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Links 7/20/2024

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Your therapist wants you to go outside ScienceBlog (Dr. Kevin)

Critical Public Health Threat: Deadly Fungus Discovered in Commercial Soil, Compost, and Flower Bulbs ScienceTech (ma)

US probes nearly 70 suspected human cases of H5N1 bird flu Telegraph

Lab-grown pet food is to hit UK shelves as Britain becomes the first country in Europe to approve cultivated meat Guardian

Danish insect farm sets sights on feeding Europe’s livestock PhysOrg

Heparin: A Common Blood Thinner Emerges as Potential Cobra Bite Antidote ScienceBlog. If you are in cobra territory, Dr. Kevin recommends carrying a dose on you and practicing administering a sterile saline shot into your calf, for example, so you don’t muff it in a real emergency. He recommends using BD-II 1ml insulin syringes with 12 or 13 mm needles (a bag of ten might cost ~$10). We do have cobras here but only in the country, and yours truly does not do nature/wilderness hikes, so I am not at risk. The only victims of cobras I know of here are….furzy’s dogs! A friend of hers quipped she has an Arlington (cemetery) in her back yard.

#COVID-19

Climate/Environment

Deadly floods engulf parts of South Asia as extreme weather devastates vulnerable region CNN

Four years to turn Central Asia’s water woes around… Central Asia risks being plunged into a state of chronic water shortage as a major new canal project nears completion in Afghanistan Intellinews

China places 15 provinces on emergency alert as deadly floods make their way north South China Morning Post

How effective are buried power lines in preventing widespread power outages in cases like Beryl? ABC 13 (Kevin W)

European Disunion

European leaders discuss migration and Ukraine at a UK summit as concern grows about direction of US Associated Press (Kevin W)

Germany found a way to get rid of Ukrainians Vzglyad via machine translation (guurst)

How France’s “allies” are turning the country down Anti-Spiegel via machine translation (Micael T). Important.

A Trump-Vance White House could undermine European security – and end up pushing Russia and China closer The Conversation. Kevin W:

Key sentence – ‘Putin’s Russia has proven to be an untrustworthy negotiation partner before, as the collapse of the 2014 and 2015 Minsk ceasefire agreements clearly demonstrates.’ WTF

Old Blighty

No more ‘basket-case Britain’: Europe welcomes Starmer reset in UK-EU ties Guardian (Kevin W)

The Caucuses

Gaza

We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable. Politico (Tom H)

UN court orders Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian territories Guardian (Dr. Kevin). But this is only a non-binding, advisory opinion.

Overwhelming ICJ Ruling against Israel Highlights Need for UN Action Sam Husseini

Jordan behind attempted sabotage of China-hosted Palestinian talks: Report The Cradle (Chuck L)

Bedwetting, nightmares and shaking. War in Gaza takes a mental health toll, especially on children Associated Press (ma)

Far-right Israeli minister Ben-Gvir makes inflammatory Al-Aqsa visit Al Jazeera (Kevin W)

U.S. Launches Effort to Stop Russia From Arming Houthis With Antiship Missiles Wall Street Journal (Robin K). This is almost funny. Headline plus lead photo of exploding tanker suggests Russia is doing this not. But para 5 states, emphasis mine: “The combination of intelligence that Moscow might be planning to provide military support in Yemen…” Ahem, the US needs intelligence to figure out Russia might assist the Houthis? After US supplied and targeted weapons killed people on a beach in Crimea, Putin warned that Russia was prepared to hit US assets out of theater, basically saying Russia now regarded it as on to back US-opposed active operations in other parts of the world. This humble blog even said the US if it had any sense would see the Houthis and Hezbollah at the top of the list.

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia may deploy nuclear missiles in response to US missile deployment in Germany — MFA TASS (guurst)

SITREP 7/19/24: West Searches for New Deflection in Russian “Barrel Crisis” Simplicius

Russia Sentences Evan Gershkovich to 16 Years in Prison on Spying Charges Moscow Times

Syraqistan

Will European Powers Return to Afghanistan and Recognize the Taliban? Sputnik (Robin K)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

USPS shared customer postal addresses with Meta, LinkedIn and Snap TechCrunch (BC)

Imperial Collapse Watch

Mark Sleboda: Putin and China Just Put U.S. Military on HIGH ALERT and War is Coming to Eurasia Danny Haiphong, YouTube. Note the remark at 23:10, of a new Pentagon announcement stating it is planning for decades of conflict. So elected leaders have no say?

Biden

The Memo: Biden on the brink The Hill

Biden’s family starts discussing his possible exit plan from the 2024 race NBC.

Trump

Trump didn’t say he wouldn’t defend Taiwan Asia Times

Trump Assassination Attempt Post Mortem

ANOTHER PROFESSIONAL UPDATE ON THE FAILED TRUMP ASSASSINATION — WAS IT A SANCTIONED PLOT? Larry Johnson

Police didn’t have ‘manpower’ to watch building Trump rally shooter fired from Washington Post (furzy). Note Lambert posted a tweet yesterday, which was originally a Facebook post, supposedly by a Butler police official who said it was bogus that the police underperformed. They were asked to provide only 7 men for traffic detail

Vance

How Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley funded the sudden rise of JD Vance Financial Times (Kevin W)

J.D Vance on Tech and the Internet Reclaim the Net (Micael T)

Why Trump picking Vance as VP is about US foreign policy Responsible Statecraft

Abortion

Storm Lake has a complicated history with abortion Art Cullen (Chuck L)

Our No Longer Free Press

Facebook and Instagram’s algorithmic favoritism towards extremist parties revealed in new study PsyPost (Paul R)

Meta’s Policy on Zionism Exposed: CyberWell Scrambles After Israel Ties Revealed Mint Press News (Chuck L)

Antitrust

Antitrust as Allocator of Coordination Rights UCLA Law Review

AI

Academic authors ‘shocked’ after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI The Bookseller (Paul R)

Croudstrike 404

Companies around the world hit by Microsoft outage Financial Times. Lead story.

CrowdStrike and Microsoft: all the latest news on the global IT outage The Verge

Russia Unaffected as Mass IT Outage Hits Companies Worldwide Sputnik (Robin K)

Class Warfare

Even a PhD isn’t enough to erase the effects of class Financial Times

Antidote du jour. Tracie H:

My husband pointed out this tiny kitten stumbling blindly about on our back patio. There are stray cats back there, and we’d not been aware of this one’s birth. I saw no parent, so picked it up and it’s little eyes appeared too crusted over to open, if it was even old enough to open them. A greenish fluid was leaking from them that had me concerned that it wasn’t normal, so off to the vet we went. The vet gave guessed its age at about 2 weeks, due to the presence of a tooth or two, placed a little drop of flea treatment (the fleas were almost bigger than the kitty, dubbed, “Indie” for Independence Day (it was that weekend), and equally appropriate, for an Indiana Jones adventurous-type spirit. He also provided us with some infection medication, and the sweet receptionist who was currently bottle feeding puppies had some advice along those lines.

When we got back home though, we discovered its mom had come out of hiding (an extremely shy feral kitty we are familiar with but hadn’t noticed her being in the family way) and was frantically pacing around calling out regularly. So, hoping the kitty’s eyes would be alright without the medication, since we hadn’t started it yet, and feeling that the Mom could care for Indie much better than we could, we set little Indie in his new basket here (sorry for the unattractive cardboard tag that we’d not taken time to remove!) and placed him back on the patio. It’s mom, Zsa-Zsa for her beautiful long fancy fur, was reluctant to come forward for him while we watched, so we left. When I later went to retrieve the basket I was greeted by a horrendous odor of quite pungent urine. Interesting. I’d been concerned for her with that flea medication. I’m guessing she washed it off with the only fluid available to her.

And a bonus (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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278 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Ed Zitron
    @edzitron
    We are in the midst of one of the biggest meltdowns in tech history. The crowdstrike situation is already showing the institutional failure that happens when your incentives are growth at all costs with no regard for organisational memory and stability
    Quote
    schizo
    @tulpapilled’

    With a crazy boss, the guy has only one real option. With 2,000 machines to do, he should methodically start to do them but not rush the job. When he does 12 or 16 hours work – whichever he feels like – he should go home and make sure the phone is turned off. He should also note the overtime. The next day he should continue until in several days, the job is done. It is unlikely that the boss can get rid of him and replace him as techies would be in high demand fixing these computers right now. But he should understand that he is finished at that company and threats of lawsuits are just bullying tactics when he can prove how he went beyond reasonable work hours to fix the problem. The stress of a crazy boss is just not worth it. And did that boss really think that it was a good idea having just one guy to deal with 2,000 computers because of the savings?

    2. griffen

      A*hole bosses are like kudzu in the southeastern US….grow like pervasive weeds that they are. Boss don’t know what is required or involved, just get r done,…sleep or eating not allowed!

      I’d suggest the pivot is “I can’t answer my phone, I still have 1,997 machines left to repair and update to make sure these turn on.”. And I’m emailing HR in between… should they care. It’s near equal today, I’m guessing that they care about their job and the health of the employer as they offer concern for the person filing a complaint.

      1. Neutrino

        Ride’em hard and put’em away wet.

        That seemed to be the approach of some bosses my colleagues from the southeast described. Look what they could anticipate, stuff like vacations cancelled on short notice, being told how lucky they were to still have a job and otherwise verbally abused. That got worse when there were fewer local job options, more economic ties like mortgages and kids, and overall economic conditions.

        Here is a happier story from a different region.

        A new grad told me of his own work experience. He was on a rotation through different departments to learn the company’s business. When he was told that his permanent location was to be in BFE, contrary to what he was told during the hiring process, he asked for reconsideration. His boss told him that if he didn’t want the job, there were people lined up around the block to take it.

        He had some leave coming, flew home to Boston and immediately got a job for twice the pay and better conditions.

      3. scott s.

        My brother is a corporate IT guy at a southeast Fortune 500 company. Not seeing all the drama. Yes, he said he was working 12 hours getting machines restored. If a machine was off and not started until after 0130 it got the fixed update and no issue, but anything running got updated (the sensor package does auto update sort of like an AV signature update) and had to be booted into F8 safe mode to delete the bad file then rebooted and it would auto-download the fixed file. Hassle was all their laptops use bitlocker encryption and doing safe mode fixes on encrypted device not so easy.

        He says currently on the CrowdStrike sensor package there is no way to defer updates, but guesses that may change.

    3. JohnnyGL

      Good suggestions above. I’d also keep those 27 voicemails and all other correspondence…try to discuss in writing only.

      Lots of ammo in case they come at you with litigation. Maybe contact an atty, too, for some advice on how to prepare.

      1. TheMog

        Ah, but it’s going to be arbitration with the arbitrator selected by then company, if any of the few USian companies I worked for is any indication.

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          It’s worse than that. Pretty much all US white collar position are employment at will. So they can fire you for any whim. Only actual discrimination (as in getting rid of you because you are a member of a protected class, like handicapped) is a basis for litigation. Or having the job misrepresented (this is a good faith and fair dealing issue re the employment “contract”).

    4. TheMog

      The techie doesn’t mention if these are physical machines or virtual ones. When it comes to devops, a lot of deployments on virtual machines are controlled by deployment tools and scripts, so it’s feasible to have very few people look after these “machines”. Not that this means one should only have a single person in charge of looking after them, just very few if all you need to do to update all of them is to change a single configuration file or script.

      All that works great combined with normal tech support outsourced to a cheap bidder multiple continents away until the only way to recover the machines requires physical access to the machines. And that’s the case with this issue as the machines are failing at boot time, so none of the remote access solutions work unless you’re dealing with a server that has some sort of ILO capability built in that allows for remote access even when the server can’t boot up.

      Plus, from what I’m hearing most of these systems use drive encryption as well as standard, so first you need to find your record of the backup key to unlock the decryption (hope you didn’t store that on another Windows box), manually type that in before booting it into safe mode, then manually delete the affected bad file.

      Then rinse and repeat for the other 1999 machines.

      Amazing what damage someone can do accidentally when the “security” system has completely unfettered access to the machine.

      1. QuarterBack

        The calamity escalates quickly when these machines need to be physically touched by an admin. Confounding the matter is systems for kiosks, ATMs, and multi-display use cases. Many of these systems do not even have a keyboards, and often the machines are inside lockboxes to prevent tampering. In these scenarios, techs need to come keyboard in hand with all the keys necessary to unlock the lockbox. Bitlocker ads even more trouble because they will need the keys to unlock each specific machine.

        The support model for these types of systems typically is: 1) Ship to site; 2) non-tech person unboxes; 3) same non-techie plugs into network and turns it on; 4) if any ones-twosey happen to fail they ship a unit for swap. This support model does not scale. The ratio of machines to technicians is very high, and as @TheMog says, most of these support contracts assume remote access.

        My guess is the the root cause is entirely lack of sufficient testing. I also guess is that it didn’t affect everyone, it more likely affected sites that had older (like maybe only last years model) systems. Testing costs go up fast if you have to test for prior versions and configs of the systems. The patch probably worked fine for testing of the latest computers running fully patched (including firmware) systems

        Doing upgrades in phases could mitigate risks. Many OP center people I know as a matter of principle always hold off a month or so before applying upgrades so that the rest of the marketplace can catch any bugs first. Some also will not install software version *.0 and will wait for *.1 for same reason. The problem is worse because of M&A of SW and product companies driving development and testing costs (and resourcing) down.

