blame for this. Although a majority of justices, including liberal Justice Elena Kagan, have complained about district courts’ issuance of national injunctions, the high court has done little to rein in district court judges. On May 15, the justices are poised to consider the issue in a case involving birthright citizenship. Many hope that the justices will bring what they have consistently failed to supply to lower courts: clarity and finality.

Some judges have already seen their stays lifted by appellate courts.

However, in just one day this week, three more major injunctions were issued on sanctuary cities, voter registration, and deportations.

Some of these orders appear premature and overbroad.

Take Judge Orrick’s order. Again, Trump is targeting cities offering sanctuary to unlawful immigrants as imposing high costs on the country, including increasing burdens for federal programs and grants to these cities.

i.e. the Federal government has a legitimate interest in what states or cities do with Federal grants

Quote:
Orrick previously stopped that effort in the first Trump term, and he was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. However, the orders are not identical, and so far no action has been taken against these cities.

Under one of the orders, titled “Protecting the American People against Invasion,” Trump has ordered the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security to “evaluate and undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.”

Orrick noted that the term “sanctuary jurisdiction” was not defined and dismissed the express reservation that such actions can only proceed to the extent that they are allowed under law.

The irony is that the opinion itself is overly broad and imprecise. There are indeed cases limiting the ability of the federal government to “commandeer” states and cities into carrying out federal functions. However, there are also cases upholding the right to withhold federal funds that contravene federal laws and policies.

The operative language in the order is the focus on sanctuary policies that “interfere” or prevent federal enforcement. There must be some accommodation for the federal government in refusing to pay for the rope that it will hang by.

Justice Robert Jackson famously wrote in Terminiello v. City of Chicago that the Constitution cannot be construed as a “suicide pact.” I have never been fond of that quote, which has often been used to justify the curtailment of individual rights. But these cases could bring a new meaning to the quote in immigration cases.

If one accepts the Trump administration’s data, then continued funding of these jurisdictions might be more akin to being forced to pay for your own hit man and then calling it suicide.

There is a reason courts generally wait for these conflicts to become “ripe.” The administration could easily engage in impermissible “commandeering,” but it could also “evaluate and undertake” more focused and defensible withholdings of federal funds. Judge Orrick decided not to wait to find out.

These are difficult questions, but the Supreme Court can reduce these cases by actually ruling with clarity. The court has often left these issues mired in ambiguity, kicking cases like cans down the road for any final resolution.

Consider the order out of the District of Columbia blocking an effort to change federal voting forms to require proof of citizenship. Trump campaigned on the issue, and, according to a Gallup poll, 84 percent of U.S. adults are in favor of requiring voters to show such identification.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly barred the federal government from changing the standardized national voter registration form and to have federal voter registration agencies “assess” the citizenship of individuals who receive public assistance before providing them a voter registration form.

If the Federal government created the standardized national form, it seems to me they can change it.

Quote:
Kollar-Kotelly raises good-faith limits on presidents’ ability to regulate elections, a power mainly left to the states. However, this is a policy that does not necessarily impose a new condition on states.

After all, non-citizens are barred from voting in federal elections in all states. Again, there must be some ability of the administration to act to address a national priority in the funding of election reforms and practices.

The question is whether the court will recognize such a federal interest.

The problem with some of these orders is not that they are without foundation, but that courts appear on a hair-trigger to enjoin the Trump administration on any subject whatsoever. There is a need to deescalate in both branches as we expedite these appeals. We are indeed “here again,” but this is not a good place for anyone.

It seems to me that a general ruling by the Supreme Court that district courts can't issue national injunctions as overstepping their authority, that would be in the right direction.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 6:11 PM

We need to get people out before they're here long enough to take over the government inside through elections.

If you're not doing so, you should really be following what's going on in the UK right now.

I'm afraid that if the citizens of the UK don't wake up and do something now, London is going to be the Muslim capital of the world before I'm dead.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 7:05 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:
We need to get people out before they're here long enough to take over the government inside through elections.

If you're not doing so, you should really be following what's going on in the UK right now.

I'm afraid that if the citizens of the UK don't wake up and do something now, London is going to be the Muslim capital of the world before I'm dead.

‘I Run the Country and the World’

Donald Trump believes he’s invincible.

By Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer | April 28, 2025, 6 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/06/trump-second-term
-comeback/682573/

The week our interview was supposed to occur, Trump posted a vituperative message on Truth Social, attacking us by name. “Ashley Parker is not capable of doing a fair and unbiased interview. She is a Radical Left Lunatic, and has been as terrible as is possible for as long as I have known her,” he wrote. “To this date, she doesn’t even know that I won the Presidency THREE times.” (That last sentence is true — Ashley Parker does not know that Trump won the presidency three times.) “Likewise, Michael Scherer has never written a fair story about me, only negative, and virtually always LIES.”

But we’ve both covered Trump long enough to know that his first word is rarely his final one. (Trump changed his mind about canceling the interview.)

Near the end of the interview, we asked Trump why, given that he’s now definitively won a second term, he can’t just let go of the claim that he won the 2020 election.

The president told us it would “be easier” for him to just accept our assertion. But he couldn’t. “I’m a very honest person, and I believe it with all my heart,” he said. “And I believe it with fact—you know, more important than heart. I believe it with fact.”

“I’d like to say that that is reality,” Trump said. “Probably I do create some things, but I didn’t create that.”

Never mind that the votes had been counted, the court cases concluded. He was still trying to shift perceptions, make a sale, bend the world to his will.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 7:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
We need to get people out before they're here long enough to take over the government inside through elections.

If you're not doing so, you should really be following what's going on in the UK right now.

