What dinosaur eggs reveal about ancient parenting styles National Geographic
Wells Fargo’s struggle to escape the dog house isn’t over yet FT
New Energy Giants Are Renewable Companies: Iberdrola, Enel, NextEra, Orsted Bloomberg
The futuristic cargo ship made of wood Hellenic Shipping News
#COVID19
Fauci: Coronavirus surge ‘superimposed’ on current spike possible in coming weeks The Hill
How much did Thanksgiving contribute to Covid-19 spread? It’s wait and see for now STAT
From campus, a lesson in controlling the virus Boston Globe. In fact, it looks like Massachusetts college Presidents did mobilize:
After sending students home in mid-March as the virus swept across Massachusetts, local college presidents [plural], many with science backgrounds, began to develop plans to reopen schools in the fall, with quick and affordable testing as a key component.
They approached the Broad, which offered to charge colleges $25 per test — much less than the $100 commercial price — and promised results within 24 hours. The Broad has conducted more than 6 million tests since late March; it has previously estimated that nearly two-thirds of the 70,000 tests it processes on average each day are from colleges and universities.
* * * Can I Choose My COVID-19 Vaccine? MedPage Today
Moderna’s groundbreaking coronavirus vaccine was designed in just 2 days Business Insider
Airlines Face ‘Mission of the Century’ in Shipping Vaccines Bloomberg. The last mile is the hard part.
* * * COVID-19-associated olfactory dysfunction reveals SARS-CoV-2 neuroinvasion and persistence in the olfactory system (preprint) bioRxiv. From the Abstract: “Viral persistence in the olfactory epithelium therefore provides a potential mechanism for prolonged or relapsing symptoms of COVID-19, such as loss of smell, which should be considered for optimal medical management and future therapeutic strategies.”
A Randomized Trial of Convalescent Plasma in Covid-19 Severe Pneumonia NEJM. From the Conclusions: “No significant differences were observed in clinical status or overall mortality between patients treated with convalescent plasma and those who received placebo.”
Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in sewage and wastewater treatment plants in Mexico Journal of Water Process Engineering. From the Abstract: “This work proves that wastewater-based epidemiology is a very valuable tool in developing countries where diagnostic tests for COVID-19 are limited.” Especially in Third World countries like our own…
China?
China to tap elderly population in bid to tackle looming demographic crisis, boost economy South China Morning Post
Old and young, Chinese vent anger at move to raise retirement age Al Jazeera
Why China’s Methane-Spewing Farms Are a Hidden Climate Risk Sixth Tone
China factory activity edges up in November: official data Agence France Presse
Pontifications: The risk of closing China to aerospace suppliers Leeham News and Analysis
Covid-19 passports trump travel bubbles, but digital security and test efficacy concerns must be addressed South China Morning Post
Brexit
London ‘Thrown to the Lions’ as Brexit Finance Deal Unlikely Bloomberg
UK will not ‘sell out’ sovereignty for Brexit deal with EU, say negotiators Independent
The Koreas
Former South Korean dictator Chun Doo-hwan guilty of defamation over massacre Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Assassination in Iran Could Limit Biden’s Options. Was That the Goal? David Sanger, NYT. Commentary:
Lede on NYT front page: "…the scientist who led Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon for the past two decades."
This is Judith Miller-level bad. No mention that US intel agencies maintain that Iran halted nuke weapons program in 2003. We're just told what Netanyahu "believes." https://t.co/b5iOOYRkSY
— Matt Duss (@mattduss) November 29, 2020
Uber made big promises in Kenya. Drivers say it’s ruined their lives. NBC
UK/EU
EU proposes fresh alliance with US in face of China challenge FT
Four French police officers charged over beating of black music producer Agence France Presse
Czechs to Reopen Shops, Restaurants as Virus Spread Slows Bloomberg
Pandemic Motors: Europeans snap up old cars to avoid public transport Reuters
‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’ Guardian. “[T]he UK’s charging network is poorly maintained, complicated and hugely difficult to navigate via its various apps and payment systems.”
Labour antisemitism: Angela Rayner warns ‘thousands and thousands’ of members could be suspended Sky News
Revealed: the Israel lobby’s Labour hit list Electronic Intifada
Economists urge BBC to rethink ‘inappropriate’ reporting of UK economy IPPR (RH).
Biden Transition
Joe Biden Fills Out His Economic Team Wall Street Journal. Neera Tanden for OMB.
Biden Picks Budget Director Who Pushed Social Security Cuts Walker Bragman, The Daily Poster
Cornyn spox: Neera Tanden has ‘no chance’ of being confirmed as Biden’s OMB pick The Hill. That’s a damn shame.
President-elect Joe Biden suffers fractures in foot Reuters. Playing with one of his dogs.
Trump Transition
Canada blocks bulk exports of some prescription drugs in response to Trump import plan Reuters
Realignment and Legitimacy
GWB Looks Worse in Hindsight Bruce Bartlett, The Big Picture
Our Famously Free Press
Candace Owens Challenges Fact-Checker, And Wins Daily Wire (CL).
Intelligence Community
Report Claims CIA Controlled Second Swiss Encryption Firm Agence France Presse
Class Warfare
Resuming evictions caused over 10,000 deaths in just six months Yasha Levine, Immigrants as a Weapon
Why nursing home aides exposed to COVID-19 aren’t taking sick leave The Converation
What works to mitigate and reduce relative (and absolute) inequality? (PDF) United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research. A review of the literature.
The Distributional Impact of the Pandemic (PDF) Sinem Hacıoğlu Hoke, Diego R. Kanzig, Paolo Surico World Inequality Lab. From the Abstract: “The top quartile of the income distribution accounts for almost half of the pandemic-related decline in aggregate consumption, with expenditure for this group falling much more than income. In contrast, the bottom quartile of the income distribution has seen the smallest spending cuts and the largest earnings drop but their total incomes have fallen by much less because of the increase in government benefits.”
1% of farms operate 70% of world’s farmland Guardian
You Have The Right To Not Work Indica
Anti-Populism with Thomas Frank (podcast) The Dig. Bracing. And if you want to understand why Frank has been blackballed by liberal Democrats and won’t (at least as I heard him say on Useful Idiots) be writing on politics any more, this is the podcast episode for you.
How close is too close? Aeon (Re Silc).
How to Work With Tribesmen (PDF) W. Patrick Lang (rowlf).
Antidote du jour (via):
“What could be more natural than a rhinoceros?” –Eugene Ionesco
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
143 comments
Comments are closed.
Happy Thanksgiving Jerri-Lynn!
(Sorry I spaced and forgot to include you yesterday.)
