Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
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Trump Kills the Firewall, Musk Lights the Match
The Trump administration’s baffling attack on American cybersecurity hits a new low, gutting vital programs, punishing experts and empowering Elon Musk’s shadowy government tech squad—now accused of letting Kremlin agents poke around federal systems.
By John R. Schindler • 04/17/25 1:03pm
https://observer.com/2025/04/cybersecurity-crisis-unfolds-as-trump-cut
s-cve-and-russians-hack-doge/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Signym, google Nazi supporters in America. Those supporters stopped identifying themselves once Hitler declared war on America.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yanno SECOND, this could have been an interesting thread. An intelligent and relatively non-partisan discussion of Trump's policies: What he's done right, where he's gone wrong, what we think will result, what he could do otherwise.
Instead, you've done your usual burying of threads with tons and tons of lies and bullshit.
How about you take a break, STFU for a change, and let the grownups talk?
You guys are the ones burning everything down and putting swastikas up on everything.
What's left of you.
Your party is dead. It will never come back.
You'd better start that Civil War now pussy, or you're going to lose everything forever.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:You and Signym won't read the following, but that is because you both are poor, uncomprehending and will stay that way until you die:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You guys are the ones burning everything down and putting swastikas up on everything.
What's left of you.
Your party is dead. It will never come back.
You'd better start that Civil War now pussy, or you're going to lose everything forever.
Trump is crippling the tax police
By Matthew Yglesias | Apr 23, 2025 at 5:07 AM
https://www.slowboring.com/p/trump-is-crippling-the-tax-police
The late Donald Rumsfeld had a funny bit where he would send a letter to the IRS stating that he had no idea whether his tax return was accurate because the correct number is essentially unknowable, and scolding Congress for bequeathing to the public a tax code so complicated that nobody really knows what anybody owes.
It’s funny, and I think it resonated with a lot of people who have complicated tax situations.
But that’s not actually most people.
Most people have a job, and that job pays them a salary. Taxes are withheld from their biweekly paycheck based on a rote formula, and at the end of the year, they get a modest refund because that’s how the withholding defaults work. For most people, their income is their salary, they take the standard deduction, their investments (if any) are in a 401(k), and calculating what they owe is pretty simple. It’s true that filling out the forms is annoying and the whole process can generate a fair amount of anxiety. But the underlying taxes are actually simple, and for most taxpayers, the government could easily send most taxpayers a pre-filled form with their income (employers have to report how much they pay as part of their own taxes) and what the IRS thinks they owe. Under the Biden administration, they moved in this direction with DirectFile, but of course the Trump administration killed that program.
That’s most people’s taxes. Then there’s me.
I co-own a company with my wife. She and I are also employees of the company. We derive income from our salaries, but also the company’s income “passes through” onto our individual taxes. We get a statement from Stripe indicating how much money they paid to us as Slow Boring subscriptions, less Substack’s cut and their own. But that is not income in the way that a salary is income — it’s revenue. The income concept, in a business context, refers to profits. So the money we pay to Google for Google Workspace software and email accounts is deducted, and so is the rent we pay for our office. So is my subscription to Riverside for podcast recording software. So are our computers.
It’s this stuff, the handling of business expenses, that makes our taxes complicated. If you read “a simple guide to claiming software tax deductions in 2025,” you’ll see that it’s not simple at all.
And it gets more complicated the deeper you read. For example, the “necessary” part of “ordinary and necessary” does not require the software to be literally indispensable. I could do my job without Claude Pro, for example — I was doing this work long before it existed — but I do think it meets the standard the IRS has articulated as “helpful and appropriate.” Is it ordinary? I think obviously yes, in terms of how this has been enforced in practice. But by definition, brand new products aren’t literally ordinary. On the other hand, “helpful and appropriate” and “necessary” all mean different things in ordinary language! The tax code is very complicated in its details. We have statutes and regulatory interpretations and case law, but when a complicated system meets a common law legal tradition, it results in a lot of ambiguity.
It also generates opportunities for everything from aggressive claiming of business expenses to outright fraud.
But part of the genius of America is that while tax cheating happens, most business owners act like Rumsfeld and make a good faith effort to pay what they owe. This is what’s known as voluntary tax compli
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:You and Signym won't read the following, but that is because you both are poor, uncomprehending and will stay that way until you die:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You guys are the ones burning everything down and putting swastikas up on everything.
What's left of you.
Your party is dead. It will never come back.
You'd better start that Civil War now pussy, or you're going to lose everything forever.
We don't read your propaganda.
I bet you're really scared right now, aren't you?
How could Kevin Drum have possibly died? He voted Democrat all of his life!!!
You're going to meet that God you pretend exists only when it serves as an argument for you soon.
Tick Tock
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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The Trump "Final" Proposal For Ukraine
By Phillips P. Obrien | Apr 23, 2025
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/the-trump-final-proposal-for-uk
raine
We have now, from the news service Axios, a list of points that make up the Trump plan which has been presented to Ukraine as a take it or leave it offer.
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/22/trump-russia-ukraine-peace-plan-crime
a-donbas
This is what Trump has been pressuring the Ukrainians to sign, using the threat of the US walking away from the negotiations. The plan that Axios has seen is arguably the worst possible deal for Ukraine, far worse than most were saying Trump would try to impose. Here are the salient points.
What Russia gets under Trump's proposal
1. "De jure" U.S. recognition of Russian control in Crimea.