I'm afraid that if the citizens of the UK don't wake up and do something now, London is going to be the Muslim capital of the world before I'm dead.
‘I Run the Country and the World’

Donald Trump believes he’s invincible.

By Ashley Parker and Michael Scherer | April 28, 2025, 6 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/06/trump-second-term
-comeback/682573/

The week our interview was supposed to occur, Trump posted a vituperative message on Truth Social, attacking us by name. “Ashley Parker is not capable of doing a fair and unbiased interview. She is a Radical Left Lunatic, and has been as terrible as is possible for as long as I have known her,” he wrote. “To this date, she doesn’t even know that I won the Presidency THREE times.” (That last sentence is true — Ashley Parker does not know that Trump won the presidency three times.) “Likewise, Michael Scherer has never written a fair story about me, only negative, and virtually always LIES.”

But we’ve both covered Trump long enough to know that his first word is rarely his final one. (Trump changed his mind about canceling the interview.)

Near the end of the interview, we asked Trump why, given that he’s now definitively won a second term, he can’t just let go of the claim that he won the 2020 election.

The president told us it would “be easier” for him to just accept our assertion. But he couldn’t. “I’m a very honest person, and I believe it with all my heart,” he said. “And I believe it with fact—you know, more important than heart. I believe it with fact.”

“I’d like to say that that is reality,” Trump said. “Probably I do create some things, but I didn’t create that.”

Never mind that the votes had been counted, the court cases concluded. He was still trying to shift perceptions, make a sale, bend the world to his will.

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

Because there is no reason to let it go.

Not only did you cheat, but you worked directly with China to inflict Covid on the world to win that election.

There will never be forgiveness for what you did.

Ever.

And now your political party is dead.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 7:23 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:

Because there is no reason to let it go.

Not only did you cheat, but you worked directly with China to inflict Covid on the world to win that election.

There will never be forgiveness for what you did.

Ever.

And now your political party is dead.

6ix, you are writing fan-fiction. Unlike your party for the retarded angry poor white trash, this is true:

Twenty-one Million Americans to Lose Healthcare

By Bill Haskell | April 28, 2025 7:00 am

https://angrybearblog.com/2025/04/twenty-one-million-americans-to-lose
-healthcare

Republicans are taking away healthcare from “poor” Americans to fund tax breaks for the 1% which would include billionaires (as if Musk and others are struggling).

Republicans have decided which 21 million Americans should lose their healthcare,

– Charles Gaba

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Monday, April 28, 2025 10:46 PM

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

Winds of Change Blew Away Trump . . . in Canada

Trump’s calls for Canada to become the 51st U.S. state and his tariffs against the country reversed the fortunes of the Liberals, who trailed the Conservatives led by career politician Pierre Poilievre by over 20 percentage points in December, according to the Economist, prompting the stunning turnaround.

Even on Monday, Trump made a baffling post on his Truth Social platform, suggesting that Canadian voters should elect him leader even though his name was not even on the ballot.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/mark-carney-wins-canadian-election-021812093
.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 12:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I listened to a very left-wing Canadian, Matt Ehret, talk about Canada, and what he said was surprising. The opinion that came thru, over and over, is that Canada is a "fake country" with a fake Constitution. The Canadian constitution supposedly mandates that Canada be managed for the good of the crown, and that Canada has been managed like that throughout most of its history. According to him, despite its vast natural resources, Canada has been kept in a pristine, "no development" state, and only Alberta shows a spark of vitality. That the Canadian railroad was built only bc a group of west coast Canadians threatened to secede. "National health care is not a national identity". He was pretty harsh on Canada.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

This person needs to learn their history. BC's price for joining Confederation was that the railroad be built. It wanted a connection to the rest of Canada.

There are all kinds of industry in Canada.

Healthcare isn't our identity. It just is.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 5:37 AM

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

Thanks to Trump

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.

The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.

But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.

That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 6:03 AM

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

They say they want Americans to have more babies. What's beneath the surface?

By Lisa Hagen | April 25, 2025

https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5371718/pronatalist-birth-rate-mu
sk-natal-conference

"The idea is essentially that our society has become excessively effeminate, weak, compassionate," said Matthew McManus, a lecturer at the University of Michigan, "and what they want to do is breed or elevate an aristocratic class that's going to be masculine, violent, not necessarily motivated by, let's call it empathy." Recently, Elon Musk echoed the sentiment on Joe Rogan's podcast, saying "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy."

McManus is an expert on the modern, hard-right thinkers whose ideas Dolan promotes. In these intellectual circles, McManus said, establishing a "masculine" culture means rooting out feminism and multicultural democracy.

"Women are to be subordinated to men. [They] largely are going to be responsible for managing the household, although with no real particular authority. And of course, they're going to have an awful lot of children," said McManus.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 6:14 AM

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

Trump Has Ordered Safeguards Stripped From Procurement As Pentagon Prepares To Spend $1 Trillion

A former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan warns of a coming perfect storm of waste, fraud and abuse.

By Charles Tiefer | April 28, 2025 9:37 a.m.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-procurement-executive-orders-
defense

As usual, Trump is doing what he accuses others of. In this case, bleating about “waste, fraud and abuse” while removing all the safeguards against waste, fraud and abuse.

“The Trump White House this month announced two new executive orders radically changing procurement procedures, especially defense procurement procedures, in ways that will unleash waste, fraud and abuse. These orders — which largely flew under the radar — will effectively wipe out spending safeguards with potential effects that are hard to overstate considering that President Trump announced he will expand the defense budget to a breathtaking $1 trillion, and that the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is no counterweight to politically driven spending.