        1. ChatET

          The root cause is the same one that Boeing did. Get rid of any knowledgeable American developers hire a bunch of ill trained coders from India. Save the company x hundred million in cost without disclosing the infrastructure knowledge loss.

          1. TheMog

            It’s got nothing to do with where the developers are located, there are good and bad developers everywhere.

            But we’ve built an ecosystem where people feel like they often have to change jobs every 18-24 months to have any career trajectory at all, and burn out in their mid thirties. That’s one of the big reasons for the total lack of institutional knowledge retention.

            On top of that, we’re building systems that are increasingly more complex and fragile as a result, partially because we keep duct taping new layers on top of old ones because nobody understands the existing layers well enough and it’s frowned upon to “waste time” trying to understand these instead of building something in this shaky foundation that looks good in one’s quarterly review.

            So yes, there are unsurprising parallels to Boeing, including attempts to cut labor costs. But there is more to this.

    5. CA

      We are in the midst of one of the biggest meltdowns in tech history…

      Please remember that for years CrowdStrike, supported by Microsoft, has attacked China as a technology threat. With each attack on China being highlighted through American media in support of stopping technology trade with China. Even Chinese cranes, to be used for loading and unloading ships at American ports have been portrayed as a threat. Chinese rail cars are supposed to be used for spying on passengers…and on and on.

      The point is, finding America’s technology security problem has been with CrowdStrike.

      4. Belle

        I was unaware until a recent BBC article about their calling China a “threat”- which lead China to escape a lot of the damage!
        https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3g01y047pdo
        I did know they have demonized Russia since at least 2016, in part thanks to ex-Russian Dimitri Alperovitch (a “weaponized immigrant” to quote Yasha Levine). Glad to hear Russia escaped it mostly as well. (Next time, West, buy Kaspersky!)

    6. Patrick Morrison

      “A loss of X dollars is always the responsibility of an executive whose financial responsibility exceeds X dollars.”
      – Weinberg’s ‘First Principle of Financial Management’ and ‘Second Rule of Failure Prevention’

      – ‘First-Order Measurement’, Quality Software Management, Volume 2, Gerald Weinberg, Dorset House Publishing, 1993

    7. John Beech

      Yes, TRK, idiot bosses *do* fail to think things through. What we deal with is similar, e.g. folks who make decisions whilst possessed of a seeming inability to think more than three days ahead and/or imagine the consequences of short sighted decisions. So we remind them (over and over) of what can/will happen and try our best to be there to catch them when the (seemingly) inevitable happens. Sigh.

      1. TheMog

        They’re not incentivized to think more than three days ahead in this type of crisis IME.
        The manager probably has the CEO yelling at him personally, and the first rule of plumbing comes into effect. That’s not an excuse, but I suspect that it’s still the reality in a lot of companies right now.
        And don’t forget that there is most likely no morale budget for the manager to use for a little thank you either, given that most of the people involved at least in the US are going to be salaried and not eligible for any kind of overtime pay.

    8. IM Doc

      I do not know if this is happening everywhere else.

      Where I work our entire system was down all day yesterday – virtually nothing could be done. We were all about the “Keystone Kop” routine of down time procedures. Medical care was very very difficult. Late in the day about 4:30 or so – some rudimentary things came back online.

      I understand this was absolutely widespread in the entire medical world. Especially systems using Epic.

      We came back to work again early this AM. Apparently around midnight, as all kinds of computer systems were trying to download the business of yesterday or get ready for today, the entire system came crashing down again ( the IT guy comment – “it is even worse than yesterday). I am not a computer person in any way shape or form. But apparently something has been planted on each and every machine in the entire system. The workers are going to have to go to each machine personally and clean this up. Each encounter is going to be about 10-15 minutes on a PC – and much longer on big systems like Pyxis, etc. Again, I am not a computer person at all – just reporting what I have heard. They are expecting this to possibly take days/weeks to clean up. We just do not have the manpower.

      1. Dr. John Carpenter

        I’d be curious as to what your IT people did yesterday. Not pointing fingers but I spent many hours removing that bad update file and it has yet to return to any of our systems. It seems like different organizations have had different solutions which I find really confusing. I’m also not confident at all in their fix, so it wouldn’t surprise me if this was a returning iss for some.

        1. IM Doc

          I got the idea ( although again I am no expert) that the reinfection or whatever you call it was not internal but external.

          1. Dr. John Carpenter

            Makes sense. Once we got our things online we were then at the mercy of outside systems and other companies having their fix.

      2. Blowncue

        It is everywhere. I’m on vacation in New England, and at one of the little ivies prior to seeing a stage reading, I wanted into their art library. Half of their workstations had the blue screen of death, half did not.

    9. Joe Well

      In the last few days:

      Copa America debacle.
      Secret Service debacle.
      Crowd Strike debacle.

      We need a national FUBAR meter.

    10. JustTheFacts

      An intelligent boss would have asked him to explain what needs to be done to everyone, so that every employee who uses a computer did it. Particularly since everyone has a computer at home, and everyone can do the following steps themselves.

      He has a very stupid boss.

      1. TheMog

        Not much disagreement here, but…

        In order to remove the file that BSODs the machine, you have to have pretty high (administrator) access level privileges. Most large companies do not give that level of access to their regular users, so they still need a tech support person to do the file removal. Who of course might need physical access to the machine.

    11. Matteo

      My understanding is that if you work for a corporation you cannot be individually sued for an issue that is company’s fault. Am I wrong with that understanding?

      1. albrt

        You can always be sued, but the company probably cannot win.

        Still a problem if you can’t afford a defense attorney.

  2. Wellclosed

    re: Politico’s volunteering at Gaza hospital.
    From Col. Kurtz monologue on horror – after witnessing lopped off vaccinated arms:
    “The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that. These were not monsters, these were men… trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love… but they had the strength… the strength… to do that.”

  3. Louis Fyne

    >>>among US PhD-holders in science, social science engineering and health. [commas sic in article]

    Lots of (IMO) dubious PhD programs. A PhD doesn’t necessarily correlate to intellectual achievement (versus being a credential). see Dr. Jill Biden, lol, see Masters degree factories at many unis.

    But the article doesn’t delve into the fields of PhDs studied. ugg, I gotta read the actual paper to answer a basic question that the journalist should have addresses.

    my unscientific prejudice from experience is that people who go out of their way to be addressed as as a non-MD “Doctor” are dolts.

    1. Terry Flynn

      Agree and disagree. I don’t use my title these days as it has no relevance to what I do in life. My PhD was appropriate form of address for a number of years. These days? Nope.

      On other hand it should not be forgotten that the old TV comedy trope “are you a proper doctor?” is backwards. “Proper” doctors hold a research PhD. Medics have for centuries been “physicians” who are given the honorary title of “Doctor” due to one of those evolutions of language. Plus all of my “medical doctor” friends NEVER EVER use their title when booking flights, especially if the flight has the slightest possibility of going into US airspace. The last thing they want is to be called upon to help only to be sued by a USian. What a sad world we live in.

      /pedantry And for the record, I liked the article, it certainly resonated a lot with my experience of academia.

      1. Terry Flynn

        PS to give more informative response as to why I liked that article. A PhD shows certain things but often not what many people think. “Well run” PhD programs teach you how to question things, how to think, how to investigate issues in a systematic rigorous way etc. The “conclusion” is, 99% of the time, utterly banal and arguably adds nothing or just the most minute addition to the sum of human knowledge. This means it is most definitely not a ticket into a higher social class: it just shows you can master critical skills consistently.

        I used my main copy of my PhD as a literal doorstop for around 5 years. I was utterly sick of the field in which I worked by the time I got it. Which is a shame, because I had had to learn how to program in Fortran (from zero knowledge) in order to do my simulations. If I’d kept up those skills there’d be banks or other institutions bidding bigtime for me, given that loads of “legacy systems” are now in danger of being unfixable (and the current IT meltdown is another example of crappification).

        To address a point Louis Fyne made, yes there are definitely dodgy PhD programs. I remember a Facebook convo with some FB friends. One of them (doing PhD in US Liberal Arts dept) admitted she’d cried upon questioning from some external at an evaluation point during her doctorate. Twas clear this was not “external bullying” but she was a victim of helicopter parenting as part of the “younger generations” and literally had never been told “you have that bit wrong” in her life. Possibly why she was one of the people who, when I left FB giving my email address to keep in touch, she was one of the ones who ghosted me from then on.

        1. vao

          In traditional professions — cabinet maker, carpenter, goldsmith, glassmaker, clockmaker, potter, etc — after the apprenticeship the next stage was to become a “Meister” (master). As one of the requirements, craftsmen had to produce a masterpiece (German “Meisterwerk”, French “chef d’oeuvre”) — literally a piece that demonstrated they truly mastered their trade.

          Those were generally not meant to be used, but to show that they were skilled in the most refined techniques of their profession, that they knew the traditions regarding style, that they could design something original, functional, that can withstand some handling (though not necessarily regular use), and that the result would be pleasant (if sometimes a bit overwrought to show off everything they could do). It was not uncommon for the masterpieces to be reduced scale versions of a real artifact (you are not going to build an entire house to prove you are master carpenter).

          PhD are the equivalent in the intellectual sphere. A PhD demonstrates that the doctorant has the doggedness to work several years on a topic, knows the state of the art, can identify a problem, find an original solution to it relying upon the necessary formalisms and techniques of the field, can write down a largish prose in a clear and structured way, and defend his work in front of an audience. It is a masterpiece; one should not expect it to be a major innovation or even be very useful in every case; it is really the rite of passage to the level of master — mathematician, biologist, physicist, computer scientist, etc.

          I have used my PhD title only when I felt it could be a plus in some practical circumstances. In Germany, being a Herr Doktor (or Frau Doktor) may help when looking for a flat to rent, for instance. But otherwise, I prefer not even to mention it.

          1. Terry Flynn

            Many thanks. You said in great detail what I sloppily summarised.

            The only time I use my “dr” title is with companies that are messing me about and I sense it’ll get things sorted faster ;-)

            Ironically I always used it when flying: on the couple of occasions they needed a medic I could say honestly “sorry, am PhD” and escape being dragooned in. And on one of those occasions Singapore Airlines made a very rare “double booking” of a seat. In theory it was a coin toss who got the upgrade to biz class. In practice I’m pretty sure they’d already chosen me lol.

          2. Retired Carpenter

            re: after the apprenticeship the next stage was to become a “Meister” (master)
            Vao,
            Not so fast. In cabinet making or finish carpentry one starts as an apprentice, becomes a journeyman after four to eight years, and then it might take another five or six, or maybe a decade or more, if ever, to become a master craftsman. One needs imagination, vision, hand-eye coordination and meticulous attention to detail, all distilled through years of experience. A master cabinet-maker can use manual tools freehand, and turn out better joinery with less scrap than a journeyman using power machinery with the latest in fences. One has to see these folks work. It is a (true) liberal education. IMO a brand-new PhD degree of these days is the equivalent of promotion to journeyman, if that.

            1. vao

              Ah yes, “Geselle”, I forgot about that stage.

              I will not dispute how much more experience is required to acquire mastery and dexterity in crafts with respect to the intellectual sphere.

              My intent was to explain the fundamental role of a PhD by comparing it to the final test in trades (i.e. the masterpiece) — and I think the comparison is justified.

              But following your assessment, if a PhD is more akin to journeymanship, then the equivalent of achieving the rank of a master would be “Habilitation” in the German and French-orientated academic systems; there, an habilitation is the requirement to become a full, tenured professor at a university.

              To my knowledge, this degree does not exist at all in the Anglo-Saxon academic systems.

              An habilitation requires about 10 years of teaching and research (not just alone, but supervising a group of researchers), supervising doctorands, publications, and of course a thesis.

              So that gives bachelor/masters => apprentice (Lehrling), PhD => journeyman (Geselle), habilitation => master (Meister).

              All this does not invalidate the point that Terry Flynn and myself wanted to make: a PhD is a rite of passage demonstrating mastery of a field at a certain level — like the masterpiece in crafts. For that matter, amongst Maasais the rite of passage was proving one’s mete as a hunter by killing a lion, amongst Aborigenes it was surviving alone for a while in the Australian outback, etc.

              A PhD is not the seminal achievement that will break new grounds in knowledge (though it sometimes is), and, unfortunately, it has often degenerated to an accelerated acquisition of a credential — there have been plenty of cases of politicians plagiarizing or outsourcing their thesis to acquire the much wanted “Dr.” title (Ursula von der Leyen being one). I have difficulties to see how that would be possible in crafts…

            2. happy ABD

              > IMO a brand-new PhD degree of these days is the equivalent of
              > promotion to journeyman, if that.

              Word. In the US, for sure, it is seen as an entry-level qualification for the Big Time. (And even so the many, thus qualified, fall by the wayside and only the few advance to the higher plane, by virtue of family, wealth, connections, plain good luck or, admittedly, in some cases, genuine merit.) It can be different in other places. A former colleague was Finnish. With a Master’s level education, he worked in a professional field all his life. Eventually he began doctoral studies and completed his dissertation at the age of 62. I met a number of his friends and colleagues in Finland and his experience was not unique. For them, the degree was somehow a crown (if not explicitly a reward) celebrating the end of one’s work rather than announcing the beginning.

