Links 7/3/2024

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1. Antifa July 3, 2024 at 7:00 am

   JOE BIDEN—HAS GOT TO GO
   (melody borrowed from The Old Man Down The Road  by John Fogerty)

   His major funders call up shoutin’
   They ask does his team realize
   The man has got some kind of brain disease
   There’s no one there behind his eyes

   We want Amendment Twenty-Five
   This picture can’t be spun
   It’s not a thing that you can hide
   Joe Biden—has got to go . . .

   He talks in mumbles and in riddles
   He wanders down some rabbit hole
   The Oval Office is unoccupied
   Somebody else picks up the load

   The whole world’s horrified
   His disease is plain as day
   He’s ironclad for genocide
   Joe Biden—has got to go . . .

     (musical interlude)

   There is no way he can recover
   Dementia doesn’t turn around
   The man is lost in living limbo
   We don’t want your workaround

   This farce is so undignified
   This man is not our favorite son
   Fer Chrissake let him step aside
   Joe Biden—has got to go . . .

   Joe Biden—has got to go . . .

   We want that—we want that—we want that—
   Amendment Twenty-Five
   1. none July 3, 2024 at 7:24 am

      Come hear Uncle Joe’s Band, spinning for the rubes
      They know, they know, Joe’s got to go
      They’ll send the country down the tubes…

      [Feel free to use this idea however you want]
      1. Oh July 3, 2024 at 7:05 pm

         You don’t have to know the lyrics. Just mumbled ’em.
   2. ChrisFromGA July 3, 2024 at 7:54 am

      ‘Dementia doesn’t turn around’

      Yeppers! Just remember, today is going to be Joe’s best remaining day, and tomorrow a little bit worse, and the day after …
      1. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 9:28 am

         They’re redefining “dementia” now. Turning meaning upside down is their favorite activity.
      2. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 10:09 am

         But too many Americans have first hand experience dealing with someone with dementia.
         The Dems are pissing away their last imagined shred of legitimacy.
2. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 7:11 am

   “Biden blames jet lag and travel for poor debate performance”

   Biden’s next excuse – ‘It was just the flu, bro.’ For those into nostalgia.
   1. none July 3, 2024 at 7:25 am

      Bacterial pneumonia!
   2. JohnA July 3, 2024 at 7:32 am

      His actual excuse was that he had a cold, aka man flu.
      1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 7:47 am

         Man flu? Could be. He did look he was at death’s door during the debates. But you try to tell women about this and they won’t believe you. :)
         1. anahuna July 3, 2024 at 8:54 am

            Oh, it’s only women who have faith in Joe, and “all women,” at that?

            Rev, I so enjoy your comments and often learn from them, but as one (woman) who has seen Old Joe as dementia-bound since 2019, I object!

            P S. I’m even older than JB.
            1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 9:05 am

               Oh, I was talking about most women and man-flu, not most women and old Joe. And may I state that you write like a person in their forties? And that unlike Beloved Leader, you still have all your marbles.
               1. midtownwageslave July 3, 2024 at 9:25 am

                  Today I learned man flu is a real, and apparently, common term:

                  The science behind “man flu”
                  BMJ 2017; 359 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j5560 (Published 11 December 2017) Cite this as: BMJ 2017;359:j5560
            2. bertl July 3, 2024 at 1:18 pm

               “Oh, it’s only women who have faith in Joe, and “all women,” at that?”

               They’re the ones that know that Joe’s just the sort of guy who can be trusted to know when it’s time to pull out. But isn’t that what he promised in 2020?
               1. Nikkikat July 3, 2024 at 4:09 pm

                  I also seem to remember that he said he would only run for 1term. Maybe in a debate during the democratic debates when Bernie was running. That’s all off now it seems.
   3. Terry Flynn July 3, 2024 at 9:23 am

      I hate with every fibre of my being those who do stuff or take just a couple of days off and say “I had the flu”.

      No you effing didn’t. At worst you had a coronavirus (maybe one of the original four endemic ones that you can theoretically catch multiple times in your lifetime) or maybe just a nasty rhinovirus (bad cold).