“To summarize, the new executive orders purport not merely to change or improve regulations, but to simply eliminate most of the existing procurement rules developed through years of oversight processes and outside scrutiny. They effectively undo procurement safeguards put in place after tremendous waste was exposed during the Cold War. In their place, the executive orders would elevate certain procedures that allow the government to spend unlimited sums without competition — the so-called “other transactions” process that need not be competed and that circumvents safeguards put in place to protect tax dollars. The Executive Orders say there should be a “first preference” for other transactions processes, which is like having a “first preference” for bringing a pistol with no safety to compete in a boxing match.”

Here we go again. The DoD will take the lead in blowing up the deficit, and Republicans will be then use the exploding deficits to demand more cuts in social programs. Rinse and repeat.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 6:48 AM

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

Trump’s land-for-peace plan would mark a significant shift in the post-World War II order, ripping up conventions that have long held that borders should not be redrawn by force.

“It took a World War to roll back de jure annexations and 60 million people died,” said François Heisbourg, special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris, referring to the pre-war annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany.

“Europeans will not accept it" and Ukraine will not either, he said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/04/29/ukraine-europe-trump-d
efense-putin-zelenskyy/79001fba-24af-11f0-ae6d-e4db528eba27_story.html

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 8:31 AM

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

JD Vance says Ukraine should surrender now or else Russia will nuke them. JD Vance is okay with Russia nuking Ukraine because if he were President, the US would not nuke Russia in retaliation for their bombing of Ukraine.

Vance does NOT understand that the absolute certainty of retaliation is the only reason there have been no nuclear wars. Vance and Trump are uncertainty personified. Nobody, including themselves, knows what either of them will do in any situation.

Ukraine War Could Trigger Nuclear Conflict, Kill Millions – says JD Vance
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/51686

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 9:02 AM

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

The Longest 100 Days

The clash between Donald Trump’s determination to rule and his inability to govern has set the country on an unsustainable course.

By Jonathan Chait | April 29, 2025, 7 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/donald-trump-100-
days/682636/

Shortly before taking office, Donald Trump promised his supporters that he’d have “the most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history.” And, well, it certainly hasn’t been ordinary.

Historians tend to rate presidencies by the breadth of their accomplishments, on a scale ranging from ineffectual to transformative. The classic measuring stick for hundred-day achievements is the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The frenetic first stretch of the New Deal featured a raft of major legislation that established new financial regulations and ambitious public-works projects, helping the economy begin to recover from the Great Depression.

Judged against Roosevelt’s record, the first 100 days of the second Trump term would be deemed a miserable failure. The president has passed no major legislation, and his economic interventions have had the opposite effect of Roosevelt’s, injecting uncertainty into a healthy recovery and seeding an economic crisis.

Yet his presidency has still been consequential. In just a few months, Trump has smashed democratic norms, crippled the federal bureaucracy, and realigned America against its traditional friends. Because Trump’s goals are so historically aberrant, the traditional measure of presidential achievement is of hardly any use. His Carter-esque record as legislator and economic steward stands in stark contrast to his Lenin-esque record in stamping out opposition. For the president’s ruling claque, the effect is a triumph. For nearly everybody else, it portends ruin.

In an alternate reality, Trump’s 2024 victory paved the way for a traditionally successful presidency with broad popularity and concrete policy achievements. After the election, his polling numbers shot up, and numbed Democrats retreated into self-doubt; some of them concluded that their best path forward lay in working with the new president. Congress formed a bipartisan DOGE caucus of members eager to eliminate inefficiencies in government. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, at the time perhaps the Democratic Party’s best-positioned 2028 presidential contender, sent a letter to Trump offering cooperation.

In the real world, despite the obvious opportunity, Trump never tested the possibilities for constructive engagement. The president laid bare his thought process in his speech to Congress in early March. “I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy,” he complained. “I could find a cure to the most devastating disease—a disease that would wipe out entire nations—or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history.”

Here he was engaged in projection. The available evidence suggests that Trump could never imagine supporting a piece of legislation proposed by a political opponent merely because it advanced some worthwhile policy goal. (That is why passing an infrastructure bill and bolstering domestic manufacturing of silicon chips ranked among Trump’s highest stated priorities, until President Joe Biden passed these ideas into law, at which point they became disasters to be repealed.) And so, Trump naturally assumed, neither would the Democrats.

Instead of working within the system, he set out to crush the opposition. He has placed seemingly every lever of state power in the hands of unprincipled loyalists and has used the threat of investigation, prosecution, and punitive defunding to extort media owners, law firms, and universities into compliance. He has attempted to establish, in his immigration-enforcement powers, the ability to disappear people who may or may not have committed crimes, and may or may not even reside in the country illegally, brushing aside court orders to stop.

Trump has inscribed a double standard into law enforcement, through generous pardons of allies and selective enforcement. At minimum, he has cleared the way for systematic corruption. At maximum, he is laying the groundwork to ignore court orders that go against him and construct an extralegal regime in which laws bind only his enemies.

Trump’s allies do not recognize any legitimate place for democratic opposition. They have come to see all of progressivism as a false consciousness implanted in an unwitting populace by a handful of puppetmasters in academia, philanthropy, media, and Hollywood. Their operating theory is that, by cutting off funds, they can uproot liberal ideology itself. In this work, Trump and his inner circle have consciously patterned themselves after Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary, which seized control of the commanding heights of government power to suppress opposition, while permitting its president and his family to siphon vast corrupt fortunes. The Orbánization project has advanced like clockwork.