              As a side-note: Andrei Martyanov is always over the top and for me he is tolerable only in small doses — but his frequent OTT diatribes against worthless American PhDs are not without point.

    2. .Tom

      Jeff Schmidt’s book Disciplined Minds: A Critical Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-battering System That Shapes Their Lives is really tremendous. I don’t know if it was intended to be funny but it has a dry deadpan wit that I liked. But it is also a really illuminating look at the way PhD programs function to produce reliable custodians of the status quo.

      1. Terry Flynn

        I don’t know the book but I hope that I can provide some insights as to how its take on PhD programs can be right or wrong. Others recently mentioned the “group think” that enabled string theory to become dominant in physics – supposedly the most “robust data led” science. String theory is literally “not even wrong” – it is untestable (though if there is some new finding I’m happy to be corrected).

        PhD programs can be a force for good in terms of teaching students how to question and test hypotheses. They can also be bad in that the basic assumptions underlying a given discipline can be “Newtonian in a Quantum world”. Thus we get generations of people who don’t even comprehend why certain fundamental assumptions in their education are suspect.

        Thus PhD programs can “force change” or they can, very dangerously, preserve the status quo. We don’t know when an Einstein or somesuch will come along and so obviously blow apart the existing paradigm. Thus we end up with situations where literally every single RCT published might be wrong. That’s very scary to people like me. But I do get that there are institutional barriers to “doing things properly”. Sites like NC are crucial in shining a light on those barriers.

    3. scott s.

      This article was about academic status. A core problem in the US is that a tenured prof will generate 2x-3x the replacement rate. So there are many more post-PhD competing for that tenure-track appointment. In STEM that means getting on the “postdoc” treadmill in a lab working for peanuts hoping for that appointment while building a CV. Sure, there is some growth in academics, but how much of that is via adjunct or other wage slave positions. In some fields there may be external / corporate positions but that is limited to having a specific skill that is in the trend.

      1. Terry Flynn

        Yep. Tenure was at best a nebulous thing in the UK and certainly was killed off in late 1980s if it ever was real by Thatcher. We have been competing against our peers in desperate competition since around 1990, whilst the “boomers” above us sat pretty in their Chairs (professor positions).

        As I mentioned, if I’d been more savvy I’d have leveraged my Fortran skills to get a cushy corporate job. Unfortunately I was more interested in improving population quality of life. Bad move. I am not STEM but “STEM-adjacent”, having gone from economics, through health economics, to medical statistics (along with statistics relevant to similar fields like academic marketing).

        The system is fundamentally broken. My maxim is “don’t fight if the game is artifically skewed against you”. Which kinda makes me unemployable to all the peeps I used to work with unless I become a wage slave! I’d do better stacking shelves at LIDL!

    4. bayoustjohndavid

      Don’t give Dr. Jill Biden more credit than she deserves, she has an EdD not a PhD.

      Other than that, you and the other commentators are right, thh article makes the paper seem pretty flimsy.

  4. Randall Flagg

    >Anybody who is under the illusion that the Republicans care two wits for the working class is terribly wrong.

    So says Senator Sanders. Funny bit, he’s always in a fit about it. I’m supposed to be laboring under the illusion that the Democrats care two wits about the working class as well? Hell, I would settle for one wit that appeared to give sh*t. In either party. But I think all we have are nitwits in DC.

    1. jhallc

      Agree that most of the Democrats cold give a damn about the working class these days. Lots of reasons to give Bernie grief but, at least he isn’t a Democrat.

    2. Carolinian

      Well he didn’t say the Democrats cared or for that matter don’t also want to cut Social Security. Bernie showed his true colors by not going third party and supporting Biden instead.

      The public is desperately seeking authenticity. And while Trump with his warmed over supply side economics is a dubious populist, his corny embrace of his fan base seems to be real. I wonder how many of those thousands at Butler are on Social Security. Would he betray their love??

      1. jhallc

        Wish Sanders had gone third party back in 2020 when they stuck the shiv in. Think he was afraid his legacy would be the next “Ralph Nader”.

        1. John Wright

          Bernie could not play the actuarial tables and stay in the race into the Democratic convention in 2019.

          There was a nonzero chance that Biden would have a health issue leaving an opening for Bernie.

          Sanders folded early

        2. Cassandra

          The time for Sanders to have gone third party was in June of 2016. We might have been spared President Trump.

          When he hired Blue Team campaign consultants rather than a battalion of lawyers for the 2020 primaries, it was clear to me that it was a performative run (see Iowa caucuses). The fact that Obama still had to intervene to hand the nomination to Biden speaks to the desperate hunger among the electorate for an alternative to business as usual.

          In my opinion, the Democratic ptb have had Bernie on a very short leash since June 2016. He caught them by surprise in late 2015; they will not let that happen again. He may be allowed to bark occasionally but there will be no biting. I should add that sheepdogs work for the joy of it and are not leashed. I do not see him as a sheepdog. Such a shame he did not retire after his heart attack.

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            Please, no fantasies.

            Sanders in the early fall of 2015 was polling at 1%. No one expected his candidacy to take off, including him.

            It is impossible in the US to get ballot access to be a viable third party candidate. Look at how far (not!) RFJ, Jr. is with a huge brand name and a billionare VP/funder.

            1. Cassandra

              No one expected his candidacy to take off, including him.

              It is impossible in the US to get ballot access to be a viable third party candidate.

              This is true. But by Halloween we were utterly giddy by the response we were getting. I knew things were rigged but did not know at the time that Herself had bought the DNC lock, stock, and barrel.

              You only get one shot at the king (or queen). There will be no political revolution. It will be the other sort, alas.

            2. John Anthony La Pietra

              Not impossible, just very hard. Note that the Green Party — without billionaire support, and actively rejecting PAC funding — has maintained EC-majority-level ballot access for a couple of decades now . . . mostly through hard work at the grassroots level (and some in the courts too).

              But there’s plenty of room for more workers. And with the Gallup party-affiliation poll I keep linking finally showing more voters saying they’re neither D nor R then both R and D put together, it may be coming true in more and more races that — if everyone who wishes Greens could win votes Green — Greens can win.

      2. wendigo

        If Trump does make tips non taxable it will decrease the amount of money put aside for Social Security. Unless taxes are raised somewhere else, Social Security will run out of money sooner.

        It may not be Trump, someone will be betraying their love eventually.

        1. chris

          The problem is local, state, and federal taxes don’t provide much if any benefits and as a percentage of take home pay are crushing people who make money on tips. I did some back of the envelope calls the other day and I think we could eliminate all taxes on people making less than 35k$ a year with less money than we’ve spent to fund Ukraine and Israel.

          So I understand the issues about SS funding. But I really don’t want to give another penny to the government. I don’t think the people relying on tips should either. Taxes are an intolerable burden on too many. For the rest of us, they’re just a constant reminder that the man wants his cut and gives you nothing in return.

          1. ambrit

            Add to which that ‘taxes’ are not a funding mechanism at the National level, but a tool of Social Engineering. Social Security will be “made whole” given sufficient political will. There are many technical ways to do this. All of them rely on America’s Politicos mustering the requisite will to enact and enforce the proper laws.
            Thus, we bring into play the “Rancid Underbelly” of American politics; money and the donors who provide it to political campaigns. As long as American politics relies on a Neo-liberal financialized form of organization, the donor class will make the major decisions. Since making Social Security “whole” will require the transfer of some of the donor class’s wealth downward to the masses, the required political will to “save” Social Security will not be in evidence.
            Franklin Roosevelt saw this problem and enacted various social service programs to ‘save’ unfettered Capitalism from itself. After examples like the Bonus Army march and subsequent rioting, (mainly by the U S Army no less,) Roosevelt acted to calm the waters. It worked for several generations. Now the Capitalists have forgotten the lessons of popular revolt and are forging backwards to a time and an ethos conducive to mass revolt yet again.
            I have worked in restaurants, and can attest that on a good night, the tips far outnumber the “wage” the establishment gives. Then we come to the issue of “sharing out” the tips. First, if there is one, the busboy or girl gets a cut, usually fifteen percent. Then, if you are smart, the kitchen crew gets a ten percent cut. After that, if there is a “Captain,” (the greeter and seater,) he or she will require a cut, or you end up with all of the low tipping patrons at your tables. (I have personally experienced this.)
            Taxes are the ultimate expression of the Status Quo.
            Stay safe.

          2. Roger Boyd

            Sales taxes were brought in and increased because they are highly regressive, as poor people spend much more of their income than rich people. In the rest of the world such taxes are charged as a VAT, which is invisible to the consumer, in the US they are made as visible as possible to make the average person hate taxation. At the same time, “unearned income” was renamed to “capital gains” and taxed at half the rate of earned income, benefitting the rich by far the most. Then of course there is the “carried interest” tax dodge that benefits private equity so much. And the reductions in corporate taxes, and the cap on social insurance contributions that benefits the rich.

            Not taxing tips is just performative BS for a candidate who has professed that he will slash corporate taxes even more and raise tariffs that will act the same as a regressive sales tax.

            1. chris

              And what does it say that the Democrats can’t even engage in performative BS for the downtrodden in our country?

              I keep hearing Joe Biden has done so much for domestic manufacturing and the IRA was this godsend to the US. Where is the sign that it’s actually accomplished anything? Is it here? No. Manufacturing output from all sectors has been decreasing since the Trump administration. How about here? Nope. We saw a bump in 2020 when Trump was still president and rode that to flatline where we are today. How about productivity? Surely, if we’ve invested all this money from the IRA and it is as wonderful as has been advertised, then we should be seeing improvement in manufacturing productivity. Nope. FRED is even trying to figure out what is going on. The best they have come up with is things may be improving but they’ll take more time.

              So forgive me if I am heartened by at least some good news for the people earning the least in our country.

              1. wendigo

                As I understand it, the employer has to treat tip income as total income for the employee and therefore has to remit Social Security and Medicare taxes on the tips. So the employer will get the most good news from this change.

            2. GF

              In our smallish (50,000 population that relies on tourism) the entire city budget is met using sales taxes – even on food bought at grocery stores (The state does not have sales tax on this type of food purchase.). The city justifies this by stating that “outsiders” make up 65%+ of the sales tax purchases.

        2. scott s.

          Depends on the definition of “is”. I.e., if “non-taxable” means individual income tax gross income, or adjusted gross income, or also for FICA purposes.

        3. jefemt

          Does anyone earning tip income report or pay taxes on it, as code would dictate? I surmise tip income is vastly under-reported and the consequent tax revenues are a triviality.

          1. Amateur Socialst

            It’s a bit more difficult to under-report tips paid by credit/debit card. But the data probably shows people are working for not much.

              1. Amfortas the Hippie

                me, too.
                and i hand it to the waitress/waiter…i do not leave it under a plate.
                “here, stick this in yer pocket while i keep watch…”

                1. Keith Newman

                  Hand tips to the waiter in cash: I do the same. My son had a job as a waiter and the boss stole the tips. After a year he did give most of the money back, most but not all.

            1. Dave

              The irs assumes 8% of the gross take and bills according to that assumed income. See topic 761

            2. Amfortas the Hippie

              that reminds me.
              i spent the last 3 days on Texas Tech campus in Lubbock, doing “Orientation” with my younger son.
              entire place is “Cash Free”.
              after being rebuffed from starbucks…the obvious place to get a high dollar coffee…i asked the chick at the “information desk” where i could go for a coffee that would take my legal currency….since…(cue dramatic music)…i dont have plastic…or wave my fone around to pay for things.
              she was nice, altho she looked at me like i’d just stepped out of Jeremiah Johnson:
              “no, sir…the whole campus is “cash free”…for a few years , now…use your card…”
              “i dont have a card…”
              she replied with a look that said i had apparently lapsed into some obscure Bantu language….
              i have never in my life encountered this phenomenon(a business refusing outright my hard currency).
              and that my son’s cohort seems so blithe and is wondering what i’m yammering about just makes it worse,lol.

              i considered using this situation as an opportunity to meet women(!)…”hey, buy me a coffee and i’ll give ya this here ten dollar bill…”…but that felt kinda skeezy,lol.
              (altho my habitual seed collecting as we moseyed around campus did afford me the opportunity to talk to pretty women…”what are you doing?”…”picking seeds from this here tree..”…”why are you doing that?”…”bc im a radical horticulturalist, and ill plant these in pots and make trees for my farm…”
              (shows contents of pockets…pinon cone, afghan pinecone(both unopened)…honey locust pods…various grass seeds…)
              “wow”…that they didnt run off in terror…nor call the campus cops…gives me hope)

        4. Procopius

          ??? Social Security is funded by a separate, special tax, not from the General Fund. Taxes on tips go to the General Fund, not to Social Security.

    3. griffen

      Just thinking the same thoughts…come on Bernie, your political party controlled both houses in Congress and also the White House in 2021 to 2022…let alone other periods of holding the edge in 2 out of the 3, where they could have pushed something through.

      Also concur on the nitwit description. Or as we’ve seen elsewhere, DC is like Hollywood but for the ugly people.

      Fighting For,
      Fighting For,
      Always Something,
      Worth Fighting For…

        1. Roger Boyd

          You are splitting hairs here Yves, Bernie is to all intents and purposes a Democrat and has worked hard to get Clinton and Biden elected. Perhaps “Democrat In All But Name Only” DIABNO.

