REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Trump Is Destroying Everything He Touches

POSTED BY: JJ
UPDATED: Wednesday, November 5, 2025 19:14
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 53217
PAGE 17 of 17

Tuesday, October 21, 2025 9:29 PM

THG

Keep it real please



I can blame both Trump and the idiots who elected him. And I do.

The same goes for those who fucked themselves out of health care. 72% or more of those who are going to lose their ACA coverage live in states Trump won. And they are going to lose it because the cost of it is going to go up 114% if the democrat's loss this government shut down battle.

If the enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are not extended, ACA premiums are expected to rise by 114% at the end of 2025. This significant increase will affect many individuals and families who rely on these subsidies for affordable health coverage.

I keep telling you fuck the current polls. What Trump has done and is doing is just now being realized. Look at these numbers' moron. And this is just health care. There's so much more. Like the cost of beef and ranches that are going to go under. Trump having to bail out the farmers again while he gives a 20 billion dollar loan to Argentina, who then sold all their soybeans to China. Again, fucking American farmers. Argentina who has never paid back any loan they've received. American businesses that will go out of business because of tariffs.

Jack, you and signym are fucking clueless. You're both dumb as rocks.

T

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Tuesday, October 21, 2025 11:19 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
I can blame both Trump and the idiots who elected him. And I do.

The same goes for those who fucked themselves out of health care. 72% or more of those who are going to lose their ACA coverage live in states Trump won. And they are going to lose it because the cost of it is going to go up 114% if the democrat's loss this government shut down battle.


Then shut the fuck up and just let it happen.


That's the difference between you and I, Theodore. When I lay the smack down hard on you about something, it's definitive. It's already happened. It's your new fucking normal that you need to learn to adjust to.

You bring up dozens of bullshit articles and clickbait videos and political cartoons about whatever Orange Man Bad freakout you're having that day of this particular week, and they're all theoreticals and hyperbole, or something "anonymous sources familiar with the issue" have to say about [insert topic], or cherry picked polls you should know goddamned well enough by now that you shouldn't trust anymore.

None of it ever happens. And 2 weeks later you've already forgotten all the shit you posted 2 weeks ago and the many, many, many, many years before that. All those stories are now are broken little sound bits and headlines and bullshit clogging up that fucked up brain of yours that they put in a blender for the last 10 years.

None of your shit ever comes true. IT NEVER COMES TRUE.

Tick tock threads to nowhere all over the place. Thousands upon thousands of articles and videos you've posted that have amounted to nothing because they always were nothing.


You've lost.

You've lost EVERYTHING now.

You're finished. Anything you ever thought you stood for has been proven to everyone to be bullshit.



Nobody wants to or needs to hear a fucking word out of your stupid ass about anything, loser.

The same people installing those "thoughts" in your "brain" are the same people who had your stupid ass parading around here telling everyone that Harris was going to win in a landslide, and the same people that have been wrong about literally EVERYTHING since the election.

Nobody gives a single fuck about what any of your "sources" and your "experts" have to say about anything. They are entirely at fault for that, and nobody is going to cry for them. They will not be missed when they are gone.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Tuesday, October 21, 2025 11:31 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Oh... BTW...

Because Ted is an inconsiderate fuckwit who has no internet etiquette, here's the last post from the previous page he was replying to on this new page.



Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Trump plan to import Argentine beef angers US farmers

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) -U.S. farmers on Monday criticized President Donald Trump's suggestion that the country may import more beef from Argentina, after they recently lost out to the South American nation on soybean sales to top buyer China.

Trump said on Sunday that he was considering imports to reduce U.S. beef prices that have climbed to record highs. His administration earlier extended a $20 billion currency swap lifeline to Argentina, which the president considers an ally.

Cattle producers saw the suggestion as a threat to their livelihoods and free markets, at a time when ranchers are profiting from sky-high livestock prices and strong consumer demand.

"This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices," said Colin Woodall, CEO of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association industry group.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-plan-to-import-argentine-beef-
angers-us-farmers/ar-AA1OPRbI?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=68f79a4e5ac8487ca38e11b809bfade5&ei=77


They voted for him so they did this to themselves.

T


What exactly is your argument here, stupid ass?

You've been complaining about the price of beef for a month now.

Your current article said this:

Quote:
Cattle producers saw the suggestion as a threat to their livelihoods and free markets, at a time when ranchers are profiting from sky-high livestock prices and strong consumer demand.


You Democrats would be talking about putting caps on Beef Prices right now if you were in charge, and you'd be attacking those cattle ranchers for price gouging.

You don't get to take every side on every issue and change which side of the issue you're on day-by-day just so you can attack Trump.

Fucking idiot.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Wednesday, October 22, 2025 12:40 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


What I want to hear out of you going forward, Ted, is not what Orange Man Bad is doing wrong, but what could be done to make things right?

Your party hasn't been a very big fan of your party when they're in control for a few decades now too. If they ever actually delivered any long-term solutions to problems, they wouldn't always get voted right back out the next time an election rolls around like the Republicans do.

Why can't you do that?

Why is every argument you have for any topic "Trump Bad" and/or "You are a Nazi"?

Why do you spend each and every day doomscrolling to find the articles and videos that are going to drive you nuts for the day and make you behave the way that you do?

What are you accomplishing by doing this to yourself and inflicting it upon everyone else other than the satisfaction of potentially ruining somebody else's day because you've already ruined your own and it ain't even Noon yet?

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Wednesday, October 22, 2025 3:36 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:

I can blame both Trump and the idiots who elected him. And I do.

The same goes for those who fucked themselves out of health care. 72% or more of those who are going to lose their ACA coverage live in states Trump won. And they are going to lose it because the cost of it is going to go up 114% if the democrat's loss this government shut down battle.

If the enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are not extended, ACA premiums are expected to rise by 114% at the end of 2025. This significant increase will affect many individuals and families who rely on these subsidies for affordable health coverage.

I keep telling you fuck the current polls. What Trump has done and is doing is just now being realized. Look at these numbers' moron. And this is just health care. There's so much more. Like the cost of beef and ranches that are going to go under. Trump having to bail out the farmers again while he gives a 20 billion dollar loan to Argentina, who then sold all their soybeans to China. Again, fucking American farmers. Argentina who has never paid back any loan they've received. American businesses that will go out of business because of tariffs.

Jack, you and signym are fucking clueless. You're both dumb as rocks.





How about skipping giving ACA subsidies to illegals who (fraudulently) claim asylum, and reduce our deficit?

'Cause, yanno, I really think our budget problem goes back a lot farther than Trump.
Don't you?


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

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Thursday, October 23, 2025 1:53 PM

THG

Keep it real please


Donald Trump's economy on verge of crisis 'bigger than Great Recession', experts warn

President Donald Trump asserted that he had "defeated" inflation and that the US economy was returning to normalcy in a bullish statement earlier this year.

However, despite Trump's claims, that appears far from the reality as Americans grapple with rising prices and a new financial crisis looming ominously close.

Over the past century, the United States has weathered several significant financial crises, including the 2008 financial crash and Great Recession, Black Monday in 1987, and the Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Now, experts are sounding the alarm about another impending crisis for the US economy. This crisis pertains to the car lending market and an escalating number of car repossessions in the United States due to Americans defaulting on their car finance payments - a problem affecting millions and setting off warning signals on Wall Street.

Ignas Ryla, head of B2B Sales at used car parts company Ovoko, issued a stark warning in a statement to ReachPlc: "Auto loan delinquencies have reached alarming levels, with overall 60+ day delinquency rates at 1.38% in Q1 2025, exceeding the 1.33% peak in 2009, and subprime delinquencies hitting a record 6.6%."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/donald-trump-s-economy-on-verg
e-of-crisis-bigger-than-great-recession-experts-warn/ar-AA1P3c7Y?ocid=BingNewsVerp


T

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Thursday, October 23, 2025 3:02 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


More nameless "experts" who have been wrong about everything so far.