      Anyone who has had real flu knows what it does. When I got it at peak physical health at age 30 ish it was brutal. I’ve had flu ONCE in my life.
      1. Revenant July 3, 2024 at 10:12 am

         I had flu in College. I was confined to bed for several days and then, felling marginally better, I unwisely got up and had a nice hot shower (I shared a set in that year but it wasn’t en suite and the shower was in a bathroom on the common landing for four sets).

         I promptly passed out. I came to upside down in the shower curtain, stark naked and blind! I had to go next door where a mate was and explain my predicament. We called my mother and her ophthalmic surgeon boss explained it was a common consequence of fainting and my vision would return with my blood flow to my head. The body prefers to shut down the eyes before the consciousness!

         Oh, and somewhere towards the end of the anecdote, I got a towel….

         The second and final time that I had flu, I caught swine flu while transiting Dallas Forth Worth for the first and only time (including an unnecessary couple of hours in passport scrutiny because a manufacturing defect in all UK passports resulting in the gilt rubbing off led to a border goon destructively testing it for forgery. Thanks! I had to glue the thing carefully back together where his flexing delaminated it just to return…). I was laid up in bed in the Sofitel Redwood Shores, out of my head with fever. I vaguely remember being puzzled how hard breathing was and spending a long time wondering if I dared to ask the hotel to call for a doctor and whether I would get isolated if I did….

         I lived but I in retrospect I was in a stupidly bad way and my spouse was unimpressed by my lack of self-care! I remember feeling like I was made of glass on the return journey to the UK and for some days.
         1. Terry Flynn July 3, 2024 at 12:08 pm

            Sorry to hear all that but yeah you most definitely had flu!

            I was similarly incapacitated. Friend insisted on visiting me on day 6. She was close to ringing 999, saying “you look like you’re dying”. She insisted on seeing me daily for next week till I began to feel human.

            The irony? A year previous I got (undiagnosed at the time) glandular fever. Knocked me for 6 for a full month. By the time I had GP appt approaching I was on the mend so cancelled. Twas only in Sydney years later that they asked, after antibody test, “when did you have mono?” and I said “never” and was told my blood isn’t lying. Pennies dropped.
      2. Washington Woman July 3, 2024 at 11:12 am

         “Anyone who has had real flu knows what it does. When I got it at peak physical health at age 30 ish it was brutal. ”

         I don’t know. May I interject? I met a well respected (meaning really wealthy) physician when I was a bartender at a hotel in Seattle, this was soon after the restrictions ended. He saw on the TV that someone “who was in peak physical condition” died after having COVID. His remark stuck with me. He said; “They thought they were in peak physical condition.” And went on to talk about how he would get pretty specialized tests for his clients that thought they were in peak physical condition and they were indeed, not so.

         I think we do not know why some people get sick and others don’t so it is hard to say if any of us are in peak physical condition, or if there is even such a thing. But we can say that unhealthy people are more at risk of getting sick from an infection.
         1. Terry Flynn July 3, 2024 at 12:23 pm

            Don’t apologise for the interjection. Actually, 2 years later I got the biggest telling off in my life in the emergency dept. Consultant quickly established that although I was non clinician I had PhD in med stats etc.

            I was told (actually very politely) how the f*** have you got to age 33 with a very relevant PhD and an obvious heart condition you have felt from age 10 without doing anything?

            My internal answer was “I hate doctors unless I’m working with them” but I was wise enough not to say that. After “rebooting” my heart with adenosine I was told “you realise your heart is now probably 20 years older than you?”.

            I was 33 and with fantastic body so said “yeah yeah”. Not so arrogant now :(
3. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 7:44 am

   “French election: Rivals unite against Le Pen’s far right”

   ‘The chances of an outright victory for the far right in the dramatic French election fell on Tuesday, as centrist and left-wing candidates reluctantly banded together to try to stop Marine Le Pen’s National Rally from taking power for the first time.’