But one detail seems to have escaped the attention of Trump and his allies: Hungary, outside of its tiny parasitic elite, is a relatively poor country. That ought to have been a sign that, whatever benefits the Orbán model presented to the right-wing ruling class that would carry it out, it held little promise of helping to usher in the “golden age” of prosperity Trump offered the country.

Trump might not be troubled by that fact, even if he learned it. Almost every personnel decision he has made has prioritized the consolidation of power over traditional governing skills. The trade-off between loyalty and competence has already been evident.

Trump’s first major domestic policy decision was to hand nearly carte-blanche power to Elon Musk, a man whose limited knowledge of government was exacerbated by a boundless ego and a weakness for conspiracy theories. Musk first promised to cut the federal budget by $2 trillion, a target he revised downward to $1 trillion, and then, as of this writing, $150 billion. Even that figure, 93 percent smaller than the original goal, almost certainly overstates the actual savings Musk has accomplished. In fact, by cutting such functions as IRS tax collection, the DOGE project could very well end up costing the government much more than it saves.

Even so, Musk has managed to wreak havoc within the federal bureaucracy through sheer chaos. His worse-than-random managerial methods of wanton demoralization and targeting probationary employees (a category that includes not only new hires, but many longtime civil servants who have received recent promotions) has stripped the workforce of some of its best talent.

The administration’s deep cuts to scientific and medical research have been compounded by Trump’s decision to hand control of public health to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a bona fide kook, and to sic immigration enforcement on foreign students and professors, some of whom play key roles in American scientific research.

Here, too, the parallels to Hungary are striking. Orbán’s economy has suffered a brain drain as the regime’s cronyism drives its great minds to work in freer societies. Trump’s policies have shown early signs of producing a similar outcome, as would-be international students must now consider whether pursuing an American degree is worth risking getting detained by ICE or having their visas revoked abruptly over minor legal infractions.

To some extent, this result is the product of design rather than incompetence: Trump regards scientists and other experts as an enemy class, one he seeks to repress in order to pursue his political goals, even if doing so impoverishes the country.

Trump’s ineptitude has been most obvious in the prosecution of his trade war against the planet. His allies cast this as a negotiating strategy, but the strategy, such as it is, requires him to use the “madman theory” to gain leverage by scaring the rest of the world into thinking he is crazy enough to instigate a global economic recession, while simultaneously reassuring American businesses that he is not. He has accordingly caromed between bluster and retreat, causing the U.S. economy to absorb nearly all the costs of a total trade war without having any chance to capture whatever theoretical benefit Trump hopes to achieve.

Trump has subjected the United States to what is essentially a self-administered sanctions regime. Whatever grace the rest of the world might have extended to the task of helping him back out of the crisis he instigated is diminished severely by the threats he has made against peaceful neighbors. Anti-Trumpism has already undercut conservative parties in Canada and Australia, providing a taste of the hostile world stage Trump has built for himself.

In the meantime, the trade war has caused domestic inflation expectations to rise, forcing the Federal Reserve to pause its plans to reduce interest rates. Trump’s initial instinct to this setback was to fulminate against Federal Reserve Chairman Jay Powell, as if removing the person trying to manage the predicament Trump caused would eliminate the predicament itself.

That impulse underscores the degree to which Trump has bungled the issue that played the largest single role in getting him elected: discontent over pandemic-induced inflation. Rather than recognize the precarious source of his victory, he has treated it as a mandate to wage authoritarian culture war.

The consequences of Trump’s mismanagement lay almost entirely ahead. The hammer blows to bureaucratic functioning have only begun to take effect, and there’s no telling what routine tasks or emergency responses will collapse later. Unless Trump reverses course both quickly (which he probably does not desire) and deftly (requiring a level of skill that he probably does not possess), the economy will undergo consequences ranging from a stagflationary slowdown to a full-on recession.

Contrary to the cliché, authoritarian rulers do not always make the trains run on time. In place of good governance, they offer a combination of propaganda, graft, and intimidation. The less they can satisfy legitimate public demands for prosperity and well-run public services, the harder they must squeeze their opposition. As Trump’s approval ratings have continued to sink, he has accordingly continued to discover new forms of vengeance.

Trump’s first 100 days have set the country on an unsustainable course. The clash between his determination to rule and his inability to govern has generated two opposing forces: a weaponized, illiberal state, and a smoldering political backlash. One of them will have to break.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 1:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Thanks to Trump

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.

The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.

But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.

That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310

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

No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.

Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.

I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.

NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 2:06 PM

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

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:

No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.

Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.

I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.

NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE

If Trump continues to be as obnoxious in the future as he has been in the last 100 days, he will succeed in making the Republican Party as weak as it was after 4 years of Herbert Hoover.

For Hoover, everything President Roosevelt did was evil. If Hoover hadn't been so nasty and stupid, Roosevelt could not have been elected, and there never would have been Social Security.

And with Hoover, WWII would certainly have been lost because Hoover was a giant asshole with poor judgment of foreign leaders, as is Trump. Every instinct and belief Hoover had was as stupid and pernicious as Trump's are:

Quote:
During a 1938 trip to Europe, Hoover met with Adolf Hitler and stayed at Hermann Göring's hunting lodge. He expressed dismay at the persecution of Jews in Germany and believed that Hitler was mad, but did not present a threat to the U.S. Instead, Hoover believed that Roosevelt posed the biggest threat to peace, holding that Roosevelt's policies provoked Japan and discouraged France and the United Kingdom from reaching an "accommodation" with Germany. After the September 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany, Hoover opposed U.S. involvement in World War II, including the Lend-Lease policy. He rejected Roosevelt's offers to help coordinate relief in Europe, but, with the help of old friends from the CRB, helped establish the Commission for Polish Relief. After the beginning of the occupation of Belgium in 1940, Hoover provided aid for Belgian civilians, though this aid was described as unnecessary by German broadcasts.

