Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Saturday, September 12, 2026 13:37
VIEWED: 185382
PAGE 329 of 479
Sept 11, 2025
Don't worry about planet-warming emissions, the US Energy Secretary has told the BBC, because within five years AI will have enabled the harnessing of nuclear fusion – the energy that powers the sun and stars.
More self-serving lies:
During the BBC interview the US Energy Secretary said fracking – releasing oil and gas trapped rock formations underground - could have a "tremendous" impact on the UK economy.
Mr Wright, who has founded and run fracking companies in the US, suggested the oil and gas the process would produce could "bring back manufacturing and blue-collar jobs and drive down not just electricity prices, but home-heating prices and industrial energy prices".
The Energy Secretary also stood by the report issued by the Department of Energy in July which said the threat of climate change has been exaggerated.
He denied that the cuts the Trump Administration is making to climate science would damage US research into weather and climate.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlz5p314z0o
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:Trump will owe trillions. It is 6ix's debt.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I have no debt.
The Democrats are the party of Murder.
National debt is $37 Trillion. Your party and the NeoCons did that. I don't owe shit to anyone.
Go fuck yourself and your sad little life, wanker.
America is through with the likes of you.
--------------------------------------------------
The Democrats are the party of Murder.
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Quote:Congress passed a bill recently that cut taxes and increased the debt by $trillions. It didn't get any Democratic votes. And DOGE didn't find $2 trillion in expenses to cut, but it did fire the IRS auditors who handle tax returns for people such as Trump.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by SECOND:Quote:Trump will owe trillions. It is 6ix's debt.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I have no debt.
The Democrats are the party of Murder.
National debt is $37 Trillion. Your party and the NeoCons did that. I don't owe shit to anyone.
Go fuck yourself and your sad little life, wanker.
America is through with the likes of you.
--------------------------------------------------
The Democrats are the party of Murder.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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How to Build a Post-American Liberal Order
The World’s Democracies Must Work Together—and Constrain Washington
By Phillips P. O’Brien | September 12, 2025
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/war-is-in-the-eye-of-the-behold
er
The United States used to be known as the “leader of the free world”—a mostly self-proclaimed but still widely resonant title that revealed how Americans viewed themselves and how allies judged their country. Although major democracies in Europe and East Asia at times chafed under U.S. dominance, they accepted Washington’s strategic supremacy. Starting in 1945, the United States’ allies adjusted to living in a U.S.-dominated world and believed that the country would protect them in the event of war.
Those days might be over. In the first seven months of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration, Washington has weakened its defense commitments around the world. It has, for example, questioned NATO’s Article 5 (which requires NATO members to assist others under attack), launched a tariff war with practically every country, and repeatedly threatened to cut off support for Ukraine. Before, U.S. allies tailored their defense plans and many of their international policy positions to curry favor with American officials. Today, Washington’s allies are contemplating a world where the United States can no longer be trusted to provide for their security or to uphold the rules-based order it spent almost a century constructing.
The risks emanating from Washington go beyond abandonment. Trump is not only pulling away from the United States’ traditional partners; he is flirting with working directly against them. Trump has made it known for years that he often prefers engaging with dictators—including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping—to engaging with democracies. Since returning to office, for instance, he has routinely spoken with Putin and discussed carving up Ukraine. The summit in August in Anchorage, at which Trump welcomed Putin on a red carpet and with warm remarks, is only the most recent example. Other major voices in the Republican Party are making it clear that, at a minimum, they no longer feel bound to defend democracy around the world. U.S. Vice President JD Vance has said the United States is “done with the funding of the Ukraine war business” and openly called for Europeans to support far-right forces across their continent. Republicans are also weakening the foundations of democratic rule in the United States. Trump and his allies are redrawing the boundaries of House seats to protect their congressional majorities, firing government employees because they do not like the results of nonpartisan research, constantly issuing unlawful executive orders, and bullying the media and universities. This, too, can hardly be comforting for the democratic allies that believed Washington led the “free world.”