   Don’t know about you guys but this seems to tell me that most French leftists are actually centralists in disguise. They talk the big talk but have probably abandoned the poorer classes for the more lucrative professional classes like in other countries. Right now the left are in some sort of alliance held together with bubble-gum, band-aids and bailing twine but I am more than willing to bet that as soon as the elections are over, the leftist alliance will blow itself apart. This being true, you would think that they would be natural allies for Macron to form a coalition government with but I have read that Macron’s party has problems with many of those leftists, more so than Le Pen’s party candidates. Man, Macron screwed up big time calling for an election when he not only didn’t have to but not telling others he was going to do so-

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8_cmjwPCgU (9:21 mins)
   1. vao July 3, 2024 at 8:43 am

      The calls by left-wing and centrist and right-wing politicians to make common cause so that the extreme-right FN/RN is prevented from accessing to power have been a constant in French elections for at least two decades. Each time, the left-wing parties dutifully enjoined their voters to pinch their nose and vote for a right-wing politician — and each time these voters were thanked by right-wing governments implementing more neo-liberal policies, and even some policies advocated by the FN/RN.

      This time will probably the very last one where such calls will have a decisive impact, for, if polls are accurate, no party will have a majority in the parliament when the election is over. Which means that, since all macronist, right-wing (LR), and other centre-right parties are loath to ally with the NFP/LFI, the result will simply be a coalition between the macronist party (possibly, but improbably, the LR too) and the FN/RN. In fact, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal just declared that “there is no alliance and there never will be an alliance with LFI”. So there.

      This will discredit the “republican front” supposed to “block out fascism” to such an extent that in the next elections, such calls will no longer work at all — I presume massive abstention from left-wing voters on the second round of future elections will take place when they will be asked to support the withdrawal of a left-wing candidate in favour of a right-wing/centrist one.
      1. Aurelien July 3, 2024 at 11:29 am

         In answer to your question Yves, it’s 12,5% of the registered voters, so the higher the turnout the more chance there is of more parties qualifying. And this year there were three serious blocs competing. Of the original 300 “triangulaires” in Round 2, only about 100 are left, and the data-crunchers have been saying that this will give the RN less of an advantage than it looked as though might be the case, supposing that the voters follow the orders of their leaders, which is not at all certain.

         Panic in the Elysée. Plan A was to scare the electorate into voting for Macron’s gang (“Ensemble”) by claiming that there would be a “civil war” if either of the two “extremist” tendencies (the RN and the Front populaire, featuring LFI) won. There was no Plan B. After the results, Mélenchon, revealing himself ultimately to be a creature of the System, instantly asked all his voters to move to Macron. Attal, the teenage Prime Minister, responded a bit later with the complementary message to his party’s supporters, but the Elysée quickly realised that quite a lot of LFI candidates would be poison to Ensemble’s voter base. So then it was going to be “case by case.” There have been conflicting signals ever since, and we can expect more. The fact is Macron/Attal and co have no real idea what they are doing.

         I think that Plan D, or E, or whatever, is going to be to try to construct a parliamentary majority from those “in the System,” buying people with government jobs. That would include the Socialists and the Greens, plus Glucksman’s mob, together with a sprinkling of the traditional Right. This would be essentially a System preservation exercise, but could be dressed up as a “Republican Front” or something equally stupid. It would in practice be an alliance of all those keen to keep the RN out of power. There would be a couple of Minister posts for a few “acceptable” LFI deputies, on the basis that they would deliver the votes when needed, but there would be no formal alliance.

         This strikes me as a clever plan by not-very-clever people, and I don’t think it will work because people are not stupid. They are suddenly being asked to forget the vilification Macron has heaped on the LFI, and embrace them as comrades. In fact, as this remarkably sensible article in Le Monde points out, Macron has been all over the place on the question for years. From “both and” in 2017 to “neither nor” just a few weeks ago, it’s hard to keep up with his twists and turns, the more so since the injunction to vote for FP candidates apparently now only includes those who have been vetted by the Elysée.

