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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PAGE 337 of 479
Trump Is Getting Closer to Having an ‘Infinite Money Pit’
Rogé Karma | September 22, 2025
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/09/trump-federal-rese
rve-control-unchecked-power/684279/
President Donald Trump could be close to taking over the Federal Reserve. On September 9, a federal district judge blocked Trump’s effort to remove Lisa Cook as a Federal Reserve governor; on Thursday, the administration petitioned the Supreme Court to allow the firing to go through. If the high court ends up siding with the administration, then Trump will have a clear path to filling the central bank with loyalists willing to vote the way he directs them to.
So far, most of the hand-wringing over this possibility has centered on Trump’s desire to dramatically cut interest rates, which could juice the economy and improve the GOP’s political prospects in the short term, but make inflation worse and destroy the Fed’s credibility in the long term. But the Fed has far more power than just setting rates; in fact, setting rates is the least of what it can do. The central bank determines the supply of money flowing through the economy, decides which institutions can have access to the financial system, and can print and spend money at will. If Trump takes control of the Fed, he will have attained extraordinary power to reward his friends and destroy his enemies.
The Constitution makes clear that Congress, not the president, holds the power to authorize new government spending. But a major exception to this rule exists. In 1932, Congress gave the Federal Reserve the power to lend money to “any individual, partnership, or corporation” during “unusual or exigent circumstances.” The Fed used the emergency-lending provision to make a few modest loans during the Great Depression. The power then lay dormant until the 2008 financial crisis, when the central bank issued hundreds of billions of dollars in loans in an effort to rescue major financial institutions on the brink of collapse. During the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the Fed went even further, offering trillions of dollars in loans not just to big banks but to corporations, small businesses, nonprofits, and even city governments.
Several legal experts told me that even this expansive use of the Fed’s lending authority was relatively restrained compared with what the central bank could do. Federal law imposes virtually no limits on what kind of institutions the Fed can lend to, how much money it can lend, or whether the loans ever need to be paid back. Whether any party would even have standing to sue the Fed for abusing its lending authority is unclear. As part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-reform act, Congress imposed a few restrictions, but these turned out to be vague and easily gamable. “There are really no limits to this power,” Aaron Klein, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former Treasury official who helped draft the relevant provisions of Dodd-Frank, told me. “The Fed can basically lend however much it wants, to whoever it wants, whenever it wants.”
Perhaps Trump would instruct his Fed appointees to exercise that power with restraint, lending only as needed to guide the economy through truly perilous circumstances. But little would stop him from instead treating the bank’s lending power as a bottomless slush fund. He could direct money to favored industries, such as crypto, or even his own businesses. He could reward media outlets that give him favorable coverage, companies that donate to Republican campaigns, and even the budgets of local officials who promote his agenda. If Democrats in Congress shut down the government to limit funds for ICE, say, he could send hundreds of billions of dollars to private contractors to keep operations moving. “It’s an infinite money pit,” Lev Menand, a professor at Columbia Law School who previously worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told me. “There’s really nothing to stop the administration from lending trillions of dollars to the president’s prioritie
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A clever new paper puts concrete numbers to the taxes paid by members of the Forbes 400.
By Annie Lowrey
https://www.theatlantic.com/economy/archive/2025/08/billionaire-tax-st
udy/683987/
In the end, the top 400 Americans paid an estimated 23.8 percent of their income to Uncle Sam from 2018 to 2020 — down from roughly 30 percent before the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, in 2017. They paid 1.3 percent of their total wealth to the IRS in those years, down from 2.7 percent from 2010 to 2013. Their tax rates were lower than the average paid by all American households.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Trump’s signature first-term domestic-policy package, helped these billionaires keep more of their money. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed this summer, extends the TCJA’s tax cuts, creates new business loopholes, and lowers taxes on estates. To help offset the revenue losses, the Trump administration is stripping health coverage from millions of low-income Americans and shrinking the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The rich, including Trump, will keep getting richer. The poor will pay for it.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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No first family has used the office to make as much money as Donald Trump’s
“Family members who never had significant fortunes of their own — Eric, Don Jr., Barron and Melania — have accumulated tens, then hundreds of millions of dollars,” Forbes says.
“All told, the family (including the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner) is now worth an estimated $10 billion, having nearly doubled its net worth since last year’s election."
As for the president himself, Forbes reports, "Trump’s fortune jumped $3 billion in one year," with "His move into crypto account[ing] for $2 billion of that." His total networth is now $7.3 billion. His wife Melania, they say, is now worth over $20 million.
Eric Trump has "made more money on crypto than any of his siblings," with a net worth of $750 million, up from $40 million last year, while brother Donald Jr., " a big player in the anti-woke economy," has seen his fortune rise from an estimated $50 million last year to $500 million today, according to Forbes.
