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 434 of 479
If Tuesday’s speech proved anything, it’s that it’s hard to explain how Trump will get America out of a mess that he does not believe exists.
A year ago, a mere six weeks into his second term, Trump opened his address to Congress by claiming that he had done more in that time than any President ever did, George Washington included; this time, he boasted that “our nation is back, bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before.” He said that prices were down and that “affordability” was “a word—they just used it.” All those complaints about the high cost of living in Trump’s America were just “a dirty, rotten lie.” Prices are not really too high, he said. But, even if they were, everything was fine, because “soon you will see numbers that few people would think it possible to achieve just a short time ago.” 00:35:24 – 00:35:57 https://rollcall.com/factbase/sotu/transcript/trump-sotu-20260224/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump DOJ’s own goals could stymie its efforts to undermine midterms
By Jim Saksa
February 25, 2026
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/trump-dojs-own-goals-could-st
ymie-its-efforts-to-undermine-midterms/
Among other steps that President Donald Trump will take to undermine a fair election this fall, he’ll likely use the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to bring a flood of litigation aiming to challenge Democratic wins and shape the rules in the GOP’s favor.
But election law experts say those efforts may stumble over the administration’s many legal missteps: the likely weakness of the claims themselves, the lack of experienced and competent voting lawyers in DOJ’s ranks, and the department’s record of consistently misleading the courts, which judges may hold against it.
“Is DOJ going to allege crazy shit, just like in Fulton County?” asked Justin Levitt, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Marymount University and a former DOJ voting official, referring to the department’s debunked claims about potential fraud in Georgia, which underlay its recent seizure of election records there. “Absolutely, yes…. That’s the new normal for the Department of Justice.”
But, he added: “The quantity of litigation isn’t all that frightening when the quality is crap. And the quality is crap.”
With Trump’s poll numbers at record lows, democracy advocates and Democrats are preparing for the White House to use a range of tactics to prevent a fair election — from sending federal law enforcement to the polls to seize mail ballots, to declaring a state of emergency to allow for a full takeover of the voting process.
These nightmare scenarios can’t be ruled out and pose a clear threat to U.S. democracy. But experts say it’s more likely — all but certain, in fact — that Trump will use the DOJ to try to rehash the same kind of legal challenges he made in 2020, which led to more than 60 courtroom losses.
“Most of us expect that they’re going to try more of that,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute. “Of course, the courtroom stuff is a logical place to look.”
Under Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ has abandoned its longstanding neutrality, instead working to “zealously advance” Trump’s agenda. Rather than trying to impress judges, this DOJ prefers to bully the president’s political opponents and mug for the cameras.
And since Trump retook office, Olson noted, the DOJ has sued 25 states for unfettered access to their voter registration records, appointed a U.S. attorney to head “election integrity” investigations nationwide (leading to the Fulton County raid), and pursued prosecutions against sitting Democratic members of Congress, journalists, a former FBI director, and New York’s current attorney general.
So, Olson fully expects this Justice Department to litigate the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections — nominally on behalf of the American people, functionally for Trump. But just what those investigations, criminal charges or civil lawsuits will be, Olson isn’t sure.
“They want to walk away from a big midterm loss having delegitimized the results in the minds of their followers and as many other people as possible,” Olson said. “But that’s kind of minimal — that’s almost like a best case scenario, if all they try is to cast doubt on legitimacy.“
“I have no doubt that you will see aggressive nonsense theories, warmed-over conspiracy, wild shambolic allegations, and you’ll probably see lots of it,” added Levitt, the former DOJ official. “You’ll see it before election day. You’ll see it after election day. You’ll see it during certification.”
Writing on the Execution Functions Substack, New York University Law Professor Bob Bauer, a veteran Democratic election lawyer, noted that the DOJ quietly took the 8th edition of its Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses manual off its website. Given Trump’s rhetoric, Bauer wondered if this presages a move away from the department’s existing policies, whi
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When Extraterrestrials Attacked the Stock Market
Actually it was a Substack post, but the reaction was telling
Paul Krugman
Feb 26, 2026
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/when-extraterrestrials-attacked-the
On October 30, 1938 a very young Orson Welles pulled a clever stunt. He masterminded a live radio dramatization of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds, presented as if CBS was actually reporting on a Martian invasion. Although the program occasionally notified listeners that it was a dramatic presentation, not news, thousands of Americans panicked, packing churches, fleeing their homes, and jamming switchboards. . . .
