Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
VIEWED: 185382
PAGE 116 of 479
Quote:I blame one side for being evil and the other side for being cowardly. Yes, I am saying Democratic Congressmen are cowards. Here is a real example from American history. If the evil Confederates, who were also members of Congress, had not made the tactical mistake of revealing their plan, they would not have needed to resign from Congress. There were border states that did not join the Confederacy but did continue to have slaves and kept their representation in Congress. If all the slave-owners in Congress from all states had stuck together in 1861, the US would have remained a nation where slave-owning was legal. Lincoln saw it that way:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I can only peg our relative poor economic and social performance to a high degree of political corruption in BOTH parties. The kind of corruption that can't even get single payer off the ground bc they're too beholden to the healthcare industry, and who sold our manufacturing to China.
Lincoln replaced V.P. Hamlin with Andrew Johnson, a slave-owning Southern Unionist who was the only member of the U.S. Senate from a secessionist state who stayed loyal to the federal government at the outbreak of the American Civil War. As President, Johnson the slave-owner protected the slave-owners of the Confederacy by pardoning them for treason. Presidents and Congresses undid Reconstruction and returned blacks into slavery, but ones who got poorly paid and could not vote. It took about 100 years for enough brave Congressmen to give, once again, the right to vote to blacks. That bravery didn't last.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Johnson%27s_drunk_vice-presidenti
al_inaugural_address
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Incompetent or Evil: A False Dichotomy
Trump’s people can be and are both
By Paul Krugman | Mar 26, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/incompetent-or-evil-a-false-dichoto
my
The amount of damage the second Trump administration has already done on many fronts, from foreign policy to public health to America’s economic prospects, both for the months ahead and in the long run, is astonishing. And they’re just getting started.
But whenever I talk with other people about one of these disasters, I find them arguing about how to think about what’s happening. Are we looking at mind-boggling incompetence on the part of what Dan Drezner, using the technical language of international relations theory, calls “the dumbest motherfuckers alive”? Or are we looking at a sinister plot to destroy America as we know it?
The answer is “yes.” These people are both incompetent and evil.
The big disaster of the week (so far) has been Trump officials accidently sharing secret war planning with the editor of The Atlantic. Somehow including Jeffrey Goldberg in the Signal chat was clearly a fuckup, and an incredible one.
But why were they sharing highly sensitive information over a private messaging app rather than using secure channels? The most likely explanation is that they wanted to evade accountability: texts between government officials are supposed to remain part of the record, while Signal texts can be and in this case were set to disappear. As Phillips O’Brien notes, war planning aside, what the group chat reveals is top officials’ contempt for and hostility toward Europe; some of them opposed an operation against the Houthis because clearing the shipping lanes might help our (erstwhile?) allies.
So the disaster reflected both stupidity and bad intentions. And the same is true of other ongoing disasters, including the shockingly rapid collapse of the Social Security Administration.
As I hope you’re aware, Elon Musk’s DOGE, which is supposedly rooting out fraud and waste, has made Social Security a special target. Musk has done this even though it’s one of the federal government’s cleanest, most efficient programs, and has done an immense amount to reduce poverty among the elderly:
Source: The Conversation
Why is he doing this?
One answer is incompetence. Musk sent his child programmers into the agency and they, not understanding how its databases worked, wrongly reported to him that millions of dead people were receiving benefits. He immediately went big with that claim, and his immense but fragile ego won’t let him admit that he messed up so badly on something so big. So he just keeps making wilder and wilder assertions about Social Security fraud, and in the name of preventing fraud and reducing waste has been rapidly degrading the agency’s ability to serve America’s seniors.
An alternative answer sees the damage to Social Security as part of a deliberate scheme to undermine public faith in government, and to create an opening for lucrative privatization schemes. (It remains notable that DOGE hasn’t so much as hinted about doing something about overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans run by private insurers, which we know are costing taxpayers tens of billions a year.)
On this view, Musk and company see crippling the Social Security Administration as a feature, not a bug, part of their overarching plan to undermine the safety net and make America safe for profiteering.