I mean... to be fair to them, they couldn't have been right because they don't exist. "According to experts" is the way for Journalists to give you their opinion but make you think that it's fact. It works because you are a stupid person.

*yawn*

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Friday, October 24, 2025 10:36 AM

THG

Keep it real please



T

THE STOCK MARKET IS HEADED FOR A CRASH





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Sunday, October 26, 2025 7:28 PM

THG

Keep it real please

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Sunday, October 26, 2025 7:31 PM

THG

Keep it real please

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Monday, October 27, 2025 3:44 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!



Shut up, screen bitch.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Monday, October 27, 2025 9:02 AM

THG

Keep it real please



By
Peggy Noonan


A Republic, but Can We Keep It?

From the military and the Justice Department to the East Wing, there’s reason to wonder and worry.

Donald Trump’s supporters are feeling satisfaction after two astonishing achievements: He is the first president this century to establish order on the southern border, and he has secured some new possibility for a Mideast settlement. These are breakthroughs even if they don’t last. But the people in this White House, with every triumph, become wilder and wilder. Their triumphalism is accelerating my now-chronic unease over the sense that the strict lines of our delicately balanced republic are being washed away.

Ben Franklin, famously asked by a woman on the street in Philadelphia what sort of government the Constitutional Convention had wrought, is reported to have said, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The reply was wry and factual but also a warning: Republics are hard to maintain.

Are we maintaining ours?

Democrats worry about our democracy. Is that the area of greatest recent erosion? I doubt it. Donald Trump really won in 2016, you can trust those numbers, and he really lost in ’20, and really won in ’24. Your governor won, your congressman—you can pretty much trust the numbers even factoring in the mischief in any system built by man. When shocks happen—“I just want to find 11,780 votes”—the system has still held. The state of Georgia told the president to take a hike in 2020. If you’ve spent much of your adult life deriding the concept of states’ rights, that moment would have complicated your view.
It isn’t our democracy that I worry about, it is our republic. That’s where we’re seeing erosion, that’s the thing we could lose.

Quickly, obviously, broadly: A republic is a form of government in which power begins on the ground, with the people, and shoots (and is mediated) upward. Power doesn’t come from the top down. The people choose representatives who are protective of local interests while keeping their eye on the nation’s. The government of which they’re part is bound by laws, by a Constitution that is not only a document of enumerated laws but a mean, lean machine for preserving liberty.

The Constitution the founders devised was born of deep study of history, philosophy and human nature. Their understanding of the last was deeply conservative. “If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” James Madison said. They aren’t, so one is.

The American republic would consist of three branches, with each knowing and protecting its specific powers and duties. The legislative branch would have chambers representing the people and the states, holding the power of the purse and the power to make law. Congress would represent.

For the executive branch, the presidency. The holder of that office would be a single person elected by the nation and anticipated to be energetic. The president would act—declare a direction and lead.

The judiciary would be guardian of the Constitution and the rule of law. It would have the power to strike down laws judged unconstitutional. Alexander Hamilton: “No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.” An independent judiciary would judge.

All three would work together in a system of divided powers; no part would completely dominate. They’d be in constant tension with one another. Madison distilled it down: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” This would tend to limit corruption and keep “eruptions of passion,” to borrow a phrase of Hamilton’s, from swaying things too immediately and dramatically. Madison especially thought pure direct democracy would prove unstable, a too-slight skiff heaved about in history’s seas. A rooted republic would be a mansion that could take heavy winds.

The republic they devised produced not efficiency but equilibrium. It established not only a system but a spirit. It has seen us through for 237 years.

Are we maintaining our republic? Is our equilibrium holding? The last nine months a lot of lines seem to have been crossed—in the use of the military, in redirecting the Justice Department to target the president’s enemies, real and perceived. There are many areas in which you’ve come to think: Isn’t the executive assuming powers of the Congress here? Why is Congress allowing this? The executive branch takes on authority to bend its foes, defeat them. You ask: Is all this constitutional? The president “jokes” that he may not accept the Constitution’s two-term presidential limit. Are you laughing?

The 250th anniversary of July 4, 1776, comes up next year, and many of us are rereading the old documents. The past week I’ve talked to two historians, one rightish, one leftish, and both conversations turned toward Thomas Jefferson’s stinging bill of particulars against King George III in the Declaration of Independence.

They resonate in unexpected ways: “For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.” “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us.” “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our Legislatures.” “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people.” “Obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither.”

The Founders didn’t want any of that. It’s why they created a republic.

The tearing down of the East Wing of the White House also seems, in this context of concern, disturbing. White House defenders dismiss qualms as pearl clutching—a big vital building’s gotta grow, it’s been torn down and built up before, we need more room.

"But all this was done without public demand or support, and was done in a way that was abrupt, complete, unstoppable. Congress has the power of the purse for such projects but the president says no, our wonderful donors are paying for it, but the names of the donors were not quickly revealed. Your imagination was forced to go to—why? Might certain bad actors be buying influence? Crypto kings, billionaires needing agency approvals, felons buying pardons, AI chieftains on the prowl. Might the whole thing be open to corruption? Would it even have been attempted in a fully functioning, sharp and hungry republic? Or only a tired one that’s being diminished?

The photos of the tearing down of the East Wing were upsetting because they felt like a metaphor for the idea that history itself can be made to disappear.

I started with Trump supporters and end with them. They feel joy at real and recent triumphs, but deep down are rightly anxious about the world. Artificial intelligence, nukes, everything out of control, a cultural establishment that hates you. We may have to make some readjustments or revisions in our constitutional traditions, we’re in endgame time.

It all gives you a feeling of nihilism, something you’ve never felt in your entire honestly constructive life, and it’s so shocking that for a moment it leaves you giddy, and in the end, having been broken down a bit, you wind up laughing last week at a video in which an American president put a crown on his head in the cockpit of a fighter jet, flies over America, and drops human waste on it.

You just laugh, when nothing like that ever would have made you laugh before, and in fact would have hurt your heart."

Nine months in we’ve got to be thinking about these things.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-republic-but-can-we-keep-it-e2838a12?st=
pcHb5m&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink




Jack, you comrade signym and JSF are too ignorant to understand any of what is happening.

And just look at the way Trump is wreaking havoc on Canada; again. Our largest and most trustworthy ally. If republicans can be labeled cowards for remaining silent throughout Trumps’ rule, then so can others who chose to do the same. We have some cowards here.



T

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Monday, October 27, 2025 9:31 AM

THG

Keep it real please


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!



Shut up, screen bitch.






Jack, show us the screen bitch. Right...

T

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Monday, October 27, 2025 9:45 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Repost my beautiful picture an average of at least 10 times per day for the next 3.5 years, screen bitch.



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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Monday, October 27, 2025 9:47 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Jack, you comrade signym and JSF are too ignorant to understand any of what is happening.


Says the guy with 3-dozen Tick Tock threads to nowhere that vary anywhere from a few months old to over 10 years old that are full of nothing but failed predictions and bullshit that never happened, to the guy who has been right about everything since election day.

Why should anybody take you seriously when you say something like this, Ted?

Your track record does not back up your words. It never does.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Monday, October 27, 2025 12:06 PM

THG

Keep it real please


tick tock...

T

Trump voters get NIGHTMARE news in deep red state






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Monday, October 27, 2025 12:07 PM

THG

Keep it real please





Point to the dipshit Jack. Agreed...

T

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Monday, October 27, 2025 12:25 PM

THG

Keep it real please


And it just gets worse.