>Right not to Work
I found the article on the “right not to work ” interestingly juxtaposed with the article on China considering raising the retirement age from 60 for men and 55 for women. Who would have known what the retirement age was in China? Americans are so mindf&%ked that any mention of China triggers a virulent response of concentration camps, child slavery, environmental degradation, etc., you know the list. I don’t ever recall any public figure stating that China had a more human retirement age than the U.S.
You may be one of the lucky ones working at something you like. But for those who toil in bone-wearing jobs devoid of any inherent satisfaction and with Aholes for bosses, retirement is liberation. And it seems that even though technology has increased productivity a thousand fold, the “system,” requires evermore. “Evermore” and “nevermore,” evermore work, paying taxes, higher insurance premiums, tuition, bills, and nevermore believing you can lay down and watch the clouds.
Land that I love is the land that I’m workin’
But it’s hard to love it all the time when your back is a-hurtin’
Gettin’ too old now to push this here plow
Please let me lay down so I can look at the clouds
Sun beatin’ down my legs can’t seem to stand
There’s a boss man at a turn row with a rifle in his hand
I’ve got nine children, nothin’ in the pan
My wife she died hungry while I was plowin’ land
Can’t see when I go to work, can’t see when I get off
How do you expect a man not to get lost
Every year I just keep getting deeper in debt
If there’s a happy day, Lord, I haven’t seen one yet
Take ’em away, take ’em away, Lord
Take away these chains from me
My heart is broken ’cause my spirit’s not free
Lord take away these chains from me
[Old Crow Medicine Show]
Wow, thanks, that’s a great song, here’s a fine live rendition of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzIetXVKjf8
Brought a tear to my eye.
RE: Indeed what is the retirement age in China—I never knew!
But w/regard to China, the question is : Retire to what—a technocratic dystopia, zero autonomy, the cultural ways have been eradicated, life is politicized to the hilt/ in a facial recognition totalitarian nightmare.
Early retirement in the States: that’s a two-edged sword—non-work seems to be the idea being floated by extreme leftists–just pay people to stay at home and stay on their computers in a consumerist dream state—the Reset ideal—just redefine actual existence in the Bill Gates mode. Genesis: the Lord gives Adam work not only as a curse but also as a blessing. St. J-P II wrote eloquently of the dignity that work affords to men and women, if you have ever known anyone who never worked, you will find someone that is inhibited in their social integration, and remain in a childish naivety, never having fully grown up. For the youth meaningful work is desirable.
moral of the story: for anything truly important, keep multiple copies. ideally at least two physical copies, backing anything in the cloud.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9000819/Facebook-deletes-grieving-mothers-profile-pictures-videos-dead-son.html
say’s she’s a Labour Councillor. I wonder if she got caught up in the “anti-semite” pogrom that’s going on.
“‘Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?’”
Unfortunately for this couple, they did not research the availability of working recharge stations before purchasing their fully electric Porsche. I just read that they go for about £80,000 – about US$107,000 – which is more than the average car. But to help out, the government should step in. The article mentions that recharge stations they come with ‘a variety of sockets, power sizes, and a baffling array of payment methods – depending on the provider’. The government could simply mandate standard sockets, power sizes and work with banks to ensure seamless transactions. What the government should not do is step in to build tens of thousands – if not hundreds of thousands – of recharge stations for these cars.
This couple wants local authorities to step in and build all these wonderful recharge stations for them. Sorry, but with the pandemic all those local authorities are struggling for money and may need to build soup kitchens sooner than recharge stations for electric cars. If you wanted to put a nasty spin on this story, you could say that ‘Wealthy Couple Expects Recharge Stations To Be Built For Their Porsche By Local Taxpayers Who Themselves will Never Have The Money To Buy One Themselves.” Bit like the Concorde jet when you think about it. If electric car owners want more recharge stations, then they should press electric car manufacturers to build & maintain them saying that the more that they build, the more of their cars will be sold.
The experience of the electric Porsche driver dovetails nicely with an article I just read:
https://capx.co/until-we-get-a-proper-roadmap-net-zero-is-a-goal-without-a-plan/
The question of who builds the charging stations is something that ought to be addressed by a proper roadmap, and the connector issue should be addressed by solid regulations and industry standards. We currently lack both. And in fairness to the couple owning the Porsche, the current situation requires them to do a lot of homework before taking a long trip, an exercise that the owner of a gasoline-powered vehicle can skip. The UK plans to halt all sales of gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles in 2035. If the charging network isn’t fully “up to snuff” by then, it’s not going to go well.
AC v DC
VHS v Betamax
Blu Ray v. DVD HD
iOS v Android v Blackberry
NaChemo(?) v CCS v Tesla v i forget
Lamentable, yet understandable, that corporations keep sinking money to fight “format wars” —- great for the winner, bad for the losers… often suboptimal for users
Don’t forget your plug set when you go overseas, and look right when crossing the street in the British Isles.
Part of the problem too is that for those of us that live in cold climates like the upper Midwest like myself as well as many parts of the UK, we make heavy use of the heater in our cars, particularly during the winter.
Since electric vehicles do not have the advantage of being able to use waste heat for HVAC heating unlike cars with combustion engines then they must use their onboard electric power supply for heat as well. This rapidly drains the battery which would make electric cars impractical for those of us who do not live in areas with no snow or ice. I suppose you could bundle up in coats and blankets in your electric car and not run the heater but you would still need to defrost the ice that forms on your windshield and windows as you drive.
(bangs head and wonders why he even bothers).
Again, I have posted this before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_electric_vehicles_in_Norway
You are correct that it is a negative. You are obviously not correct that it is a significant one, unless you have some info that I don’t re: Norwegians don’t know anything about dealing with the cold.
Aye. Being able to keep the cabin warm is an under-appreciated problem when it comes to electric vehicles. Most electric cars use simple resistors for heating, but in slow-moving traffic they can drain the battery faster than the drive train does. [Stuck in a snow-storm? It’s no longer the “miles of driving range” that matters, but instead the “hours of heating time”.]
Some electric cars use heat pumps to save energy, but this adds cost and complexity. And in extreme cold, they quit working and you have to drop back to resistors anyway. [Just like happens in your house, where the “emergency heat” resistors take over when the heat pump isn’t up to the task.]
Introducing the Porsche SST (super slow transport) it can do an hour of waiting in 60 minutes flat!
The reason why electric vehicles will continue to fail to make significant inroads is that you can’t charge them in the same amount of time that it takes to fill up a petrol/diesel vehicle.
OTOH, had the industry came up with battery packs that could be swapped in the same amount of time it would take to fill up an auto, then the lack of charging stations would be a minor annoyance.
Years (a decade?) ago, an Israeli firm had a plan for a network of battery-swapping stations, here in the US. I don’t remember the company’s name. Might have to check the Wayback Machine.