Welles was a genius and his adaptation of H.G. Wells was brilliant, but it the fact that it aired in 1938 surely contributed to its impact. For Americans were primed for panic. The Great Depression wasn’t over — in fact, the economy had just suffered a nasty relapse.
Overseas, fascism was on the rise, and the storm clouds of war were obviously gathering. Americans were, understandably, ill at ease. No wonder, then, that some were ready to panic over what sounded like dire news on the radio.
Fast forward to this week. We’re living midst political turmoil that is spilling over into economic uncertainty. Donald Trump has just seen most of his signature economic policy, his tariffs, declared illegal by the Supreme Court, and has responded by imposing steep new tariffs, also clearly illegal. The European Union has suspended consideration of its trade deal with the United States.
Everyone is also worried that Trump will seek political and psychological compensation by attacking Iran. According to news reports, military officers have been warning Trump that such an attack would be high-risk. The real news here is that someone is leaking this information, an indication that insiders are worried that Trump might do it anyway.
So these are uneasy times — the kind of times in which investors can be rattled by an alarmist financial analysis that goes viral.
And the truth is that I’m uneasy too. But I’m less worried about either Martians or artificial intelligence than I am about some of the human beings currently in positions of power.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Trump, seeking executive power over elections, is urged to declare emergency
Activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a draft executive order that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.
By Isaac Arnsdorf | Feb 26, 2026
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/02/26/trump-elections-exe
cutive-order-activists/
Archived Link: https://archive.ph/ixcnj
Pro-Trump activists who say they are in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that claims China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock extraordinary presidential power over voting.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly previewed a plan to mandate voter ID and ban mail ballots in November’s midterm elections, and the activists expect their draft will figure into Trump’s promised executive order on the issue. The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s plans.
“Under the Constitution, it’s the legislatures and states that really control how a state conducts its elections, and the president doesn’t have any power to do that,” said Peter Ticktin, a Florida lawyer who is advocating for the draft executive order. Ticktin attended the New York Military Academy with Trump and was part of his legal team that filed an unsuccessful 2022 lawsuit accusing Democrats of conspiring to damage him with allegations that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.
“But here we have a situation where the president is aware that there are foreign interests that are interfering in our election processes,” Ticktin went on. “That causes a national emergency where the president has to be able to deal with it.”
The emergency would empower the president to ban mail ballots and voting machines as the vectors of foreign interference, Ticktin argued.
The idea of claiming emergency executive powers based on allegations of foreign interference attaches new significance to the administration’s actions to reinvestigate the 2020 election. Trump has never accepted defeat, while never finding evidence of widespread fraud. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is leading a review of election security that officials said focuses on foreign influence.
A 2021 intelligence review concluded that China considered efforts to influence the election but did not go through with them.
Ticktin said he’s had “certain coordination” with White House officials but declined to specify, citing safety concerns. But his input has successfully led to a presidential action before. Ticktin represents Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk imprisoned on state charges arising from breaking into voting equipment, whom Trump said he pardoned in December. (The presidential pardon did not free Peters from her nine-year prison term because the president has no power over state crimes.)
A White House official said the staff is regularly in communication with a variety of outside advocates who want to share their policy ideas with the president, but any speculation about his actions or announcements is just speculation.
“I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future,” Trump said on social media Feb. 13. “I will be presenting them shortly, in the form of an Executive Order,” he added the same day.
Trump is pressuring Republicans to pass legislation to require proof of citizenship for voter registration and ID to cast ballots. The measure, called the Save America Act, passed the House but faces obstacles in the Senate, where Republican leaders have rejected Trump’s demand to change the chamber’s rules to move the legislation forward.
“President Trump is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,
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Loser.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Nice. Don't be a dick. 