         In the end, these are antipathetic political groupings. Parts of the FP electorate–Communists and other marxist groups notably–will never vote for Macron’s gang. And the FP has a huge LFI problem. Mélenchon is good at knifing challengers, but can’t actually control his party. He’s lost the Jew*sh vote completely with the cheering for Hamas (much of it seems to be going to the RN) and many women won’t even consider voting LFI because of the Islami*t influence. The membership and candidates of LFI are so heterogeneous (one is on a terrorist watch-list) that there is something to offend virtually everyone. This weeks minor scandal is a Musl*m rapper putting out a track calling for Jordan Bardella’s mother to be raped and various unpleasant things done to other people associated with the RN, or just not Muslim enough. This didn’t get much publicity on the MSM because racism, but was picked up by the right-wing media. Unfortunately, it’s entirely typical of the poisonous “music” popular with teenagers and young voters in France today.
         1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 6:39 pm

            Thanks for that analysis. Trying to keep track of who is who in the French political system is daunting at the best of times but right now it is all up in the air. And that Mélenchon really revealed himself this time but am not surprised at Macron’s flip-flopping. It is who he is.
         2. AG July 3, 2024 at 10:41 pm

            yes, thx!

            What outside French media no one explains, where is the difference between Macron and the RN????????
            They ALL blather about packaging and “paroles”.
            Niente on true substance.

            A typical example is even C.J. Polychroniou (who I have first encountered as Chomsky´s former conversational partner on Truthout´s long pieces by both)
            here:
            https://truthout.org/articles/neoliberalism-fueled-far-right-win-in-first-round-of-frances-snap-election/

            Instead of cutting directly to the essentials he babbles the usual boring stuff about how the election works and from that tries to assume content.

            To eventually drops tiny bit of info:

            “(…)Be that as it may, there is hardly any doubt that Macron’s neoliberalism has been the key factor behind the electoral success of RN in the first round of the snap election and in the actual legitimatization of the program of the extreme right. Macron embraced neoliberalism with untamed passion once he became president. Not only that, but he adopted authoritarian politics (such as using constitutional tricks for bypassing the power of the parliament) for the implementation of his unpopular policies and even banned protests and authorized the use of state violence against protesters to the point that made fascism the next logical step. At the same time, Macron and his inner circle have gone to extreme lengths to demonize the left (which, incidentally, faced accusations of antisemitism during the campaign on account of some problematic remarks made by Jean-Luc Mélenchon), yet they begged the left to protect democracy from the surge of the far right.

            It is unclear how the General Assembly will be shaped before the second round of voting has been completed. What is clear is that the Macron era is over, as his hold on domestic policy will be severely diminished with a prime minister from the opposition in government. We can also say with a degree of confidence that what lies ahead for French politics, with far-reaching effects across Europe and even other parts of the globe, is a war between the left and the far right. And in such momentous political moments, one has to take sides. As historian Howard Zinn, who had a fondness for French radical politics, used to say: “One can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

            The New Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties that includes Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the Greens, has an ambitious economic program that if, implemented, will put an end to the dominance of neoliberal orthodoxy in France. Among other things, it calls for raising the monthly minimum wage to 1,600 euros (from 1,398 euros), imposing price ceilings on all basic necessities, investing massively in the green transition and public services, and lowering the retirement age to 60. It’s a realistic agenda. While in opposition, NPF is expected to play a crucial role in limiting the damage of a far-right government. With labor unions as allies, strikes will undoubtedly become the primary tool used by NPF to send a message to the government that no decisions that harm workers will be accepted as fait accompli.

            In sum, any way you slice it, NPF is the political force most likely to halt the right-wing lurch in French politics.
            (…)”.

            Which of course again makes you wonder: where is the difference? 1600 Euros instead of 1400? wow. 60 instead of 63? wow. That´s gonna mean a world and cause a real revolution.
   2. JustTheFacts July 3, 2024 at 1:24 pm

      They’re caviar socialists.