Many of these states have tried to pretend that this problem will go away. They have worked to ingratiate themselves with the Trump administration, lavishly praising the president. But Trump has continued to threaten them and weaken their bonds with Washington. The strategy of appeasing Trump, in other words, could well fail. Instead, it might make sense for states committed to democracy and what is left of the old rules-based order to reimagine their international relations, insulate themselves from the United States’ whims, and try to generally protect their own freedoms in this deeply unstable time. Such an effort would require that they build far stronger economic and defense ties with each other than they have now and make a much greater (and more expensive) commitment to their own security. It will be a tough endeavor. But it could be the only way for these countries to save democracy at home—and perhaps help it spread again.
AUTHORITARIAN TURN
In both his terms in office, Trump has been enthusiastic about authoritarian leaders. He has repeatedly praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. He has cheered on Saudi Crown Prince Moham
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Talking With Erica Groshen, Former Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner
When labor data become a political issue
Paul Krugman
Sep 13, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-with-erica-groshen-former
Not long ago Donald Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he didn’t like the jobs numbers. There’s clearly a push on to place the BLS, one of the crown jewels of U.S. statistical agencies, under political control. So I managed to arrange a chat with Erica Groshen, who headed the BLS from 2013 to 2017 — and who warned in advanced about political interference — about what the agency does, how it does it, and what’s at risk. Transcript follows.
Paul Krugman: Hi everyone, Paul Krugman again. This week I'm talking with Erica Groshen, former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Someone who was actually warning in advance that there might be an assault on the statistical agencies, the BLS in particular, and so it has come to pass, with probably a lot more still ahead of us.
Erica Groshen: That's right.
Krugman: I thought we'd talk about some current events, but also some background on what the BLS and other agencies do and why it matters. So, hi Erica.
Groshen: Hi Paul, glad to be here.
Krugman: Among the things I didn't think would become exciting and controversial would be data collection by the federal statistical agencies, but everything is now controversial and political. Tell me a bit about why the BLS exists and why we need it?
Groshen: What does the BLS do? It collects information, it produces statistics and it disseminates them, all to inform the decision makers in the country. The areas in which it does this are employment issues, wages, inflation, productivity, working conditions, et cetera. It was formed in 1884. It's the first independent statistical agency formed in the federal government, and that was at a time of industrial unrest when we had a lot of concerns about tariffs and trade and immigration—that's surprising, topics still in the news today. Nascent unions and employers were killing each other in the streets and the policymakers thought we'd be one step closer to peace if they were working from a common set of trustworthy information.
Much more at https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/talking-with-erica-groshen-former
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Pentagon plan prioritizes homeland over China threat
This marks a major departure from the first Trump administration, which emphasized deterring Beijing.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/05/pentagon-national-defense-str
ategy-china-homeland-western-hemisphere-00546310
Pentagon officials are proposing the department prioritize protecting the homeland and Western Hemisphere, a striking reversal from the military’s years-long mandate to focus on the threat from China.
A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy, which landed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk last week, places domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow, according to three people briefed on early versions of the report.
The move would mark a major shift from President Donald Trump’s first term in office, when he referred to Beijing as America’s greatest rival.
(What next? Trump goes to war with Brazil to free President Bolsonaro, convicted and sentenced for treason? "He has a long history of homophobic, misogynistic and racist comments delivered in a belligerent, everyman style which endeared him to many." Sounds like Trump, which would explain Trump's concern for Bolsonaro's wellbeing.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/us-backed-brazil-ex-president-jair-bol
sonaro-sentenced-to-27-years-in-jail-in-coup-case-9261949 )
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The US Continues To Move Away From Its Democratic Allies
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/a-strategy-for-democratic-survi
val
When I first started writing this piece more than 6 months ago, some people were extremely skeptical. Yes, I was told, the US will now be unreliable and mercurial under Trump, but it would never be a real threat to its long-standing democratic allies in Europe and the Pacific. Sadly, this optimism has been shown to be wishful thinking of a dangerous kind (as optimism about Trump always is). In fact, events of the last few days show more and more that the US is breaking with its democratic allies in both regions.