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            He has no say in the future of Biden. And I haven’t seen him asking me for money for Biden, unlike a zillion Dem pols whose messages hit my inbox or I see on YouTube.

    4. Benny Profane

      Hey Bernie. The trillions you voted for to send to the MIC and foreign wars would cover SS nicely. You old fraud. I want my money back, with interest.

            1. chris

              With Bernie, it could also be schlitz. Or mitts!

              But the current state of American affairs is the pits…

          2. DJG, Reality Czar

            It is whits. You could have looked it up.

            A whit is a very small part, a jot, an iota.

            We like it here when people look up things.

            Not that Sanders’s staff is remotely competent at writing “Bernie’s” twiXts.

          3. Revenant

            IMOR is right. And jhallc, it is couldn’t give adamn, not could.

            Rhett Butler did not say “Frankly, my dear, I could give a damn!”….

    5. Mikel

      The Dems have been bad and in the limelight.

      But I always try keep the duoply in perspective.

      Now is a good time to review something like Thomas Franks “The Wrecking Crew” and all the names and relationships in it.

    6. Alice X

      I would not vote for either the R[eptiles] or D’rats, but I could still vote for Sanders. Much Bernie bashing is warranted, but it is worthwhile to remember, when in Rome, [one must] do as the Romans do, he has been in Rome for a very long time.

      1. Jabura Basaidai

        to vote or not to vote for Bernie if he was a choice is rhetorical – he should have gone down swinging – but he went along to get along instead and colluded in a certain sense of the word – but i agree if he was an actual choice he would get my vote too –

          1. chris

            Hard to even imagine an option right now.

            I think if our Lady Antoinette of Color is given some room to run her initial instincts will be to do better than the current set of pols. Similarly, if the crushing weight of Israel is ever removed from Nina Turner she could do amazing things. But as it stands now, anyone like Nina Turner will be caged by the DMFI. And AOC has been relegated to a position as Pelosi’s chamber maid.

            So I repeat what I have said and what many on here have come back to: those who make change impossible guarantee that revolution is inevitable.

          2. Jabura Basaidai

            when i could i did vote for Bernie and even donated, something i have never done – but back in 2020 after “Night of the Long Knives” he played it pragmatic rather than go down swinging and ended up a lap poodle –

            1. Randy

              I did the same and I will NEVER, EVER give money to a politician again. I should have just lit the cash on fire and used to start the fire in my wood stove. Lesson learned.

            2. Alice X

              As far as I know, Bernie did not accept corporate donations. The election system demands outrageous amounts, so if a candidate is to be remotely viable, yet not accept such donations, we the many must step up. The monied class was fearful of Bernie’s success thereof and so he had to be crushed. I gave him money, (and I am always cash strapped), I’m not sorry. If he somehow had actually gotten in there, he might well have been impeached, by both the Ds and Rs!

              Well, the Ds could nominate him today and he might win. But of course, they would never do that. (And he is older than Biden, but he still has his marbles.)

    7. .Tom

      True but he’s making a fair point at a time when some people might be listening to RNC speeches that say otherwise.

      1. mrsyk

        Yes. His point is valid until proven otherwise. What he’s not saying is how many of his democratic colleagues also want to cut ss and don’t want to increase the minimum wage.

    9. MartyH

      It is fair to say that the Primary Donors don’t care two wits for the working class, though. The political class still has to deal with the people. The donors, the political class. Some tension there and politicians need “ballots” to stay in power so we’ll see.

    10. Jason Boxman

      Yeah, kind of hilarious. Under Biden, we’re all owed $600, and all the Pandemic era safety nets, benefit increases of the like Democrats have been crowing about delivering forever, but for those mean Republicans, were allowed to expire under… Democrats. Funny, that. So it should be absolutely no mystery what Liberal Democrats actually believe. And it ain’t material benefits.

      1. caucus99percenter

        An expat, nevertheless during 😷 I got $1800 under Trump. Under Biden? Bupkis.

  5. Randall Flagg

    >Anshel Sag
    @anshelsag
    ·
    Follow
    For those who don’t remember, in 2010, McAfee had a colossal glitch with Windows XP that took down a good part of the internet. The man who was McAfee’s CTO at that time is now the CEO of Crowdstrike. The McAfee incident cost the company so much they ended up selling to Intel.

    Take that those of you who say one person can’t make a difference in our world today…

    How many times can someone fail, and again be in a leadership position that leads to half the internet going down around the world when a mistake is made?

    1. Lefty Godot

      It’s the Great Man Theory of intertubes history. Kevin Mitnick being the original Great Man, of course.

  6. The Rev Kev

    ‘Tigran Khzmalyan (Տիգրան Խզմալյան)
    @TigranKhzmalyan
    ❗️US Army advisor to be attached to the Ministry of Defence of Armenia.’

    Methinks that Armenia is being set up to become a failed state, merely to become a problem for their neighbours which are Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkiye. And all of those countries have problems with the west by coincidence. Tough luck if you live in Armenia and I can’t wait for the first NATO base to be set up. Apparently the US Embassy in Armenia is huge and occupies a 23 acre (9.3 hectares) block so must have a huge member of people working there, some of whom even work for the US Embassy.

  7. The Rev Kev

    “Why Trump picking Vance as VP is about US foreign policy”

    Was listening to the guys at The Duran and they made a keen observation. If Trump wins in November, that will be his final term as you cannot serve more than two terms as President. In any case, Trump will be 82 years old when the next election rocks around in 2028 so he may start experiencing the same sort of problems that has dogged Biden. So what this means is that J.D. Vance will be the Republican Presidential candidate in 2028 and will be Trump’s successor. And he will be only about 44 years old come 2028. There is a campaign for old Joe to “pass the torch” meaning resign but it looks like here Trump will be passing the torch to Vance and their combined vision of America. Hmmmm. President J.D. Vance.

      1. Terry Flynn

        Interesting, thanks. I always knew that since Truman, you could succeed to the presidency if you have less than 2 years remaining and then be elected twice so serve 10 years.

        If I understand that article correctly, there are other “technicalities” that would allow someone who is VP to end up serving >10 years as President. Though am happy to be corrected if I’ve got stuck in the weeds of US constitutional stuff!

    2. RookieEMT

      They did everything so much smoother and savier than the Democrats. Vance actually looks rather dangerous as a pseudo-populist republican.

      Let’s hope the voters remember how much the Democrats torched themselves. Unless they put up an honest to God new dealer, they deserve another reckoning come 2028.

      1. Samuel Conner

        > Vance actually looks rather dangerous as a pseudo-populist republican.

        He presents as “nationalist” and “pro-worker”, but at least he’s not also “socialist”. /s

        1. Benny Profane

          It’s a start. Name me another senator or rep talking like he does. And, no, not Bernie, please.

          1. Samuel Conner

            I don’t disagree; I hope that the rhetoric is an expression of conviction and commitment and not simply an expedient pose.

            I am very curious what JDV’s views might be on the concept of “worker-owned cooperative enterprises”. I think that, at the level of individual enterprises, this is the only way to align the interests of labor, management and owners.

              1. Alice X

                Yes, but then he voted for the FISA amendment and the get out of jail free card for the big Telecoms (after saying he would fight against it during the primaries). That should have told everyone that he was a status quo corporatist. It told me! I voted for Nader.

                1. Cat Burglar

                  Obama’s FISAA vote was my tip-off not to vote for him, too.

                  Except he turned out even worse than I imagined he would.

            1. Benny Profane

              I’m not “excited”. I have been burned way too many times in my life not to be skeptical. But I see him as a reasonable voice in many matters.
              Get used to him. He’s only 40, and on his way.

          3. ex-PFC Chuck

            I’ll start suspecting he’s a real populist when a future Trump or Vance administration makes a government-funded single-payer health insurance program a top priority.

      2. Procopius

        The Democratic Leadership Committee, led by Governor Bill Clinton, adopted the policy of leaving all connections to Labor, and to destroying the New Deal (well, they may not have said that out loud). In 1992 Clinton was elected President, and the DLC took over the Democratic National Committee (DNC). It’s been downhill ever since.

    3. Carolinian

      Flora pointed to the Taibbi/Kirn post convention podcast where they highlighted an article by Christopher Steele–yes him–saying that Trump/Vance was a threat to the UK and that “we” (the British establishment, spookdom, press?) must do something to stop it. It seems that Cecil Rhodes old dream–that the English speaking US and UK would unite to rule a colonized world–still hangs on in the corridors of MI6 and it’s former minions. Meanwhile over here the hysteria of Russiagate and then Trump’s first impeachment shows similar thinking among our own would be rulers of the world. It’s enough to make you believe the old Rhodes scholar conspiracy theory, but shared class interest probably suffices.

      A Trump return likely won’t really clear the Swamp but they do seem worried.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Re Cecil Rhodes old dream–that the English speaking US and UK would unite to rule a colonized world. That seemed to be a big thing in the 19th century and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle talked about it in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories. The hope in that story was that that minor spat between the US and the UK would be forgotten and both countries would one day reunite with that flag of that country being the red & white stripes of the US flag but a Union Jack in place of the stars. Something like the old Continental Union Flag-

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Union_Flag

        1. Carolinian

          BTW for those who want the English lyrics to Nessun dorma from Turandot (Taibbi says La Boheme).

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nessun_dorma

          Calaf, now certain of victory, sings:

          Dilegua, o notte!
          Tramontate, stelle!
          Tramontate, stelle!
          All’alba, vincerò!
          Vincerò! Vincerò!

          Vanish, o night!
          Fade, you stars!
          Fade, you stars!
          At dawn, I will win!
          I will win! I will win!

          Kirn suggests that by ending the convention with this widely sung aria Trump knew exactly what he was doing.

    4. pjay

      I haven’t decided how authentic Vance’s “populist” positions are yet, or the extent to which he is Peter Thiel’s Manchurian candidate. Probably some of both is true; we’ll see. But this article is yet another example of my (very unoriginal) comment from yesterday: Vance is a Rorshach test with commentators simply projecting their own hopes and fears onto this relatively unknown. What Vance himself “really” believes, or can actually do if elected, remains to be seen. But I take issue with this statement:

      “Trump’s VP decision was presaged by an unprecedented explosion of public interest in foreign policy among concerned voters from all across the country. In a longue durée view of American history, Vance’s selection may very well turn out to be a watershed moment for the democratization of U.S. foreign policy. After decades of benign complacency, American voters have concluded that foreign policy is too important to be left to the technocrats and special interest groups. Whatever comes next, a Rubicon has been crossed in Milwaukee.”

      Is there any evidence whatsoever for this statement? I ask this because of all the many problems with electoral politics in the US, I think perhaps the most important are (1) the near total ignorance of the US electorate about foreign policy, combined with (2) the near total apathy of the electorate about the same subject. The only time this ever changes is when the US is directly involved in a conflict and we “unify” around the warmongers. Most US citizens have no idea what our war machine has been doing in their name over the last many decades. I do agree that the perceived threat Trump (and I suppose Vance) represents to NATO and our National Security Establishment is an important underlying factor in this election – as it has been in the eight-year attempt to neutralize Trump himself. But for most of the electorate, whether our actions in Ukraine are good or bad depends on whatever the mouthpieces of Team Blue or Team Red tell them. And “good” or “bad” is about all they know.

      Am I being too cynical here?

      1. Benny Profane

        “Most US citizens have no idea what our war machine has been doing in their name over the last many decades.”

        Thus, the great success of the all volunteer army. Maybe 5% of Americans serve or have served since Vietnam, and they tend to be from legacy families in rural places. Unfortunately, we need a draft to wake people up. I’ll admit that I was marching against Vietnam to save my own ass, too, and the body bags and PTSD cases coming back turned the parents.
        You think the Euro elections were bad for their neocons? Wait until Starmer starts backing up his “Ukraine is my priority” talk with conscription.

        1. The Rev Kev

          I personally think that Starmer is a weak leader that is unproven on the national scale. If he tried to draft young people to be sent to the “eastern front” to fight and die for the Ukraine, there would be riots in every city in the UK and I think that he would buckle under the pressure.

          1. Terry Flynn

            He revealed he almost quit at one point in last few years. Whether or not one believes this shows “honourable character”, it certainly raises exactly the questions you mention as to his durability.

            Yes he did a pretty stellar job as Director Of Public Prosecutions. I’m not sure whether that shows the necessary skills to be an effective PM. Like many, I’m considering Labour to be “on probation” and we’ll be keeping a close eye on this latest iteration of Labour.

      2. Giovanni Barca

        Perhaps not even cynical enough:). When has anyone’s campaign rhetoric walked the proverbial walk? I think your observation that JD of the three surnames is a Rohrshach test is spot on. I would think his soul is more in the clutches of Thiel than Mamaw but that’s how I see the inkblot. NATO isn’t magically dissolving like the Ringwraiths (close family resemblance) once Gollum falls into the lava in Mt Doom. America, defined as Americans rather than banks and defense contractors and think tanks, will not be made first.

      3. fringe element

        I am from a poor community in the South and I was repulsed by the way Vance exploited his roots in that pathetic book that launched his career. Makes me think of that old Zappa ditty, “I am the slime on your video, oozing along on your living room floor.” Vance is thoroughgoing slime, who will, to quote Zappa again, “Do anything, and I mean anything, for fifty dollars.”

        As I age into my silly years, it’s pleasant how often getting angry causes pithy phrases from Zappa to pop into my head.

