By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Readers, this Water Cooler is somewhat abbreviated because I’m slogging my way through another worksheet*, moving into districts that tilt and lean Republican for the first time. I’ll have that up at some point after I publish this…. –lambert
* Many many thanks to readers who assisted with SQL code. This expansion wouldn’t have been possible without their help.
Trade
“‘I’ll leave [the Summit of the Americas] very hopeful that we are very close to a renegotiated NAFTA that will be a better deal for the American people and will have the kind of fairness to it that will permit us to go forward in a productive, mutually beneficial relationship,’ Pence told reporters at the close of the trip. He added that there is ‘a real possibility that we could arrive at an agreement within the next several weeks on a renegotiated NAFTA'” [Politico].
“Why China’s US trade stand-off is not a replay of Japan’s in the 1980s” [South China Morning Post]. “At first glance, China’s trade frictions with the US seem to be of a piece with the confrontations Japan faced in the 1980s: a surging Asian economy becomes a threat to American dominance in world trade and the US retaliates by crying foul and demanding concessions…. In economic scale, China today is much stronger than Japan was in the 1980s. It overtook Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second-largest economy and has continued to narrow the gap with the US.. .. “China is able to cultivate a domestic market for its 300 million middle-income class. It is much more capable than Japan of bolstering domestic consumption,” said Lu Xiang, a specialist on US issues with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Lu said the US was facing challenges to properly manage its power decline and coexist with a rising China. ‘Further confrontation between Beijing and Washington may … go on for a long time, no matter who is the leader of the US,’ Lu said.”
Politics
2018 Midterms
NY: “Andrew Cuomo Sees What’s Coming. He Doesn’t Know Whether to Run, Join It, or Destroy It'” [Kate Aronoff, The Intercept]. “On Saturday at the WFP’s gathering, under fluorescent lights in the basement of an Albany Hilton, the group moved to endorse [challenger Cynthia] Nixon, with 91.5 percent of the vote going her way… With two influential unions splitting off from the WFP to endorse the incumbent governor less than a day before Saturday’s meeting, the New York party’s rough start to the weekend comes at an otherwise resurgent moment for both progressive challengers and the party nationally.”
NY: “Cynthia Nixon Has Already Won” [New York Magazine]. “While victory is a long shot — the governor enjoys a $30 million war chest, support among unions and other factions, the incumbent bias in underattended primaries, and a 43-point lead in the first poll — it’s not out of the question. Looking at the numbers, one analyst from CUNY estimated Nixon needed to win only 75,000 votes away from Cuomo. “It’s more doable than I would’ve thought,” he told Politico.” The ending: “After all, these are emotional times, and Recent Events have demonstrated that it’s possible for a candidate to surf to victory on a wave of feelings.” Dear Lord. Nothing about policy, where Cuomo is so vulnerable, and Nixon — New Yorkers please correct me! — sounds better (and see immediately below).
NY: “The Working Families Party Backs Cynthia Nixon Against Andrew Cuomo” [The Nation]. “Nixon accepted the endorsement in the language and the spirit of her grassroots campaign, announcing that ‘With the [New York Working Families Party] by our side, we will fight for equitable schools, good jobs, single-payer health care, subways that actually work, environmental justice, and an end to mass incarceration. It’s time for a New York that belongs to all of us—for the many, not the few.'” Channelling Corbyn (!).
NY: “Andrew Cuomo rips teacher unions as selfish ‘industry’ more interested in members’ rights than student needs” [New York Daily News]. “Cuomo on Wednesday unveiled an ambitious education reform plan that would make it easier to fire bad or lecherous instructors, revamp the teacher tenure and evaluation systems, and increase the cap on charter schools by 100.” Ka-ching.
CA: “Charter school backers spend millions to support Antonio Villaraigosa for California governor” [Sacramento Bee]. “Wealthy charter school supporters are pouring millions of dollars into the battle to succeed Gov. Jerry Brown, throwing their money into an independent committee to push former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa ahead in a crowded field of candidates. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Wednesday gave $7 million to the committee run by the California Charter Schools Association, an increasingly powerful player in state politics. On Thursday, Los Angeles philanthropist and developer Eli Broad contributed $1.5 million to the effort.”
MI: “With success in private sector, Thanedar aims for public win” [Hillsdale Daily News]. Thanedar: “So I’m trying to disrupt the Democratic primary process right now, because it looks like there’s a momentum to coronate the frontrunner, Senator Whitmer, and I’m saying that we should wait and have a dialogue.” Softball questions. Thanedar is this guy.
Militarism
Jawbs:
Ramping Up Production: Today elected officials and business community leaders joined @LockheedMartin in Johnstown, Pennsylvania to celebrate the formal opening of a new #F35 assembly facility that will support the program's transition to full-rate production. pic.twitter.com/OFH4LWkJPc
— F-35 Lightning II (@thef35) April 4, 2018
Johnstown is PA-12 (Rothus, R), not one of the districts we’re tracking. Perhaps exactly because of this facility?
Realignment and Legitimacy
“How the CIA’s Secret Torture Program Sparked a Citizen-Led Public Reckoning in North Carolina” [Alternet]. “What can a small group of committed citizens who oppose these practices do to push back? A commission against torture in North Carolina may serve as a model for how citizen-led initiatives can create transparency and accountability for abuses of power in government.” This is very important and worth reading in full.
“Cashing in on Standing Rock” [High Country News]. “In the course of a nine-month investigation, High Country News compiled publicly available data from GoFundMe and examined nearly 250 campaigns, each of which raised at least $3,000 for causes related to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Altogether, more than 138,000 people donated nearly $8 million. Many of those campaigns accepted money without necessarily offering accountability, either to their donors or to the causes they claimed to represent. In the case of Veterans Stand, chaos and disarray become the hallmarks of a campaign that initially galvanized thousands of veterans and inspired more than 26,000 people from around the world to donate. That money was, at best, squandered and at worst, egregiously misspent.” That’s really dispiriting, but maybe the lesson is that these “Let’s put on a show!” efforts need to be a wee bit more structured. Good intentions, seemingly or no, are not enough. I seem to recall similar issues with Occupy, back in the day.