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Catholic Bishops Warn the Supreme Court That Trump Is Threatening the “Moral Foundations of American Society”
By Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern | Feb 27, 2026 2:39 PM
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/02/donald-trump-birthright-ci
tizenship-immigration-catholic-bishops.html
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an extraordinary amicus brief on Thursday urging the Supreme Court to strike down President Donald Trump’s executive order abolishing birthright citizenship for the children of many immigrants.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-365/399395/20260226144523
582_25-365%20bsac%20United%20States%20Conference%20of%20Catholic%20Bishops.pdf
The conference, which represents active Catholic bishops in the United States, frequently supports conservative positions at the court: In the past, it has argued against same-sex marriage, transgender rights, LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination laws, reproductive freedom, restrictions on school prayer, and medical aid in dying. But the conference is staunchly opposed to Trump’s draconian immigration policies. And its brief in support of birthright citizenship is a searing, full-throated rebuke of the president’s executive order as an affront to the God-given equality of all people.
This is a scorcher of a brief that holds nothing back. It says that the conference’s opposition to stripping folks of birthright citizenship “is motivated by their firmly held belief that each person is endowed by God with an inherent dignity that confers certain universal, inviolable, and inalienable rights.” And then it goes on to say: “The intended and unintended effects of the executive order are immoral and contrary to the Catholic Church’s fundamental beliefs and teachings regarding the life and dignity of human persons, the treatment of vulnerable people — particularly migrants and children — and family unity.” This is a declaration that faith is not on the side of persecuting the most vulnerable communities.
Quote:
CONCLUSION
Ending birthright citizenship lacks historical, legal, and moral support. The principle of citizenship by birth is firmly rooted in Western legal tradition, enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment, and reaffirmed by this Court’s precedent. It is equally grounded in Church teachings, which affirms the inherent dignity of every human person, especially the innocent child. As Catholics, our faith compels us to protest laws that deny the dignity of the human person and harm innocent children, particularly when such laws resurrect the very injustices the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted to repudiate.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:Trump has announced that the strikes have one great strategic purpose, and that is regime change in Iran. It is not about forcing the Iranians to agree to a new nuclear deal, but to completely change the Iranian regime. As he has said, “We are not going to put up with this any longer”. You can watch his announcement at Truth Social or see a news report on it below. https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116147082884192486
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Loser.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
He does mention that he wants to guarantee that Iran has no nuclear weapons, but outlines that the goals now are far more than that — full regime change.
Trump vows to OBLITERATE Iran (Wow, there must be something really bad in the Epstein Files or his tax returns that Trump wants voters not to think about)
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Government Doesn’t Want to Pay Back Tariff Money
https://www.cato.org/blog/sore-losers-supreme-court-government-doesnt-
want-pay-back-unlawful-tariff-money-after-all
The Supreme Court’s invalidation of President Trump’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs was a welcome rebuke of executive overreach. But the ruling leaves a huge question unanswered: What happens to the over $170 billion in tariff money that the federal government unlawfully collected from US importers?
Unfortunately, the administration appears to be in no hurry to provide an answer—and may even be planning to keep billions of dollars that it owes American businesses. Right after the ruling, Trump said litigation over refunds could take years. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC News on February 25 that the administration would wait for the lower courts to sort things out—a process that would take several months at best. And just today, Politico reported that the administration is devising legal strategies to keep the illegally collected money, including by promising faster refunds if companies agree to let the government keep some of the money that these firms are owed.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:The Government Doesn’t Want to Pay Back Unlawful Tariff Money
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
Loser.
--------------------------------------------------
Be Evil. Be a dick.
https://www.cato.org/blog/sore-losers-supreme-court-government-doesnt-
want-pay-back-unlawful-tariff-money-after-all
Conclusion
Automatically refunding unlawfully collected IEEPA tariffs is the right thing to do, likely to be politically popular, and feasible today for most imports. It would only be a logistical nightmare if the Trump administration chooses to make it one—a choice the administration appears to be considering. If the president decides to go it the hard way, it’ll fall to the judicial branch to hold the executive to his word or for Congress to mandate blanket relief. Legislation on the latter has already been offered. If it doesn’t soon become law, Democrats have promised to make tariff refunds a major issue in the fall midterm elections.
In the absence of class-action or universal relief, smaller US businesses will be disproportionately harmed. Even the easiest administrative process—PSCs, protests, etc.—would be administratively difficult for firms that lack resources and legal sophistication. (It’d also be a slog for CBP to process all this paperwork in a timely and accurate manner.)