The swap-able battery concept rightfully died in Denmark some years back: Just like we don’t want to swap underwear, we don’t want to swap our nice battery pack with one that has been god-knows-where!
There are now charging stations at all the fuel stations along the motorway and at least a couple near every public building. Private business will usually have several on their parking lots. The electrical companies build them, they need people to use more electricity now that everyone has LED-bulbs using maybe 7W.
It takes maybe 20 minutes to charge enough “to go where one is going”. It also takes 20 minutes to fill up the car with fuel, move the car, go to the toilet, get coffee and snacks as demanded by pax’ers, it is the same!
If I was American, I would be concerned about my country never being able to do anything with infrastructure that almost all other countries can do – while doing other things that almost no other country would be willing to live with.
There are 11,600 public charging stations in UK according to the article. According to this site, there are 33.461 in the US and Canada. https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html#/find/nearest?fuel=ELEC
I suspect that an electric car to do serious driving in the US and Canada, other than in well-established routes largely in urban areas, would just be an expensive paper weight at some point, especially for winter driving. Right now, I drive a hybrid that gives me 50+ mpg in urban driving and 40+ mpg at open highway speeds with driving ranges of 700 miles for a 14-gal tank of gas. I am looking forward to having good electric cars but right now the infrastructure makes it tough for one to be your primary car.
My facebook feed is full of people celebrating that there are now dogs back in the White House.
I guess this is the kind of thing that will make the coming wars and austerity acceptable.
And I heard that said pooch who was the cause of a fractured foot, won the first ever pre-Presidential pardon, so yes in fact, every dog has their day.
The collection of geriatric holograms referred to as “Biden” no more broke his foot “playing with his dog” than he was the one “selecting his cabinet”, my guess is he tripped over his record player on a midnight dribble over to the toilet. Good thing he will have Neera, the absolute queen of completely deranged and false RussiaGate lies, to help steer him around the furniture in the Oval, once the soi disant “election” of 2020 is a done deal. “Here, Gramps, just sign these papers and you can get back to your prunes and oatmeal”. Dreams of the good old days and Corn Pop…
Biden tried to kick the dog and broke his foot!
There’s a cat, too. So they say. How nice.
What damage could a Russian-trained pussycat do to the President-Elect?
Remind them that Hitler had a dog too.
(I need one of those soccer jerseys I can pull over my head that says Godwin Goal on the flipside as I run around after kicking the ball like that)
https://news.google.com/articles/CAIiEMN48uOvVz2leKJf8Uktf10qGQgEKhAIACoHCAow4Zn5CjCu8uACMLTRlgY?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
An article about how the Republicans can (and no doubt will) freeze out Biden’s judicial nominations. Can anyone help me to understand why the Democrats could not have done the same?
DC GOPers are more afraid of its base than the DC Dem….and/or the “Left” doesn’t mind being treated as useful idiots by those in DC.
It is said that the Republicans are afraid of their base while the Democrats hate theirs. But at the end of the day, both parties will do what their donors want and who come from the same wealthy class. What else explains the fact that Biden is bringing in Republicans into his Cabinet over his own people?
Republicans are Biden’s own people.
LOL and so True
The only way a moderate Republican can get nominated for and elected President these days is to run as a Democrat.
Astute observation.
Thanks for the comments. It’s so frustrating, I hear and read a lot of talk about how Trump has packed the courts but no one ever, ever, EVER questions the lack of effort on the part of them Dems except for here and a few progressive/left sites and outlets like Dore. It really is a kind of fundamentalism in the part of liberals; they can’t even see when it hurts their own interests. Blue good – Red bad.
kareninca was right. We’re doomed.
When the DNC leadership under Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Tim Kaine lost those congressional seats, it gave the dems minority status and their numbers didn’t allow them to stop the appointments. When the Clinton/Obama/Emanuel troika kicked Dean to the curb, that sealed their fate. Not enough progressives to make the difference as well. Too many blue dogs sign off on the judges.
+1
Republicans control the Senate, which is the gatekeeper for presidential appointments. This is one reason why the Democrats failure to take the Senate was so consequential.
“Assassination in Iran Could Limit Biden’s Options. Was That the Goal?”
A senior Israeli official told the New York Times that the world should thank Israel for murdering this scientist. I was instantly reminded of a mate from a long time ago who would say in a situation like this that ‘If I wanted to hear from an a*** h***, I’d fart!’ Netanyahu here would be demanding that Trump protect Israel from any repercussions and the fact that a US carrier has entered the region may indicate that Trump and/or Pompeo was in on it.
Good luck with that. They say that you should be always be wary of the revenge of a patient man and Iran can be very patient. But to do this murder at such a time. It’s like when there was all the rioting and the BLM protests a few months ago across the country. Can you imagine what would have happened if Antifa had sabotaged power in a major city, murdered a police officer in the confusion, and then demand that the BLM protestors should thank Antifa for what they did? You might claim false equivalency but I do not think that it is so far off the mark.
I’ll bomb Iran before Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents, er, a meshugoyim fee
Christmas eve will find me
Far from where the radiation light gleams
I’ll bomb Iran before Christmas
Its my only scheme
I’ll bomb Iran before Christmas
You can plan on me
Please have some snow and mistletoe
And presents, 30 pieces of silver-the usual fee
Appreciated the Opinion piece from Israel’s Haaretz. IMO a policy shift will need to come from the people of Israel reclaiming the legacy of Yitzhak Rabin through the election of national leadership that will take a much different policy course.
Also question both who is wagging the dog and who the dog really is regarding relations with Iran?…
Massive policy failure on all fronts in my view.
Yet Israel has nuclear weapons something never mentioned in the American press. Even Wikipedia acknowledges this as well as the Washington Post. Iran is of no threat to the U.S. but the media portrays Iran as a bigger menace than Russia other than mythical election tampering.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/12/02/why-is-the-u-s-okay-with-israel-having-nuclear-weapons-but-not-iran/
This sounds like an exercise in gaslighting:
“In Tanden, Biden has selected a longtime economic policy power broker in the Democratic Party. A Yale law graduate, Tanden is very close to the Clinton family. She does not come out of the classic left but is likely to be welcomed by progressives as a strong addition to Biden’s roster of top economic advisers.
As OMB chief, Tanden is not likely to worry overly much about deficit spending in the face of the Covid-19 epidemic. And she is a popular voice for Democrats on Twitter, with nearly 300,000 followers.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/29/biden-economic-transition-team-441227
Is it even remotely possible that the author has never heard of this person?
A quick glance at progressive Twitter puts that howler to rest.
You are making the common mistake of confusing “progressive” with “Democrat Party.”
This article in Policy Tensor is pretty clear on the fact that the propaganda only works on the Ruling Class.
That’s what you’re seeing here, only those fully indoctrinated into the institutions of power believe anything coming from it.