Which of these views is right? My answer is both. Musk is incompetent and evil. He suffers from billionaire brain — that special blend of ignorance and arrogance that occurs all too frequently in men who believe that their success in accumulating personal wealth means that they understand everything, no need to do any homework. But he also clearly detests anything that
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America Is Watching the Rise of a Dual State
For most people, the courts will continue to operate as usual—until they don’t.
By Aziz Huq | March 23, 2025
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/05/trump-executive-o
rder-lawlessness-constitutional-crisis/682112/
On September 20, 1938, a man who had witnessed the rise of fascism packed his suitcases and fled his home in Berlin. He arranged to have smuggled separately a manuscript that he had drafted in secret over the previous two years. This book was a remarkable one. It clarified what was unfolding in Berlin at the time, the catalyst for its author’s flight.
The man fleeing that day was a Jewish labor lawyer named Ernst Fraenkel. He completed his manuscript two years later at the University of Chicago (where I teach), publishing it as The Dual State, with the modest subtitle A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship. The book explains how the Nazi regime managed to keep on track a capitalist economy governed by stable laws—and maintain a day-to-day normalcy for many of its citizens—while at the same time establishing a domain of lawlessness and state violence in order to realize its terrible vision of ethno-nationalism.
Download the free book (2017 edition) from the mirrors at https://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Ernst+Fraenkel+Dual
Fraenkel offered a simple, yet powerful, picture of how the constitutional and legal foundations of the Weimar Republic eroded, and were replaced by strongman-style rule in which the commands of the Nazi Party and its leader became paramount. His perspective was not grounded in abstract political theory; it grew instead from his experience as a Jewish lawyer in Nazi Berlin representing dissidents and other disfavored clients. Academic in tone, The Dual State sketches a template of emerging tyranny distilled from bloody and horrifying experience.
As Fraenkel explained it, a lawless dictatorship does not arise simply by snuffing out the ordinary legal system of rules, procedures, and precedents. To the contrary, that system—which he called the “normative state”—remains in place while dictatorial power spreads across society. What happens, Fraenkel explained, is insidious. Rather than completely eliminating the normative state, the Nazi regime slowly created a parallel zone in which “unlimited arbitrariness and violence unchecked by any legal guarantees” reigned freely. In this domain, which Fraenkel called the “prerogative state,” ordinary law didn’t apply. (A prerogative power is one that allows a person such as a monarch to act without regard to the laws on the books; theorists from John Locke onward have offered various formulations of the idea.) In this prerogative state, judges and other legal actors deferred to the racist hierarchies and ruthless expediencies of the Nazi regime.
The key here is that this prerogative state does not immediately and completely overrun the normative state. Rather, Fraenkel argued, dictatorships create a lawless zone that runs alongside the normative state. The two states cohabit uneasily and unstably. On any given day, people or cases could be jerked out of the normative state and into the prerogative one. In July 1936, for example, Fraenkel won a case for employees of an association taken over by the Nazis. A few days later, he learned that the Gestapo had seized the money owed to his clients and deposited it in the government’s coffers. Over time, the prerogative state would distort and slowly unravel the legal procedures of the normative state, leaving a smaller and smaller domain for ordinary law.
Yet, Fraenkel insisted, it was a mistake to think that even the Nazis would entirely dispense with normal laws. After all, they had a complex, broadly capitalist economy to maintain. “A nation of 80 million people,” he noted, needs stable rules. The trick was to find a way to keep the law going for Christian Germans who supported or at least tolerated the Nazis, while ruthlessly executing the führer’s directives against the state’s enemies, real and perceived. Capitalis
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Worthwhile Canadian Observations
About a “boring” country that definitely isn’t
By Paul Krugman | Mar 25, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/worthwhile-canadian-observations I don’t know what set Trump off on Canada,
This: Canada has a record trade surplus with the USA. (So BTW does Mexico) linkages between its own provinces, and built a closer economic relationship with Britain.
Quote:Isn't that like tying yourself to a sinking ship? I hope Canadians realize that Carney is a former Bank of England Governor, and that England may be even more predatory towards Canada's resources than Trump.