“In the era of Donald Trump, New England’s biggest GOP donor is funding Democrats” [Boston Globe]. “Boston hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman lavished more than $7 million on Republican candidates and political committees during the Obama administration, using his fortune to help underwrite a GOP takeover of the federal government. But the rise of Donald Trump shocked and dismayed Klarman, as did the timid response from the Republican-controlled House and Senate, which have acquiesced rather than challenge the president’s erratic and divisive ways. So, in an astonishing flip, Klarman, at one point New England’s most generous donor to Republicans, is taking his money elsewhere: He’s heaping cash on Democrats.” What’s astonishing about it? The Democrat nomenklatura has been fighting to optimize the 2018 mid-terms to make the party safe for donors like Klarman.
Stats Watch
Retail Sales, March 2018: “In a slight reversal of expectations, retail sales proved stronger at the headline level” [Econoday]. Autos are the big story in March, jumping 2.0 percent and finally shaking off the long lull following the replacement surge of September’s hurricanes…. Department stores are having a very hard time… But there are positives in the report including a second straight 0.4 percent gain for restaurants and a second straight solid rise, at 0.7 percent, for furniture stores. And nonstore retailers are once again at the top of the data, at a 0.8 percent gain following February’s 0.9 percent jump. But this report, after two soft showings in January and February, doesn’t show the fundamental acceleration that was expected for March.” And: “The increase in March was above expectations, however sales in January and February were revised down slightly” [Calculated Risk]. And but: “Even though there is seen a significant improvement – it was a weak bounce back from the previous month’s soft reports” [Econintersect]. “The three month rolling averages of the unadjusted data significantly slowes. [S]till, our analysis says this months’ year-over-year growth was about average for the growth seen in the last 12 months.”
Empire State Manufacturing Survey, April 2018: “There are hints of tariff trouble in this month’s Empire State report where slowing is the result” [Econoday]. “But it’s the 6-month outlook readings that tell the tale showing very severe and sudden declines, collapsing a whopping 25.8 points for general conditions to only 18.3 which is very weak for this reading. The outlook shows similar declines for new orders and shipments in what are very likely direct reactions to steel and aluminum tariffs put in place in March not to mention the wider threat underway of rising tariffs in general… But production in the sample is definitely still humming along…. [T]here are still plenty of indications of capacity stress including delivery times.” But: “I am not a fan of surveys – and this survey jumps around erratically – but has been relatively steady for the last year. Key internals in the report declined and I consider this a much softer report than last month” [Econintersect]. And: “This was below the consensus forecast, but still a solid reading” [Calculated Risk].
Business Inventories, February 2018: “Inventories look to a be a big contributor to first-quarter GDP” [Econoday]. “The biggest build is at wholesalers, up 1.0 percent in February with retailers up 0.4 percent and manufacturers up 0.3 percent. It will be interesting to watch whether manufacturing data for March show any tariff-related stockpiling of metals. That aside, inventories are on the rise in line with underlying demand which is a good mix for the economy.” And but: “Inventories remain elevated this month. Our primary monitoring tool – the 3 month rolling averages for sales – significantly declined this month but remains in expansion. As the monthly data has significant variation, the 3 month averages are the way to view this series. Overall business sales are improving since the low point in 2015 – but the trend in the last 6 months has been declining” [Econoday].
Housing Market Index, April 2018: “the lowest reading since November last year” [Econoday]. “The slip in current sales won’t be raising expectations for next week’s report on new home sales which have yet to get going this year. Housing has had a tough winter and today’s report isn’t pointing to much of a Spring bounce.”
Container Movements: “Last month was exceptionally strong and this month was exceptionally weak. The year-to-date and the rolling averages are positive for imports and negative for exports which suggest to me a weakening global economy and a moderately growing USA economy. Overall I would wait until next month’s data – if the downward trend continues, it spells trouble for the USA economy” [Econintersect].
Shipping: “The IMO won near-unanimous agreement on a deal aimed at cutting carbon emissions in half by 2050, a plan the maritime industry says will cost billions of dollars and likely make shipping much more expensive. That impact could take many years, and maybe decades, to ripple across the business. But the target is based on the 2008 emissions level, when shipping activity hit a peak and before a new generation of cleaner vessels hit the water, suggesting the reductions may be closer than they appear” [Wall Street Journal].
Shipping: “The unintended consequences of Trump’s call for USPS task force” [DC Velocity]. “In a report issued last April, Christian Wetherbee, an analyst for Citigroup Inc., concluded that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) would have to raise its artificially low parcel rates by as much as 50 percent in order to break even on its fast-growing parcel offerings. The biggest question, Wetherbee wrote, was who or what would break through the Washington inertia and ‘trigger’ such a change…. Should USPS’ parcel rates rise to the levels cited by the analyst, the impact on the shipping marketplace, and on an economy increasingly influenced by e-commerce activity, could be enormous. Millions of online retailers and merchants offer their end customers “free shipping” for purchases as a means of retaining and keeping their business. The shipping is not free, and USPS has been raising parcel rates by mid- to high single-digit amounts for several years. Still, the rates remain so competitive that big-ticket users have been willing to effectively eat the costs. That approach may no longer be viable should rates rise substantially from current levels. In his analysis, Wetherbee wrote that “many consumers have been conditioned to expect shipping solutions which are not supported by economic reality.” Ah. “Economic reality.”
Shipping: “President Donald Trump may be taking aim at Amazon.com Inc. with his order to review U.S. Postal Service finances, but other parcel carriers are in the line of fire. FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. both get discount rates like Amazon, the WSJ’s Paul Ziobro and Laura Stevens report, under a program that lets them drop truckloads of packages at local post offices for the last leg of delivery. The Parcel Select service gives the operators from 5% to 10% off published rates, a common practice in shipping contracts. UPS and FedEx have long argued that the Postal Service should charge more, in part because it would drive more volume to their own networks” [Wall Street Journal].