If you want to stay “on the team” you have to do what the coach says… Tanden is what power says she is right now or you’re not a team player.
That’s a really good article, or at least tries to be.
The problem is, with every sentence I read I thought “ah that’s how Trump won”… but of course he not only lost but he got creamed in the popular vote. Make fun of California all you want, they have plenty of these non-white *and* white-deplorable voters. They may not be allocated much by our beloved EC, but somebody beyond the professionally classes voted against Trump unless said professional classes bred like mad over the past 4 years.
Also don’t trust this sentence:
Weighted by population, of course, he lost 0.97 percent on average. But still, incredibly, there was a swing towards the GOP in nearly three-quarters of US counties.
Is “GOP” in this sentence just shorthand for Trump, or including GOP/NotTrump voting? The author switches between “Trump”, “Trumpism”, and “Republicans” like they are the same thing but they are not.
Still, the reason I criticize is because it does have a ton of food for thought…thanks for the link. I’ll remember it when we slide into dictatorship in about two more Presidential cycles.
Interesting take, but just as hyperventilating Trump Derangement Syndrom sufferers were really just voting against Trump as opposed to for Biden, there’s plenty of reason to believe a big swathe of the population was voting against Biden and not for Trump. There really was no ideological distinction between the candidates. It was all about personal style. Abrasive and bare knuckles style has an appeal and a doddering old fool can’t compete especially when you see all the pearl clutching about ‘socialism’ on ‘conservative’ Twitter or blogosphere.
Working stiffs wages went up under Trump.
They noticed.
The propaganda machine was able to hand a poisoned chalice to Biden from which he now deeply imbibes, staffing his core team with veterans of the Cat Food Commission. This too will be noticed.
The problem is, with every sentence I read I thought “ah that’s how Trump won”…
Yeah, that’s a “problem” for tens of millions of your fellow americans as well, and likely to remain so regardless of what happens January 20, 2021.
Polls say that fully 3% of Trump’s 75 million voters believe the “election” “results”. I am curious how people sustain the continent-sized cognitive delusion and MSM line that “there was no fraud!“. Also hilarious how CNN video from the distant past (2019) showing how long it takes to hack a voting machine (answer: 1 minute) is still up on Twitter and YouTube, when anyone attempting to pierce The Great Firewall with such inconvenient factiness today gets immediately censored. Dem operatives wandering around Indian reservations handing out iPads and resort weekends in exchange for votes, LOLOLOL.
A professional gambler’s take on how that “flawless” election went down:
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/vegas-oddsmaker-says-the-fix-was-in-trump-was-robbed-this-election-was-stolen/
Something was sure “flawless” for somebody. Reminiscent of the “unknown” somebody who bought puts on airline stocks prior to 9/11.
Downballot dropoff is a real thing, and it makes exact comparisons hard. Let’s take a look at North Carolina, for instance.
North Carolina Election Results
Total votes for President: 5,524,802
Total votes for Senate: 5,474,952
Total votes for Governor: 5,502,777
Total votes for Lt. Governor: 5,424,113
All statewide races. But we have a variance of more than 100K people, nearly 2%, in just who checked all four boxes.
Cooper (2834k) got more votes than Trump (2758K). Biden (2684K), who lost, got more votes than Tillis (2665K) who won. And the most popular Republican in the state? Robinson for Lt Governor, who got 2800K.
Why did 42K more people vote for a candidate for a relatively obscure office than the top of the ticket, in a race where 100K people provably didn’t bother to vote at all?
“likely to be welcomed by progressives……” yea. As though the MSM who has been studiously ignoring progressives for many years now knows what progressives will welcome.
I think we are seeing history being rewritten right in front of our eyes. As in – WSJ’s saying Tandem ran a ‘center-left think tank’. I guess we should all ignore those Podesta-Tanden- Clinton emails – they really didn’t happen, did they? Just our imagination, huh?
The Jacobin has a fairer writeup on Tanden: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/joe-biden-neera-tanden-social-security-omb
Damn, here I am on the very edge of being less than 3 years away from getting a crack at my annuity, er entitlement which I put $XXX,XXX.xx into over the course of earning a living.
Do the cut to the quick crowd go for the double whammy, raise the minimum age to 65 and cut SS payments by 25%?
I suspect the GOP will kick their chops over 2024. They wont risk it.
Here’s Glenn Greenwald’s take on Tanden and it isn’t pretty:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/biden-appointee-neera-tanden-spread
GF: Greenwald isn’t mincing words even for Greenwald:
“Tanden’s uniquely unhinged, venomous, corrupt and pathologically dishonest conduct as a Clinton Family and DNC apparatchik and President of the corporatist-and-despot-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) has earned her a list of enemies far longer and more impressive than her accomplishments.”
What’s generically funny in the horror-show way we are now living in, is that doing anything but campaigning on increasing SS benefits was and is pure stupidity by the Democrats.
Firstly, they are really good at failing to pass legislation, so it gives them a nifty way to cut into the Rethug senior vote yet not actually do anything as per usual.
Secondly, they won’t get any credit for it from the supposed people that benefit from it as those people are at least Republican-curious and will give the Rs credit for “pushing the Democrats to do it”.
Thus, I am back again to my sudden realization that Pelosi, Schumer et al aren’t doing what is “politically possible”, they aren’t “protecting Dem majorities” (obviously!) but they really and truly believe in this Third Way BS.
a different chris: Who knows what Pelosi, Schumer, Hoyer, Bustos, and so on, believe? Do they believe anything? They are intellectually exhausted, out of touch, and self-absorbed.
What I am already seeing is that they bound to, and determined to, lose the 2022 midterm elections.
There will be much fundraising. Much fundraising. Gazillions of e-blasts. Occasionally, they will have Senator Tammy Duckworth snark–hey, it beats having an economic policy.
Buy your make-nice kente-cloth stole now!
Yup. Greenwald is taking no prisoners:
Seems like Glenn doesn’t think much of the “cucked” purveyors of the “hold-his-feet-to-the-fire” strategy.
That column deserves more quoting
2021 sure is looking bright.
The whole thing is quote worthy.
Please make Bernie vote to confirm her. I want him to wallow in his humiliation.
Not to worry. He’s a loyal “progressive”.
To be fair, I doubt Tanden believes a word of the crap she is spouting.
Then again, it may not matter whether or not she does. Actions are what matter. Results matter.
Tanden isn’t likely to worry about deficit spending? That’s interesting because I remember her being awfully concerned about it as a way to rationalize nakedly imperial foreign policy (https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2015/11/tanden2.png?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90).
And are you kidding me with the Twitter follower count? Something tells me she’s not as dialed into what the cool kids on Twitter are saying as much as this article lets on. I mean, she’s the head of the leading Dem booster think tank with all the connections that entails, she tweets more than Trump, and she still has less followers than Max Boot.