      Élucid had a graph somewhere that showed they were all from the “professional class”, and the Rassemblement National was mostly supported by the working class. It’s not left wing. It’s signalling that you’re a good person and powerful, because you’re willing to push beliefs that could theoretically harm you, but actually won’t because you’re sufficiently removed from their consequences.

      If I were a French voter, I’d be pissed at all the “prevent the RN at all costs” nonsense. Pissed enough either not to vote at all, or to vote RN. If the RN were literally Hitler, there might be justification for this behavior … but they’re not, in which case you’re just proving you don’t actually believe in democracy.
      1. vao July 3, 2024 at 2:15 pm

         I gave the link to that Elucid article here.

         I also indicated that the demographic basis for the LFI voters is peculiar: it is a young, urban, highly-educated population — but mired in precarity and living within constrained means (its income level appears to be overall lower than what voters for RN have, while its education level is overall higher).

         The socialists, on the other hand, have a profile similar to macronists and other right-wing parties. You can count on those to vote dutifully against the RN; the obedience of the LFI supporters to vote for the “lesser evil” on the other hand may well be quite shaky.
         1. AG July 4, 2024 at 3:31 am

            thx for the link!
   3. hk July 3, 2024 at 1:32 pm

      A lot of old leftists in France turned towards LePen long ago: old infustrial heartland of France are where their support is particularly strong. I heard the term gauche-Lepenisme two decades ago.
4. Benny Profane July 3, 2024 at 7:46 am

   I’m drinking early today. Jake Tapper just quoted Orwell.
   1. Lena July 3, 2024 at 7:52 am

      Let us know if Dana Bash quotes Sylvia Plath, okay? Thanks.
      1. DJG, July 3, 2024 at 9:21 am

         Lena: Comment of the Year!

         Meanwhile, I’m sure that The Doctor Jill Biden is intoning Dylan Thomas literal-mindedly:
         “Do not go gentle into that good night”
      2. Chris Cosmos July 3, 2024 at 11:50 am

         I pulled a real LOL reading this. Wonderful contrast. Thanks.
   2. zagonostra July 3, 2024 at 7:53 am

      It better be something strong…
      1. griffen July 3, 2024 at 9:59 am

         George Thorogood…One bourbon, one shot and one beer…

         Or Def Leppard. “Saturday, I feel right, I’ve been drinking all day… Saturday night, I’m high and dry”
   3. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 8:18 am

      Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.

      Blair
      1. ambrit July 3, 2024 at 2:21 pm

         And those who control the future take way too many drugs.
5. .Tom July 3, 2024 at 7:48 am

   Rick Beato is the Ignatius J. Reilly of YouTube.
   1. juno mas July 3, 2024 at 1:12 pm

      Well, if the house at which the video was filmed belongs to his parents, then he’s definitely not living in the basement.
   2. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 1:16 pm

      Wouldn’t he be a pipe organ player on account of the valves?
6. zagonostra July 3, 2024 at 7:51 am

   The Bleak Genius of Michel Foucault Compact Magazine (Anthony L)

   For Foucault, this archaeology of the homosexual represented a scholarly cri de coeur against the brute processes of normalization that in his youth had compelled him to find love illicitly

   The account of his frequenting homosexual brothels in San Francisco and dissolute life, though not invalidating some of his brilliant observations, makes him, for me, less than an attractive intellectual figure. Like Heidegger, I struggle to evaluate the work without taking in the man.
   1. i just dont like the gravy July 3, 2024 at 9:13 am

      The account of his frequenting homosexual brothels in San Francisco and dissolute life, though not invalidating some of his brilliant observations, makes him, for me, less than an attractive intellectual figure. Like Heidegger, I struggle to evaluate the work without taking in the man.