If litigation is required, the burden becomes exponentially worse—especially if courts rule that importers must file protests with CBP at first instance. In this case, thousands of American companies would be shut out from reclaiming money that the government illegally extracted from them. A back-of-napkin estimate suggests that because of these practical limitations, as much as $30 billion will never be refunded—a massive and unjustified windfall for a US government that recklessly implemented tariffs pursuant to an “emergency” law that had never been used to impose such taxes and that few legal experts believed clearly authorized them.
Even for companies that can and do fight it out in court, there will be significant costs that are again disproportionately borne by smaller firms. Importers have finite capital tied up in customs bonds and high-interest loans to cover the costs of IEEPA tariffs—tariffs, again, that are now unquestionably illegal. The more that litigation drags on, the more money businesses must devote to these nonrefundable costs—money that they can’t devote to their workers, production, or shareholders. These costs, along with uncertainty surrounding tariff refunds, is driving some smaller US businesses to sell the rights to their refunds to Wall Street speculators at pennies on the dollar—losses, the Wall Street Journal notes, that big businesses will likely avoid because they “can foot the legal bills and will be more likely to wait for big payouts.”
Reasonable minds can differ about whether lawful taxation is “theft”; in this case, however, there’d be no question.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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‘The Worst-Case Outcome Is Complete Chaos’
Killing the supreme leader was one thing. Ousting the regime will be another.
By Shane Harris, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Nancy A. Youssef, Ashley Parker, Jonathan Lemire, and Michael Scherer
February 28, 2026, 5:59 PM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/02/iran-war-trump-u
s-strikes/686197/
In the final hours before U.S. warplanes bombarded Iran today, President Trump wanted to go over the plan one last time. He called the top U.S. military commander in the Middle East to confirm the details of the operation, asking about how the regime in Iran was likely to retaliate and how many American casualties he could expect, according to two U.S. officials who were briefed on Trump’s call with Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command. Trump had sent the largest number of forces to the region since George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, in 2003.
The president hoped that the air campaign, conducted with Israel, would weaken the regime in Tehran and that the Iranian people would rise up and “take over your government,” as he said in a video address on Truth Social in the early hours of this morning. “This will be probably your only chance for generations,” he added.
By the day’s end in the Middle East, U.S. officials had concluded that the attacks had accomplished something historic, nearly five decades into the reign of the Islamic Republic’s ayatollahs: They had killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Khamenei’s compound had been a principal target of the attacks, and satellite images showed that little of it was left standing.
The attacks followed months of deliberation but little attempt by the administration to sell the American public on the logic for striking Iran. Despite skepticism from some of his closest aides and advisers, Trump was convinced that now was a rare and fleeting moment for regime change. Getting rid of the government that came to power in the 1979 Iranian Revolution is something that Trump—and many others—would consider a crowning legacy achievement, one that eluded his predecessors. Announcing Khamenei’s death, Trump called him “one of the most evil people in History.”
But even with the supreme leader gone, true regime change has not been accomplished. Trump’s call with Cooper was a reminder of the high stakes and competing pressures that shaped the president’s decision to launch the war, which is premised on what Iran experts say is an optimistic assessment of the likelihood that the Islamic Republic itself can be brought to an end.
In the days leading up to the attacks, some of Trump’s most senior advisers, including Vice President Vance, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, and the senior Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, expressed reservations about the operation. Caine in particular was unsure as to whether air strikes alone would be enough to undermine the regime, and he privately warned about how complicated any move against Iran would be, according to two U.S. officials who were among those who spoke with us, on the condition of anonymity, about Trump’s decision making and the debates within the administration.
Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, the architect of his political comeback in 2024, did not offer a personal position on the wisdom of the strikes, according to a person familiar with the conversations. But in an effort to make sure the president was fully informed, she did present him with concerns about the unpredictable consequences of an attack. She also organized a conversation about the importance of following through on the promises he’d made during his presidential campaign about avoiding new foreign wars. Republican midterm strategists, many of whom gathered in Florida for meetings this weekend, have grown anxious about Trump’s foreign military adventures turning off voters who want their leaders to focus on the economy.
A visit by the Omani foreign minister with Vance yesterday was a last-ditch effort to avert strikes and give more time for negoti
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