In Europe, we saw a Russian planned drone attack on Poland, one of the bedrocks of the NATO alliance. The US response was not that of an ally—but more of a bystander that is looking to excuse the Russian attack. In the first place, the US took no active role in defending Poland, even though the US was informed as soon as possible by the Polish states. While some democratic European states stepped up to the plate, such as Holland and Italy, the US, seemingly, did not lift a finger.
And since that attack everything we have seen indicates that this passive reaction, which protects Russia, is now hard-wired into the US government. Yesterday, NATO states announced that they would help front line states such as Poland by beefing up and supporting their air defenses. There were commitments from Germany, France, and Denmark—with the UK saying it will announced a greater commitment soon.
You know who committed nothing—the USA. Even though NATO was attacked, the USA announced no increased commitment to help European NATO states defend themselves. Indeed, the opposite occurred and Trump went out of his way to excuse the Russian attack, saying that it “could’ve been a mistake”.
This US behavior should send chills down democratic Europe’s spine. Since the Anchorage summit (ostensibly organized so the US could pressure Putin to make peace and, if not, hammer Russia with additional sanctions), Russia has greatly increased its attacks on Ukraine and has now attacked Poland. In other words, since the red-carpet greeting Trump laid on for Putin, the Russians have felt empowered to increase their use of military force.
The US is now protecting Putin’s war machine, not curbing it.
The signs of US alienation from its democratic partners extended far outside of Europe, sadly. Eight days ago, Politico reported, based on three different sources, that the US DOD was rewriting US defense strategy to de-emphasize deterring China and Russia. The US in this strategy will de-emphasize the western Pacific and Europe and concentrate on extending its own power in the Americas. Here is an excerpt from that article.
A draft of the newest National Defense Strategy, which landed on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s desk last week, places domestic and regional missions above countering adversaries such as Beijing and Moscow, according to three people briefed on early versions of the report.
The move would mark a major shift from recent Democrat and Republican administrations, including President Donald Trump’s first term in office, when he referred to Beijing as America’s greatest rival. And it would likely inflame China hawks in both parties who view the country’s leadership as a danger to U.S. security.
“This is going to be a major shift for the U.S. and its allies on multiple continents,” said one of the people briefed on the draft document. “The old, trusted U.S. promises are being questioned.”
It is actually a good thing that the US is being so open about this. Trump actually wants to work with China, he likes dictators like President Xi and is willing to throw over traditional allies to make the US-Chinese relationship better. Indeed, the actual impact of his policies since becoming president have been to strengthen China a great deal while weakening US allies—as I wrote in this Atlantic piece in Apr
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Money Isn’t Everything
Vulgar monetarism is making a comeback, and that’s a problem
Paul Krugman | Sep 14, 2025
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/money-isnt-everything
WONK ALERT: TODAY’S PRIMER WILL BE (EVEN?) MORE ECONOMISTIC THAN USUAL. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
This week’s primer will be a bit self-indulgent. In the weeks ahead I expect to be writing about demography, immigration, Social Security, health care costs, energy and more. But this week I’ll engage in one of my running pastimes, chasing down zombie economic ideas — ideas that should have been killed by evidence, but keep shambling along, eating people’s brains.
Specifically, I want to focus on a case of bad economic theory that I have been seeing a lot lately: The revival of “vulgar monetarism” — the idea that inflation is entirely a matter of the money supply.
Here's an example of what I mean. In December Scott Bessent, now the Treasury secretary, dismissed the idea that the Trump tariffs would be inflationary:
Tariffs can’t be inflationary, because if the price of one thing goes up, unless you give people more money, then they have less money to spend on the other thing, so there is no inflation. … Inflation comes through either increasing the money supply or increasing the government spending, and that’s what happened under Biden.