Retail: “Merchants selling on sites like Amazon.com Inc.’s marketplace face a day of reckoning at the U.S. Supreme Court. Justices will hear arguments this week on South Dakota’s attempt to overturn a 26-year-old precedent under which states can’t require retailers to collect sales taxes unless the companies have a physical presence in the state. …[T]ax and legal experts expect the court to overturn the precedent, potentially changing the financial landscape for a big swath of digital commerce. Current tax rules date from the era of mail-order catalogs, and they have helped fuel the rise of internet commerce and spurred frustration among brick-and-mortar retailers” [Wall Street Journal].
Big Ag: “207 million eggs in nine states recalled over salmonella fears” [CNN]. “A farm in Indiana is recalling more than 200 million eggs sold in nine states over salmonella fears. The eggs were sold through retail stores and restaurants. They reached consumers in Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.”
Transportation: “A rail safety system gone badly off track” [Boston Globe]. “About 110 commuter rail engineers, more than half of them, have driving records that experts described as poor considering the sensitive line of work they’re in — at least three infractions such as speeding, causing accidents, and failing to stop. Nearly 50 engineers have had their driver’s licenses suspended — 44 of them more than once, according to Registry of Motor Vehicle records reviewed by the Globe.”
The Bezzle: “NTSB goes head to head with Tesla” [Federal News Radio]. “Until a couple of weeks ago, everyone thought driverless cars were, like, here already. They are, except they hit stuff.”
The Bezzle: “Apple’s mysterious self-driving car project keeps hitting speed bumps” [Daily Dot]. “When it was first reported that Apple would enter the electric self-driving car market, it planned on launching a vehicle by 2019. Since then, Apple’s strategies have drastically changed. That timeline is murky now that it’s building self-driving systems rather than actual vehicles.”
The Bezzle: “Tesla Workers Say Elon Musk is a Union Buster. The NLRB Just Gave Their Case a Boost” [In These Times]. “Tesla factory workers have been trying for months to win restitution for the company’s alleged union-busting and harassment. Now, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint against the company appears to be making strides. On March 30, the NLRB amended the complaint to add new allegations from workers which the board found to have merit. In the new claims, Tesla workers say the company investigated them after they posted information on a pro-union Facebook page. The case has now been scheduled to go before an NLRB administrative law judge in June.”
The Bezzle: “Bots in the Twittersphere” [Pew Research]. “Among popular news and current event websites, 66% of tweeted links are made by suspected bots – identical to the overall average. The share of bot-created tweeted links is even higher among certain kinds of news sites. For example, an estimated 89% of tweeted links to popular aggregation sites that compile stories from around the web are posted by bots.”
Concentration: “FTC Says ‘Warranty Void If Removed’ Stickers Are Bullshit, Warns Manufacturers They’re Breaking the Law” [Vice]. “As we’ve reported before, it is bullshit and illegal under federal law for electronics manufacturers to put “Warranty Void if Removed” stickers on their gadgets, and it’s also illegal for companies to void your warranty if you fix your device yourself or via a third party. The Federal Trade Commission put six companies on notice today, telling them in a warning letter that their warranty practices violate federal law. If you buy a car with a warranty, take it a repair shop to fix it, then have to return the car to the manufacturer, the car company isn’t legally allowed to deny the return because you took your car to another shop. The same is true of any consumer device that costs more than $15, though many manufacturers want you to think otherwise.”
Five Horsemen: “All five horsemen were up in mid-morning trading” [Hat Tip, Jim Haygood].
NakedCap Mania-Panic Index: “The mania-panic index rose to 45 (worry) despite Friday’s mild decline” [Hat Tip, Jim Haygood]. (The NakedCap mania-panic index is an equally-weighted average of seven technical indicators derived from stock indexes, volatility (VIX), Treasuries, junk bonds, equity options, and internal measures of new highs vs new lows and up volume vs down volume … each converted to a scale of 0 to 100 before averaging, using thirty years of history for five of the seven series.)
Rapture Index: Closes down 1 on Satanism. “The lack of activity has downgraded this category” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 182.
Gaia
“The Heroes of This Novel Are Centuries Old and 300 Feet Tall” [New York Times]. “These characters who have held us rapt for 150 pages turn out to be the shrubby understory, for which we couldn’t yet see the forest. Standing overhead with outstretched limbs are the real protagonists. Trees will bring these small lives together into large acts of war, love, loyalty and betrayal, in a violent struggle against a mortgaged timber company that is liquidating its assets, including one of the last virgin stands of California redwoods. The descriptions of this deeply animate place, including a thunderstorm as experienced from 300 feet up, stand with any prose I’ve ever read. I hesitate to tell more, and spoil the immense effort Powers invests in getting us into that primal forest to bear witness.” Sounds pretty neat!
Water
“Cape Town Isn’t The Only Place That’s Close To Running Out Of Water” [Fast Company]. “A new report from World Resources Institute looks at four other locations with similar problems, using a new platform called Resource Watch to map out the political, social, and environmental dynamics of each area.” Morocco, Spain, Iraq, India.
Black Injustice Tipping Point
“A Black Teen Knocked On A Door To Ask For Directions To His School. Then He Was Shot At, Police Say.” [Buzzfeed]. “‘My mom says that black boys get shot because sometimes they don’t look their age, and I don’t look my age,’ Brennan told Fox 2 News. ‘I’m 14; but I don’t look 14. I’m kind of happy that, like, I didn’t become a statistic.'”
Health Care
“Sedentary behavior associated with reduced medial temporal lobe thickness in middle-aged and older adults” [PLOS One]. n = 35. “A detailed projection of the effect of risk factors on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) prevalence [17] suggests that approximately 13% of AD cases worldwide may be attributable to sedentary behavior. A 25% reduction in sedentary behavior could potentially prevent more than 1 million AD cases globally.” Get moving! Go out and take a walk. Take a camera and photograph some plants!
Class Warfare
“Bevin: ‘I guarantee’ a child was sexually assaulted because teachers attended protest” [Herald-Leader]. Idea: Pay the teachers a living wage, then?
“P*SS THE PARCEL Rushed Amazon warehouse staff pee into bottles as they’re afraid of ‘time-wasting'” [The Sun]. “The warehouse measures 700,000 sq ft and some of the 1,200 workers face a ten minute, quarter-of-a-mile walk to two toilets on the ground floor of the four-storey building…. An Amazon spokesman said: “Amazon ensures all of its associates have easy access to toilet facilities which are just a short walk from where they are working.”