Trump's youngest son, Barron, a 19 year-old college sophomore, is now worth $150 million and, says Forbes, and "has pocketed an estimated $80 million from token sales and still holds an estimated 2.3 billion locked-up tokens, which Forbes heavily discounts because they can’t yet be traded."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/savingandinvesting/the-most-lucrative-
year-of-his-life-how-trump-s-family-is-profiting-off-the-presidency/ar-AA1N4Gis
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Last year, President Donald Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan was reportedly recorded accepting $50,000 in cash from “businessmen” — undercover FBI agents — in exchange for promising to help secure government contracts, spurring a Justice Department investigation.
Homan was a private citizen when he is said to have accepted the cash, but he had boasted about playing a prominent role in a potential second Trump administration in the months leading up to the payment. The investigation was closed earlier this year by the Trump administration.
Who is Homan? As border czar, Homan has been one of the public faces of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. He served as acting ICE director in Trump’s first term, and claimed last year that he would “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”
What has the Trump administration said about the case? The White House denied Homan accepted the money — despite the reported existence of an audio recording of him doing so — and described the investigation into Homan as entrapment and “another example of the weaponization of the Biden DOJ.”
Why does this matter? The Homan story — thousands in cash delivered clandestinely in a takeout bag — would be a major scandal in any other era, under any other administration. Here, it’s one data point in a growing body of evidence for the politicization of Trump’s DOJ, including the Friday resignation of US Attorney Erik Siebert and a subsequent Truth Social post by Trump calling for criminal charges against his political opponents.
https://www.vox.com/the-logoff-newsletter-trump/462336/tom-homan-borde
r-czar-doj-fbi-investigation-bribery-cash
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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This Might Be Trump’s Most Bonkers Speech Yet
And that’s really saying something!
By Fred Kaplan | Sept 23, 2025 1:03 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/09/trump-un-speech-nobel-priz
e-gaza-israel-ukraine-climate-change.html
Trump starts at 22 minutes
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly for the first time since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump gave what might be the most bonkers speech of his political career—and I say that knowing the bar is high.
It was, among other things, unrelentingly, embarrassingly—and, most of all, delusionally—egomaniacal. The whole first section claimed, in language that seemed borrowed from textbooks of Communist Party congresses, the many ways that, in just eight months, he has transformed the U.S. from the “ruinous” “calamity” of “Sleep Joe Biden” to “the hottest country anywhere in the world … indeed the Golden Age of America … the greatest economy in the history of the world.”
He also repeated the, let us say, extreme exaggeration, recited in many domestic forums, that he personally ended seven wars—“no president or prime minister, no country, has ever done anything close to that … everyone says that I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for each one of these achievements,” adding that, while he was “working to save millions of lives,” the United Nations—the institution that was hosting him—did nothing.
He even went on, for several minutes, about how, many years ago, when he was a real-estate tycoon, the U.N. turned down his bid to renovate its headquarters and ended up with a far inferior contractor who was lousy at construction and incurred massive cost overruns. “Many things in the U.N. are happening just like that, on a bigger scale,” he summed up his complaint.
Yet, on the world stage outside the grand chamber, “America is respected again, like it has never been respected before.” He insisted to the assembly of world leaders, who responded to his words with only two rounds of applause, neither particularly ardent: one when he called on Hamas to free all its hostages in Gaza, the other when he said “thank you” at the end of his 55-minute tirade of self-promotion.
For all his exaggerated claims as a peacemaker, Trump was terse in discussing the two biggest wars that he’d pledged, but failed, to end quickly—Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s in Ukraine. “We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately, have to get it done, have to immediately negotiate peace,” he said, while offering not even the vaguest of ideas on how to do this. He briefly denounced the growing campaign to recognize a Palestinian state—a cause endorsed by several U.S. allies at the United Nations this week—and said that doing so would “reward” Hamas for its atrocities. He didn’t mention, or acknowledge, that the resolution of recognition demands the disarmament and disempowerment of Hamas, which is one reason why Hamas doesn’t like it either. He said nothing about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated statements that there will never be a Palestinian state.
Trump congratulated himself for the Abraham Accords, the deal that formalized already-growing ties between Israel and a handful of Sunni nations, which his son-in-law Jared Kushner helped negotiate in his first term. But he didn’t mention that the UAE, one of the deal’s largest partners, said it would pull out of the accords if Israel annexes the West Bank, which Netanyahu has come close to declaring as an objective (and which some of his coalition partners have explicitly endorsed).
As for the war in Ukraine, Trump said, as he has admitted before, that he thought it would the easiest war to end “because of our relationship with President Putin.” But he added, “You know, in war, you never know what’s going to happen”—ignoring the fact that, in this war, it’s been clear for a long time that Vladimir Putin has no interest in peace, unless it involves Ukraine’s total surrender, and that Putin’s friendly gestures toward Trump (smiling at him, joking, etc.
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‘Pay no attention’: global health agencies dismiss false Trump claim on everyday painkillers
Tue 23 Sep 2025 13.08 EDT
Global health agencies and regulators have dismissed unscientific advice from Donald Trump that made an unproven link between autism and the use of everyday painkillers and vaccines.