During a radio broadcast on June 29, 1941, one week after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Hoover disparaged any "tacit alliance" between the U.S. and the USSR, stating, "if we join the war and Stalin wins, we have aided him to impose more communism on Europe and the world... War alongside Stalin to impose freedom is more than a travesty. It is a tragedy." Much to his frustration, Hoover was not called upon to serve after the United States entered World War II due to his differences with Roosevelt and his continuing unpopularity. He did not pursue the presidential nomination at the 1944 Republican National Convention, and, at the request of Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, refrained from campaigning during the general election. In 1945, Hoover advised President Harry S. Truman to drop the United States' demand for the unconditional surrender of Japan because of the high projected casualties of the planned invasion of Japan, although Hoover was unaware of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb.

https://www.quora.com/What-were-Herbert-Hoover-s-thoughts-about-the-Un
ited-States-involvement-in-World-War-II

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 2:52 PM

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

Donald Trump's Latest Midnight Musing Is A Sad Lesson In Deep Denial

The president might want to adjust those rose-colored glasses.

By Ron Dicker | Apr 29, 2025, 07:23 AM EDT

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-truth-social-approval-poll
s-doing-great_n_68109f6ae4b0b6141f1216c0

Trump accused the pollsters, including those with Fox News, of being frauds who suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” He wrote that they should be investigated for election fraud. He also echoed his divisive claim that news outlets are the “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.”

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 3:18 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Thanks to Trump

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.

The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.

But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.

That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310

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

No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.

Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.

I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.

NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE

At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.

Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.

Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 4:37 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:

At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.

Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.

Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.

6ixStringJack, you really should think about what happens when Canada builds H-bombs for self-protection, when Trump says Canada is no longer protected from Russia's ambitions in the Arctic by America's nuclear umbrella.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 4:38 PM

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

Trump is the Godfather in Reverse
Mark Carney wins Canadian election

By Paul Krugman / Apr 29, 2025 at 9:42 AM

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-the-godfather-in-reverse

Yesterday’s election in Canada was a bit closer than polls predicted. Nonetheless, Mark Carney’s Liberal Party, which appeared doomed just two months ago, won a solid victory. And the credit goes mainly to Donald Trump.

If Trump had merely made economic demands on our northern neighbor, Canada might have acquiesced, although it’s not clear what concessions it could have made. But by repeatedly insisting that Canada must become the 51st state, he made any hint of Trumpiness toxic in Canadian politics. Hence the stunning defeat for Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader (who lost his own seat in Parliament.)

The Canadian election, then, demonstrates why Trumpist trade policy, and foreign policy in general, is doomed to catastrophic failure. Trump isn’t trying to drive tough substantive bargains. Mainly, he seems to want to indulge in narcissism, demanding that other nations humiliate themselves so he can put on a display of dominance. And America doesn’t have remotely enough leverage, even against Canada, to make such demands. You could say that Trump is a reverse Godfather, making offers other countries can’t accept.

Consider the state of negotiations — or, actually, non-negotiations, since talks appear to have broken down — with Japan, another country Trump appears to have thought he could bully. Japan does sell a lot to the United States and might have been willing to offer something to preserve its access to our market.

But reports indicate that Japanese representatives sent to Washington left without accomplishing anything because they found Trump’s people impossible to deal with. The Americans insisted that the Japanese make offers without giving any indication of what our side wanted — in effect, they demanded that Japan make a show of obeisance without any reason to believe that it would get anything in return. The Japanese government wouldn’t, probably couldn’t do that. After all, it has to answer to its own voters. So there is no deal.

And then there are the Chinese, who — unlike the Canadians or even the Japanese — probably have more economic leverage over us than we have over them. They have no interest in helping Trump sustain his fantasies of dominance. Bear in mind that Trump’s trade war is working out very well for them. Bloomberg reports that

President Xi Jinping’s diplomats are fanning out across the world with a clear message for countries cutting deals with Donald Trump: The US is a bully that can’t be trusted.

Unfortunately, they’re right. And Trump’s repeated insistence that the Chinese are negotiating with him, when they say they aren’t, comes across as pathetic.

Will Trump manage to make any trade deals? I guess it’s possible that Trump will announce trade deals with a few countries here and there. But his ability to get even fake deals is rapidly dwindling, for two reasons.

First, he’s plunging in the polls. True, he’s insisting that the polls are wrong and that pollsters should be investigated for election fraud. And the MAGA base may believe him. But this denial just makes him look even more pathetic to foreign governments, and they won’t be inclined to throw a drowning Trump a lifeline.

Second, Trump’s trade war is about to have a disastrous effect on the U.S. economy — more disastrous than even pessimistic economists, myself included, expected. Tariffs always raise prices. But the sheer size and suddenness of Trump’s tariffs, combined with the paralyzing effect of uncertainty about what comes next, are about to deliver a Covid-type supply shock to an economy already sliding into recession. This looming disaster, which will further weaken Trump, makes it even less likely that our main trading partners will help him pretend that he’s achieving anything.

Oh, and Amazon is planning to show the effects of tariffs on its prices — and the White House has gone berserk.

Back to Canada: Our northern neighbor is, along with Mexico, among the countries most at risk from Trump’s trade war. Canada does a lot of trade with the much larger U.S. economy. According to Statistics Canada, 2.6 million Canadians, 13 percent of the work force, are employed directly or indirectly producing goods exported to the United States. So U.S. tariffs will impose a huge shock on Canada’s economy.