“Justifying Military Force: Racial Attitudes, Race, and Gender” [Jon Green]. Need to look at the methodology… .
News of The Wired
“The iPhone changed our lives. Now Apple needs to tackle addiction” [Wired]. Or regulate Apple such that its business model doesn’t require addictive behavior?
“I Made Meghan Markle’s Engagement Chicken and Now I’m in Love” [The Cut]. Not sure why I ended up on this page, but it looks like a pretty good recipe. None of this “make a tub of stock…” stuff you read about the Times.
“The Star of the ‘American Chopper’ Meme Didn’t Know What a Meme Was” [Vice]. “I was hoping you could give me a bit more context about the original fight. It was horrifying. The problem is, there were always those incidents. I’m not sure if that was when I fired him, or if it was just another everyday dysfunctional situation going on between me and my son, you know?”
The meme in question:
This Meme keeps doing good stuff. pic.twitter.com/eO76TptuOy
— GMGerrymander (@GMGerrymander) April 12, 2018
Again, I think it’s worthy of note that dialetical forms are making their way into the world of memes; quite different from “Can I haz cheezburger?”, which is a one-liner, fun though it is.
News you can use:
Plug A Surge Protector Into Itself For Infinite Power pic.twitter.com/iRXbvECq79
— Shitty Life Tips (@mindblowingtips) April 14, 2018
I love maps in this style, I wish they were still a thing:
Jaro Hess’s “The Land of Make Believe” from 1930 is a #map of all popular fairytales. I’m featured buying a pie at the center of the image. Source: https://t.co/KiYXl6E1r6 pic.twitter.com/H7aaGw61IG
— Simon Kuestenmacher (@simongerman600) April 12, 2018
Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (TH):
An ice plant. Purple rain, maybe, but purple ice?
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There is less laughter in this world that needs more. Patrick McManus died last Wednesday at 84.
Oh no, he was hilarious. Met Patrick, Lefty Kreh, Doug Hannon and Jimmy Houston at Bass Pro. Doug Hannon passed away at 66. He showed me how to set up a pond for smallmouth bass and it worked fine.
Hi Edward, I’d love to hear more about what McManus was like in person.
Honestly didn’t get to spend that much time with Patrick. I was trying to get Lefty to tie up a sculpin minnow and Patrick says, “Ohh, he’s too lazy for that”. So Lefty just proves him wrong by tying a very beautiful, time consuming and convoluted deer hair sculpin. Can’t remember too awful much they had a group of about a dozen of us in stitches, but Patrick left and came back. He was a huge thinker with a lot of fun imagination I recall, that was a long time ago at a BASS anniversary tournament they were having on Table Rock.
This picture is exactly the way he was that day. Bubbling with cheerfulness!
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/apr/13/beloved-humor-writer-patrick-mcmanus-dies-age-84/
Ah, that’s too bad. I grew up waiting my turn at our local barbershop and skipping ahead to the back pages of Outdoor Life to read about his misadventures. I think his particular brand of humorous cynicism (e.g.,”everything is going to go badly but you’ll still enjoy yourself’) probably influenced my outlook about not just the outdoors, but all of life.
Water: ” … Morocco, Spain, Iraq, India.”
You mean that Condi’s “Clear, Hold and Build” mantra didn’t include (noncorrupt) rebuilding
of the water infrastructure that we had
liberatedblown up? Get out.re: NY: “Andrew Cuomo rips teacher unions as selfish ‘industry’ more interested in members’ rights than student needs” [New York Daily News].
hmmm….
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/reader-center/us-public-schools-conditions.html
Andy needs to get out more.
The charter school sharks will no doubt use this as another excuse to eliminate public schools. Disaster capitalism in action: under-fund good public service, declare said service unfit, privatize.
adding: if charter schools want to set up without requiring taking public tax dollars for private schools, I’m fine with that. But, they seem more interested in taking public tax dollars than in anything else.
Yep, purple ice. Looks like mine are not going to survive the latest snow, flooding rains and bitter cold. My dry places aren’t dry anymore, but be careful what you wish for. Can’t wait until spring gets here!
Looks like their trying the propaganda game. If Russia/Syria both asked OPCW to come in why would they deny access? Now watch them say Russians tampered with the evidence. Why would they be tampering with anything when they warned ahead of time this might happen and asked OPCW-UN to come back in?
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/heres-to-unsuicide-an-interview-with-richard-powers/
I would suggest this very interesting interview with Richard Powers about Overstory.
For people near Cambridge MA, Powers will be reading this Wednesday at Harvard Book Store at 7 p.m.
http://www.harvard.com/event/richard_powers1/
Re Nixon vs Cuomo: Should I hold my breath waiting for Madeleine Albright and Hillary Clinton to come out for Cynthia, saying “there’s a special place in Hell for women who don’t help each other”?
–Madeleine Albright: ‘Special Place in Hell’ For Women Who Don’t Vote For Hillary
Special place…
It sounds like even there, there is segregation.
“No men in this special place.”
‘Ultimate frustrating sexist hell.’ Dante would doubtless nominate Madeleine Albright for a literary prize. She has a new book out warning about the dangers of incipient fascism all around us. Not in hell, evidently. I watched her schmoozing with Joe and Mike, reminiscing about her close ties with the Brzezinski family. America was once great.
I just love this response piece to that incident from a millenial berner.
When it comes to Madeleine Albright, I’ll go ahead and just consider the source.
Hey All,
Madeleine Albright will be speaking in my ‘hood next week, specifically at my employer. I haven’t yet been clever enough to come up with a way I can attend and (1) express massive displeasure with her entire body of work, while (2) not getting myself into a challenging HR situation at work. Anyone have any good safe for work ideas? Yelling “#$%^ war criminal” seems risky. I could bravely stay home, but it seems a shame to waste the opportunity.
Thank you,
Hmm…a Hillary or Kissinger costume for a disguise?
Perhaps a shirt that reads, on the front: “550,000 dead Iraqi children” and on the back: “the price was worth it.” – Madeleine Albright, 60 minutes interview, 1996.