        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          with me, its snippets from unknown victorian=> fin de siecle=>early modern literature…and i often just blurt it out,lol.
          said to a girl i know:”…thou bonnie scottish trout…” the other day..
          have no idea where it comes from.
          just all the shit rattlin aroun in me noggin…
          it fit into the sentence well, however…or at least i thought so,lol.

    5. Kouros

      Change of Kings, happiness of fools.

      In an oligarchic/plutocratic system legitimized by demagogic democracy, one can say change of oligarchs, hapiness of fools..

    6. zach

      The last former vp to be elected to the presidency (prior to Biden), was Bush Sr.

      Only 15 former vp’s have ascended to the presidency, eight as a result of the death of the sitting president, and of this “elite eight” four were later elected president by ballot.

      I didn’t watch the video you’re referring to, but there’s the not so small matter that Trump has that Trump ego – he may not like the idea of his vp having ambitions to the office. His last vp he tried to have lynched, according to the CNN anyway…

      Democracy Now was running excerpts from his confirmation speech a few days ago. 2028 is a ways away. Plenty of time for JD Vance to reprise the role of, say… like… dunno, Dan Quayle? Here’s hoping anyway, call me old fashioned but i’m of the opinion senators don’t make good presidents.

      (I reckon Dan Quayle got a better education at IU in the 70’s than JDog got at Yale in the tweens just sayin’…)

  8. JohnnyGL

    Karma eventually comes for the company (Crowdstrike) that aided and abetted the Russiagate story for the Clinton campaign and DNC.

    Recall, the FBI just took Crowdstrike’s word (and data) and did NOT feel the need to take possession of the DNC servers themselves and conduct their own examination.

    1. curlydan

      I was a bit disappointed that their stock only fell 11% yesterday, just wiping $8B off their market cap. Still an $8B error, but I was out for blood after their past lies.

      1. i just don't like the gravy

        Yeah the lemmings really ran off the cliff in droves to “buy the dip.”

        I see the share price bleeding out slowly as people realize their growth story is severely neutered.

        1. Mikel

          I’ve suspected there was a bit of a circle jerk with buying each other’s stock among the tech bros.
          Kind of promotes a type of self-fulfilling prophecy bubble.

        2. griffen

          This is a salient point to make. Earlier in the year, there was a smaller banking company making exactly the wrong kind of headlines, New York Community Bank under the equity symbol NYCB. I’ve not kept up with that story exactly but my thought is usually, well it can always get worse and frequently it will as losses possibly increase and reserves are not sufficient for the updated loss curves.

          Sorta my theory, throwing good money after bad is like that magical, floating pier to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. It’s a fleeting mirage and amounts to a wasted effort. I would not touch Crowdstrike until after their CEO goes in front of Congress, which most assuredly I presume he will have to.

  9. jhallc

    A Trump-Vance White House could undermine European security – and end up pushing Russia and China closer:
    Seems to me Biden and his foreign policy team have already accomplished that.
    Not sure how these two Brit authors will manage to get out of their twisted knickers.

    1. bertl

      Maybe the Trump-Vance White House, by forcing each European state to seriously consider the positions they have taken individually and collectively, might well force them realise how a completely new security architecture agreed with, not only Russia, but other countries – China, Iran, Turkey and the countries of North, West and Central Africa – might benefit and protect their populations more effectively than the anarchic “rules-based international order” which blithely tramples on human rights, and provide them with a basis for future prosperity in a much less adversarial world undergoing severe climatic change.

      Of course, this will run counter to the interests and ideologies of the present assortment of bums, stiffs and deadlegs who have so creatively misgoverned Europe for at least the past 25 years, but the total failure of the Ukrainian adventure, the public revulsion at the Gaza genocide, and a change of executive in the US gives Europeans a chance to clear the air and recover their national democracies.

      Or “you may say I’m a dreamer”, but the world can only be as one if we accept that countries, like most people, have very different interests which can be best be reconciled through diplomacy and a return to something close to the principles of Westphalia. After all, wasn’t that the dream of all the soldiers who returned from the Second War to the countries and their families who placed the hopes in the idea of the United Nations as the main vehicle for peaceful resolution of the world’s problems?

      1. Revenant

        Trump Vance Whitehouse does not want European agency. It wants European argent. Pick yourselves up? No, pick up the bill!

    2. OliverN

      This is what frustrates me. No mention of how close these two have gotten during Bidens administration, or for that matter how close they’ll get under another 4 years of Biden.

      If I’m reading this garbage article correctly, the risk is that Vance’s pivot to China will push China closer to
      Russia. ….So, as opposed to Bidens pivot to Russia, which is pushing Russia closer to China? FFS

  10. Mikex

    Heparin: A common blood thinner emerges as potential cobra bite antidote.

    I’m expecting an announcement this week of a 1500% price increase of this drug. Due to…uh…inflation and…um….supply chain issues.

      2. Joker

        If price increase is big enough, part of the profits will go towards immigration of cobras.

      1. scott s.

        As a UW alum warfarin always gets a big play as the patent income was supposed to be ground-breaking in creating an entity Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation — WARF.

      2. IM Doc

        Heparin is NOT the same as Coumadin. Not even close. Heparin is an IV or SQ medication that blocks a completely different part of the clotting system than Coumadin. Heparin lasts for only a few seconds ( or hours if given into SQ fat) and this is why it is a continuous IV drip. It is not a pill. Coumadin lasts much longer – and Coumadin is the rat poison. Your body cannot process Coumadin as effectively as heparin so if you OD you will bleed to death ( rat poison).

        1. Jabura Basaidai

          thank you for the correction and clarification, appreciated – my Mom had a stainless steel aortic valve which clicked all the time and took Coumadin – she died after she started spontaneously hemorrhaging blood through the vaginal introitus or urethra, never clear which – by the time she got to the ER she was not awake – took me 45 minutes to drive to the hospital – they kept pumping blood into her until i got there even though she was cognitively unresponsive – my Dad was lost in his sorrow – i had to make the arrangements for organ donations and removal of life support – i have a bovine valve and do not need to take a thinner only a BP med – not sure why Mom got the stainless steel valve and not an organic porcine or bovine valve, maybe that is all that was available when she had the procedure but the stainless steel required keeping the blood thin so she took coumadin religiously which i blame for the hemorrhagic event – Mom had other issues due to the coumadin particularly wounds healing – thanks again Doc for clarifying –

  11. The Rev Kev

    “Your therapist wants you to go outside”

    That therapist has a point. And it can be in your own house yard or even a park. Anywhere to get you out of yourself. It can be disconcerting to look at a tree and realize that it will still be here long after you’re gone. From my back patio I can see a range of mountains and there you are talking about hundreds of millions of years. Once, I was reflecting on such things and almost had a feeling of humility – but luckily the feeling quickly passed.

    1. wol

      A Buddhist monk said what one can do in the face of one’s powerlessness to affect global climate change is to take care of one’s patch. I have faith that the earth will survive us.

      1. Jabura Basaidai

        the earth will survive us – don’t need faith to know that is a fact – ask a dinosaur if you can find one –
        we are an evolutionary cul-de-sac as George Carlin refers to us – here today gone tomorrow –
        and now i’ll head out to the little orchard to commune with trees and pick beetles of the foliage –

        1. Lee

          During Japan’s Meiji period, Buddhist celibate clerics were required by law to marry and have children. Now, many in Japan and elsewhere do so by choice.

    2. Neutrino

      Barefoot recommended, in grass, on dirt, on sand. Reconnect. Love the sunrise, revel in the sounds and smells of the day.

      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        “And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind? And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
        -Kahlil Gibran

        everything out here has a thorn on it…so no bare feet at my place, sadly.

      1. GramSci

        And if you’re working two jobs, you probably NEED the money. Or maybe you have 1,997 servers left to patch.

        Freedom isn’t free to everybody. Some people hoard it.

    4. Benny Profane

      It’s sad that this is even “advice”.

      I road bike a lot. Just moved from living in Upper Westchester/Fairfield county for twenty years. Did a lot of routes in suburban streets off traffic prone main roads. Always amazed at how quiet most homes were as I passed by on beautiful, 70-80 degree days. All that money for a nice, large, professionally landscaped yard, front and back, and nobody outside. Windows closed, TV on, surfing devices in use.

    5. Henry D

      Its tough to get outside when the PMI 2.5 is over 1000 out there this morning. I was really hoping that after 3 years of being evacuated that we would get a break this year, but its not looking good with almost 20 fires raging within 20 miles of us. Last year a fire burning 20 miles from us closed most of that gap in less than two days and we were very fortunate the wind shifted and it stop a couple of miles away only to have homeless person start a fire the next week in that gap. Fortunately there was a million dollar cell tower between us and that fire so they through everything they had at it early. It so bad we are having to ask California to send support up here. Everything is pretty small as it has only been a couple of days since the lighting storm, but rain is still at least a month away.

      1. Benny Profane

        I have seen concrete differences on devices between inside cycling (ultimately, hard Spinning), vs outside cycling. No match.

  12. CA

    https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1814535601355694479

    Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

    Everyone should read this devastating article by two American surgeons who travelled to Gaza:

    https://politico.com/news/magazine/2024/07/19/gaza-hospitals-surgeons-00167697 *

    They’d never been in Gaza before and write that “in our combined 57 years of volunteering, we’ve worked on more than 40 surgical missions in developing countries on four continents. We’re used to working in disaster and war zones, of being on intimate terms with death and carnage and despair. None of that prepared us for what we saw in Gaza this spring.”

    * ‘Nothing Prepared Us for What We Saw’: Two Weeks Inside a Gaza Hospital

    1:39 AM · Jul 20, 2024

    1. nycTerrierist

      Devastating piece, a must read.

      Good to see in Politico where hopefully it might reach mainstream libs propagandized by AIPAC talking points…

    2. Yves Smith Post author

      We have that in Links already, under Gaza.

      I’m getting sharp with you because you have done this before. While I appreciate actual additions, It’s disrepectful when you make it clear you did not bother to read the post, as require in our site Policies as condition of commenting. It says you don’t value our work enough to read it.

      1. CA

        I am truly sorry, but meant no possible disrespect.

        I always read “all” your work, but thought the post from Arnaud Bertrand would add emphasis to your efforts. Again, I am truly sorry for failing to understand what has been really clearly stated.

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          Please, the next time you do this, indicate that the tweet is about an already linked story. When I re-link to a story Lambert has linked to, I make a point of saying he linked to it but I am repeating the link because the story in important, or with a tweet, perhaps that it is getting traction.

  13. JB

    My partners dad/stepmother live in Prawet, Bangkok, and occasionally get a King Cobra in their garden – not just a country thing :)

    The main danger when that happens though, is stopping the dog from trying to go after it – as usually they only attack when cornered (and it’s supposedly baby king cobras that are more bitey/dangerous). Think the dog had to get an antidote/shot before.

    Did a hike part way up to Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai last year, and had to research/be-mindful of this. The monks do the hike multiple times a day, though, so that particular path is usually quite safe. I really would want to be carrying something as an antidote doing a proper hike, though.

    1. griffen

      I recall reading a book from a former golf professional, David Feherty, where he talked about playing in South Africa and on occasion finding a large snake near the bottom of his golf bag or wrapped around nice warm golf iron. Ok arguably that is not Asia but the anecdote was quite humorous the way he described it.

      I found a few articles from recent years, however, on large snake sightings on the Asian tour. This article references a python being seen on the golf course, during a tournament event.

      https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/golf/pga-event-malaysia-interrupted-six-9096866

      1. Amfortas the Hippie

        i skip over snake scenes in movies, etc…and avoid vids about cobras and such.
        its taken years and a lot of effort to learn to live with my native population of texas rat snakes(like the near 8 foot one i accidentally stole an egg from out of her mouth).
        but they eat rattlesnakes…and their musk(my arm itched all the next day from that one^ wrapping her tail around it) is an actual rattler deterrent….ie: rattlers are afraid of them.
        that said…for the first time in several years, ive been seeing rattle snake tracks in the dirt road….
        one, a pretty big one, over at moms(who kills every snake she finds…including the ratsnakes)
        over here, the tracks are smallish…maybe from the babies that that big one dropped as she headed for the den to the north of us(they have live births…just dropping 1 foot rattlers along their way)
        the geese are deterrents, too…as are guinneas…too “Busy”…so geese are staying in my shop at night,lol=”not a good place to overwinter”.

  14. The Rev Kev

    “USPS shared customer postal addresses with Meta, LinkedIn and Snap”

    ‘On Wednesday, the USPS said it addressed the issue and stopped the practice, claiming that it was “unaware” of it.’

    Pull the other one. It plays jingle bells. You wonder how often this sort of stuff goes on. Here in Oz I am with Tesltra, our biggest telecommunications company. In spite of being on a Do Not Call list for scam callers, nonetheless we still get them from time to time. And this makes me wonder if Testra shared or sold it’s list of customers to other parties which sold them on to telephone scammers.

    1. Benny Profane

      I have been receiving scam, phishing texts from some entity posing as the USPS. They use the logo, looks official. This is ridiculous.

      1. Belle

        I have as well. Of course, you may want to report it to the US Postal Inspection Service. Misrepresenting yourself as the USPS is a federal crime…

        1. KLG

          I did that. Got no response. But the current(?) Postmaster General wants nothing so much as the United States Post Office to disappear. Returned home after running errands with my better half this evening at 6:00 pm. The postal worker was still delivering mail on my street, half a block from the local main Post Office (where the employees are outstanding btw).