It's not clear how much Carney can or will do to mitigate that shock. But he has no alternative to going elbows up: There’s no way to satisfy Trump’s demands. And you do have to wonder whether Trump will fold once it becomes clear how badly his trade war is going.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 5:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Thanks to Trump

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.

The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.

But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.

That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310

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

No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.

Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.

I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.

NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE

At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.

Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.

Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.

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

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

We will never be apart of America. Just because we share a continent.

NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE and also ELBOWS UP.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 6:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump is the Godfather in Reverse
Mark Carney wins Canadian election

By Paul Krugman / Apr 29, 2025 at 9:42 AM

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-the-godfather-in-reverse

Yesterday’s election in Canada was a bit closer than polls predicted. Nonetheless, Mark Carney’s Liberal Party, which appeared doomed just two months ago, won a solid victory. And the credit goes mainly to Donald Trump.

If Trump had merely made economic demands on our northern neighbor, Canada might have acquiesced, although it’s not clear what concessions it could have made. But by repeatedly insisting that Canada must become the 51st state, he made any hint of Trumpiness toxic in Canadian politics. Hence the stunning defeat for Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader (who lost his own seat in Parliament.)

The Canadian election, then, demonstrates why Trumpist trade policy, and foreign policy in general, is doomed to catastrophic failure. Trump isn’t trying to drive tough substantive bargains. Mainly, he seems to want to indulge in narcissism, demanding that other nations humiliate themselves so he can put on a display of dominance. And America doesn’t have remotely enough leverage, even against Canada, to make such demands. You could say that Trump is a reverse Godfather, making offers other countries can’t accept.

Consider the state of negotiations — or, actually, non-negotiations, since talks appear to have broken down — with Japan, another country Trump appears to have thought he could bully. Japan does sell a lot to the United States and might have been willing to offer something to preserve its access to our market.

But reports indicate that Japanese representatives sent to Washington left without accomplishing anything because they found Trump’s people impossible to deal with. The Americans insisted that the Japanese make offers without giving any indication of what our side wanted — in effect, they demanded that Japan make a show of obeisance without any reason to believe that it would get anything in return. The Japanese government wouldn’t, probably couldn’t do that. After all, it has to answer to its own voters. So there is no deal.

And then there are the Chinese, who — unlike the Canadians or even the Japanese — probably have more economic leverage over us than we have over them. They have no interest in helping Trump sustain his fantasies of dominance. Bear in mind that Trump’s trade war is working out very well for them. Bloomberg reports that

President Xi Jinping’s diplomats are fanning out across the world with a clear message for countries cutting deals with Donald Trump: The US is a bully that can’t be trusted.

Unfortunately, they’re right. And Trump’s repeated insistence that the Chinese are negotiating with him, when they say they aren’t, comes across as pathetic.

Will Trump manage to make any trade deals? I guess it’s possible that Trump will announce trade deals with a few countries here and there. But his ability to get even fake deals is rapidly dwindling, for two reasons.

First, he’s plunging in the polls. True, he’s insisting that the polls are wrong and that pollsters should be investigated for election fraud. And the MAGA base may believe him. But this denial just makes him look even more pathetic to foreign governments, and they won’t be inclined to throw a drowning Trump a lifeline.

Second, Trump’s trade war is about to have a disastrous effect on the U.S. economy — more disastrous than even pessimistic economists, myself included, expected. Tariffs always raise prices. But the sheer size and suddenness of Trump’s tariffs, combined with the paralyzing effect of uncertainty about what comes next, are about to deliver a Covid-type supply shock to an economy already sliding into recession. This looming disaster, which will further weaken Trump, makes it even less likely that our main trading partners will help him pretend that he’s achieving anything.

Oh, and Amazon is planning to show the effects of tariffs on its prices — and the White House has gone berserk.

Back to Canada: Our northern neighbor is, along with Mexico, among the countries most at risk from Trump’s trade war. Canada does a lot of trade with the much larger U.S. economy. According to Statistics Canada, 2.6 million Canadians, 13 percent of the work force, are employed directly or indirectly producing goods exported to the United States. So U.S. tariffs will impose a huge shock on Canada’s economy.

It's not clear how much Carney can or will do to mitigate that shock. But he has no alternative to going elbows up: There’s no way to satisfy Trump’s demands. And you do have to wonder whether Trump will fold once it becomes clear how badly his trade war is going.

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

Thank you SECOND for putting up that Poilierve lost his seat in Parliament. I wonder if he will keep his job as leader of the Tories. You gave a good laugh for sure.
He couldn't shake the Maple Maga label.

I mentioned months ago you can't parely with someone like Trump because he is a bully.

Actual since before Trudeau resigned Canada has been talking to other countries besides Mexico for more trade. Europe in particular.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 6:06 PM

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

At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.

Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.

Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.
6ixStringJack, you really should think about what happens when Canada builds H-bombs for self-protection, when Trump says Canada is no longer protected from Russia's ambitions in the Arctic by America's nuclear umbrella.

You have a point there. If we allow Canada to build nuclear weapons that's probably not a great idea since it will be a Muslim country in 2 generations.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 6:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Thanks to Trump

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.

The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.

But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.

That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310

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

No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.

Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.

I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.

NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE

At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.

Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.

Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.

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

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

We will never be apart of America. Just because we share a continent.

NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE and also ELBOWS UP.

I'm not going to argue with you. I don't really give a hoot one way or another.

But at the end of the day Canada isn't anything on the current world stage other than the kid brother and will continue right on existing as it always has so long as it is allowed to do so.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 6:42 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I agree with SIX. Canada has been free-riding on the USA, and I suspect that aside from oil, timber, fishing, mining and agriculture (which aren't really industries per se) Canada's biggest manufacturing sector is the auto industry, which the USA exported north of the border under NAFTA.