T

Canadians feel 'Donald Trump is a big hoser'





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Monday, October 27, 2025 3:21 PM

SECOND

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


In Trump’s Casino Economy, You’ll Probably Lose

By Kyla Scanlon | Oct. 26, 2025

Ms. Scanlon is the author of “In This Economy? How Money & Markets Really Work” and Kyla’s Newsletter. Free download from https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Kyla+Scanlon

https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2025/10/26/its-trumps-casino-economy-
now-and-you-will-probably-lose/

Step into the casino that now passes for the American economy.

Donald Trump campaigned on bringing back American manufacturing and rebuilding what America once was — factories, workers in hard hats — from the ground up. But the investment needed to get there, in both the factories and the workers, hasn’t happened.

What he has ushered in instead is a casino economy, built on speculation and risk. Across markets and policy, wagers on the future are being made with other people’s money at a cost that could prove catastrophic.

This economy is largely defined by froth. What was once a fluke has become the operating system of modern markets: like stock prices largely driven by sentiment rather than fundamentals (recall GameStop and AMC in 2021 and the dot-com boom), the overwhelming power of social media and the flurry of bets on something not quite real.

Look and you will see gambling throughout the economy — in markets, policy and how we talk about the future:

• The tech giants spending billions on A.I. data centers and the power grid to sustain them.
• A government shutdown over Americans’ ability to keep their health care.
• Tariffs used like poker chips to try to shrink the trade deficit.
• The increasingly erratic treatment of the U.S. dollar.
• The rise of over 13 million memecoins.
• JPMorgan now allowing institutional clients to use Bitcoin and Ether as loan collateral.
• Venture capital funding companies that let people “bet against their bills.”
• And the recent rumblings of bad loans from regional banks.

Public and private sectors are rolling dice that the foundations of the U.S. economy will hold under the pressure. Meanwhile, the institutions and programs that help cushion risk — like Medicaid and the social safety net, information systems, independent regulators and Federal Reserve independence, even the legal system — have come under attack.

As the public sector steps back from its role as a stabilizer, the private sector has rushed in as a gambler, betting that technology alone can hold the system together. Big Tech companies are wagering trillions on A.I. infrastructure that might revolutionize everything, chasing a jackpot that could reshape the world — or leave a mountain of empty data centers and broken promises.

The A.I. boom has grown into one of the largest speculative waves in market history. The sector value of A.I.-linked companies is 17 times larger than the market capitalization of the dot-com era at its peak and over four times as large as the subprime bubble, according to MarketWatch. Goldman Sachs says that A.I.-related firms have borrowed a record $141 billion to keep that dream alive. Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia alone now account for over 20 percent of the S & P 500’s total market cap, their valuations swelling on bigger and bigger A.I. promises, and creating a concentration so extreme that the entire index moves with them.

The promises are grand — such as curing cancer, personalizing vaccines and medical treatment optimization — yet many of those dreams have already devolved into next-generation social media apps, like OpenAI’s Sora and Meta’s Vibes.

The funding frenzy is turning inward. The companies are spending much of their money on one another. Nvidia and OpenAI have entered into a $100 billion deal where OpenAI would essentially use the Nvidia money to buy Nvidia’s chips. So it’s kind of like Nvidia paying themselves $100 billion for their own product. Many A.I. companies are starting to make their products free, too, with Perplexity offering its previously $200-per-month browser for the low price of $0.

The boom can’t last forever. According to Bob Elliott, chief executive at the financial firm Unlimited Funds, hyperscalers — cloud providers that operate huge global data centers to provide computing power and services to power A.I. — are planning to slow the pace of spending growth. The hyperscalers are still estimated to spend about $1.2 trillion into 2027. (And hopefully, as the backbone of the economy, they will.) But the A.I. spending boom — the billions (roughly $300 billion this year) being poured into the chips, servers and power infrastructure to keep these systems running — may already be peaking.

There is no cushion for the enormous risk that the A.I. companies — and investors, and therefore a typical American 401(k) holder — are taking on. A.I. companies represent roughly 75 percent of recent S&P 500 earnings growth, 80 percent of profits and 90 percent of capital expenditure.

The government is gambling that blanket tariffs will somehow restructure global trade in our favor, despite no historical precedent for this approach succeeding against piles of evidence suggesting it won’t. Soybean farmers need a bailout. Scotch whisky might get an exemption — not to help Scotland, but to protect Kentucky bourbon producers. The tariffs are turning into a rather lucrative side hustle for the administration. Trade lobbying has boomed, and carve-outs are growing, two signs that the bureaucracy is certainly making some people very rich.

At the same time, Washington is betting that the dollar maintains its reserve currency status during this tumultuous time, as we weaponize it unpredictably and alienate traditional allies. The U.S. dollar has been posting poor performance all year against other currencies.

As the economy becomes more unpredictable, Mr. Trump and Republicans have shrunk the safety net that catches people when volatility catches up with them. They cut Medicaid and did not extend Affordable Care Act subsidies in order to fund further tax cuts. Social Security and Medicare are on the table for reform.

This is the cruelest logic of the casino economy, stripping away health coverage from working-class Americans to give tax breaks to companies gambling on speculative ventures; reducing food assistance to fund capital gains preferences for investors playing the memecoin market; firing hundreds of thousands of federal workers to “save” money while bleeding institutional knowledge and capacity.

The math doesn’t work. The morality doesn’t either. In this economy, individuals bear the downside risk, while corporations and the wealthy collect the upside. It’s a rigged game where the house — seemingly, the already rich — always wins.

The question is why this hasn’t all collapsed yet. The answer is actually simple: time. Economic systems have inertia. Institutions built over decades don’t crumble overnight. The dollar’s global dominance rests on 80 years of habit, and there really is no viable alternative. And as the economist John Maynard Keynes warned, markets can stay irrational longer than most people can stay solvent.

But the floorboards are starting to creak. Consider three scenarios for how this plays out:

1. The jackpot nobody really believes in.
Maybe the bets pay off. A.I. productivity gains materialize. Tariffs coincidentally align with a global trade rebalancing. The dollar remains dominant through sheer force of habit and lack of alternatives. Cutting social programs doesn’t trigger health care disruption or social unrest because private charity and family networks pick up the slack. The stock market stabilizes at new, A.I.-justified valuations. This requires essentially everything breaking right simultaneously, the equivalent of hitting several slot machine jackpots in a row.

2. The controlled burn gets out of control.
More likely, we see a rolling series of smaller crises. A major A.I. company admits its infrastructure isn’t generating returns, triggering a sector-wide repricing. Tariff retaliation hits specific industries hard — agriculture, automotive, aerospace — creating regional economic pain. A health crisis hits Medicaid-dependent regions particularly hard. Each crisis is manageable in isolation, but they compound. Market volatility becomes the norm. Consumer confidence wavers. Business investment pauses. We enter a prolonged period of economic anxiety, with low growth punctuated by frequent shocks.

3. The foundation buckles.
The nightmare scenario is that too many bets go bad simultaneously. An A.I. bubble bursts just as trade tensions escalate into a serious global trade war. The dollar faces a real challenge from a coalition of nations tired of U.S. economic unpredictability. A major bank or tech company fails, exposing interconnected risks, as we are just seeing glimpses of now with the recent bankruptcies of Tricolor and First Brands, which is threatening the swelling private credit industry. As Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan, put it, “When you see one cockroach, there are probably many more.” Unemployed workers have nowhere to turn. Consumer spending craters. What starts as a market correction becomes a full-blown economic crisis.

The scary part? We wouldn’t necessarily see a crisis coming because casinos are designed to keep us playing until suddenly we look down and realize all our chips are gone. Economic crises often appear suddenly, even when they’ve been building slowly.

In a real casino, the math guarantees the house wins over time. We will likely see some winners: the A.I. giants collecting billions in investment before delivering returns; the private equity firms buying up distressed assets when bets go bad; the ultrawealthy who can afford to lose on speculation because they have enough diversified assets; the political class that makes the rules while being insulated from consequences.