This is all wrong, and the wrongness matters. It matters for understanding the impact of tariffs. It also matters for how we interpret the inflation spike of 2021-23, which is central to Bessent and Trump’s attack on the Fed’s independence.
According to Bessent’s logic, the Covid-induced supply-chain disruptions — remember all those freighters steaming back and forth, because they couldn’t land their cargo? — weren’t the source of the 2021-23 inflation spike. Instead, he claims, all the blame rests on the Federal Reserve for printing too much money. This Bessent claims, in his ongoing smear campaign against the Fed, is a pretext for destroying away the Fed’s independence.
So let’s go zombie hunting. Beyond the paywall I will discuss the following:
1. The monetary explanation of inflation – when it’s right and when it’s wrong
2. The source of Biden-era inflation
3. What are sticky prices and why they matter in understanding inflation
4. Tariffs and inflation
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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The Democrats are the party of Murder.
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Quote:Wondering where 6ixStringJack got his obsession about murdering every Democrat?
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
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The Democrats are the party of Murder.
Trump Just Went on Fox and Issued an Unnerving Threat Against Liberals
https://newrepublic.com/article/200410/trump-issued-unnerving-threat-l
iberals
Imagine that President Donald Trump actively wanted to encourage radical right-wing groups and “lone wolf” individuals to wage open violent warfare on anyone they deem a leftist anywhere in America. If Trump wanted to send that precise message, he could hardly do much better than the words he actually did deliver on Fox and Friends on Friday morning.
“We have radicals on the right, as well—we have radicals on the left,” Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt said as Trump listened during a discussion about the recently assassinated Charlie Kirk. Earhardt continued: “How do we fix this country?”
“I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump replied. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. They’re saying, ‘We don’t want these people coming in. We don’t want you burning our shopping centers. We don’t want you shooting our people in the middle of the street.’”
Trump concluded: “The radicals on the left are the problem.”
This exchange is being vastly overshadowed by the arrest of Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old unaffiliated voter in Utah, for allegedly assassinating Kirk. But whatever more we learn about Robinson, this Trump moment mustn’t skate by unnoticed. Though Trump has encouraged right-wing political violence for years—including inciting a violent insurrection and pardoning hundreds of supporters for it—he has also been known to rhetorically denounce political violence from both sides at key moments, or has gone through the motions of doing so.
But now Trump has broken with even that ritual, one enacted by presidents in both parties for decades. “I couldn’t care less” about radicals on the right, Trump explicitly said, declaring straight out that right-wing extremism is justified as a response to the alleged extremism of the left.
That is likely to be received as a clear message by radical right-wing forces across the country. Kirk’s assassination has triggered many on the right to call for full-scale violent civil conflict. “Charlie tried to have conversations with you on the left, and you killed him for it,” seethed influencer Matt Walsh, calling on the right to “fight back” in response. Libs of TikTok screamed: “THIS IS WAR.”
Notably, those calls to arms came well before we knew anything about Kirk’s alleged assassin. These declarations openly, unabashedly declare that the right has now been given the excuse it needs to wage open season on the left. On Fox, Trump has basically given this the green light.
“That statement is basically a permission slip,” said Jared Holt, who tracks extremist activity for the online research group Open Measures. Holt means this in two senses: Trump’s statement offers permission to broader mainstream audiences to write off the importance of radical right-wing violence, and is also aimed at right-wing extremist activity itself.
“It’s very likely that radical right groups that talk about Trump’s statement are going to view it as an indirect endorsement,” Holt added.
Kirk’s murder has ignited the perennial online war over which “side” is more guilty of political violence. Here’s a very partial list of prominent horrors: Aimed at the right we’ve seen the gristly shooting of Representative Steve Scalise, the two assassination attempts on Trump, and now the killing of Kirk. In the other direction, we’ve had numerous mass shootings motivated by “great replacement theory,” the vicious assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the assassination of a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota, and of course the January 6 insurrection.
Kirk’s alleged assassin was apparently in the grip of a bundle of incoher
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