2. "De facto recognition" of Russia’s occupation of nearly all of Luhansk Oblast and the occupied portions of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.
3. A promise that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO. The text notes that Ukraine could become part of the European Union.
4. The lifting of sanctions imposed since 2014.
5. Enhanced economic cooperation with the U.S., particularly in the energy and industrial sectors.
To understand the most terrible parts of the deal, and where the US is bending over backwards to help Putin, you have to start with points 1 and 4.
Point 1 on Crimea ends the strategic world that the US has tried to institute since 1945, and in particular would end the European settlement that has governed the continent as well. It might come as a shock to you, but not a single European state has expanded its borders by conquest since 1945. Yes, there have been countries dissolved (Yugoslavia and the USSR), but they broke up into constituent parts. However, there has been no case of a country expanding its size by militarily seizing the territory of another for 80 years.
This will end that world, and establish a new principle that basically puts every European state on Russia’s (and Belarus’s) borders in real jeopardy. Now, if you invade, ethnically cleanse, and hold—it's yours legally.
I will write much more about this later, but if Ukraine gives up legal claim to Crimea (which would require a constitutional change in Ukraine), Ukraine is establishing a legal precedent that could be used by Russia to take over the rest of the country eventually.
It is the thin end of the wedge in the Russian plan to end Ukraine.
Point 4 on sanctions is almost as bad. This lifts all the restrictions on trade with Russia that have been in place since Russia invaded Crimea—it's a permanent Russian economic victory. It would allow the USA and China to help rebuild the Russian military and economy rapidly (China, as I said on Monday, could flood Russia with finished military production). Sanctions have been one of Europe’s continuing pressure points to try and moderate Putin’s behavior—they would now be gone.
The other devastating thing that point 4 implies is that all Russian assets are unfrozen and returned to their owners, so Ukraine and Europe have no access to these funds to help Ukraine rebuild.
The other points are either concessions to Russia or things that sound like they mean something when they do not.
Point 2 and “De-Facto” recognition of the occupied territories (with not a single Russian withdrawal, it seems) basically starts the process of them eventually becoming de jure parts of Russia.
Point 3 on NATO and the EU is the USA and Russia basically dictating the future of European security, and in one case, where they clearly have no right to do this.
When it comes to NATO, this is just clear evidence of what Trump believes—and it accepts the Russian lie that the war started because of NATO. I suppose the real change is that this seems to be a permanent ban on Ukraine in NATO.
As for the EU part of Point 3, Ukraine is a sovereign European state and its membership is not something to be decided by Trump and Putin. The US and Russia have no rig
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Quote:
you both are poor
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Signym, google Nazi supporters in America.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Yanno SECOND, this could have been an interesting thread. An intelligent and relatively non-partisan discussion of Trump's policies: What he's done right, where he's gone wrong, what we think will result, what he could do otherwise.
Instead, you've done your usual burying of threads with tons and tons of lies and bullshit.
How about you take a break, STFU for a change, and let the grownups talk?
Hey stupid, most European nations had significant Nazi support before, during, and after WWII. Where do you think Ukrainian Nazis came from?
And AFA Nazi in the USA ... ppl like Nuland and Freeland have Nazi heritage. Insurprisingly, they tend to be Russia-hating neocons.
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"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
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Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
you both are poor
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
Going on year 6 without any income. Still not worried about where my next meal is coming from or how I'm going to keep the lights on.
*yawn*
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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Quote:From you. The same place I got the idea that you are convinced Russia deserves a victory in Ukraine, but I don't have your delusions about yourself. Being around people failing at life who are not as magnificent in reality as in their imaginations and their resumes has made me despise Trumptards. Trump is a great example: not as rich as he claims, not as smart, not as capable at business, not as good at golf, not as religious, etc. So many attributes Trump claims but doesn't have. One thing he has is that he is the biggest hot air balloon.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
you both are poor
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Losing A War Before It Started
Trump's Trade War With China Is A Strategic Catastrophe In The Making
By Phillips P. Obrien | Apr 15, 2025
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/losing-a-war-before-it-started
What we see in Trump is a persistent, almost pathological, drive to weaken the USA internally and externally. Internally, he is disregarding unanimous decisions of the Supreme Court (which if allowed to stand will destroy the whole concept of the rule of law in the USA), has hobbled Congress by compelling it to give up its powers, and is trying to break the independence of America’s press and universities. Far from being “conservative” this is the most radical set of destructive policies he could follow—and it is very hard to see how the genies that he is releasing will ever be put back in their bottles.
In terms of international relations he is just as destructive to America’s world position. Under the guise of making America “great again”, he has pursued a set of policies that is weakening America’s influence, destroying the relationships on which the American century was based, and strengthening those countries which see themselves as America’s adversaries.
The trade war that he has unleashed against China is arguably the best example of this. Trump has started his trade war without any preparation, against a target that can almost certainly outlast him, while deliberately antagonizing states that would be crucial to giving the US any chance of emerging victorious. He has most probably lost this war before it started.
I published a piece in The Atlantic yesterday talking about one of these points—how Trump is forcing what should be US partners into China’s economic orbit. Here is a gift link if you want to take a look.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/04/trump-tariff-china/6
82427/?gift=BQHDq1p24LRO8cUUEyLQ66zldN7kgfL1xbYrv_baQ0g&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
As a bonus for paying subscribers, I will include the whole first draft of the piece (much longer than the published version) at the end of this post—so you can experience the true vitriol. The Atlantic always makes me sound more statesmanlike than I really am.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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