But we will likely see losers, too. And there are likely to be many more Americans in that category.

Sure, economies run on risk, growth and ambition. But there’s risk, and then there’s reckless gambling. When safety nets are stripped away to help absorb the losses if bets don’t turn out, when trust is lost, excessive risk-taking stops becoming productive and morphs into something predatory.

Casinos run on illusion — the belief that the next hand will be different. But economies don’t have to.

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

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Monday, October 27, 2025 3:31 PM

THG

Keep it real please


Yup...

T

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Monday, October 27, 2025 5:29 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Losers.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Monday, October 27, 2025 6:06 PM

THG

Keep it real please


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Losers.






Show us the loser Gilligan. Correct...

T

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Monday, October 27, 2025 6:32 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Post my beautiful picture at least 10 times per day on average for the next 3.5 years, screen bitch.

Good girl.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 10:04 AM

SECOND

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


Thanks to Trump, the U.S. Is on Track to Lose a War With China

By Phillips Payson O’Brien | October 28, 2025

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/us-lose-war-china-dr
one-warfare/684717/

In his address to generals and admirals late last month, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth vividly described his vision of how wars are won. Soldiers and sailors are prepared to ship out “in the dead of night, in fair weather or foul, to go to dangerous places to find those who would do our nation harm, and deliver justice on behalf of the American people in close and brutal combat if necessary,” Hegseth said. “In this profession,” he went on, “you feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card, and victory our only acceptable end state.”

This stress on bravery and lethality in hand-to-hand fighting evoked Spartan and Roman warriors who stared their enemies in the eye and killed them with spears or swords. But the U.S. military is not going to confront the Athenians or Carthaginians in its next war, and the results of that war will not be determined by individual valor. Indeed, if the United States goes to war with China, its closest competitor and greatest geopolitical challenger, the bravery of soldiers on both sides will be largely irrelevant. Since the beginning of the 20th century, industrial-scale wars have been won through superiority in production capacity, logistics, and technological mastery.

If Hegseth and other U.S. military planners think they are going to defeat China through ferocity in close combat, they are fooling themselves. The course of Russia’s war on Ukraine—which looks more and more like the prototype for wars of the near future—is being determined not by the valor or lethality of the average infantryman, but by the ability of Ukraine and its allies to inflict pain on the Russian economy, and to waste Russian battlefield and home-front resources through the manufacture of millions of drones, artillery shells, and long-range weapons systems. Such equipment is now being used to attack oil refineries, power plants, and other targets hundreds or thousands of miles behind the front lines.

As I argue in my new book, War and Power: Who Wins Wars—And Why, generations of military leaders in powerful nations have long made fundamental errors in thinking about what prepares a state to win a war. Many of those mistakes reflect what we might call a “battle-centric” understanding of conflict—an assumption that outcomes are determined by what happens when troops meet in the field. In this line of thinking, a war may turn on a decisive battle, often in the war’s early stages, in which one side suddenly renders the other’s position untenable.

In modern warfare, though, most battles are not contests for control of areas of immense strategic importance, and they almost never destroy equipment in quantities that determine the outcome of wars. Rather than deciding wars, individual battles reveal a war’s course by showing how different militaries are generating forces and adapting to changing conditions. Today’s wars are decided less by the military capabilities that each side has at the start than by the participants’ ability to generate new forces, adapt to new technologies, and work in coordination with allies.

At the start of World War I, many major European powers presumed that they could quickly end the conflict by overwhelming their enemy in early battles. Most famously, Germany’s Schlieffen Plan was based on the premise that the German army could swiftly defeat the French army and seize Paris, driving France out of the war and allowing the Germans to turn the mass of their army on imperial Russia. Events did not work out that way. Instead of ending before Christmas 1914, as parties on both sides of the hostilities had predicted, a war of attrition went on for more than four years, drew in soldiers from around the globe, and killed many millions of people.

In World War II, individual battles, even those remembered as the most important, rarely destroyed much equipment relative to how much was being produced at the time. In 1943, for instance, the German and Soviet armies fought the largest tank battle of the war at Kursk—an event frequently described as a turning point in the war. Yet during the most intense phase of the engagement—the opening 10 days—Germany lost only approximately 300 tanks, most of which were older, less efficient models. At that time, Germany was producing tanks at a pace of 11,000 a year. The obsolescent models destroyed at Kursk were soon replaced by more modern tanks, increasing the average quality of the German tank fleet.

What decided World War II in the end was that over the course of several years, the Soviet Union and its key allies, the United States and Britain, were together able to generate and sustain better forces than Germany could ever hope to match.

Like World War II, the war in Ukraine has turned into a long, brutal struggle of force generation and destruction. Before launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia, as well as many outside analysts, believed that its superior stocks of tanks, warships, and other vehicles would crush the Ukrainians in short order. The war might be effectively decided in hours and could end in a few days, with the Russians in control of Kyiv and Ukrainian leaders fleeing for their lives. This was a tragic misunderstanding of war. Instead, Ukraine fought back effectively, the war lengthened and metastasized, and it led to more than 1 million casualties for Russia alone.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/jun/22/one-milli
on-and-counting-russian-casualties-hit-milestone-in-ukraine-war

In the past three and a half years, both sides have constantly had to build up new forces with new weapons and keep them supplied in the field. The armies of 2025 now bear little resemblance to the armies of 2022. Initially, drones were mostly an afterthought, and both sides deployed tanks, armored personnel carriers, and in some cases massed infantry near the front. The Ukrainians have used drones and missiles to sink many of Russia’s largest surface vessels in the Black Sea and driven the rest back to port. And both countries are bombarding each other almost nightly with long-range drones. By the time the war is ultimately decided, both militaries will have been destroyed and reconstructed many times. This is exactly what happens in most wars.

These dynamics do not bode well for the United States in a long war with China. Right now, the U.S. has what appears to be the more capable military, and certainly the more battle-tested and technologically advanced one. It might inflict disproportionately higher losses on the Chinese at first. But because of its diminished production capacity, the U.S. would struggle to make up even a small part of the battlefield losses that it would inevitably suffer. China—which is as much the workshop of the world today as the United States was in World War II—could churn out replacement weaponry at an impressively quick pace.

Controlling shipping in the Pacific Ocean would likely be the first task for the U.S. military. But the U.S. mostly lacks a shipbuilding industry. In 2024, for instance, the United States built 0.1 percent of world ship tonnage, according to a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis; Chinese shipyards built more than 50 percent. The U.S. has allowed its shipyards to close and lost generations of shipbuilding-engineering expertise, and it now has hardly any experienced shipbuilding workers outside of a few shipyards that supply the U.S. Navy. It would have to re-create all this expertise, which would take years, before it could start producing ships at a fraction of Chinese output.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/are-us-policies-eroding-chinas-dominance
-shipbuilding

Shipbuilding is just one industry in which U.S. production would struggle to keep up. China, for instance, controls 90 percent of the world’s commercial-drone production, and supplies many of the components that are being put into both Ukrainian and Russian drones today. American wealth helps only so much: States cannot simply throw money at a problem and create productive strategic industries in a short period. To compound the issue for the U.S., its allies are even less prepared militarily, and Washington is currently going out of its way to alienate them instead of fostering the cohesion necessary to deter or fight China.

Hegseth might well prefer to imagine that the valor of American soldier-warriors can overcome any other disadvantage, including a diminished military industrial base and fractured alliances. Instead of boasting about its superiority in hand-to-hand combat, the U.S. should be preparing its military for an onslaught of Chinese drones and a conflict that could last for years. Otherwise, it might win the opening battles—but it will probably lose the long war.