      I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but philosophers are also human.
      1. zagonostra July 3, 2024 at 9:39 am

         Yes, and? Are you saying that when studying the works of a philosopher/intellectual I should just compartmentalize his/her lived life and just stick with the text, that what one does and what one writes/says are two different non-intersecting worlds?
      2. hemeantwell July 3, 2024 at 10:35 am

         That philosopher was also a sadomasochist who was strongly inclined, as sadonasochist are, to regard any expression of caring as a foil for power exercise. That made him very synced with the neoliberal devaluation of state welfare policies. I don’t believe he was capable of acknowledging that state policies could express benign intentions.
         1. Trees&Trunks July 3, 2024 at 11:48 am

            All these post-modern “thinkers” were either useful idiots or just idiots. In any way instrumental in destroyting the real left

            https://www.openculture.com/2017/06/the-cia-assesses-the-power-of-french-post-modern-philosophers-read-a-newly-declassified-cia-report-from-1985.html

            https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/the-cia-reads-french-theory-on-the-intellectual-labor-of-dismantling-the-cultural-left/
      3. Harold July 3, 2024 at 12:22 pm

         Bertrand Russell believed that when a philosopher‘s life contradicted his work then it was relevant because it evinced hypocrisy, i.e., showed that he didn’t believe what he was saying was really true. But I don’t know much at all about Foucault‘s work.
   2. ACPAL July 3, 2024 at 10:58 am

      The subject of homosexuality hit a nerve with me, so I’m taking the opportunity to throw my three cents in.

      Background:

      My college chemistry prof once said that a child’s IQ is indirectly derivative from their parent’s IQ. The childrens’ IQs fall on a statistical curve (similar to a Bell curve) centered on the average of their parent’s IQs. Some will fall above that average and some will fall below it, while statistically few will actually be that average. As the Armchair Philosopher at Large (ACPAL) I thought on this for a few years and came up with the following.

      Each person’s trait, physical and mental, is partially governed by their parents. Some examples: height, weight, agressiveness, and, yes, sexuality. I call the governing factor “the randomizing gene.” This is Nature’s powerful means of ensuring the growth and survivability of the species. For example, those with excess fat are more likely to survive food shortages while those who are short can better escape large predators. As conditions change some traits are weeded out moving the average of traits to a more survivable point. This explains evolution.

      Current topic:

      This randomizing includes those traits related to sexuality. Some people are stereotypically heterosexual, as in strong masculinity or femininity and being drawn to their opposite. On the other hand the population follows a curve with some less masculine or feminine. This curve allows for some to be more moderate and even homosexual, and everything in-between. This means that we should see at least a small population that is included in LGBTQ, which we do.

      In the children’s book “Leo the Lop”, by Stephen Cosgrove, the moral is ‘normal is what you are.’ In keeping with the statistical variations, some people are adamant that everyone should be just like themselves while others take a more accepting view of the population variations. In nature, many animals find it advantageous for each individual to look and act like the others, such as herds of gnu’s which can confuse predators, but can be devastated by disease. Humans, on the other hand, have a great deal of variability which could explain how we’ve come to dominate the world. It also explains why some die of Covid, some have severe reactions to it, and some appear immune.

      My moral is the same as Cosgrove’s, normal is what you are. If Foucault was homosexual then he was normal because that is what he was. That doesn’t mean that everyone should be homosexual (or that males with penises who “identify as female” should be allowed in the females’ locker room) or heterosexual, or thin, or tall, or smart. It also means that some people will never understand algebra but may be superb in music which is why schools, which assume all students have the same abilities, are failing so many children.

      Nature has made each of us unique in thousands of ways which will make eradicating us, by war, diseases, or climate change, is unlikely in the extreme. We should accept variability, not fight it.
      1. Terry Flynn July 3, 2024 at 1:45 pm

         Thanks. Did not agree with all the detail but did agree with the spirit of it.

         I of course have no right to deem that original comment as acceptable or not.

         I simply have the right to decide whether to comment or not.
      2. ArvidMartensen July 3, 2024 at 10:24 pm

         From limited observation, it seems to be a thing that those who were unfortunate in their parent of the opposite sex, but fortunate in their parent of the same sex, are more likely to find comfort in their own sex.
         So maybe some epigenetics operate as well
   3. Aurelien July 3, 2024 at 12:42 pm

      I think the article is basically fair, and, if these kinds of stories are true (and for that matter if the much-rumoured pedophilia-themed visits to Morocco in the 1970s are true) then Foucault emerges as a less sympathetic figure. He was, after all, one of the group of French intellectuals who signed a letter advocating the legalisation of pedophilia. That said, I actually think it’s important to separate the thinker and the work, and if that rule is to be valid, it has to be universal.