Sure enough, Mark Carney, the current and probably continuing Canadian prime minister, has emphasized removing remaining obstacles to interprovincial trade and seems to be seeking closer ties to Europe.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Carney
Quote:Because we, of the collective west, followed the same Covid, post-Covid, and anti-Russian policies that dumped money into a fragile supply chain world, and cut ourselves off from cheap Russian energy?
surely the main reason was a continuation of the factors that made 2024 a graveyard for incumbents everywhere, especially continuing voter anger about the inflation surge of 2021-22.
Some of us tried to point out that the very universality of the inflation surge meant that it couldn’t be attributed to the policies of any one country’s government. If Bidenomics was responsible for U.S. inflation, why did Europe experience almost the same cumulative rise in prices that we did?
Quote:
The Economist declared in a much-quoted article, [Canada] is now poorer than Alabama, as measured by GDP per capita... Yet Canada doesn’t look like Alabama; it doesn’t feel like Alabama; and by any measure other than GDP it isn’t anything like Alabama. Here’s GDP per capita along with a widely used measure of life satisfaction, the same one often cited when pointing out how happy the Nordic countries seem to be, and life expectancy at birth:
Sources: IMF, Bureau of Economic Analysis, Gallup, World Bank
Part of the explanation for this discrepancy, no doubt, is that so much of U.S. national income accrues to a small number of wealthy people; inequality in Canada is much lower.
So every time someone brings up "per capita" stats, just remember that when there are points on a bell curve that are so far out you can't see them with the Hubble Telescope, they pull the average so far out it has nothing to do with whatever typical people experience.
One way to assess income equality in the GINI index, higher numbers mean greater inequality. The USA GINI index is about 0.42 (the highest inequality of all developed nations), Canadian GINI index is 0.32.
But Canada's relative equality ISN'T DUE TO TAX POLICIES . Canada's Federal Income Tax and Capital Gains tax rates are roughly the same as ours, and their corporate tax rate ranges from 38% to 15%, unless you're a small business where it seems to be 9%.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/businesses/topics
/corporations/corporation-tax-rates.html
So next time SECOND starts bitching and whining about taxes, we can look to Canada to refute his argument.
I can only peg our relative poor economic and social performance to a high degree of political corruption in BOTH parties. The kind of corruption that can't even get single payer off the ground bc they're too beholden to the healthcare industry, who sold our manufacturing to China...
AND THE PRICE OF PLAYING "WORLD DOMINATION".
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissin
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Ukraine Was Just Knifed In The Back (by Trump) And The Ukrainians Know It
By Phillips P. Obrien | Mar 26, 2025
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/ukraine-was-just-knifed-in-the-
back
The outcome of the negotiations between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia is a betrayal to Ukraine. Basically the US has agreed to lift a lot of sanctions from Russia (which you won’t see at the White House statement but will see in the Kremlin one):
• Lifting of sanctions on Rossclkhozbank and other financial institutions involved in facilitating international trade in food products (including fish products) and fertilizers, their reconnection to SWIFT, and the opening of necessary correspondent accounts;
• Lifting of restrictions on trade finance operations;
• Lifting of sanctions on companies that produce and export food products (including fish products) and fertilizers, as well as lifting restrictions on insurance companies working with shipments of food (including fish products) and fertilizers;
• Lifting of restrictions on port servicing of vessels and sanctions on ships flying the Russian flag involved in the trade of food products (including fish products) and fertilizers;
• Lifting of restrictions on the supply of agricultural machinery to the Russian Federation, as well as other goods involved in the production of food (including fish products) and fertilizers.
It is very difficult to see Ustinova writing this if the Ukrainian government did not understand now how it had been betrayed.
This deal stinks and would be a huge win for Russia if it were implemented. A few things might happen. The Trump administration, having crafted it with Putin, might get cold feet and not push to implement it over the heads of the Ukrainians and Europeans. That would be best—but don’t put too much hope on Trump not working with Putin.
If the US-Russian end of the deal stands, then Ukraine will be left either taking the deal or walking away. It can walk away, if European states back it. The participation of Europe will be needed to bust the sanctions (unless the US decides to just ally with Russia fully and openly). However, this will require some real fortitude and determination by European states to stand up to the USA.
Regardless, the last day (including the Atlantic Story I wrote about on Monday) has once again confirmed where we are.