Download Phillips Payson O'Brien's free books from https://annas-archive.org/search?q=Phillips+Payson+OBrien

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

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 10:25 AM

SECOND

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


And unless the government shutdown ends this week, federal support for SNAP will be cut off this Saturday.

This is a political decision, a Republican decision.

Despite the government shutdown, the SNAP program isn’t out of money. In fact, it has $5 billion in contingency funds, intended as a reserve to be tapped in emergencies. And if the imminent cutoff of crucial food aid for 40 million people isn’t an emergency, what is? The Department of Agriculture, which runs the program, also has the ability to maintain funding for a while by shifting other funds around. But Donald Trump has — quite illegally — told the department not to tap those funds.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/24/snap-food-aid-shutdown-usda-0
0622690

https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/10/27/congress/johnson-back
s-trumps-plans-not-to-tap-contingency-dollars-for-food-aid-ahead-of-funding-cliff-00623672

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

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 11:33 AM

THG

Keep it real please


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Post my beautiful picture at least 10 times per day on average for the next 3.5 years, screen bitch.

Good girl.






Hey boy, point to the loser I bitch slap every day. That's right...This isn't about your liking what I am doing with your picture. This is about me using your picture to bitch slap you and there isn't a fucking thing you can do about it.

I own your picture. I've taken it from you bitch.



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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 5:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Post my beautiful picture at least 10 times per day on average for the next 3.5 years, screen bitch.

Good girl.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 5:10 PM

THG

Keep it real please


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Post my beautiful picture at least 10 times per day on average for the next 3.5 years, screen bitch.

Good girl.






That's funny. You say that as if you could say anything else. I own your likeness here. I took it from you, boy. Your master says show yourself Gilligan. Every tine, you kiss my ass every time.

T

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 5:12 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Good girl.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 5:25 PM

THG

Keep it real please


Trump's popularity dips as Americans sweat cost of living, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Donald Trump's presidential approval rating fell in recent days, tying the lowest level of his term, as more Americans frowned on his handling of the cost of living, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The three-day poll, which concluded on Sunday, showed 40% of Americans approve of the Republican leader's job performance, compared to 42% in an October 15-20 Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Trump's popularity has been within a percentage point or two of its current level in every Reuters/Ipsos poll since mid-May. The share of people who say they disapprove of his performance has grown, from 52% in a May 16-18 poll to 57% in the latest survey.

The president won last year's election on promises to tackle the surge in inflation that damaged his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. But Americans give Trump exceptionally low marks on how he has managed the costs weighing on U.S. households, and twice as many Americans disapprove of his handling of the cost of living as approve of it.

The pace of inflation has edged higher since Trump took office in January, even as the job market has weakened, leading the country's central bank to lower interest rates.

PUBLIC REACTION TO SHUTDOWN REMAINS MUTED

The survey results suggest many Americans have only modest concerns about the ongoing government shutdown, the second-longest in U.S. history, which has furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers. Some 29% said they either didn't care or were glad about the shutdown, while 20% said they were angry. Some 50% said they were frustrated. Most respondents said the shutdown had little or no impact on their lives.

While Trump's Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, Democrats have blocked spending bills in the U.S. Senate, pledging to hold their ground until Republicans agree to extend health insurance subsidies due to expire at the end of the year.

In principle, the Democratic Party's position appears to have significant backing. Some 73% of Americans polled want the insurance subsidies to continue despite arguments that they will increase the federal budget deficit, little changed from the results of a poll conducted earlier in the month.

The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 1,018 U.S. adults nationwide and its findings on the views of all Americans had a margin of error of 3 percentage points. It had a 6-point margin of error for the views of Republicans and Democrats.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trumps-popularity-dips-as-amer
icans-sweat-cost-of-living-reutersipsos-poll-finds/ar-AA1PmEny?ocid=BingNewsBrowse





Hey Jackass, stop sucking that guys dick and point to the pussy. Great...

T

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Tuesday, October 28, 2025 5:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Post my beautiful picture at least 10 times per day on average for the next 3.5 years, screen bitch.

Good girl.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Wednesday, October 29, 2025 9:24 AM

THG

Keep it real please


T






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Thursday, October 30, 2025 8:14 AM

SECOND

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


Trump Is Sleepwalking Into Political Disaster

A health-care battle tarnished the president’s first term. Here he goes again.

By Jonathan Chait | October 29, 2025, 1:43 PM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/10/trump-obamacare-s
hutdown-fight-healthcare-subsidies/684750/

The most glaring self-inflicted wound from Donald Trump’s first term in office was his decision in 2017 to let Paul Ryan and other traditional Republicans push him into a futile war to repeal the Affordable Care Act. From Ryan’s perspective, the decision made perfect sense: He and his allies despised the welfare state in general and the ACA in particular, and saw Trump’s presidency as a final chance to destroy the hated law before its roots grew too deep.

From Trump’s perspective, the move was a fiasco. By dint of the threat to repeal it and take health insurance from millions of Americans, the ACA became more popular. The repeal effort exposed the hollowness of his grand promises to give everybody “terrific” insurance, and drove a midterm-election backlash that handed Democrats control of the House of Representatives.

Eight years on, Trump has plainly failed to learn his lesson.

His signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law over the summer, already wreaks havoc on the country’s health-care system by gutting Medicaid; it’s expected to eliminate coverage for about 7.5 million people by 2034. The legislation also failed to extend pandemic-era subsidies, which are set to expire at the end of the year, for health insurance bought through ACA marketplaces. Without these subsidies, premiums will spike for about 20 million Americans—many of them small-business owners and self-employed workers—in January. Republicans in Congress have refused to add these subsidies to their budget bill, and congressional Democrats refuse to pass a budget without these subsidies. This is the main reason for the federal-government shutdown, now entering its fifth week.

The 2018 elections reflected public anger over the Republican Party’s efforts to make health care less affordable for millions of Americans. In 2026 and 2028, Republicans will face an electorate that is already experiencing the surging costs and loss of coverage that was merely hypothetical in 2018. But instead of trying to contain this catastrophe, Trump is doing nothing.

Health care is not a hill on which Trump is willing to die. He detests Barack Obama and delighted in the prospect of eliminating his predecessor’s signature domestic-policy legacy, but his goal in 2017 wasn’t to make health insurance impossibly unaffordable for Americans. He either believed Republicans’ propaganda that Obamacare was such a “trainwreck” that they could easily write a better law, or somehow believed he could simply lure Democrats to the negotiating table for a new plan. His failure was humiliating and politically costly.

The politics of rolling back Obamacare have not improved since then. Nearly 80 percent of the public wants to extend the ACA subsidies that are set to end.

Trump himself at least seems to grasp the risks, and has sought to position himself as a problem-solver on the issue. “I’d like to see a deal made for great health care,” he told reporters earlier this month. “Yeah, I want to see great health; I’m a Republican, but I want to see health care, but much more so than the Democrats.” The president has long recognized the Democratic Party’s advantage on social-insurance programs and has tried to rhetorically co-opt it. But the populist slogans don’t help if people are actually losing their health coverage or paying way more for it, both of which are slated to occur on his watch.

Why, then, is Trump back on this hill?

One possible reason is that Trump blames the shortcomings of his first term almost entirely on his enemies: the media, the “deep state,” and the disloyal members of his first administration who refused to follow his most authoritarian impulses. His second term has focused, with chilling success, on knocking down these obstacles. He has intimidated the media into more favorable coverage, purged the bureaucracy, and staffed his administration with loyalists who won’t question the moral or legal basis for his orders.

That doesn’t mean Trump has no regrets over his ill-fated attempt to repeal Obamacare. But his singular focus on crushing enemies and compelling loyalty at least suggests a lack of attention to other causes of his first-term struggles.

A second explanation is that Republicans in Congress are still too obsessed with rolling back Obamacare to worry about or even acknowledge the political damage they are inflicting on their party—and their president.