Gooooood Mooooooorning Fiatnam!
Full metal jacket was slang for a fully charged smartphone, and lets be honest about this, how did we ever survive without them?
It turned out to be the best way to keep a platoon of people in one place all doing something terribly important-or as we termed it: ‘winning hearts & minds with free internet connection’
Semper wi-fi
‘Semper wi-fi’
Heh, heh, heh! I’ll have to remember that one.
As it plainly states on the case of my desktop computer: “CoIntel Inside.”
Branding is everything. The phone may be smart, but the users ain’t.
Gooooood Mooooooorning Fiatnam!
If only!
Instead, except for grubby coins and paper Central Bank Notes, the economy runs off private bank deposits – NOT fiat.
And needlessly expensive fiat, besides being a scam. would do nothing to change that injustice but rather perpetuate it.
Each of my words has been created ethically so there’s scant chance of anything going askew.
p.s.
Not that i’m accusing you of being a non com from Saigon recently arrived in country hung up on Dong fluctuations vis a vis the open market, but it does bear some similarity.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/11/the-trumpiness-of-the-gops-future-five-key-questions/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=third
These data make clear that presidential contests are fought between the 40-yard lines. Trump didn’t redesign the field and restart the game; he kept most of what Romney had, gained enough new ground to beat Clinton, and then lost enough ground to lose to Biden. And the shifts in vote shares are not limited to a handful of important states, but broadly distributed.
……
As I’ve put it in the past, Trump nailed down the GOP base by adopting the usual positions on “dealbreaker” issues such as guns and abortion, but beyond that took license to appeal to other constituencies with unorthodox positions: trade restrictions for the Rust Belt, Social Security for seniors, etc. This is probably fertile ground for a future candidate.
==================================================
Sorry, I just can’t get enough post election analysis. Trump follows pretty much standard repub orthodoxy. Trump got the nomination because he positioned himself as a defender of social security and medicare as opposed to the rest of the repub field. Trump also had no problem eviscerating the repub field on Iraq. Would Trump have won in 2016 against any one but Hillary?
Considering Covid and the economy, it is startling that Trump did as well as he did. If Trump could be nicer, would he have gotten a second term?
Yes. Hillary had negatives, but she had positives going for her too such as novelty and a sense of the inevitable. We can’t ignore the Obama economy sucked. Biden was killed on the economy. The campaigns of alternative candidates would be Hillaryesque but with only 1 billion spent instead of 2. I don’t think it would be terribly dissimilar to Kerry in 2004. The Republican voters Team Blue hoped to get would simply vote for the real deal outside of safe districts.
Biden’s pitiful efforts came after Trump and then soon to be 300k dead with the number still going. The Team Blue argument about how Democrats aren’t as corrupt as Trump doesn’t drive that many votes. What else do they have?
The press.
And to Fresno Dan, Trump arguably betrayed most or all of the positions that got him elected. Even the famous wall barely made a start. He was a play acting president–as are they all to some extent–but didn’t even have the swamp to back him up.
“The Lost Days That Made Bergamo a Coronavirus Tragedy’
Bit disingenuous on the part of the New York Times here. Italy was probably the first western country to get slammed full force by this virus and information on it was confused at best. Things like the infection rate, how it was spread, the death rate, if it was also spread as an aerosol or not, how to treat it, etc. So all those countries that had seen what happened to Italy and then let the same exact thing happen to them – what excuse did they have? Just as a reminder what it was like in Bergamo back then, here is a surgeon’s testimony. I cannot recall if it was a featured Link or somebody mentioned it in Comments but here it is-
https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/ff8hns/testimony_of_a_surgeon_working_in_bergamo_in_the/
When I read that account from Bergamo way back when, I sounded the alert to family & friends that something wicked this way comes-as it was a defining moment, and one of my sisters responded with a Dr Drew video where he was very similar in his medical opinion that Covid was no big deal, sounding just like the President later on.
Here’s the Dr Drew video from early March…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39A7Tr-H29E&feature=youtu.be
Are you thinking of Sweden and Anders Tegnell?
Well, who knows what persuades leaders to act in a certain way. In one area, the economy is the most important thing to protect; in another area, people must be saved from getting the disease; in a third area, the people themselves say they won’t wear a mask or distance themselves or avoid large crowds; in a fourth area, the economy and the deaths are balanced so that neither one takes centre stage. There are so many ways to ensure that deaths will dominate and that the economy will suffer no matter what. There is no kind of balance. Where are the people who think lives matter more than the economy? Where are the people who think any death is more important than the (family blogging) economy? This is the world we get when money and profit are the most important thing.
I remember visiting Bergamo and taking the funicular to the Città Alta and finding a small Irish Pub in the middle of one best preserved Middle Age cities in the world. It’s a magical place. Sister who lives in Brescia, which isn’t that far from Bergamo, has been in lock-down mode for sometime now. If the U.S. put in place what the folks in Lombardy have implemented there would be revolution in the streets.
The Italians on the other hand grumble, but they all seem to be complying and getting by, like they always have: Though not going to the cafe, or fare una passeggiata, and having the gregarious character that they are world-famous for, the Italians are certainly suffering.
I hope Thomas Frank continues to write about politics. He does such a nice job of citing his work, and writing in a style that’s easy to understand. Perhaps he can take a break and write on another topic, and then return to occasionally publish articles on politics once he’s refreshed.
Maybe the penny has finally dropped with Frank that the Democratic party of social democracy is dead and buried and never coming back. Who wants to document the US’s transformation into a Brazil-like state? Far too depressing.
At least Greenwald chose to live in the real deal.
This is unfair to Brasil, which features better weather and a less hyper belligerent foreign policy.
That’s a great podcast. Frank’s comparisons between the 1890’s extreme concentrations of wealth, of monopoly power, and of political corrution, and today’s conditions, and that these 3 concentrations go hand-in-hand, is exactly right, imo.
2021 is going to be a hoot.
I’m looking forward to the Carter Page suit going forward, having the feds argue that lying to a FISA judge in writing is covered by Sovereign Immunity, the inevitable leaks of the Durham report no matter how hard the new administration tries to make it go away quietly…
And soon we’ll see just how compassionately the Biden Administration plans to deal with a (At a minimum) tenfold increase in the homeless population.
My guess is drastic cuts to SS, Medicare and Medicaid along with a domestic terrorism bill.
Perhaps Neera can become our new ‘Homeless Czar”…
Go long popcorn and body armor.
I think the big story will be the old hat have nots versus the nouveau have nots, when the ranks of the newly homeless mingle with the old guard-bound to be some tension there, and while something like 40% of Americans can’t scare up $400, statistically every last American has a gat & accessories worth that much.