The Story Of The Year For Many Reasons
Phillips P. Obrien · Mar 24
Read full story https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-story-of-the-year-for-many-
reasons
The US is now trying to subvert Ukraine (and Europe) and work with Russia. The US wants to end the sanctions as soon as possible and start making money with Russia. It cares nothing about the success of freedom and democracy in Europe/Ukraine and actually seems to wish to undermine both if possible.
It is up to Ukraine and Europe now to look after themselves. The Black Sea ceasefire deal is screaming that loudly.
More at https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/ukraine-was-just-knifed-in-the-
back
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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‘We have to have it’: Trump ups the pressure on Greenland
By Danny Nguyen | 03/26/2025 01:01 PM EDT
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/26/trump-greenland-vance-visit-0
0004791
America has “to let them know that we need Greenland for international safety and security. We need it. We have to have it,” Trump said in an interview with radio host Vince Coglianese on Wednesday. “It’s [an] island from a defensive posture and even offensive posture is something we need. … When you look at the ships going up their shore by the hundreds, it’s a busy place.”
The president told Coglianese he was unsure if Greenlanders were ready to be citizens of the United States, “but I think we have to do it and convince them, and we have to have the land because it’s not possible to properly defend a large section of this Earth — not just the U.S. — without it. So we have to have it, and I think we will have it.”
If you are a Trumptard, be aware that Trump is getting crazier day by day.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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How does it feel to wake up every day and be a loser?
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Tail Wags the Dog once again?
this time its some low Level Gypsy IDF Jew Israeli Romani guy a journalist who writes crap and will try to end the Trump Admin...the Jew Roma foreign guy a dual citizen leaks the military stuff and now wants to control foreign policy
they do some kind of humiliation on Kash Patel and Tulsi, more political BS
all of them afraid to call out Jeffrey Goldberg
We are very much in Clownworld
however Trump is kind of angry and takes it as a personal attack
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Mr. Carney fully admits to being the head of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.
It is Poilievre who has had to walk back comments to try and ditch the "Maple Maga" tag that he's gotten. The other day he had to walk back about taking healthcare down, the dental plan that the Liberals and NDP brought in under Trudeau.
The Conservatives are behind the Liberals in the polls and frankly that's where they should stay. We do not need a trump wanna be leading Canada.
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Quote:The troubling little things about the Signal leak.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
How does it feel to wake up every day and be a loser?
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
America is, indeed, under siege by losers. These are the texts of middle-management doofuses elevated, unexpectedly, to the executive suite. They are mortifyingly self-important about their new status. They cannot stop prancing around in their new suits, bragging about their new toys. Look at how important they are! Look at how they praise God and CENTCOM! Look at Tulsi Gabbard typing, “Great work and effects!” Is it too much to ask our nation’s designated button-pushers to at least act like this is real? Is it too much to ask them to discuss a military operation with statesmanlike assurance, rather than with bluff enthusiasm, high-fives, and the muscular-arm emoji? Is it too much to expect them to act like they’ve been here before?
https://slate.com/life/2025/03/trump-signal-atlantic-leak-hegseth-atta
ck-plans.html
The part that people are missing is that Trump’s people are doing official communications on Signal to avoid those communications being retained. There are Project 2025 training videos that specifically recommended this type of thing as a way to avoid subpoenas. Our government is using 3rd party software to discuss OPSEC, NOFORN, and Top Secret levels of communication in avenues that do not retain data. They can stage a total takeover of the US and there will be no evidence through any official channels.
18 U.S. Code § 2071 – Willful concealment or destruction of records.
Penalty: Fines, up to 3 years in prison, and disqualification from federal office.
Obstruction of justice statutes (e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 1519 – destruction of records in federal investigations). Penalty: Up to 20 years if tied to an investigation or official proceeding.
I think the whole thing is that they're using services to communicate that delete the chat records so there is no evidence. It’s difficult to prove this has been done if you can’t get the content of the comms. For this one case, yes there’s evidence. There won’t be for most cases.
The whole purpose of the transparency laws were to know who did what and when so everybody could eventually be held accountable. That is why the Republicans are using third party websites instead of official government channels for internal government communication.
https://imgur.com/gallery/repost-55djqZt
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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