  15. griffen

    Bill Maher, who I often find disagreement on his political views but I recent years he is quite frequently on point, and on fire. Just the first two or so minutes he presents a very confirming opinion on the Trump assassination attempt. So good on him…of course he follows up with well, it is beneficial to my writers and my show to keep writing jokes.

    FWIW, a few minutes to view that clip from a non MSNBC commentator, one who might live in the reality of American politics in 2024 and can see what others also see. Or he appears to get it, I’ll add, much more than say Joe and Mika for comparison.

    1. Pat

      Are you still referring to Maher in your second paragraph? If you aren’t I will apologize from the start for missing your transition.

      Maher is not on MSNBC. While he might have been a guest at some point in the past, he has not ever to my knowledge been one of their “talent”, and I cannot imagine them wanting him. Maher has had a weekly show, Real Time with Bill Maher, on HBO for over twenty years. I get that the logo on that clip might be hard to read with only the M being clear, but it is MAX.

      I’m not a huge fan of Maher, but he doesn’t deserve to be relegated to the dumpster fire that is MSNBC, not even on his worst week.

      1. Partyless poster

        Bill Maher is an obvious Jewish supremicist and all around disgusting human being.

      2. griffen

        I intended that to be specific to Bill Maher, that he is not a talent or anything to be affiliated with the cable news network. I made no such statement to explicitly tie or connect him to MSNBC . I worded it poorly I suppose, in hindsight. I concede it was a possible vague turn of phrasing.

        Just to reiterate, Maher still drinks the Team Blue punch but he is not in the same camp as a Joe, or a Mika, or a Maddow. He does show, on some occasion, to have the grasp of particular issues being widely endorsed by some, but not all, Democrats to be in the apesh*t mind blowing territory.

  16. Ben Panga

    “Trump didn’t say he wouldn’t defend Taiwan” Asia Times

    Thanks, this is very interesting. Reinforces the idea that the US military (and Trump) know that there’s naff all they can do militarily to hinder China’s ambitions of reunification.

    It also suggests that Trump has moderated his views about China quite a bit, and that constructive interaction is possible.

    However, a curious contrast with his chosen VP Vance, who seems to have his anti-China dial turned up to 12.

    We will see what the new administration brings. Speaking as a resident of Asia, I am hoping the white countries might keep to themselves for a bit

    1. The Rev Kev

      I’ve heard that Trump has given up on the ideas of sanctions, Perhaps as a result of watching the tens of thousands levied against Russia which only caused the economy of that country to grow. But what he is a fan of now is tariffs and I heard that he wants to levy a large number of them to protect what is left of American industry and perhaps giving them breathing room to rebuild. Personally I am pessimistic of the later happening as these are the same people that could not fire their workforces and ship those factories and equipment to Asia fast enough. Anyway, you would need investments stretching out decades but the political landscape can shift every four years leaving those investors high and dry if the next group in dropped those tariffs.

      1. Mikel

        “Personally I am pessimistic of the later happening as these are the same people that could not fire their workforces and ship those factories and equipment to Asia fast enough.”

        They shot themselves in the foot with their own gun and now want to make war over it.

        1. Amfortas the Hippie

          thats my honed and sharpened retort to any dem i encounter(or rep, for that matter) who insists that war with china is both inevitable, necessary…as well as pretty much a good thing/what jesus wants:
          ” the children of those who sent all the productive plant to china now want to make war on china…because china has all our productive plant,and failed to remain a peasant state”
          makes all and sundry shut the hell up…and ruminate.
          its glorious to behold the wheels turning.
          not a one has been able to challenge it, yet.

  17. Wukchumni

    Gooooooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!

    F-4+31’s would take off from the Gulf of Conking Out, massed for a Crowd Strike on both North & South Fiatnamese hamlets, transportation, and anything else that only moved via modem, like so many sitting ducks.

    The carnage was complete and tendrils of smoke could be seen emanating out of the best laid plans…

    1. Alice X

      I’ve grown quite weary of Greenwald’s take on what he continually refers to as right-populist. The populists of the 1890s were redistributionists, and as such were attacked, co-opted and diffused. I see little evidence that these folks today center on cutting down to size extreme wealth, and redistributing it. I see it as manipulation and deflection of legitimate grievances. That is not to say that the D’rats (incorrectly called the left) are any more sincere.

      1. Benny Profane

        Hey, watch the video. The Teamsters top guy gave him props. Yeah, the Teamsters, but, still. Who else from the Republicans is getting compliments from unions?

      2. Chris Cosmos

        I think conservative populists have several very important agendas that are radically different from the populists of a former era: 1) support for families–the old populists had no need to talk about that–there was little government interference in the family, so families were allowed to exist as they have for thousands of years for most people; 2) support for local communities over state and federal control–communities form naturally and were the chief support of people and families as opposed to larger government structures–today technology (cars, radio, TV, internet, social media) has enabled us to ignore local communities if we want.

        What the old populist movement would have been against the Washington Empire and its policy of constant war (for control of the entire planet) and would not have been against today’s conservative populists “America first” agenda nor would they have been opposed to keeping industry here. Where they differ is in the redistribution part. In defense of not breaking up wealth, it might have worked back in the 1890s, but it could not work today because it would beg the question of who would decide on how to redistribute that wealth for starters along with the obvious problem with the issue of tax deductions and the attendant corruption.

        1. Alice X

          Where they differ is in the redistribution part.

          As I wrote.

          In defense of not breaking up wealth, it might have worked back in the 1890s,

          Sherman Anti-Trust, 1890. But, for the first ten years it was used against unions! Then it did start to dig into the big money monopolists.

          … but it could not work today

          Big money is always working to evade the medicine. The New Deal was a regrouping, imperfect but effective. Its erasure has been a key element of the post Powell Memo era. Fully embraced by the Rs and incrementally so by the Ds as they turned to big money funding.

          … because it would beg the question of who would decide on how to redistribute that wealth for starters

          In my view, therein lies a key difference with the so called R populists and the Ds. The Rs seem to object to redistribution to the undeserving, ie minorities, while the Ds allow it in their miserly way. I want universal redistribution.

          …along with the obvious problem with the issue of tax deductions and the attendant corruption.

          Big money always wants a complex tax structure that only they can navigate, and benefit from. I’ve have found it informative that the middle class benefits more from a spin off of that structure (mortgage deductions as one example) than the poor by a considerable amount. But it pales in comparison to big money’s bonus of low capital gains and estate taxes, to name only two.

          I want a maximum income and wealth cap, such as ten times the mean? (I’m being generous, I’d really prefer something like three times the mean) The subset being everyone excluding big money (drawing the line is the trick). I don’t even mind if someone calls a communist, but I’m not an authoritarian so there’s the rub for my plan. Everyone but the big money would have to be on board.

          I’ll go back to dreaming now.

          1. Alice X

            Adding:

            I was intrigued by Tony Lynch’s post here on NC, Populism and State Power and his distinction of ascriptive versus deliberative populism. I have read it and reread it and now find that I should read it again. It is a topic I find most compelling.

            One of the commenters brought up Lawrence Goodwyn‘s works on populism, and I wanted to read that too, so I requested his abridged work from our state library system (which take weeks to arrive). Alas two other books previously requested arrived at the same time and I could only dig into the most demanding (they can’t be renewed), so I will have to request it again.

            And correcting, in the meantime, I don’t even mind if someone calls ME a communist…at least until I get a more thorough grip on the term populist.

            1. fringe element

              I would be surprised if any serious conversation about the original populists did not include Goodwyn’s work. I think of it as foundational. I don’t think a person can realize the size and consequence of that movement until they read his work.

              Since reading it I have wondered if the Civil War itself was secretly driven by a wish to stop populism. Military demagoguery took its maiden launch immediately after the Civil War, i.e. “waving the bloody shirt”, using the bitter aftermath of fratricidal war to keep the ire of working people misdirected at each other. That fact does make me wonder how much the populists were the unspoken targets of that war.

            2. Amfortas the Hippie

              you’re my kinda gal, Alice!
              i missed that NC post, so hectic has my life been of late.
              i figger the redistribution part is really pretty simple.
              take the billion plus companies/individuals…shave off half their wealth…put it in a pile.
              divide it by 300 million(or whatever our current population is)…and send out the cash.
              we’d have a booming economy overnight.
              if said billionaires/billion plus corps(e) can’t get by on half a billion, they’re stupid…and should be allowed to fail, utterly.

              this will never happen, of course…itll be means tested to death by both parties(their ultimate function, after all).
              unless you or i are made queen/king for a week, that is.

        2. anahuna

          Chris, I am puzzled by your first point, where you write that populist conservatives are different from other populists, in that they advocate support for the family. If I understand you correctly, this was previously unnecessary because “there was little government interference in the family, so families were allowed to exist as they have for thousands of years for most people;”

          The only example I can think of offhand of government interference with families is the welfare rules that often obliged men (husbands or not) to move out of the home so that the mothers and children could get welfare. I suspect that you have something else in mind, but I can’t be sure without further information.

          Also, I’d be careful about “thousands of years” during which there have been many variations on “family” structures.

      3. nyleta

        Yes, it is time for a redistribution. The two main pre-conditions for a depression are already in place,

        1 Absolutely obscene levels of wealth disparity.

        2. Open and acknowledged fraud in public markets. We all know stock markets are an artificial construct now levitated by AI but we all hope to get our little moiety of froth off the top.

        Without a redistribution a long slump of the old fashioned kind is just a matter of time.

        1. Chris Cosmos

          How are you going to do that? Power is power and the rich have it. They have enough power to have you killed if you try to take their money. In a real democracy, redistributing income could work but it would require a sense of the commons. We don’t have that at the moment–we are way too divided for common goals and common values.

          1. Alice X

            (My first response above took the polar route to show up.)

            You make many good points and I agree on the dilemma of power. In history, revolutions only succeed when those who hold it are hugely weakened, often by conditions of their own making. I don’t have any concrete solutions.

            1. fringe element

              If a ruling class that weakens itself through conditions of its own making is a precondition for revolution, I would say we are in pretty good shape. Only spiders could survive shooting themselves in the feet as many times as our current rulers continue to do.

          2. nyleta

            The process of depression will do it regardless, like last time. You are right that the present system can’t change from within, but the only way now to prolong the life of the system is to increase complexity which means energy density. See the energy requirements of the AI complex like Charlotte at Crowdstrike.

            The energy cost of deploying energy only goes one way like entropy. Mr Vance is an attempt to bring back competence to manage the complexity requirements.

            1. Amfortas the Hippie

              aye.
              EROEI applied to political economy and failing narrative control.
              this was a recurring theme in my younger son and i’s 3 days together going to lubbock.
              (he started the thread by asking good questions)
              i have been rather shocked for decades now how the PTB have managed to keep all their myriad ponzi plates spinning.
              but things that cannot last, wont,lol.
              the last 8 years have driven a bunch of pitchforks into the legitimacy of the entire enterprise, i think.
              thats why so many glommed on to trump in the first place….so many people have used the “he’s a middle finger!” trope to me!
              and now, the same with Vance.
              just worse…for the PTB, at least…unless he’s some eleven dimensional chess move by them…which i doubt, because they really do seem to have been smoking their own stash.
              the idiocy and incompetence at that level is palpable, now.
              everybody sees it…whether they admit it, or not.
              from 9-11…to GFC…to iraq/afghanistan…to ukronazipartytime and genocide in israel to the houthis(!)….its over.
              the realisation that we, as a civilisation…are way out over our skis…is becoming a commonplace…still with much resistance(hence, the response to Vance)…but inexorably leading to the general knowledge that it is, indeed, over.
              in my talkin to random people…nobody really understands how everything works.
              people at Texas Tech for the orientation were all talking about the crowdstrike things effects on aviation,lol…but they cannot connect that to anything else.
              sea rises a foot in miami, and real estate crashes…leading to a crash in the rest of the financial carnival…because its all tied in together, incestuously.
              takes a whiteboard and rapt attention to get this interconnectedness across.
              and who has time for that?!…we got a yoga class to get to, back home….

        2. Amateur Socialist

          There is also the very old problem of letting people make bets with borrowed money. This has led to several crashes which have cost a lot to clean up.

          The problem is still with us. I saw a curious ad for a “financial service” investment pitch that was trying to get me to “mortgage my retirement”. Essentially they are trying to convince people to take out huge loans for investments early in life then you can “pay the loan off partially with the returns on your portfolio”. Sort of like a margin account at a broker but with 30 years of payments scheduled.

          And of course in the event of a market panic you have no savings and a huge debt burden. I guess they got the idea from the student loan scammers.

  19. The Rev Kev

    “Facebook and Instagram’s algorithmic favoritism towards extremist parties revealed in new study”

    But if it is Palestinians or anti-Zionists, they get cancelled straight away. Good job, Zuck. Also, if you happen to be a neo-Nazi in the Azov-linked 3rd Assault Brigade who goes to Auschwitz to mock the dead while wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan of the Moustache-man, then that is fine with Instagram. And if you bring your girlfriend from the same unit that recreates the ‘Disaster girl’ meme with the gates to Auschwitz in the background, then that is also just fine and dandy with Instagram-

    https://www.rt.com/russia/601223-ukraine-nazi-mocking-auschwitz/

    Good thing that they were not bearing a Palestinian flag on their clothing. Then Zuck would have yanked their posts straight away.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Pelosi is an idiot. Sorry but has she thought of the optics here? America could be weeks away from having it’s very first Madame President who just happens to be also black. So does she really want to antagonize both female AND black voters just so that they can bring in a tall glass of milk like Gavin Newsom as their Presidential candidate? And in his case it would be soy milk.