Great idea, willf. I was thinking along the same lines- ‘There’s a special place in hell for any woman… that declares a half million dead children an acceptable outcome’.
Don’t say anything just dress up as the Angel of Death.
Silent protest like Ray McGovern simply facing the opposite way. But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that.
https://youtu.be/My29YT1T4R4
I would ask her three questions:
1. What are your thoughts on genocide?
2. How do you feel about how you handled the crisis in Rwanda?
3. Whether or not there’s a special place, within that special women’s hell she described, for a woman like her?
Perhaps you could formulate a question that tangentially references some of her worst moments, yet changes direction at the last second, precluding her from being able to propagandize, and hopefully throwing her a little off balance. For example: “There is a special place in hell for those in power who facilitate the killing innocent civilians, yet some world leaders assert that the price is worth it if it furthers their country’s geopolitical goals. With that in mind, what are your thoughts on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal?”
Is this open to the public? The easiest way to do this is to find an ally (not a relative!!!) to ask a question or two. And you cannot sit next to them (but if they sit in the row in front of you or behind you, people don’t see that as connected). Better yet, more than one ally to ask more than one question.
Perhaps combine the two:
Both of you get in line, the one with the “550,000 dead Iraqi children” first. When they’re finished she’ll relax, and then you dressed like a dull normal, can pose whatever the real zinger is.
In general, I think shirts are jejune, unserious. Better to ask a question, as Yves suggests.
Also, would they allow recording, I wonder…
Interesting synergy* in the great lakes this weeked with meteotsunami (or seiche, or giant sloshes) accompanying yesterdays Toronto-to-Cuba 2200 mile long unified weather front:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VavUKgoKqCc
Try this in your favorite news search engine:
(seiche OR meteotsunami) slosh
ala googlette: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1505&bih=725&tbm=nws&ei=bunUWqDMCZH9zgLpxIG4Cw&q=%28seiche+OR+meteotsunami%29+slosh&oq=…
The Mackinac Bridge (connects Lakes Michigan and Huron) was underwater!
Add in “dry tides” (aka “ocean receding”) reports of the last months shows our planet, she’s a sloshin’.
*”Synergy!” as Prudence said in Destination Void.
haha the Mackinac Bridge most certainly does not connect the lakes, Mother Nature took care of that herself. It connects the Peninsulas. :)
Seriously though, Mrs. Nature can really kick some (family blog), can’t she?
Mackinaw Bridge not under water, take a gander at the bridge she’s big. Like saying the San Fransusco Bridge is under water. Whole different disaster. The pier was under water, rose a foot.
China’s Weibo to ban gay, violent content from platform
“Weibo announced the move on its official administrator’s account, saying the action aimed to comply with China’s new cyber security law that calls for strict data surveillance.”
FOSTA roadmap.
Tangentially related, we had frozen our big 3 credit accounts, but may have to reopen to access Social Security retirement benefits, and apparently our son’s student aid, though we no longer claim him as a dependent. We had a problem before when our Social Security name did not match our IRS name. The fuss about Fcbk is fluff, compared to the federal government demanding you keep an open account with a corrupt data selling corp who sells your data, or make it three corrupt etcs.
I’ve tried to make sense of the war in Syria, reading most of the usual sources, as well as more radical points of view. For some reason, until I read this summary, nothing had made much sense.
Seen through the lens of the war as an imperial project, Stephan Gowans has put together an impressive summary.
I’m putting this here because I was wondering what other readers thought of his take.
Only a few items I don’t agree with. The no fly zone is not happening at all. There are Russian troops so close to Amerikan lines at the Euphrates that Amerikan command called their counterparts in Moscow to explain the problem and the Russia troops pulled back a few hundreds yards and put in another bridge for the Syrians to use in the near future.
The near future will see Amerikan troops in harms way as the Syrian Army finish the mop and starts send troops to Euphrates to remove Amerika and it’s thugs from the region. Syrian govt. and it friends have warned Amerika on this and even israel is worried that Syria and friends are now strong enough to take back Golan Heights.
I have read in few places that the gurds (wrong I’m sure) are in talks with the Syrian govt. to go back to their life before they got stupid and not lose everything in fighting Turkey.
What as mess Amerika has made and it won’t be better anytime soon I’m afraid.
Stephen Gowans is always a good read.
More
Below strong words at times and graphic pictures
Lives in Amerika has family in Syria with some being in the Army his son writes the first on listed
https://syrianperspective.com/
Just recovered from DoDds attack as all the other do go through this also.
https://southfront.org/
Conoco, not Gazprom, still operates the Deir Ez Zour, west of the Euphrates. ChVK Wagner expenses 200 Orthodox funerals. This is not a game. War is undignified. The most basic right is not to be killed because of a government. The second most basic right is to not be forced to kill other people because of a government.
Correction: ‘East’ of the Euphrates.
more
https://www.mintpressnews.com/how-the-us-occupied-the-30-of-syria-containing-most-of-its-oil-water-and-gas/240601/
“Syria and friends are now strong enough to take back Golan Heights”
This is not true at this time.
The war is certainly not over, but I think that article overstates the strength of the US position. They are entirely dependent on the Kurds on the ground – the problem is that the Kurds see the Turks, not Assad as their main enemy. They know that the US is in a weak position to stand up to the Turks for fear of driving them into the welcoming arms of Putin. So ultimately, the Kurds know they will have to come to some sort of agreement with Assad in the end. If that means telling the US they are no longer going to act as their cannon fodder, then they will do so. Its also true to say that the Kurdish held territory is expanded beyond what the Kurds can hold in the long term. Much of the fringe area is controlled by Sunni tribes who will do a deal with Assad once they know there is no hope for the opposition. They will prefer to be subject to Assad than the Kurds.
The other agents are the Gulf States and their support for all sorts of opposition groups. But these are now being routed. They know they’ve lost, so its only a matter of time before the last lifelines are cut off.
The other players are the main opposition groups in the north, supported by Turkey, and the Isis groups in the very south, being *ahem* overlooked by Israel. Both these groups have no hope of expanding their territory, the most they can hope for is to hold on to what they have – but thats really in the hands of Erdogan and others. The Israeli’s will no doubt see a benefit in having a mini buffer zone between them and Syria, so it will be very hard for Assad to root them out. He may decide its not worth the effort. But eventually the Turks will find its not convenient to keep supporting their proxies and gradually they’ll be chipped away.