Intensities in tent cities in ten cities.
Tent city is so clunky a descriptor.
Favela is so much more elegant.
Just as Esquimaux have multiple words for snow, the neo-liberal policy of “means testing” requires multiple words for poverty.
Its rare to see tents in photos of Great Depression ‘jungles’ as the construction of the hovels they eked out living in were made out of wood & cardboard, whereas today a 3/2 alt-A Coleman is only $30.
A couple years ago I was somewhat shocked to see the entire range of camping tents in the sporting goods dept under locked glass @ Wal*Mart in Whittier, Ca.
A friend went to the oregon coast a week or so ago and reported that there are homeless campers out in the middle of nowhere. He wondered how they get food, I’m guessing it’s one trip to the store a month. And from krystians (sp?) account it seems to me there is nowhere to hide. Of course the rest of the members on the call complained that here they are paying taxes and those deadbeats are living free in their favorite vacation spot and something to the effect of is that fair? how can that be fair? There is triumphalism and a hefty rewriting of history, I heard russia hacked the election for the first time without irony in quite a while. It’s true because neena’s neeners said it’s true. when the controlled flight into terrain meets reality I expect the shock and dismay will be epic. They can only be failed, but when pressed they have no solutions.
The Oregon coast was one of the great areas for native Americans to get seafood year round. Sheelfish, fish, seaweed along with berries etc. make for a fairly rounded diet.
“Cornyn spokesperson: Neera Tanden has ‘no chance’ of being confirmed as Biden’s OMB pick”
Why would the Republicans vote for an internet troll to be part of the government? They have just had four years of dealing with one as President after all. It should be entertaining to watch the Republicans question her. I notice by the way that her Wikipedia page is free of any controversial stuff that she ever said which may indicate that it has been sanitized. Like when she said that Libya should pay America back with oil because of what they did for them. She also said that ‘we need to put both entitlements on the table as well as taxes’ which you can translate as cutting social security and medicare. It seems that whatever evil the Democrats do, Neera Tanden is there carrying their water and acting as their attack dog-
https://www.rt.com/usa/508182-neera-tanden-biden-budget-twitter/
She’s carrying more than water…
“the resolution from Perez fits into a policy of the DNC that surrogates of Hillary Clinton sought to protect during DNC Platform Committee meetings in 2016.’
“Former U.S. Representative Howard Berman, American Federation of State, County, and Muncipal Employees (AFSCME) executive assistant to the president, Paul Booth, former White House Energy and Climate Change Policy director Carol Browner, Ohio State Representative Alicia Reece, former State Department official Wendy Sherman, and Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden all voted against having a ban on fracking in the party’s platform.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/dnc-fossil-fuels-employer-pacs/247528/
Please think this through. Party platforms are fairly useless. Putting “bans” on commercial activity sounds fun and all, but how would that play out in Texas or Pennsylvania?
I don’t support any of those people you mentioned, and wish they would all get poor tomorrow, but calling for a ban on fracking in a toothless document would just inflame the opposition and lead to more down ticket election losses.
How about work quietly behind the scenes to make fracking un-economical? Or better yet let it just happen.
Fascinating article about the similarities between the structure of the human brain and the universe:
https://www.universetoday.com/148966/one-of-these-pictures-is-the-brain-the-other-is-the-universe-can-you-tell-which-is-which/amp/
It leads one to wonder, and only wonder not hypothesize, if it is a brain.
Reminds one of the ancient formulation “as above, so below”. The human being is quite mysterious in that we are (at least potentially), universes in miniature. That we are the “image of God” perhaps must be understood quite ‘literally’, and not symbolically
+100
Ivermectin for early-, middle-, and late-stage Covid-19 is now a thing.
Dr. Pierre Kory, co-inventor of the MATH+ treatment protocol for Covid-19, talks about his group’s latest findings.
https://youtu.be/PXh1yflndVE
Wells Fargo’s struggle to escape the dog house isn’t over yet FT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Orwells Fargo was 2X+ good @ staging fake accounts for real people, getting people to roll over and play debt.
I remain unable to pierce the online FT visual cone of science, so whatever else that dog won’t hunt is a mystery, but i’m guessing skulduggery for starters.
From the Aeon article
“The neuroscientist Michael Graziano provided further insight into the role of these neurons by stimulating them via tungsten microelectrodes inserted directly into the brains of macaques. Electrical current in these regions would cause the macaque to act as if it were under threat: flinching, twisting or raising its hand to ward off unseen dangers.”
ya think??
jr comments on the AEON article about the similarities between the structure of the universe and the brain: “It leads one to wonder….if it is a brain?” paired with furies note on “microelectrodes inserted directly into the brains of macaques” yet theories of an Electric Universe are decried as ridiculous by the pros
For some background on the first Swiss firm revealed to be compromised by the NSA:
https://hackaday.com/2020/03/02/project-rubicon-the-nsa-secretly-sold-flawed-encryption-for-decades/
and a report from when the original story broke
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-12-10-1995344001-story.html
LOL but there is “no chance” software running unsupported Windows 7 with root access via the serial port in the back of the machine was hacked by “non-state actors” like the NSA. Yes folks you pay for the NSA but no folks they do not answer to the “state” you live in
Re that wooden cargo ship–those of us who are sailing ship fans know that coastal cargo schooners were used on both coasts of the US well into the steam era. Some of these had multiple masts–not just two–and hulls made of steel. Wooden ships have an inherent limitation on length before they start to hog or sag. The schooner sail plan was popular because it could be worked from the deck without a large crew.
Of course in our electronic age there has been talk of operating cargo ships with no crew at all–just a big gps robot. So on a practical level it’s hard to see much future for a form of transport that requires ancient skills. Still…interesting.
I’m delighted to announce the launch of TwentygrandCoin, which does away with that up and down value wiggle by stabilizing the value, based on expected feverish demand.
$20KCoin, trusted since late 2020
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/how_to_work_with_tribesmen.pdf
Thanks Rowlf—read your link yesterdnand am happy it got thrown into the Links yard today—familiar in format and presentation to other stuff I had to read years ago—was not surprised that Pat Lang was the analyst for the SitRep.
With hindsight, and the insight of intentions driving that Report, we can really see it was not in America’s best interest in punching that Tar Baby.
Pissing away blood and treasures by choice is just disgusting, to begin a long list…
Imo—Veterans realizing this is the key to stopping this
I am glad you liked it. For me I find, as a military brat, that the same concepts of working with tribes can be applied to working with different groups in the US even if most people in the US would be offended to be thought of being tribal. If it walks like a duck etc.