“Premiums are going up because health care costs are going up. Because Obamacare is a disaster,” insists Senator Rick Scott, in defiance of projections that the withdrawal of subsidies is what will cause premiums to skyrocket. “At least among Republicans, there’s a growing sense that just maintaining the status quo is very destructive,” says Brian Blase, the president of the right-wing Paragon Health Institute. Blase has been busily publishing papers purporting to show that throwing people off Medicaid somehow won’t make them less healthy and that eliminating insurance subsidies harms only insurers, not people.

The anti-government wing of the Republican Party harbors an aversion to social welfare that’s so deep-seated, the GOP doesn’t seem to mind the political risks.

In this case, it seems that Trump’s generalized animosity for the opposing party has overwhelmed his political survival instinct. The president probably doesn’t want to throw Americans off of their health insurance, and he certainly doesn’t want masses of angry, uninsured voters flooding the polls next year. But cutting a deal to preserve these ACA subsidies would mean angering Republicans who suck up to him and handing Democrats a win. That, of course, is a nonstarter. He’d clearly prefer to drift through a government shutdown and sleepwalk into a political disaster that, when it strikes, will seem quite familiar.

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

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Thursday, October 30, 2025 8:26 AM

SECOND

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


Trump directs Pentagon to start testing nuclear weapons

By Julia Manchester and Filip Timotija - 10/29/25 9:35 PM ET

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5580424-trump-directs-pentagon-to-s
tart-testing-nuclear-weapons/

The U.S. halted the explosive testing of nuclear arms in 1992.

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

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Thursday, October 30, 2025 9:25 AM

THG

Keep it real please


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:




Hey Jackass, stop sucking that guys dick and point to the pussy. Great...

T


Trump and Petro Revive the Colombian Cocaine Industry |


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Thursday, October 30, 2025 9:39 AM

SECOND

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


Former Intelligence Officials Warn Trump Poses Existential Threat to U.S. Democracy

More than 340 of them from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security.

Not that this is any sort of news flash.

https://steadystate1.substack.com/p/former-intelligence-officials-warn

_______________________

The Steady State Assessment of U.S. Democracy

https://thesteadystate.org/

An open-source evidence based report identifying clear indicators of accelerating democratic backsliding — consolidation of executive power, weakening of institutional checks, politicization of justice and intelligence, and deliberate erosion of civil-service neutrality. The trend lines point toward what analysts call competitive authoritarianism — a system where elections and courts still exist, but are increasingly manipulated to entrench power.

This document was written by members of The Steady State — former officers of the CIA, NSA, DIA, State Department, and other national-security agencies — using the same structured analytic standards (e.g., confidence levels, key judgments, and scope notes) that guide official intelligence assessments. It is not a partisan argument; it is an analytic warning.

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

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Thursday, October 30, 2025 9:54 AM

THG

Keep it real please


Trump is in way over his head. China promises to buy 180 thousand metric tons of soy beans. Last year they brought 27 million metric tons. See the difference? Next year our farmers will plant soy beans again and China will do the same thing to them again putting them out of business.

Trump is destroying everything he touches.

T





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Thursday, October 30, 2025 3:50 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Trump is in way over his head.


We've heard that thousands of times out of you, and you've been wrong every single time. What makes this one different, Ted?

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Friday, October 31, 2025 6:13 AM

SECOND

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


“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.” - Niccolò Machiavelli

https://thedecisionlab.com/thinkers/political-science/niccolo-machiave
lli

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

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Friday, October 31, 2025 6:20 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Men are so simple of mind, and so much dominated by their immediate needs, that a deceitful man will always find plenty who are ready to be deceived.” - Niccolò Machiavelli

https://thedecisionlab.com/thinkers/political-science/niccolo-machiave
lli

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


And the Democrat Party's entire thing is catering to those who need their immediate fixes and free everything, no matter the cost and what it means for everyone's future.



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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Friday, October 31, 2025 7:21 AM

SECOND

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


“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.” - Niccolo Machiavelli

This Machiavelli quote suggests that most people are easily fooled by outward appearances and lack the ability to look deeper to find the truth. He argues that while everyone can see, very few have the "gift of penetration" - the rare insight or wisdom to discern the reality beneath the surface. This observation is a core theme in his work, especially in discussions about leadership and public perception.

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

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Friday, October 31, 2025 9:17 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.” - Niccolo Machiavelli

This Machiavelli quote suggests that most people are easily fooled by outward appearances and lack the ability to look deeper to find the truth.


Yes.

He is describing you and Ted.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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

Friday, October 31, 2025 10:11 AM

SECOND

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


Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.” - Niccolo Machiavelli

This Machiavelli quote suggests that most people are easily fooled by outward appearances and lack the ability to look deeper to find the truth.


Yes.

He is describing you and Ted.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.
Trump’s Plan Is Now Out in the Open (but invisible to 6ixStringJack)

It’s getting ever harder to avoid connecting the authoritarian dots.

By Peter Wehner | October 31, 2025, 6 AM ET

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/10/trump-authoritari
anism/684773/

Give Donald Trump this much: He has never tried to hide his malice, his lawlessness, or his desire to inflict pain on others. These were on vivid display when he engaged in a multipart conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and stood by as a mob of supporters sought to hang his vice president. These were displayed, as well, every day during his 2024 vengeance campaign. Yet more than 77 million Americans decided that he was the man with whom they wanted to entrust the care of this nation.

For more Americans than not, and for many more evangelical Christians than not, Trump is the representative man of our time. His ethic is theirs. So are his corruptions. And for those of us who, in our younger years, revered America as a shining city upon a hill, a nation of nations, the “last, best hope of earth,” this is quite a painful period. America has lost its moral bearings; as a result, it has also lost its moral standing in the world.

A curtain of darkness is settling over our nation. And it’s getting ever harder to avoid connecting the authoritarian dots.

Trump is in the process of building his own paramilitary force. He is invoking wartime powers to deport people without due process, even suggesting that American citizens may be sent to foreign prisons. He has deployed National Guard troops to cities over the objections of local officials. In a speech to American troops in Japan, he warned: “If we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard.”

Trump has signaled that he is open to invoking the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that allows the president to deploy the military in the United States. And he has claimed, without legal justification, that he has the right to order the military to summarily kill people suspected of smuggling drugs on boats off the coast of South America. (The administration has yet to provide evidence to support its claims that the individuals who have been killed were cartel members or that the vessels were transporting drugs.)

My colleague Tom Nichols, a retired professor at the U.S. Naval War College, warns that eventually what Trump is doing will become a new principle for the use of force: “He is acclimating people to the notion that the military is his private army, unconstrained by law, unconstrained by norms, unconstrained by American traditions.”

Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fired the senior judge advocates general, removing the officials who could obstruct the execution of unlawful orders from the commander in chief. Their dismissals will also have a chilling effect on those who remain. The firing of the JAGs is just one element of a broader purge of the military, which started at the beginning of Trump’s second term. In February, five former defense secretaries, including James Mattis, who served under Trump in his first term, wrote a letter to lawmakers, saying the dismissals “raise troubling questions about the administration’s desire to politicize the military and to remove legal constraints on the president’s power.”

Speaking of which: Trump views himself as the final arbiter of the legality of anything he does. An executive order he signed in February says, “The President and the Attorney General’s opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties. No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law.”

There’s more. Trump is the most corrupt and self-enriching president ever. He is also conducting what The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg describes as “the most punishing government crackdown against major American media institutions in modern times, using what seems like every tool at his disposal to eradicate reporting and commentary with which he disagrees.” That includes suggesting that the Federal Communications Commission should revoke the licenses of television broadcasters that give him too much “bad publicity” and suing major newspapers and networks.