The health secretary of the UK, which is one the US’s closest allies, told the British public they should not “pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine”.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/23/global-health-agencies
-dismiss-false-trump-claim-everyday-painkillers
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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It would be amazing if they came out with actual stats and tests that put that link between Tylenol and Autism out there without the lobbyists getting in the middle of it, just like they did with Fast Food companies/obesity and Cigarette companies/Lung Cancer/Birth Defects/Strokes/Heart Attacks.
It certainly would explain a lot.
I don't use painkillers. Prescription or OTC.
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The Democrats are the party of Murder.
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Quote:From bleach to Tylenol: Trump as doctor in chief - Stat News
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It would be amazing if they came out with actual stats and tests that put that link between Tylenol and Autism out there without the lobbyists getting in the middle of it, just like they did with Fast Food companies/obesity and Cigarette companies/Lung Cancer/Birth Defects/Strokes/Heart Attacks.
It certainly would explain a lot.
I don't use painkillers. Prescription or OTC.
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The Democrats are the party of Murder.
‘Don’t take Tylenol,’ he counseled pregnant women repeatedly, contrary to medical research
By Jonathan Wosen and Angus Chen | Sept. 23, 2025
https://www.statnews.com/2025/09/23/trump-as-doctor-in-chief-autism-ty
lenol-vaccines-covid/
It’s one of the most commonly uttered phrases in medicine: “Ask your doctor if ___ is right for you.” But addressing the American people from the White House, Trump short-circuited this conventional wisdom, repeatedly and forcefully issuing direct medical advice in ways that went beyond presidential precedent.
“There has never been a president who has taken stances that are in opposition to the vast majority of scientists and doctors.”
6ixStringJack, the winds of change are blowing when the White House acts like it knows what it doesn't!
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Things Trump Said in His U.N. Speech
Donald Trump kicked things off by complaining about the broken teleprompter—and things only got worse from there.
https://newrepublic.com/post/200800/donald-trump-batshit-things-un-spe
ech
President Donald Trump just taught everyone how important teleprompters are.
Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, Trump immediately assured the audience he would be just fine delivering remarks off the cuff, “because the teleprompter is not working.”
“I feel very happy to be up here nevertheless, and that way you speak more from the heart. I can only say that whoever is operating this teleprompter is in big trouble,” the U.S. president joked.
Trump then embarked on one of his most nonsensical addresses to date, ranting against Europe for embracing the “double-tailed monster” of immigration and green energy. But his criticisms were little more than anti-science claims and racist drivel attacking immigrants.
“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell,” Trump ranted.
Trump complained about London Mayor Sadiq Khan, falsely claiming that the city’s first Muslim leader hoped to install Islamic code. “I look at London where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it has been so changed. So changed,” Trump said. “Now they want to go to sharia law, but you’re in a different country, you can’t do that.”
Trump’s remarks about Europe welcoming immigrants were so explicitly racist that they quickly bypassed dog-whistle politics and went straight to barking commands not to dilute European culture. “You’re doing it because you want to be politically correct, and you’re destroying your heritage,” he warned.
He then turned his attention to green energy, appearing to laud Germany for scrapping subsidies for renewable energy projects. “They were going all green. All green is all bankrupt. That’s what it represents,” Trump said. “And it’s not politically correct, I’ll be very badly criticized for saying it, but I’m here to tell the truth. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter to me.”
Trump slammed countries for embracing green energy in an attempt to reduce their carbon footprints, calling climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion.”
The president criticized past speakers at the United Nations for predicting that global warming would result in catastrophic climate disasters. Those predictions were “made by stupid people who have cost their countries fortunes and given their countries no chance for success,” Trump said.
Trump even used his diatribe against green energy to plug his own merchandise. “If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail. And I’m really good at predicting things, you know?” he said. “They actually said during the campaign, they had a hat: the best-selling hat, ‘Trump was right about everything.’ And I don’t say that in a braggadocious way, but it’s true. I’ve been right about everything.”
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:From bleach to Tylenol: Trump as doctor in chief
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
It would be amazing if they came out with actual stats and tests that put that link between Tylenol and Autism out there without the lobbyists getting in the middle of it, just like they did with Fast Food companies/obesity and Cigarette companies/Lung Cancer/Birth Defects/Strokes/Heart Attacks.
It certainly would explain a lot.
I don't use painkillers. Prescription or OTC.
--------------------------------------------------
The Democrats are the party of Murder.
Apparently the point was missed by the TDS crowd. Yanno... the ones who were once most likely to be in full support of getting to the bottom of Billion/Trillion dollar companies fucking us all up for a buck until you went full retard.
*yawn*
I'm wondering what drug(s) are responsible for your brain disease.
Other than dopamine and serotonin and your body's natural way of distributing them when you deserve a reward being all fucked up since you became terminally online, of course.
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The Democrats are the party of Murder.
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