But the key point for Assad is that he now pretty much controls all the heartlands of Syria. Once he has cleared out the remaining pockets the only big loss is the oilfields and the remaining coastal areas in the north. He can probably life with the border pockets under various warlord control. Once investment starts coming in from Russia and China and Iran (who will all want a share in the reconstruction), he will be able to prevent any resurgence.
The US and SA and Israel will no doubt do all the can to disrupt this process, but its very hard to see what they can do except be spoilers. They can’t do anything without proxies on the ground, and all these proxies, including the Kurds, can see the writing on the wall. They will all do deals in the end with Assad. They are there forever, they know the US is not.
Sounds like a good analysis of the situation. I would add that the Kurds in the far east of the country are using people who used to be in ISIS to hold the territory that holds a lot of those oil fields but who still want to fight the Syrian Army. Not a sustainable situation.
Over time the US may find that they are sitting at isolated outposts in wild areas where they are vulnerable to attack by insurgents and they have seen this movie before in both Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, there have been some attacks already as well as casualties.
Some other sites to read when you have time.
Lives in Amerika but has family in Syria
https://www.almasdarnews.com/
Russian but covers Syria
https://www.fort-russ.com/
More
Always a good read
http://www.moonofalabama.org/
Covers Syria and other stories she Canadian
http://pennyforyourthoughts2.blogspot.com/
Don’t like Moon of Alabama, and don’t trust him. It makes me uneasy that so many on this site – who I otherwise am often on the same page with – are of another mind.
“Don’t like Moon of Alabama, and don’t trust him. It makes me uneasy that so many on this site – who I otherwise am often on the same page with – are of another mind.”
Now that’s argument, that’s evidence, and who wants to be uneasy?
I also have a strange after-taste upon wandering over to MoF but find it hard to articulate.
Even if one is of another worldview than the proprietor of MoA, the difference in outlook is salutary to ones natural tendency to have a ‘restricted’ view of the world. America is not the World. Tell the person in the mirror that five times every morning until sanity becomes more evident. Then continue doing so as a prophylactic.
Moon of Alabama has incisive analysis of international events, particularly NeoCons’ disastrous regime change wars in the Middle East.
MoA has many very well-informed posters, too.
It must be jarring to anyone who’s internalized NeoCon / CIA / MSM 24/7 propaganda.
Speaking of MoA, does anyone know why the website has been down for hours?
This is the message I’m seeing at MoA’s url:
Also, add me to the list of NC readers who are fans of MoA.
Do you really think that the information that you find on his site can be found in the Washington Post? The New York Times? Pentagon briefings? You have more chance finding it on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet in a disused basement toilet, marked ‘Beware of the Leopard’ on a locked door. Same with what you find on this site. Tons of stories here that you will not find covered by the main stream media.
@Spring Texan
Agreed. Sorry to say when I read comments on this site, more often than not, I’m reminded of the pigs in Animal Farm. I often wonder how many here would gladly censor others just for having opposing views, which challenge their firmly held beliefs. How many here even realize fascism was a socialist movement or that the Cultural Revolution killed more people than the Holocaust?
More often than not I’m left with a sense of uneasy more than a reassurance of my faith in humanity after reading comments.
Stephen Gowan: “….Instead, it has sought to pressure the Arab nationalists in Damascus to accede to an orderly transition to a government acceptable to Washington, while ensuring the Arab nationalists’ rule was never actually truly threatened.”
Um. Just like Iraq, Libya, the mess in Yemen…..etc, etc.
That “orderly transition” has never occurred when empires decide who is to lead another nation who is getting in the way of the empire itself.
Our actions in Syria are pure and simple and international war crime. There are not other words to propagandize this. The problem is there is no other country that is powerful enough to stop us.
As an aside I do believe that Israel is very worried about the Golan Heights….and I do believe in my personal opinion that the “defeat” of Assad in the long run is in the policy of Zionist Israel to use (defeated) Syria as an expansion valve for their territorial ambitions and possible control of the natural resources in the region such as natural gas and water.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/16/trump-lawyer-michael-cohen-refuses-to-identify-clients-as-court-faceoff-looms.html
An unnamed client of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, is Fox News host Sean Hannity.
===============================================
Hmmmm…..considering all the problems FOX had with O’Reilly and the other guy about sexual harassment…
Could Trump be losing one of his most trusted advisers?
I thought that Nixon just gave hell to a construction union for being greedy. Nice that she can pick and choose her unions. Another comfy member of the bourgeoisie pandering to the leftists? I’d be curious to find out well the support staff in her Manhattan “building” are paid.
Anyway, it’s good to see that the porcine Cuomo has moved into the second stage of grief…the sooner he gets to the fifth stage the better.
“The [transport workers] unions have to understand … with the deals that they have now, you can’t hope to make improvements to the trains in a fiscally responsible way. Everybody’s got to pull together, and everybody’s got to make sacrifices.” — Cynthia Nixon, Mar 19, 2018
If she wants to make the trains run on time, changes have to be made. New York is so hopelessly uncompetitive with best practices in other global cities, it’s in a class by itself.
“make the trains run on time”
Oh, the trains are running on time – at about 500 cubic feet per second.
Mumbai on the Hudson.
The MTA simply does not comply with best practices, period. But the cost of labor itself is not to blame for the chaos that is both the agency and the transit system. Most of the cause is, in a word, corruption. Running trains on time is no big secret; the MTA itself managed to do it in the 1990s.
Still, I find Cynthia Nixon’s response highly unsettling and uninspiring. It suggests both an unquestioning assumption of the neoliberal order in which some people “will have to make sacrifices” in order for all of us to have nice things, as well as a reflexive political “calculus” that demands periodic rhetorical attacks against *some* representation of the left. If she can’t break out of those basic feedback loops of “center-left politics”, she won’t get very far.
How can she go after the transit workers after Cuomo’s outright mismanagement of the system? Sue should have been courting them from day #1. Political neophyte mistake, or just typical neoliberal pinching down is not an excuse.