He has targeted law firms for political reasons and universities for ideological reasons. As part of his disinformation campaign, he fired the nonpartisan commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency reported weaker-than-expected jobs numbers for July. He has called judges who rule against him “lunatics” and “monsters who want our country to go to hell.” And he granted blanket clemency to the nearly 1,600 people charged in the attacks on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, including members of extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers who were convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Trump has pressured the Department of Justice to target, indict, and destroy those he considers to be his political enemies. And he signed memorandums targeting two officials from his first term, including Chris Krebs, the former cybersecurity official who rejected Trump’s false claim of widespread election fraud.

As for free elections, the cornerstone of democracy, the Trump administration is using the levers of government to target “the financial, digital and legal machinery that powers the Democratic Party and much of the progressive political world,” The New York Times reports. Trump has ordered the Department of Justice to investigate ActBlue, the main Democratic fundraising platform. He has also said he’s going to “lead a movement” to outlaw electronic-voting machines and mail-in balloting, in an effort to disadvantage Democrats. Cleta Mitchell, who played a role in Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, threatens that Trump could declare a national emergency to take control of national elections. The Atlantic’s David A. Graham warns that Trump’s plan to subvert the midterms is already well under way. “The insurrection failed the first time,” Graham writes, “but the second try might be more effective.”

Trump, having attempted to overthrow one election, can be counted on to attempt to rig the next one. As J. Michael Luttig, a former federal judge, warns in The Atlantic: “With his every word and deed, Trump has given Americans reason to believe that he will seek a third term, in defiance of the Constitution. It seems abundantly clear that he will hold on to the office at any cost, including America’s ruin.”

Trump learned from his first term; in his second go-around, he’s placed MAGA cultists in every key position of power. They will follow Trump to the ends of the Earth, knowing that a presidential pardon is there for the asking, if necessary.

There’s little indication that the central institutions of American life, including the Supreme Court, are willing to check Trump as he seeks unprecedented and nearly unlimited power. Nor is it clear that if they tried to do so, they would succeed. Trump has so far largely abided by court decisions, but beyond a certain point, on things he really cares about, he’ll likely ignore them. He will ask about Chief Justice John Roberts a variation of the question Joseph Stalin is supposed to have asked about the pope: How many divisions does he have?

We’re less than one-fifth of the way through Trump’s second term; things will get much worse. So it’s too early to know whether the damage that Trump and his MAGA movement are inflicting on the foundations of the United States is reversible, or whether the injury to our civic and political culture is repairable.

If America recovers, the path will lie not simply through electoral politics. The fate of the country rests on the recovery of republican virtue, the cultivation of an active passion for the public interest, and a willingness to sacrifice individual interests for the common good. Words and phrases such as honor and love of country have to stir people out of their lethargy and into action.

We saw some of that in the “No Kings” protests, but much more needs to happen. My colleague David Brooks, citing the work of the political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, reminds us that “citizens are not powerless; they have many ways to defend democracy.” Whether we step up or not is a matter of civic will and civic courage. Can we summon those virtues at a moment when American ideals are under sustained assault by the American president?

A final thought: As we continue along this journey, into places none of us has ever quite been before, it is worth holding close to our hearts the words of the Czech playwright and dissident Václav Havel. They moved me when I first read them, in the early 1990s, when so much was so different, and I have cited them several times since, but they hold more meaning now than ever.

“I have few illusions,” Havel wrote. “But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.”

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

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Friday, October 31, 2025 10:32 AM

SECOND

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


President for Life

Donald Trump is trying to amass the powers of a king.

By J. Michael Luttig | October 28, 2025

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/12/trump-third-term-
authoritarianism/684616/

In the normal course of history, the president of the United States is a figure who inspires optimism in the American people. The 47th president prefers to stir feelings of fear, vulnerability, hopelessness, and political inevitability—the sense that he, and only he, can rescue the nation from looming peril. Since his second inauguration, Donald Trump has seized authoritarian control over the federal government and demanded the obedience of the other powerful institutions of American society—universities, law firms, media companies. The question weighing heavily on the minds of many Americans is whether Trump will subvert next year’s midterm elections or the 2028 presidential election to extend his reign.

With his every word and deed, Trump has given Americans reason to believe that he will seek a third term, in defiance of the Constitution. It seems abundantly clear that he will hold on to the office at any cost, including America’s ruin.

The Founders of our nation foresaw a figure like Trump, a demagogue who would ascend to the presidency and refuse to relinquish power to a successor chosen by the American people in a free and fair election. Writing to James Madison from Paris in 1787, Thomas Jefferson warned that such an incumbent, if narrowly defeated, would “pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government.” Were that moment ever to come, the Founders believed, it would mark the demise of the nation that they had conceived, bringing to a calamitous end the greatest experiment in self-government ever attempted by man.

Trump proved in 2021 that he would do anything to remain in the White House. Even after the violence of January 6, his second impeachment, and the conviction and incarceration of scores of his followers, he reiterated his willingness to subvert the 2024 election. That proved unnecessary. Yet since his victory, Trump has again told the American people that he is prepared to do what it takes to remain in power, the Constitution be damned.

In March, Trump refused to rule out a third term, saying that he was “not joking” about the prospect and claiming that “there are methods which you could do it.” He was asked about the idea of Vice President J. D. Vance running for the presidency, getting elected, and then passing the baton back to him. “That’s one,” he said. “But there are others, too.” As he so often does, Trump later claimed that he wasn’t being serious. But also in March, Trump’s ally Steve Bannon said that he is “a firm believer that President Trump will run and win again in 2028,” adding that he and others are working on ways to do it, which would require circumventing the Twenty-Second Amendment. (Bannon later told The Economist: “Trump is gonna be president in ’28, and people just ought to get accommodated with that.” He added, “At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is. But there’s a plan.”) In September, after meeting with congressional leaders about the looming government shutdown, Trump posted photographs on Truth Social in which Trump 2028 hats rested prominently on his Oval Office desk. In October, when discussing the possibility of a third term, Trump said, “I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever.”

We Americans are by nature good people who believe in the inherent goodness of others, especially those we elect to represent us in the highest office in the land. But we ignore such statements and other expressions of Trump’s intent at our peril. The 47th president is a vain man, and nothing would flatter his vanity more than seizing another term. Doing so would signify the ultimate triumph over his political enemies.

I am not a Pollyanna, nor am I a Cassandra. I was at the forefront of the conservative legal movement that began in 1981 with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. I have had the privilege of spending much of my career in public service, first in the Ford and Reagan White Houses; then in the Department of Justice; and, finally, appointed by George H. W. Bush, in the federal judiciary. I have never once in more than four decades believed that any president—Democrat or Republican—would intentionally violate the Constitution or a law of the United States. But Trump is different from all prior presidents in his utter contempt for the Constitution and America’s democracy.

The clearest evidence that Trump may subvert upcoming elections is that he tried to overturn the 2020 election. He shocked the nation and the world when he ordered then–Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the votes electing Joe Biden president, while claiming that the election had been stolen from him by his “radical left” enemies, whoever they are. When Pence refused to yield to Trump’s demand, Trump instigated the attack on the U.S. Capitol to prevent Congress from counting the votes and certifying Biden as his successor.

On January 6, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution,” further inflaming the crowd that had already breached the Capitol. Witnesses before the January 6 committee testified that Trump expressed support for hanging Pence while the attack was under way. Trump was prosecuted by the United States for having committed the gravest crime that a president can commit: attempting to remain in the presidency after losing an election and thereby obstructing the peaceful transfer of power. Yet he continues to deny that he lost the election. He describes January 6 as a glorious day in American history, not one of its darkest.