Be that as it may ... I really don't know anything about Poilievre and what his promises were, but I worry that Canadians just jump into a globalist central banker's tender embrace. Seems like Canadians votes based on USA politics.

You have lots of political parties, BRENDA. Weren't there any other choices?

Speaking of globalism

Alex Krainer, always worth a listen, describes how transnational banks use a nation's natural resources as collateral for loans, and how they use that collateral to blow big speculative bubbles, scooping up assets at fire sale prices when the bubbles burst

And specifically how Canada's oil wealth was used to blow a real estate bubble in the USA.

He also talks about similar, but industrial -scale wealth extraction from Africa, Russia (under Yeltsin) and the hoped-for riches of Ukraine... the EU'S economic suicide, how Germany became the world export leader and why it's going to fail (has nothing to do with natural gas).

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 7:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I agree with SIX. Canada has been free-riding on the USA, and I suspect that aside from oil, timber, fishing, mining and agriculture (which aren't really industries per se) Canada's biggest manufacturing sector is the auto industry, which the USA exported north of the border under NAFTA.

Be that as it may ... I really don't know anything about Poilievre and what his promises were, but I worry that Canadians just jump into a globalist central banker's tender embrace. Seems like Canadians votes based on USA politics.

You have lots of political parties, BRENDA. Weren't there any other choices?

Speaking of globalism

Alex Krainer, always worth a listen, describes how transnational banks use a nation's natural resources as collateral for loans, and how they use that collateral to blow big speculative bubbles, scooping up assets at fire sale prices when the bubbles burst

And specifically how Canada's oil wealth was used to blow a real estate bubble in the USA.

He also talks about similar, but industrial -scale wealth extraction from Africa, Russia (under Yeltsin) and the hoped-for riches of Ukraine... the EU'S economic suicide, how Germany became the world export leader and why it's going to fail (has nothing to do with natural gas).

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

Usually I vote NDP. But they can't break that glass ceiling in Federal politics like they can by province. And no way was I going to vote Conservative.

I like Mr. Singh but I don't know what will happen to the NDP now. They have to find a way to regroup.

Apparently the Liberals didn't get a majority government and since the NDP by the looks of things got wiped off the map. That means they will have to work with the Bloc. Conservatives are the Loyal Opposition.

I haven't seen the official numbers yet.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 7:44 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:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.

Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.

Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.
6ixStringJack, you really should think about what happens when Canada builds H-bombs for self-protection, when Trump says Canada is no longer protected from Russia's ambitions in the Arctic by America's nuclear umbrella.

You have a point there. If we allow Canada to build nuclear weapons that's probably not a great idea since it will be a Muslim country in 2 generations.

Step 1: Trump withdraws the nuclear umbrella protecting Canada from Russia's threats to nuke Canada over conflict in the Arctic.

Step 2: Canada starts building its nuclear umbrella, replacing the umbrella Trump controls.

Step 3: Trump invades Canada to stop the nuclear umbrella from being built.

Step 4: Trump gives Russia the Canadian land that Putin wants. Don't say Trump won't. Trump is giving away Ukrainian land that Putin wants. But Ukraine rudely refuses to sign the documents.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 7:45 PM

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

The Trump administration has dismissed all of the scientists working on the sixth National Climate Assessment — a major congressionally mandated climate report that details the way the changing climate impacts the U.S.

The move comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly downplayed the impacts of climate change and gone after programs related to the issue.

The report, which is mandated by Congress under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, provides a U.S.-specific assessment that can help communities prepare for climate change.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5273217-trump-administra
tion-national-climate-assessment-cuts/

The Fifth National Climate Assessment 2023

https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 8:21 PM

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

Think Trump’s Unpopular Now? Just Wait.

By Alex Shephard | April 29, 2025

https://newrepublic.com/article/194577/trump-unpopular-100-days-approv
al-ratings-falling

Just over a month ago, President Donald Trump was more popular than he was at any point in his first term. This was especially troubling because his administration was proving to be even more incompetent, corrupt, and authoritarian this time around. He was busy gutting the civil service, defying judicial orders, and creating migrant concentration camps abroad—but Americans didn’t seem to mind. Trump’s surprisingly resilient approval ratings had Democrats wondering, after his election gains with people of color and in blue redoubts like New York City and Detroit, whether anything could pull him down.

What a difference a month makes. “Liberation Day,” Trump’s announcement of massive tariffs on pretty much every other nation in the world, may go down as the biggest own goal in American—and perhaps global—political history. Trump is now less popular than any president has been at the 100-day mark in 80 years. In a new NPR survey that asked respondents to grade Trump (like the schoolchild that he is), 45 percent—including more than half of independents—gave him an “F,” while just 23 percent gave him an “A.”

This is a shocking slide, and Trump seems to know it: He mused on Monday about launching criminal prosecutions against pollsters. But Trump’s chances of bouncing back are remarkably slim. That 23 percent of NPR respondents who gave him an “A” may very well represent his floor. If things continue on this trajectory, his approval rating may fall to that number, making him the least popular president in the country’s history.

In the very best scenario—for Trump, at least—“Liberation Day” would be analogous to what the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was for Joe Biden’s popularity. After that debacle, Biden’s popularity rapidly slid and never recovered. Americans may have wanted to leave Afghanistan, but they clearly had expectations that we would not leave the country in the Taliban’s hands and strand many Afghans who had aided the American occupation. The fallout (and the relentlessly negative media coverage) led to the impression that Biden was weak, infirm, and incapable of leading—a perception that would ultimately doom not only his presidency but the Democrats’ hopes of holding onto the White House.