As for veterans, I think after a while they realize they may not be the good guys they were told they would be and they are haunted. I think I got lucky by having veterans quietly encourage me not to join the military and I have tried to connect people interested in joining the military with veterans so they can see through the marketing. I wonder if the veterans protested would the media make them invisible? They could be devious and have groups of fractional people at a football game with a banner.
There are times this excellent comments section makes me understand why Oscar Wilde described the English and the Americans as two peoples divided by a common language. Rod, I understand not one sentence in your comment. I cannot hazard a guess at what it’s about. Never heard of Pat Lang or SitRep or Tar Baby. Not a clue!
I am not complaining. It’s up to me to know. But I thought it was striking that, despite understanding every word, I couldn’t even guess what it was about. There are postmodernist poets who strive for the same effect — with less success.
I had the same experience in reverse on Polk Street in San Francisco. I asked a series of passers-by where the bus stop was. I think it was the 5th or 6th person I asked who understood that I wanted to get on a bus and explained that you waved it down at any corner. “Bus stop” was, apparently, not in the local vocabulary. This was forty years ago on my first visit to the US.
For the benefit of money hiding
There will be a bubbly time on financial trampoline
The Winklevoss will be there
Late of being an olympic rowing pair-what a scene!
Over reason and value, hype and doubters
Lastly through in lieu of real F.I.R.E.!
In this way cryptocurrency will challenge the world!
The celebrated money charade.
Performs the feat online at this date
The investors will dance and sing
As 0’s & 1’s fly through the cloud don’t be late
Cryptocaves assure the public
Their mining production is second to none
And of course Satoshi Nakomoto dances the waltz!
The price began at a few bucks-5 or 6
When Mr. Nakomoto performed his tricks without a sound
And then the market will demonstrate
Ten martingales it’ll undertake to confound & astound!
Having been some years in preparation
A bubble time is guaranteed for all
And for now Bitcoin is an invisible thrill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJVWZy4QOy0
RE: How close is too close
This is why designing for public places (parks, promenades, civic centers) is so difficult. Not only do individuals respond to the built environment differently, but cultural differences must also be taken into account. Trying to replicate the design European public areas in the US often doesn’t work because of the difference in personal responsibility between the two cultures. Americans are more inclined to ignore their impact on others in a public setting. It’s cultural, not personal.
last time I was in Paris, dog poo in the sidewalks so often that it made (pre-DeBlasio) Manhattan look like Switzerland.
Just saying….not all of Europe are saints, not all of America are sinners. East Asia, on the other hand, saints in the public spaces (by Western standards)
I visited Paris years ago, I was stunned. From eye level up, stunning, incredible. Look down: feces (not all from dogs, I suspect) and trash everywhere…
I have some friends in Paris and have visited regular. Yes, the chiens run wild with their merde. Anectdotally, I heard that the real reason they lost the Olympics to Beijing was the real sh*t show on the streets of Paris
I used to read an English-language online newspaper about the news in Sweden. Occasionally the paper would offer stories from the perspective of ex-pats about Swedish culture.
What they said about riding on mass transit was that there was no organization; no one waited their turn getting on or off a bus/train/subway car. The commotion began as soon as the doors opened; it was a free-for-all. There was no queuing up in Sweden. Some explained this behavior with the word ‘lagom’ — the sum of the Swedish sense of fairness.
My favorite sentence in the article was: ‘Prediction is a necessary compromise for the the slow speed of neurons’. In that sentence you’ll find one of the key components of PTSD. The constant sense of a threat that no longer physically exists. I imagined that public transit for someone who needed order and command of the space around them would see the experience as a nightmare to be avoided or stoically endured. Gods help those born on the spectrum.
Re: “GWB looks worse in hindsight”
No mention in the article of the evil puppet master pulling Dubya’s* strings – that Dick Cheney. IMO any contemplation of GWB’s presidency that omits Cheney’s role is woefully incomplete.
For those suffering from extreme TDS (which includes some writers I otherwise respect) insisting that Trump is “the worst president evah!” I pose this question: Which is really worse – a buffoon or a pair of war criminals?
*h/t to the late, great Molly Ivins
You didn’t mention Rumsfeld. Cheney and Rumsfeld made Robert McNamara look like a Boy Scout.
Alison McDowell at Wrench in the Gears has clear sense of where “The Great Reset” is taking us.
“I am here because we have entered a cyborg era in which sociopathic billionaires and defense contractors want to fundamentally alter what it means to be human, tapping nano-technology and morally bankrupt scientists to do their dirty work.”
https://wrenchinthegears.com/2020/10/27/who-voted-in-davos-how-data-driven-government-and-the-internet-of-bodies-are-poised-to-transform-smart-sustainable-cities-into-social-impact-prisons/
“CommonPass isn’t their only venture. Not by a long shot.
“It’s not just air travel that the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Economic Forum intend to regulate. In their imagined future, presentation of tokenized credentials will be required to go to work, to school, to the store, to access public buildings and events. Such micro-management was unfathomable mere months ago, at least to everyone not in on the scheme.
“When we speak of politics, when we speak of citizens’ rights this is THE game changer. Who voted in Common Pass? Who decided individual liberties will now be governed by apps advanced by corporations that stand to profit from population management?”
. . .
“If we don’t object, moving forward blockchain tokens representing all sorts of digital assets, including rights and privileges, will be held in digital accounts. Social entrepreneurs need these biometric identity systems in place in order to install their planned impact economy. Using health status as an issue of national security, our hijacked governments plan to impose this upon us, not for our own good, but because the biocapitalist agenda must proceed.
“Few realize it, but the Covid drama is providing cover for a far more insidious program of perpetual tracking and tracing tied to health management and Sustainable Development Goal 3. Health data will create new equity markets meaning more and more wearable tech surveillance. The Impact Management Project’s practitioners, the asset holders whose greed led to a world beset by chronic illness, have structured profit centers in Internet of Things preventative care – social determinants of health weaponized.
“What we are living through is not a public health emergency but a reset of the global economy managed from Davos on behalf of the finance, technology and defense sectors. This “new normal” is totalitarianism wrapped up in a shiny “green” bow”
It’s remarkable how the longer I live, the “crackpot” right-wing antigovernment types in their bunker in Iowa seem to have gotten a lot of it right. Global rulers, chips in your hand, social engineering…
I hear you jr. I worked with a real conservative guy back in the early nineties who talked about conspiracy theories involving the council on foreign relations and implants. I, being a superior, open minded liberal, thought he was completely wacko.
In any case, we’ve all been conned. They’ve been planning this nonsense for decades.
All I see now is common ground to work with people to stop this insanity.
“common ground”
Which the IDpol fanatics are working hard to stymie.
(Not necessarily the Woke!;) )
Thanks for the link. Here’s something similar from Diane Johnstone.