      1. Benny Profane

        Nobody likes Harris. Even Democrats. She didn’t even make it past Iowa in ’16, and her numbers still suck. You have to be liked to be elected POTUS.. Pelosi doesn’t want to repeat HRC, a candidate so unloved she lost to pussy grabbing Donald Trump.
        They are in a real pickle. I think they’re screwed. I’ll bet some that they have asked to be “nominated” are taking a pass, not wanting to go down in history as losing to Trump in 24. Jezuz, the campaign posters with the blood, fist and flag picture alone. I cry no tears for them.

      2. Useless Eater

        There is one hypothetical candidate not named Kamala who would satisfy the female and black voters. Would fire up the whole party. Supposedly doesn’t want it. Sure. The reluctant warrior, enduring the job she doesn’t want just to save us from the evil orange man. What could be more selfless

        1. Screwball

          I’ve heard over and over she doesn’t want it, but we’ll see. Let’s just imagine for a minute she agrees. The outrage of this being Obama’s third (4th according to some)term would be loud, and probably not from just the right. There are quite a few on the left who don’t drink the St. O cool-aide.

          I’m not convinced this is the winner they think it might be.

          1. Yves Smith Post author

            She did bupkis as First Lady (and unlike Melania, who the press attacked remorselessly, didn’t have an excuse for going underground), does not like people, and would not campaign much

            1. Benny Profane

              She’s attached to a major money machine. She could probably just show up and make a quarter million. The Martha’s house is awesome. Everywhere she goes, is probably just wide eyed adoration. The girls still need parenting. Why screw all that up?

      3. Adam

        Pelosi is well aware that identity arguments are the cynical shield trotted out against the left, but when it comes to the establishment Ds the arguments always fade away (See: Adam Schiff and Chris Van Hollen).

      4. Dr. John Carpenter

        I don’t think they are much concerned about those optics. Keep in mind In the middle of George Floyd and #metoo, the Democrat party rammed Joe Biden through the nominating process.

    2. IM Doc

      I know nothing about the feed of the person who posted this AOC video from this AM. I was just trying to find the first one I could find on twitter.

      It must be noted that this was ripped down offline within 10 minutes – she apparently angered the gods.

      https://x.com/RobbinMilne/status/1814675362149806293

      Am I understanding her correctly? The Pelosi wing is trying to dump the whole ticket. And there appears to be a lot of disagreement. There is no consensus.

      How much easier this would have been for everyone – STRIKE ONE if after the Hur Report – no charges because he is too infirm to participate or STRIKE TWO – the Wall Street Journal report about 2 months ago about the dementia problems. TWO BIG CHANCES GIVEN TO THEM BY THE GODS TO TAKE CARE OF IT DIPLOMATICALLY. But no – we doubled down…Every harpy screamer in the media and the Dem Party were all over the place proclaiming how this dementia was all a vast right wing conspiracy – that he was the brightest person since Einstein, etc……. I have been just gobsmacked by the tweets and articles change of tune by almost all of them in just 2 weeks. This includes Obama. My God – what a bunch of incompetent weasels they all are.

      But now we have STRIKE THREE – see above AOC video and what has to be going on behind the scenes. I am thinking STRIKE THREE AND YOU ARE OUT.

      I have so many times in my life dealt with dementia patients – and their independence. For example, taking the car keys away.

      And as Lambert pointed out brilliantly yesterday – the whole gotterdommerang situation. So many times in my life, the dementia granddad has the last laugh with changes in their will, etc……that the hated families “that did this to me” are cast into 10 year battles to the death with each other.

      This entire fiasco strikes me as a bunch of “intellectual” ass holes – who are the actually the dumbest people on Earth. They have no concept of basic human behavior.

      1. Carolinian

        Thing is they don’t want to take the car keys away. They just want to take the election keys away. Seems JD Vance put up a tweet asking: how he can continue as president if he is incompetent to be the candidate? How indeed? Instead of changing his will he may blow up the world out of spite.

        Turley said a couple of weeks ago that the 25th amendment should be invoked.

        1. Pat

          Even more amazing to me is they honestly either haven’t figured that out yet OR don’t think anyone else will make the connection that if he isn’t competent to be the candidate he also shouldn’t be President.

          1. The Rev Kev

            A month or two ago they concluded that he was in no possible state to stand trial but yet could be trusted with running the country. Holding two opposing beliefs at the same time. Now why does that sound familiar? 1984 much?

      2. albrt

        If Kamala Harris does the right thing and removes Biden as President, her position will be pretty unassailable. Although I think our hosts have hinted that it might make sense to exercise the nuclear option later rather than sooner, to avoid the brokered convention scenario.

        If Harris does not do the right thing and remove Biden as President, then she is part of the bad guy conspiracy and has no one else to blame.

  21. CA

    Gains in Chinese high-quality food production have been remarkable, and extensive research and development efforts are meant to insure continued domestic gains:

    https://x.com/Jingjing_Li/status/1814178113250861087

    Li Jingjing 李菁菁 @Jingjing_Li

    This is interesting.

    China has surpassed the US in daily dietary protein available to its population.

    It’s an indicator of modern quality of life, and some commentators & politicians in the West thought it was impossible to achieve.

    Obama once said: “If over a billion Chinese citizens have the same living patterns as Australians and Americans do right now, then all of us are in for a very miserable time, the planet just can’t sustain it.”

    But Chinese are not aiming for the same living patterns as Americans, which are wasteful and unsustainable.

    Instead, China has built up its protein supply not only through imports but also intense animal husbandry, as well as agricultural and aquacultural developments that have put some of its food products among the best in the world.

    ( Link to full article:

    https://scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3270808/average-chinese-national-now-eats-more-protein-american-united-nations )

    1:59 AM · Jul 19, 2024

    1. i just don't like the gravy

      intense animal husbandry

      I’m no CIA apologist so don’t care to bicker about the merits of China, but what this is are just CAFOs.

      So sure, more protein. At the expense of animal welfare and, well, a functioning climate.

      2. CA

        So sure, more protein. At the expense of animal welfare and, well, a functioning climate.

        [ Sorry, but this is incorrect and outrageous.

        China has a right to produce as rich a diet for the 1.4 billion as any other country does for their population. China is especially conscious of animal welfare and proper climate functioning, as research and development repeatedly shows. Chinese hybrid rice is healthily feeding more people through the world than any other food and doing so while enriching or greening the environment.

        The 1.4 billion people of China are not to be limited in diet by rich people in rich countries whose diets have never been limited.

        1. i just don't like the gravy

          Like I said, I did not come to bicker. The Chinese have a right to “feed” their Homo sapiens however they like. I seem to have struck a nerve.

          However, please don’t lie to yourself that this is anything but bad for our future.

        2. nippersdad

          “Sorry, but this is incorrect and outrageous.”

          I am sorry to see anyone standing up for factory farming practices. Very disappointing. Also, too, pangolins in wet markets. I’m trying to envision the response to someone showing up with a crate full of Sandhill cranes at a farmers’ market here. The reaction would not be pretty ….(but getting into the illegal ivory / tiger claw / bear bile trade lies beyond the brief)…..(but, still!)…as is the response to factory farms in this country (right before the whistle blowers get arrested for domestic terrorism).

          I beg to disagree. China has never been known for its’ efforts at animal welfare (cruelty to rice plants was not the issue) and I suspect that they still aren’t, but at least we normies aren’t apologists for the practice of factory farming of animals. I can see a lot of your support for China, but sometimes it looks like you are intent upon burning your own brand. This would be one of those times.

          1. Amfortas the Hippie

            on 20 acres, and without very much support fro Herself(mom), i’ve managed to keep us in abundant animal protein for going on a year(only meat we buy is pork…mostly bacon(soon, i hope, to be remedied), and the occasional steak and/or seafood).
            it took me almost 30 years to get here, of course…but still.
            it can be done.
            and i aint just feeding the 4 of us(me, the 2 boys and mom)…but the extended familia.
            and whomever else shows up hungry.

            i have lots of jiggering to do once mom passes to streamline the herd/pasture management regime…but i see no reason that i cannot continue this, and pass it on.

        3. kareninca

          “China is especially conscious of animal welfare”

          The most horrible animal torment articles I have read have concerned China, and bears and bile harvesting and monkeys’ brains. I’m not going to link to them because I desperately wish I could forget them. And their “wet markets.” I don’t know how you can make this claim, at all.

    2. CA

      https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3270808/average-chinese-national-now-eats-more-protein-american-united-nations

      July 18, 2024

      Average Chinese national now eats more protein than an American: UN food agency
      The milestone was reached in 2021, according to United Nations data despite US predictions that it would destroy the planet
      By Victoria Bela

      China has surpassed the US in the amount of daily dietary protein available to its population – an important indicator of a modern quality of life, and one that some commentators and politicians in the West thought would be impossible to achieve.

      According to the latest data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), China overtook the US in 2021, reaching a daily supply of 124.61 grams (4.39oz) of protein per capita.

      In the same year, Americans had access to 124.33 grams (4.38oz). For comparison, Japan’s daily protein supply per capita was 91.99 grams (3.24oz). It was 108.31 grams (3.82oz) in South Korea, 113.63 grams (4oz) in the United Arab Emirates, and 119.55 grams (4.21oz) in Australia.

      Covering 187 countries from 2010 to 2021, the FAO’s food balance sheets measure national supply based on the amount produced plus the quantity imported, giving snapshots of what is potentially available for consumption.

      India, which has a population akin to China’s, boasted a mere 70.52 grams (2.48oz) of daily protein supply per capita in 2021, according to the FAO food balance sheets…

      2. kareninca

        I think it is better to have a deficient diet than to eat pigs. They are highly intelligent and sensitive animals, who suffer greatly in factory farms. But it isn’t necessary to be nutritionally deficient without meat; tofu and beans are fine.

  22. sarmaT

    Ukrainian nationalist ex-MP shot dead in Lviv street
    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp387p1zrgpo

    The most well know Ukronazi Baba Yaga got shot in the face, in Banderite capitol of all the places. I have seen a few viral videos of her spilling her bile over everything Russian, and have to admit wishing that someone punch her in the face.

        2. R.S.

          Not really. Speaking Ukrainian, especially the “proper” one of the westmost varieties, for the last twenty plus years has often been a political choice and a public statement. Under stress or in combat those ppl revert to their native tongue because f why.

          In general, the idea of the Ukrainian nation it all came to be has a very strong cultish vibe IMO. Consciously reforming oneself to be a proper Ukrainian.

          1. Daniil Adamov

            “Not really. Speaking Ukrainian, especially the “proper” one of the westmost varieties, for the last twenty plus years has often been a political choice and a public statement. Under stress or in combat those ppl revert to their native tongue because f why.”

            Indeed. Also, purity tests and circular firing squads are definitely not just for the left or the progressives.

  23. Mikel

    “Academic authors ‘shocked’ after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI” The Bookseller

    Like I quipped yesterday: It’s ResearchGPT without citing sources.

  24. The Rev Kev

    “Russia Unaffected as Mass IT Outage Hits Companies Worldwide”

    ‘Russian airlines long ago switched to a domestic booking system, and the global Microsoft outage did not affect them, Russian airline Red Wings said in a statement.’

    It’s almost as if the Russians had no trust in the west years ago not to crash their domestic booking system for one reason or another. Looks like that foresight paid off.

    1. Polar Socialist

      Talking about airlines and crapification, I recall last month Rosaviatsiya (the Federal Agency for Air Transport) noted that since the sanction prevented maintenance of Russian Boeing and Airbus fleet in official shops and the airlines have turned to domestic companies, the “reported events” rate has gone down tenfold…

  25. Es s Ce Tera

    re: Zach Vorhies / Google Whistleblower Crowdstrike Analysis:

    Zach concludes “maybe it was a DEI engineer”. His logical prowess on display, likely an indicator of his own code quality.

    BSOD due to 0x9c has been happening for as long as C++ has existed (it was released 1983), before DEI was even a thing, so no. Far more likely explanations come to mind.

    1. JustTheFacts

      I’m not impressed by the quality of young software engineers these days. Coding in Javascript is not the same as coding in C… or if you go back to 1983, a lot of software was written in assembly and was seriously memory constrained. C was widely thought of as inefficient. C++? Even more so.

      Anyway, SouthWest, UPS and FedEx had no problems because they are running on an older tech stack.

      1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

        Had a lady come into the bar and said her friends flights got pushed back a day. One friend had to cancel.

        The lady’s flight was on SouthWest.

        Her friends were flying Delta.

        Her friends chose…poorly.

  26. Mikel

    Germany found a way to get rid of Ukrainians – Vzglyad via machine translation

    The translation is a mess…

    1. Late Introvert

      And if that actually happens? The drama will immediately shift to the terms of that deal and that does not look likely to play well in the West at all. Not one bit. I see Trump letting it go quiet after one news cycle. Sorry, I think like this now. I don’t blame NC entirely, but yes, also.

      I look forward to that knucklehead Trump proving me wrong. I don’t think he has the stones.