“Liberation Day” seems to have woken a lot of Americans up to something they had inexplicably forgotten: Trump is the same profoundly incompetent and stupid person who, just a few years ago, they did not like very much. Trump may be counting on his trade war somehow working, but much would have to go right for his popularity to recover. For one, that trade war would have to deliver what Trump promises it will: mass prosperity, an end to the income tax, and the return of well-paying manufacturing jobs—which pretty much everyone, aside from Trump and a handful of slavish loyalists, agrees is impossible. He would also have to somehow turn back time and restore the pre-Covid economy that many Americans remembered so fondly when they voted for him a second time. This is also impossible. He would probably also have to end the war in Ukraine—but in a way that doesn’t give Russia everything it wants, which is Trump’s current, and truly artless, negotiating position—and somehow repair America’s absolutely destroyed global reputation. None of that is going to happen, either.

It’s more likely that everything is going to get a lot worse. Trump’s approval ratings are historically awful right now, even though he has managed to delay the worst effects of his trade war. But he is still stubbornly clinging to tariffs, which inevitably will cause product shortages and rising costs in the near future—not to mention a potential recession, the odds of which are worryingly high.

A lot of other things will likely hurt his popularity too. Trump seems to believe that ending the war in Ukraine will win him a Nobel peace prize, but while Americans may have soured on supporting that nation’s fight against Russian invaders, a deal that ends up being a gift to Putin may not go down well with independents or even Republicans (and certainly won’t with Democrats, though they basically already all despise him anyway). His authoritarian immigration crackdown is already unnerving a majority of voters, and those numbers will likely continue to slide as his administration deports law-abiding undocumented immigrants and even legal residents and citizen children. That crackdown, moreover, is rapidly heading toward a confrontation with the judiciary and the Supreme Court that seems destined to lead to a constitutional crisis.

His administration, meanwhile, will likely continue to be beset by smaller crises that will further drive down his approval rating. His secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is completely out of his depth and has shared military strike plans with nonauthorized personnel on a number of occasions. His secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is an anti-vax nutjob who is presiding over the largest measles outbreak in decades. Funding has been cut for the Social Security Administration and the Food and Drug Administration. It’s easy to imagine a near future where communicable diseases are spreading rapidly, Social Security checks aren’t going out, and E. coli outbreaks are common—all while prices are rising and the country is in a recession.

The bad news for the growing ranks of people who see Trump as an incompetent buffoon at best and a threat to the constitutional order at worst is that we’re only 100 days in. This administration has a very, very long time left in power. It is hard to imagine how the damage Trump has done in the last three months will be undone, and it’s scary to imagine how much more destruction he can wreak in the 1,350-ish days he has left in power. But Americans seem to be waking up to the fact that they have elected a ruinous madman. The only question remaining is whether he’s a sort of kamikaze president—willing to crash and burn his popularity in order to wreak maximum destruction on his enemies—or somehow can be convinced to pull this country back from the brink of total disaster.

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Tuesday, April 29, 2025 9:15 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I think I see what Trump is trying to do, but it needs to happen pretty much all at the same time to work:

Drop the value of the dollar, making exports cheaper and imports more expensive. At the same time ...

Reduce the deficit. That should allow the Fed to ...

Drop interest rates. In addition to making capital for investment cheaper, it reduces the amount of $ that adds to the deficit.mm??

Tariff goods from nations that have excessive trade surpluses with the USA. Someone actually figured out where he got his original tariff numbers from: trade surplus with the USA divided by total exports.

Reduce income taxes to stimulate purchases at home, and use tariffs to replace them with.

I get it, but the timing is awfully close.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, April 30, 2025 12:11 AM

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

At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.

Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.

Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.
6ixStringJack, you really should think about what happens when Canada builds H-bombs for self-protection, when Trump says Canada is no longer protected from Russia's ambitions in the Arctic by America's nuclear umbrella.

You have a point there. If we allow Canada to build nuclear weapons that's probably not a great idea since it will be a Muslim country in 2 generations.
Step 1: Trump withdraws the nuclear umbrella protecting Canada from Russia's threats to nuke Canada over conflict in the Arctic.

Step 2: Canada starts building its nuclear umbrella, replacing the umbrella Trump controls.

Step 3: Trump invades Canada to stop the nuclear umbrella from being built.

Step 4: Trump gives Russia the Canadian land that Putin wants. Don't say Trump won't. Trump is giving away Ukrainian land that Putin wants. But Ukraine rudely refuses to sign the documents.

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

I fail to see any motive for any of this.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, April 30, 2025 12:16 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I think I see what Trump is trying to do, but it needs to happen pretty much all at the same time to work:

Drop the value of the dollar, making exports cheaper and imports more expensive. At the same time ...

Reduce the deficit. That should allow the Fed to ...

Drop interest rates. In addition to making capital for investment cheaper, it reduces the amount of $ that adds to the deficit.mm??

Tariff goods from nations that have excessive trade surpluses with the USA. Someone actually figured out where he got his original tariff numbers from: trade surplus with the USA divided by total exports.

Reduce income taxes to stimulate purchases at home, and use tariffs to replace them with.

I get it, but the timing is awfully close.

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

AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA

I'm not even going to pretend to know like most folk these days seem to. Everybody is an economist in 2025 all of the sudden, right?

I think everyone needs to worry about their own budgets and figuring out how they got themselves into their own record debt and leave money to people who understand how money works.

80% of anybody right now who tells you anything about the economy would struggle to operate a cash register.

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

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

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, April 30, 2025 1:45 AM