In the current atmosphere of confusion and distrust, the glee with which economists Klaus Schwab and Thierry Malleret greet the pandemic as harbinger of their proposed socioeconomic upheaval suggests that if Covid-19 hadn’t come along by accident, they would have created it (had they been able).
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/11/24/diana-johnstone-the-great-pretext-for-dystopia/
Thanks for the link, flora. These people are truly sick.
Re the covid testing article in the Globe: The Broad has been running our tests and it’s been hands down fantastic. They’ve really done a great job. I go in to our testing site at a scheduled time, swab my snooter, they send that day’s samples (from northern NH) down to Boston in the late afternoon, and I’ve been getting my result overnight-it’s been rolling in between midnight and 3:30am. One even showed up the same night around 9. Have had 6 or 7 tests at this point and it’s gone very smoothly. I’m impressed.
And about Joe Biden breaking his foot playing with the dog…the guy was so frail and stiff walking a year ago August that I’m shocked that he’s able to play with a dog. The dog probably stepped on his foot and broke it while he was sitting on the couch.
One, erm, step closer to that giggling sociopath Harris as President.
I expect this is only the beginning of the excuses why Biden cannot appear in public, answer questions, seems confused, trembles, stumbles, etc.
Good call there. He will be drugged up on stimulants and wheeled out for only the most necessary events, like “Puddin!” day at the cafeteria and when Girl Scout troops take the White House tour…
My wife works at Brown and has been tested 32 times since this summer, all negative. The tests are run through the Broad and are starting to come back super fast. She was tested this morning and had the results by this evening. This makes me wonder why we haven’t enabled more academic/government resource hubs to become testing factories and just pay for it? Right, because markets.
While my wife gets over tested, we have stories of front line health care workers who cannot get tests and a #stopthespread testing event in Holyoke, MA turning away tons of people. My wife works in a lab with limited personnel and all masked up all day long. The idea that she needs two tests a week is a bit much while workers on the front lines have little to no access.
But yes, our colleges in New England are taking this more seriously with students on campus than colleges with big Footbaw! teams that hoover up massive cable TV contracts and booster dollars.
That antidote photograph is stunning.
+1
So despite the hoorahs given to the few Republicans that stood up to Trump, they are still the scorpions riding on our planetary frog’s poor back. I give you Larry Hogan:
Do we want two years of divisive, toxic battles over packing the Supreme Court, abolishing the Senate filibuster, and pushing the Green New Deal, or do we want to take these destructive proposals off the table?
He is pretty much Joe Biden in truth. “Nothing will change”. We shall ride the wave of having a far-right Supreme Court, we will finish the process of having the badly unrepresentative Senate effectively take over all legislative responsibility by blocking anything but the most milquetoast stuff from the House, and sit on our hands as the only planet we have heats beyond repair.
A bunch of old men leading us to our doom. Or maybe more accurately, restraining us from escaping it.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gov-hogan-vote-loeffler-perdue-to-uphold-moderation-and-compromise-in-the-us-senate/ar-BB1busKo?ocid=msedgntp
I love watching the globalists circling the wagons against Hungary and Poland for having the unforgivable temerity to advance the interests and wishes of the Hungarian and Polish people, old man Soros must be absolutely blowing a fuse. Should have got them to use his “voting” software, just pre-load in the winner you want. Meantime a judge in Arizona yesterday had to enjoin the operatives foisting a red, white, and blue color revolution from deleting all of the data on the machines, maybe Hilary can help, you know, like wipe with a cloth?
And especially hilarious for them to dial up the outrage at the Hungarians using the term Nazi, a subject they have quite a bit of experience with. EU law says it is unlawful for “references to Nazism or the Holocaust to be used for political or commercial purposes of any kind”. Oopsie! Looks like they need to completely cancel the entire oevre of CNN, MSNBC et alia for the last four years, in there any limit to the Hitler labels they applied to The Orange One? But I forgot, those were crimes to advance the global agenda, not these pesky pols trying to do things, you know, for the people in their own nations.
Do you suggest re-education kampfing for those who have offended your sensibilities?
Hey Wuk, my sensibilities are not offended, just taking notes as we toss the notion of prosecuting coups against the government, we toss the notion of the consent of the governed, and we toss the notion of politicians being expected to advance the interests of the people in their own countries. Just apparently outdated concepts like freedom, sovereignty, and representative government, other than that it’s all good.
LOL and good luck finding out about things like this, the Lords of Permissable Knowledge at Google FB and Twitter of course do not want any of that freedom of the press stuff screwing with their plans for you: https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/reps-tulsi-gabbard-thomas-massie-introduce-bipartisan-resolution-defending-free
“wishes of the Hungarian and Polish people”.
I’d like to point that the sum of actual votes to Polish opposition parties was more than the sum of votes for the government parties.
Or do you really believe that governments represent all people?
Gooooood Moooorning Fiatnam!
Nobody could’ve claimed they ever thought the Forget Offensive would happen in Humordor when the perimeter of the political compound was surrounded and taken over in the fashion of a dog that continually chases cars, finally collars one and then doesn’t know what to do with it.
Anyway, the attack was repulsed but what flashed in my mind was what if the mob was armed to the teeth with more than growling words in small snatches?
And a joyous ‘Gonezaa’ to all over the next fortnight!
And to those in Russia Russia Russia, merry xmas
Never fear, the pitchfork repulsion team will be back in charge in a few days. Meanwhile there are a few suspicions percolating around the web that this was a car that let itself be caught. All too deep for me.
I did that once in a so far away town named Alleghany in the northern Gold Country about 35 years ago. I was smitten with the GC for a spell in the 1980’s and wanted to learn all about it, and this was well before city slickers invaded, it was more akin to Cali West Virginia yes siree bob, lotsa cars on lawns, lots of charm.
Anyhow i’d drank a couple beers in the saloon in Alleghany (served in aluminum cans and you tossed a washed empty over to the other side of the drinking hole in a giant stack, and mine might’ve been # 863 & #864, no way of knowing really) and got in my car when the local chaser came nipping at my rear echelon, I stopped the car and rolled down the window, held my arms up high and informed the cur it had me, what next?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alleghany,_California
I miss hearing from both of you. Biden’s latest pick of Janet Yellen for Treasury is one more swamp creature for Biden’s neoliberal miasma of a cabinet.
In looking at the political climate of our incoming administration; I am reminded of a children’s book, the Phantom Tollbooth in which all of the demons come swarming out of the terrible wilderness as the protagonists try and escape at the end of the story.
Wuk, you are a treasure. Keep it going dude.
Man, I miss comments!
My quarantine without the commentariat is einsam.
I’ll second that. Considering the lack of sensible reaction in the media yesterday, I was bereft without the expertise and the ability to use logic which so many of the NC community have.
I understand Yves decision, but just letting you all know – your insights are greatly missed.