True on both counts. (I am willing to entertain the notion that there are two sides to the MTA unions, the heroic transport worker side and a less functional side. Or is it possible she was talking about construction unions?)
Anyhow, if she marks Cuomo up real good before the 2020 run his sycophants are telling him is a real possibility, I’m a happy camper.
So the F35 factory is about ramping up jobs, but what about this: Latest F-35 flight tests finish – and US stops accepting new jets. Why open a factory if your primary client won’t take orders due to cost overruns, system faults, and just plain rust?
Or are you certain that such concerns will fall by the wayside?
Are you new here? I posted on the F-35 the day before yesterday.
The parasite will, I am sure, adjust its relationship with its host appropriately. Just because the F-35 is a lousy weapons system doesn’t mean the program will be stopped; it’s a good bet it won’t be.
Nikki Haley thrown under the bus:
It’s like the weather … wait five minutes and it may change.
These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.
I’ll be watching what he does not caring about what says. Just like obomber only twitters from He)).
Exactly.
Trump will surely get a stern talking to, or maybe just be told that he looks especially presidential when he pushes the button. “Come on, Donnie! You can wear your Big Boy outfit this time!”
It seemed odd to me at the time that she was the one to announce it.
She’s very anxious, loves confrontation. Much like hill.
> Nikki Haley thrown under the bus
It couldn’t happen to a nicer future Presidential candidate!
Now there is a frightening thought – President Nikki Haley. And I suppose that the Vice-President could be Samantha Power then. I would have then suggested Sarah Palin as Secretary of State but she came out and said that the Syrian attack was stupid so she would be not forgiven that bit of truth-telling.
It looks like us in Michigan have the shaky, millionaire oddity, the insurance company goon, or the Republican candidate as their likely choices for governor. What fun…
And in Illinois we have the battle of the billionaires!
And, in Arizona, we have teachers stalking the incumbent governor, Doug Ducey, at each of his campaign events. When we say #RedforEd, we mean it!
More fun news from the Grand Canyon State: I’m working on organizing the second Naked Capitalism meetup in Tucson.
Thanks to the various bubbles, billionaires are the new millionaires.
Our new Seattle mayor, who never prosecuted WaMu execs when Sen Levin gave her the whole enchilada, wants to TOLL downtown city streets…….you know, rather than taxing Amazon appropriately.
Good times.
> wants to TOLL downtown city streets
Toll booths every block or so, but you can buy a monthly card to sail on through? Sweet!
I think one can buy access to the express/HOV lanes on I-405 so the wealthy can ignore the car pooling requirements to use those lanes. One rule for the poor; another for the Brahmin class whose time is obviously much more valuable than that of the poor mopes.
https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Tolling/405/default.htm
You left out Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, whose staff is predominantly Sanders people — the team that won the presidential primary in 2016. The primary in Michigan is not until August 7th.
> Dr. Abdul El-Sayed
Down in the polls, but getting coverage. I wouldn’t count him out.
NYDN:
But if Cohen’s (billable hours for Hannity) x (hourly rate) was > $14,000 in any given year surely Cohen,
ace lawyer that he is, filed an IRS form 709 gift tax return, amirite?
Thank you NC for the great posts today (4/16), you blew away my morning. There are many times I ask, ” what did I learn today?” & this afternoon I can say a lot. My morning reading of NC was followed by a call out on Twitter by Matt Stoller recommending Yves series on CalPERS . My afternoon included a wonderful interview with Ellen Burstyn on ” Tell Me Everything” where that lovely lady pointed out that the word for God in Aramaic is Alaha, which means Sacred Unity (between the dimensions). Try inserting that in the Lord’s Prayer, instead of Our Father.
t
“Bevin: ‘I guarantee’ a child was sexually assaulted because teachers attended protest” [Herald-Leader]. Idea: Pay the teachers a living wage.
Exactly. Everyday, teachers are dealing with kids sexually assaulted in the home – usually family members or “friends” with access to the homes (not teachers).
Lets say a girl reports she was raped, ‘ll bet he’s the same type of a guy that would ask what she had on.
Re: Amazon Bottle Peeing. Two toilets for a four-story building? For 1,200 people? Try that in an office building. I bet there would be an office walkout. What if a worker had diarrhea? There’s no way a worker would last a quarter mile walk without soiling himself. He or she would probably have to wear adult diapers. These are abhorrent working conditions more reminiscent of the Victorian era.
The receptacle in question is known as a ‘trucker bomb’ among the 18 wheel set, but what to call this variant?
‘Zon Bomb’
> These are abhorrent working conditions more reminiscent of the Victorian era.
You say that like it’s a bad thing!
Not sure if this has been posted previously, but an eye-opening report from Public Citizen on the non-stop grifting by the Trump Organization during the 2016 campaign and through Trump’s presidency, where more than $15mil has been funneled to the company by a multiplicity of players, ostensibly to pay for “services rendered” (caff-caff). And that sum represents the bare minimum so far accounted for…plus taxpayer-funded fees paid to Trump properties during “hosting visits” for Trump and his family. Grifters will grift, as is so often said here.
https://corporatepresidency.org/art-of-the-self-deal/
The WFP was the “working families” party that endorsed Cuomo over Zephyr Teachout last time? Maybe they learned something since then. Too bad the unions are still corrupt and endorsed Cuomo again.
Beware of Dems in denial / former Dems bearing gifts.
Hi Eureka, Bubba Clinton said to send him some stormies, he’s had Flowers for ten years.
Would you happen to know anyone having any King David Apple trees? I’m on waiting lists forever.
Many a man’s honestly has saved him from becoming a politician
If there is one good thing about living, surrounded by a sea of red, it’s the fact Bubba does’t come around here anymore.
I really don’t know but you might call:
Bear Creek Nursury
2798 Highway 23 N
Holiday Island Arkansas 72631 AR
Phone:
(479) 253-7466
They know things. Funny how the good apple trees often require early reservations.
We have a King David apple tree here, fruited for the 1st time last year…
Wasn’t that hard to find on the internet, I think it came from Raintree Nursery. You’ll have to wait till next year to plant one, as no nursery sells fruit trees after they break their dormancy.