  28. MartyH

    On the comment about the Sveboda article asking if the government has a say … I’m PLANNING to win $1B. Very difficult how to spend it in my lifetime since my mantra is to leave nothing behind.

    I have no expectation of winning $1B … contingency planning is not subversive unless it is used to NUDGE policy. IMHO.

  29. Balan Aroxdale

    Police didn’t have ‘manpower’ to watch building Trump rally shooter fired from Washington Post (furzy). Note Lambert posted a tweet yesterday, which was originally a Facebook post, supposedly by a Butler police official who said it was bogus that the police underperformed. They were asked to provide only 7 men for traffic detail

    At this point, I think the simplest explanation for the assassination attempt is that ALL of Trump’s appearances to date have been woefully security understaffed, underprepared, undercoordinated. This has to be placed in context of the DHS outright denying RFK Jr any secret service protection at all. The meat of the scandal here is likely not that one assassin came so close at this event, but that any would be assassin has likely been at liberty to come so close probably at every domestic(*) Trump event, and that the DHS has been aware of this for some time.

    * I say domestic because I have encountered substantial Trump motorcades abroad myself. A 4 star parade is still put on for foreign trips it seems (Would the DHS even be responsible for those?)

    1. Jason Boxman

      The SMO has been going on for so long, I haven’t been lately paying much attention to it; but Serge’s post delves into something that’s worth calling out in particular, the strategic incoherence of NATO adopting Ukraine as a member. The incoherence being, today we’re not willing to go the distance to defend Ukraine, but per article 5, after Ukraine is a NATO member, we are ready to go the distance with Russia as at that point, it is an existential conflict. Moreover, it naturally makes the situation worse today:

      Furthermore, insisting on Ukraine’s postwar path to NATO membership alters the calculus of the current war, in myriad ways. Insisting on Ukraine’s future membership encourages Russian maximalism – if Moscow resigns itself to the idea that whatever is left of Ukraine after the war will eventually join NATO, it will likely conclude that it ought to leave the most wrecked and neutered Ukrainian rump state that it possibly can. Since NATO membership requires prospective candidates to resolve all their active territorial disputes before entry into the alliance, Russia has a direct lever to scuttle and delay Ukraine’s path to membership by keeping the conflict burning.

      1. Procopius

        I dunno, but reading Article 5, it seems to have enough weasel words to allow every member not under direct attack to sit back and watch. (My bold)

        Article 5

        “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

        Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”

        Of course, the current bunch of maroons in the EU probably would go to war, and get their fundaments kicked, except for Hungary and maybe Rumania. I expect that, on winning, Russia would demand they all resign from NATO and sign security treaties with Russia.

  31. XXYY

    U.S. Launches Effort to Stop Russia From Arming Houthis With Antiship Missiles

    First of all, the houthis don’t need any help from Russia to develop an effective anti-ship armory. They seem to be doing just fine on their own.

    Secondly, what kind of “effort” does the US propose to launch? The US Navy has shown itself to be completely impotent in the seas around Yemen, and the houthis seem to still be standing tall after 8 years of aerial bombardment by Saudi Arabia, so a direct military intervention seems unlikely to work. Russia of course will be uninterested in negotiating with the US on this issue. I’m not sure what’s left.

    Maybe asking “pretty please”?

  32. Mikel

    How France’s “allies” are turning the country down – Anti-Spiegel via machine translation (Micael T). Important.

    It’s more and more like France needs Africa more than Africa needs France.

    France can’t catch a break. Losing influence in even less critical matters:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/20/magazine/joel-embiid-interview.html/

    Excerpt on playing for Team USA over France:

    A lot of people thought you were going to play for the French team. You ultimately decided to play for the American team. Can you tell me how you wound up making that decision?
    It was tough. Obviously, I got my home country, Cameroon, which I love, and the U.S., where I’ve been for 14 years now, and then France, where I have a lot of family. I kind of felt rushed in that decision. I wanted to take as much time as possible, and it didn’t help that France had put an ultimatum on when the decision had to be made.

    What was the timeline?
    I didn’t know. You know, I saw it on Twitter, and I was like, Whoa, where did this come from? Because from the conversation that I had with the U.S., it was: Take as much as time as you need. We’d love to have you, but it’s OK if you make another decision. Then when you’ve got someone else putting the pressure on you, making it seem like, Oh, you got to make the decision, we need it, we need it — I’m like, well, I got one person over here telling me take as much time as you need. But one thing that was always known was that Cameroon is the first choice, and if they qualify I’m playing for my home country. I had the opportunity to talk to the French president about what was going on, and I told him one thing that was kind of bothering me a lot was the relationship between France and Cameroon and Africa’s countries in general.

    Historically, you mean?
    Yeah, and even right now. There’s a lot of things going on over there. There’s a lot of pushback as far as basically kicking out the French because it’s been so many years of oppression. So that was my mind-set. I still got my family living in Cameroon, and I don’t want to put them through any of that stuff. I want them to be safe, and the relationship between France and Cameroon or Africa in general is just not good.

    You spoke to President Macron about this?
    Yeah.

    1. Screwball

      That’s rather amazing isn’t it. A few weeks ago Biden was in Michigan doing a rally at a high school. A guy I know lives about a block away and said there were drones all over the place.

      I don’t know if I believe him, but DJT junior tweeted out he was told not to fly HIS drone at Mar-a-logo due to security.

      The more that comes out the more crazy it gets. It’s also crazy to watch the MSNBC liberals defend the lax security. When asked why there were no drones they said it was because of restricted air space, which I thought was a hoot. Yet Crooks flew one.

      I almost bought a drone and looked into how to get a commercial license. It’s not hard, but not easy either. One thing you have to do is learn aerial maps. There are height restrictions to start (400ft I believe) and also no-fly zones around airports. All can be read on the aerial map. That isn’t to say Crooks did this, unless he used it for commercial use, which we haven’t heard.

      That said, I would (think) since Trump as there, it would be a no-fly zone for any non security with the SS and .gov entities controlling who can and can’t fly in this zone. In other words, they could get clearance to fly their own drones, but nobody else – yet this guy just drives in an launches his? Strange…

      1. Carolinian

        I believe it was the NYT that said he had come to Butler some days in advance and scoped out the location with his drone. It wasn’t noticed at first in his car because they were dealing with the bombs. Presumably they could look at the footage on the camera and tell when it was taken.

        So advance planning and not a spur of the moment decision to go shoot Trump.

        Here’s betting that in the end that SS head, who was once Biden’s personal SS agent, ends up resigning as well she should.. Shorter Biden admin–nice candidate you have there….shame if anything were to happen to him. (??) Incompetence or more sinister, she needs to go.

        1. Screwball

          The article linked above says it was the same day. Of course at this point I don’t know what to believe.

          1. Mikel

            It’s probably worse than imagined because he could have done it days before and the same day.

          2. Carolinian

            Here’s the quote. While he visited earlier he may have only used the drone on the day and I got that wrong. The Times is in turn sourcing to the WSJ.

            Thomas Crooks, 20, visited the area near the fairgrounds used for the rally on July 7 — six days before the event — and appears to have made another trip the morning of the shooting, according to geolocation data found on one of his two cellphones, the officials said.

            At some point last Saturday, Mr. Crooks seems to have flown the drone to gather footage for a layout of the Butler Farm Show grounds using a preprogrammed flight path, according to an official briefed on the situation who requested anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak about a continuing investigation.

            The discovery of the drone was delayed when investigators found two rudimentary explosive devices in his Hyundai Sonata shortly after Mr. Crooks — a highly intelligent and technologically sophisticated community college graduate — was felled by a sniper after bloodying Mr. Trump’s ear, killing a man in the crowd and seriously injuring two other people.

            https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/19/us/politics/trump-gunman-drone.html

  34. Alice X

    >We Volunteered at a Gaza Hospital. What We Saw Was Unspeakable. Politico

    Doctors Feroze Sidhwa & Mark Perlmutter appeared on Democracy Now on April 11, 2024. (Mentioned in the Politico piece but not linked, that I could find.)

    “We’re Responsible for This”: American Surgeons Return from Gaza, Call for End of U.S. Culpability in Genocide

    I have been aghast for Gaza well before then and every since. Things have only grown worse. I was just in the hospital ER for a day (luckily I missed the Crowd Strike affair), everywhere I looked I could only imagine what a hospital in Gaza must look like. I passed two Muslim women, one ailing, and wanted to reach out but couldn’t, I had left my wits somewhere on the way in.

    How long will the world let this go on?

    1. bertl

      It will go on until the rest of the world takes action against the Israeli state and ethnically cleanse the land of Palestine of all of those who have been associated with the Israeli and the IDF, the settlers and all those claiming to be Jews who do not have a blood connection to the Jews who had peacefully co-existed with Palestinian Muslims and Christians for a thousand years prior to the Zionist intrusion in the 1890s. Many will be forced to serve long terms in foreign goals or be executed, but that is down to the decisions made by Israel’s ethnodemocracy. It is Israel which posed the choice, “them or us?”. And I think the majority of the world’s population has made up their minds about the correct answer.

      1. albrt

        As a lawyer, it is my duty to say that members of the IDF and the settlers need to be given a fair trial before they are shot.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Rehashing all the old stuff from 2016 like ‘one of the most qualified people ever’ but it didn’t work in 2016 and won’t work in 2024. The political landscape has completely changed since then and the Republican party of 2024 is not the one of 2016 – and same for the Democrats too.

      2. Willow

        It all comes down to who the donors trust more to deliver their expectations. Unlikely Harris. Hence it has to be someone else & the only one, out of possible contenders including M. Obama, with a solid track record of delivering is Clinton.

        1. Pat

          Ummmm. She set everything they gave her, most of the state parties and even some donations for others on fire and lost spectacularly in 2016. Strike One. She also proved she just ignores the rules of the election when they are inconvenient the second time. She did that the first time for the millions she dumped down the toilet in 2008. She lost fairly early on because her campaign didn’t understand the new rules. Strike Two. She might have lost her senate race in 2000 if her opponent hadn’t taken a huge vacation after Labor Day, they were neck and neck until he did that. (Something else she didn’t learn from.) so she barely avoided not delivering then either. They would be stupid to give her a chance at Strike Three.

          Just as her real record as a women’s rights supporter, Senator and as Secretary of State are spotty to really bad if you strip away the bull and really look, her delivery for donors is almost nonexistent.

          1. tegnost

            On the other hand she’s a terrible person so the donor class are comfortable with her…it’ll be hard to find someone as terrible as her who can put forth a better face for the hoi polloi. The donors are going to take a hard line on any knocks to their place as the deserving few and in my experience self reflection won’t hold much water in that crowd either. Everyone who isn’t them is basically stupid.
            My money (2 cents) is still on hill…

      3. Alice X

        I’m trying to remember how many emails I got from Her Majesty before or after the downfall on how she was fighting the good fight and what and who she was going to keep fighting for. Like, you know, maybe us? It’s coming back to me now. I REMEMBER!

        ZERO!

        I do remember lot’s asking: Am I with her?

        Oh puhleaze!

  38. Amateur Socialist

    I can’t stop wondering in nauseous dread what might be salvaged from the existing Democratic Party. Once you’ve lost 2 elections to Trump what could be worth saving?

    1. Mikel

      They’re too stupid. The more super villian they make him, the worse they look when they lose.

    1. hk

      I might be nitpicking a bit, but I had trouble getting over his use of Chinese terminology for “rule of law” and “rule by law.” With the caveat that my knowledge of legal concepts in Chinese comes via Korea (and there are often significant differences in how terminologies with identical characters are used, admittedly), I don’t think 法制 means what he thinks it does in Chinese. it means something closer to a “system of laws,” a complex body of rules, legislation, and such enforced by the authority (and force) of the state. At least in the Korean usage of the term, it does not mean anything like the “rule of law” in the Western usage. While I expect that his Chinese audience likely know enough of the West to have a sense of what “rule of law entails,” his peppering his essay (haven’t looked at the video yet, so I don’t know if he did the same there.). Incidentally, what (法治) he used to describe “rule by law” comes closer to “rule of law,” although there are some differences: it really does literally mean “rule by law,” or more accurately, “the law rules.”. “The law” is assumed to exist and everyone, or rather, every human, is subject to it. All governance is done through a set of principles that are , if you will, written in proverbial stone. But it still lacks the kind of flexibility that the kind of “rule of law” that Freeman attributes to it. Much ink has been spilled over what it means to create a “practical 法治” rather than a “nominal 法治,” a system of tyrranical laws that are oppressive, unfair, etc, even if everything is done “by the books.”. (I can link to a post at the official South Korean Supreme Court blog that gets at some of these issues pretty succinctly if you can read Korean: https://m.blog.naver.com/law_zzang/221053907744)

      It does raise the question, though: what do people really think “rule of law” means, in different countries and cultures? Do we, in the West, even agree on what that really means and how it might apply to international context? What would Freeman’s Chinese audience made out of his essay/lecture?

  41. hk

    Just wanted to point to this article by Zaid Jilani.

    https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/07/18/why-the-teamsters-are-courting-trump/

    Teamsters, I think, are doing the smart thing, trying to court GOPers. If the only organising philosophy were, “you are with us or against us…on everything,” then everyone will be against you eventually. If all you do is to symbolically “fight for” stuff without the beef, then your erstwhile supporters will start looking elsewhere.

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