Among his first acts after being sworn in again was pardoning or commuting the sentences of every person convicted in connection with January 6. He then set about exacting revenge on the American justice system. He summarily fired dozens of government officials who had tried to hold him accountable for the attack on the Capitol, as well as for his other alleged criminal offenses of removing classified documents from the White House upon his departure, secreting them to Mar-a-Lago, and obstructing the government’s efforts to find and retrieve the documents. He has since replaced those fired officials with loyalists—sycophants committed to him, not to our democracy or the rule of law.

Today, Trump has vastly greater powers than he did in 2020. He has a willing vice president to preside over the joint session of Congress that will certify (or not) the next election, a second in command who refuses to admit that his boss lost the 2020 election. (Vance has said that he would not have certified the results without asking states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia to submit new slates of electors, a solution he invented to a problem that does not exist—there is no evidence of widespread fraud in those states or any state in 2020.) Trump’s party controls both houses of Congress, and he will surely do everything he can to maintain those majorities. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has paved the way for a third Trump term, as it did for his current term, by essentially granting him absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for any crimes he might commit in violation of the Constitution or the laws of the United States.

For anyone who doubts that Trump is contemplating a monarchical reign, consider how very far down that road he already is. Since returning to office, he has sought absolute power, unchecked by the other branches of government, the 50 states, or the free press.

On the first day of his current term, he launched a direct attack on the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship when he issued an executive order contradicting the clear language of the amendment, federal statute, and Supreme Court precedent.

He has arrogated to himself Congress’s power to levy tariffs, declaring that previous foreign-trade and economic practices had created a national emergency justifying his unilateral imposition of sweeping global tariffs. When Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell predicted that Trump’s unlawful tariffs would cause “higher inflation and slower growth,” Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Powell’s termination cannot come fast enough!” Later, he fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook, purportedly “for cause.” The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked Cook’s firing, but it won’t decide until next year whether Trump has the power to fire a member of the independent Federal Reserve. A ruling in Trump’s favor would give him absolute control over the central bank and thus over the monetary policy of the United States.

He has usurped Congress’s spending and appropriation powers by attempting to impound billions of dollars that Congress designated for specific purposes, including for public broadcasting, for Voice of America, and for desperately needed U.S. aid to starving and disease-stricken populations around the world.

He has likewise usurped Congress’s power to establish executive-branch departments and agencies, fund their operations, and provide civil-service protections to federal-government employees, unilaterally overhauling the U.S. government. He has hollowed out the Department of Education, effectively abolishing it. He has dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and asserted executive control over the independent Federal Election Commission and Federal Trade Commission, and fired thousands of federal employees without reasonable cause or explanation—all while Congress has stood by silently.

The Supreme Court, too, has largely given the president its imprimatur to continue his power grab. It has either effectively reversed lower-court rulings against the president using the so-called shadow docket, or allowed the administration to proceed until the Court determines the constitutionality of various actions, by which time the damage to the Constitution, the U.S. government, and American society will have been done, as the justices well know. When the Court has ruled against Trump—for example, forbidding him from deporting undocumented immigrants without due process—he has provoked a constitutional crisis by ignoring the order.

The Founders built layers of safeguards into the American system of government to constrain a president, not just the checks and balances by the branches of the federal government. But Trump has run roughshod over these fail-safes, too. In violation of the sovereign rights reserved for them by the Constitution, Trump has commanded state officials to aid him in his purge of undocumented immigrants.

The president has also taken military command of cities across the country—over the vehement objection of the states. When a federal judge held that Trump’s military occupation of Portland, Oregon, was unlawful, he circumvented her orders and trashed the judge—whom he appointed—for her ruling, saying that she should be “ashamed” of herself.

Given that Trump has for years pronounced the free press in America “the enemy of the people,” it came as no surprise when media companies were among the first Trump targeted with unconstitutional edicts. In return for his favor, many of the country’s major media institutions have surrendered to him.

Though he claims to be a great friend of free enterprise, Trump has asserted dominion over the economy and insinuated his administration into American capitalism so that our great businesses are dependent on and subject to the government, as they are in communist and socialist nations.

He has extorted the nation’s legal profession, forcing law firms to betray their clients and the law in order to secure his favor. He has bludgeoned the nation’s colleges and universities with lawless order after lawless order. The federal government cannot tell universities how to conduct their affairs or dictate the viewpoints that professors teach. The First Amendment zealously guards such decisions, and the Constitution categorically forbids the president from wielding Congress’s power of the purse to punish these institutions.

Trump has turned the federal government against the American people, transforming the nation’s institutions into instruments for his vengeful execution of the law against honorable citizens for perceived personal and political offenses. He has silenced dissent by persecuting and threatening to prosecute American citizens for speaking critically of him, and he has divided us, turning us against one another so that we cannot oppose him.

Trump has always told us exactly who he is. We have just not wanted to believe him. But we must believe him now.

This is the man who said in January 2016, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s, like, incredible.”

The man who proposed in 2022 that the “Massive Fraud” he alleged in the 2020 election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” and who proclaimed, soon after reassuming office, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

The man who, when asked the question “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as president?,” answered, “I don’t know.” And the man who, when asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process, replied, “I don’t know.”

The man who said in August that he can “do anything I want to do,” because he’s president.

The man who has demanded that his attorney general and Department of Justice immediately prosecute his enemies: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

And the man who summoned American military generals from around the world to Quantico, Virginia, to tell them that “America is under invasion from within,” repeatedly describing that enemy invasion as being by the “radical left,” a term he now seemingly uses to characterize all of his political opponents. He also said at this meeting, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military” for fighting the “war from within.”

Donald Trump is clearly willing to subvert an election in order to hold on to the power he so craves, and he is now fully enabled to undermine national elections. No one can prevent him from remaining president of the United States for a constitutionally prohibited third term—except the American people, in whom ultimate power resides under the Constitution of the United States.

On July 4, 1776, nearly 250 years ago, America freed itself forever from the oppression of tyrannical rule by monarchs. There was never to be a king in the United States of America. Never again were the liberties and freedoms of Americans to be subject to the whims of a monarch. From that day, Thomas Paine wrote, “so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.”

The nation has survived great challenges and calamities, including the Civil War. Now it is being tested again. Once more, we must ask, as Lincoln did, whether a nation so “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” can long endure.

If America is to long endure, we must summon our courage, our fearlessness, our hope, our spirited sense of invulnerability to political enthrall, and, most important, our abiding faith in the divine providence of this nation. We have been given the high charge of our forebears to “keep” the republic they founded a quarter of a millennium ago. If we do not keep it now, we will surely lose it.

This article appears in the December 2025 print edition with the headline “President for Life.”

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

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Friday, October 31, 2025 1:41 PM

THG

Keep it real please


Quote:
Originally posted by second:
“Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration.” - Niccolo Machiavelli

This Machiavelli quote suggests that most people are easily fooled by outward appearances and lack the ability to look deeper to find the truth. He argues that while everyone can see, very few have the "gift of penetration" - the rare insight or wisdom to discern the reality beneath the surface. This observation is a core theme in his work, especially in discussions about leadership and public perception.

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


Social media is making humanity lose its ability to think, study finds

https://spzh.eu/en/news/85465-social-media-is-making-humanity-lose-its
-ability-to-think-study-finds


Agreed SECOND. Just look at what it has done to Jack.

T

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Wednesday, November 5, 2025 1:18 PM

THG

Keep it real please


T

FOOD STAMPS SHREDDED AT GREAT GATSBY PARTY





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Wednesday, November 5, 2025 3:10 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Agreed SECOND. Just look at what it has done to Jack.


Statements like this are meaningless when I'm right about everything and you're always wrong.

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

For all that I've blessed, and all that I've wronged. In dreams until my death, I will wander on.

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Wednesday, November 5, 2025 7:14 PM

THG

Keep it real please


Democrats destroyed in Pennsylvania as well. Pa. election results: All 3 Democratic Supreme Court justices win retention races, and it continues.

T







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