Well, you know, one party cannot fool all the people all the time. That’s why it looks* like we have two parties. We just had one person we wanted to get rid of, we’re so happy we did, and her husband too!
Thank you fellers for the nursery suggestions.
I’ve mentioned this one before, but to torture my wife when i’m driving, i’ll occasionally find Hannity somewhere on the radio dial and force her to listen to his malarkey, and usually about 12 minutes in she threatens to defenestrate her right to partake, so I have lock down the windows, lest she go through with it.
Wonder how much swamp party hush money has been negotiated for Hannity? I can honestly say that I respect Sean as much as your wife ever has.
That’s so cruel, Wukchumni. So very cruel.
Re the “The Land of Make Believe” map.
Is that, is that Wally that I can see in that map?
“The Heroes of This Novel Are Centuries Old and 300 Feet Tall” [New York Times].
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It’s interesting comparing redwoods, the coastal ones are all about height, while the Sequoias here are all about girth, with the height only a yeah whatever, kinda gig. They are so different in comparison in that the coastal redwoods are surrounded by lush rainforest, whereas their Sierra Nevada cousins tend to crowd out all other species of upright standing members of the community, by not allowing sun to pass through it’s crown and myriad of branches, and typically being bunched together somewhat, they form interlocking circles of shade.
A friend is visiting the 50 largest living things in the world, and is up to # 37 or 38 now, and they all happen to be Sequoia trees.
He’ll have to leave the Sierra Nevada and go to Colorado to see the “real” largest living thing: its an Aspen grove that covers 100+ acres. (DNA testing confirms it.)
Yeah, and that honey fungus in Oregon is bigger yet @ 2,400 acres, but i’m talking about stand alone objects.
Apparently the Democratic Party’s voter margin is slipping
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2018-vote-margin-narrows-democratic-engagement-slips-poll/story?id=54482800
Polls these days are not accurate, but I suspect that this could go either way. To be honest, I only care these days about Berniecrats and other left wing people winning. A real populist (ex: really for “the people”) on the right would also have my support, provided they walk the talk.
An Establishment Democrat or Establishment Republican is increasingly similar in my book. The Democrats seem to be playing “Good cop, bad cop” to hurt the left, while the Republicans make no pretensions about their class warfare.
IMO best progressive way forward is to primary the blue dogs. Get rid of the fake dems, then is possible to take over the party.
Present neolib dems offer no advantage to the working class. Pelosi is not a dead loss, she’s an albatross kicking progressives with every dollar she grifts from corps.
That’s another reason I created that worksheet. If and when the wave begins to rise, those seats are where it will happen. In the Tilt and Lean D categories there was only one change from two weeks ago (to likely). And in the new Republican seats, the only surprise was Ryan quitting.
So I don’t see the wave in the districts yet, using the tools available to me. But it’s very early days yet, only a few of the primaries are finished.
Johnstown is PA-12 (Rothus, R), not one of the districts we’re tracking. Perhaps exactly because of this facility?
You might want to keep an eye on this one. The court-ordered re-districting made this congressional district much more competitive than it had been and guess who will be running in this district in November 2018? None other than our own boy-wonder, Connor Lamb. Lamb’s old district went up in smoke in the redistricting and he’s running here against Rothus. He might even pull it off – not that it much matters except Lamb says he will not vote for Pelosi for Speaker under any circumstances.
Er, Conor Lamb is running in PA-17, and we are tracking that. Although that redistricting was the most confusing thing ever.
I am liking Cynthia N….don’t really have a problem with her re political experience….I studied English in college and it had nothing to do with my subsequent 4 different careers. Unless you are in a “specialized” field – don’t most of us literally “fall” into our jobs?
She did criticize the unions involved in the 2nd ave subway build and I think that pissed off some folks. Which I get. But I understand WHY she did.
As usual, the powerful try to pit the workers against each other. Now, “private” workers, who don’t have it so good…are a bit jealous of their fellow American union workers, who seem to have more stability/healthcare/pension benefits than they will ever have.
How smarter would it be if we kept our eye on the ball and realized who the real enemy/threat was? And we stuck together?
“Their integrity is unimpeachable” decreed the Honorable Kimba Woods in explaining her reluctance to question the actions of the Royal persecutors as the US Attorney office of the Southern District has now been proclaimed perfect and in no need of provening any cases…simply bringing a charge is an automatic guilty…must be another new York city she is describing… The one I recall growing up in had nothing but politicians deciding who will become us Atty to protect them by blocking investigations…there must be some special election held in new York to vote in the US Attorney…
Guilty until proven innocent…the royalization of the court is complete…
From Cohn to Cohen…Trump and his lawyers…
There is a conundrum with the ice plant. They don’t grow in cold locations.
Has Bernie ever talked or tweeted about horrible working conditions of specific companies like Amazon or Walmart? I know he has this stump speech about “an economy for billionaires and millionaires” but I don’t recall him targeting specific companies like Trump
That’s a very good question. Readers?
It would be interesting to see if Sanders, too, could make a stock’s price drop
Thanks for that picture of the map from the ’30’s, Lambert.
In the 1970’s we had a Tolkein trilogy map, in just this style, which was wall to wall in our living room. It was so cool.
All of my friends and I used to do psychedelics and travel right into that magic land.
Can anybody load websites of moonofalabama or sicsempertyrannis? They are both down for me.
Same here. However, the SST has moved to Disqus for site admin reasons and is running through some teething problems. At least, that’s what I suspect. For MoA, I don’t know. This looks like a ‘teachable moment’ concerning usage of “the cloud” for data storage.
SST is down for me.
For MoA, I can’t get past the front page.
The CANZ real estate market is full on wobbly, with values dropping in all 3 countries concurrently. Will the governments of Canada, Australia & New Zealand-along with the usual banker cast, step in to prop up prices, as happened here?
Hmm.
Three of the Five Eyes acting in concert….
How exactly are female Amazon employees supposed to pee into bottles? I take it this is an option only available to male employees. Can someone sue for sex discrimination here? I’m serious. Amazon has got to know that this is a way of making slave work more tolerable for males than it is for females.
Of course not, the company store will only be too happy to provide solutions for the ladies ablutions