      However, I don’t think you can separate the man and his work entirely. One problem with Foucault is that he wrote a lot, and for most of the second half of his life, his primary output was the Collège de France lectures, some of which remain unpublished, and few of which have been translated into English. So it’s often hard to know what he “thought” about a given issue, and how far his thought has been caricatured and misinterpreted over the decades. Whether he actually thought that “everything is about power” is an open question, but it’s not disputed that among his many interests was visiting sado-masochistic clubs in Paris, and I’m inclined to think that if that isn’t, and shouldn’t, be a condemnation of his work, it is a partial explanation. Ands of course it explains the bleakness: as I understand it, the masochist actually doesn’t want the suffering and submission to stop.
   4. Berny3 July 3, 2024 at 2:02 pm

      Couldn’t bring myself to read the article, but I did a search for “San Francisco” and “brothel” and nothing came up, so maybe there’s a larger version of the article that you read.

      However, I need to know exactly what “homosexual brothels” refers to. I lived in San Francisco as a gay man back in the 70s and 80s, and I NEVER heard anyone talk about a brothel. Why would anyone need one? There were bars you could go to if you wanted to pick up men, or you could pick them up just walking down the sidewalk.

      Other than that, is it the fact that someone went to a brothel that is bothersome, or is it the Foucault’s behavior there?

      Lastly, I know Richard Wagner was an a-hole, but I listen to his music anyway. And writers can be horrible people and still write wonderful novels, poems and philosophy. It’s not like I’m going to invite them over for dinner.
7. Mark Gisleson July 3, 2024 at 7:56 am

   That was a good David Brooks interview, especially when Bannon defined PMCs (without saying PMC):

   Like everybody, I’ve been trying to figure out why populism is having this broad resurgence. My story may be a little different from yours. My quick story is that 20 percent of Americans go to nice colleges and get professional-type jobs. They marry each other. They move into cities like Washington, Denver, Austin, San Francisco. They invest in their kids, who get into the same colleges, who then get good jobs. The people who are not in this hereditary educated elite conclude that it has too much cultural power, media power and now financial power, so much of the rest of the country says: Enough is enough.

   If Trump ever said that, heads would explode. Trump should say this.

   I also loved how Bannon describes his War Room show: “I’m not a journalist. I’m not in the media. This is a military headquarters for a populist revolt. This is how we motivate people. This show is an activist show. If you watch this show, you’re a foot soldier. We call it the Army of the Awakened.”

   Thanks for the link, would have never have read Brooks without the rec.
   1. Neutrino July 3, 2024 at 9:02 am

      Brooks might have another shot at the big time. He could recycle Bobos and layer in some nice PMC and even populist references, sanitized of course for the delicate sensibilities of his readers.

      Proposed title:
      What’s the matter with Manhattan?

      Marketing gimmick: separate covers for each market, …with DC, …with Hollywood, et cetera. Collect the whole set.
   2. Henry Moon Pie July 3, 2024 at 9:24 am

      Maybe Bannon is a Malvina Reynolds fan:

      Bannon:

      My quick story is that 20 percent of Americans go to nice colleges and get professional-type jobs. They marry each other. They move into cities like Washington, Denver, Austin, San Francisco. They invest in their kids, who get into the same colleges, who then get good jobs.

      Malvina (in 1962):

      And the people in the houses
      All went to the university
      Where they were put in boxes [Skinner?]
      And they came out all the same

      And there’s doctors and lawyers
      And business executives
      And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
      And they all look just the same

      And they all play on the golf course
      And drink their martinis dry
      And they all have pretty children
      And the children go to school

      And the children go to summer camp
      And then to the university
      Where they are put in boxes
      And they come out all the same

      And the boys go into business
      And marry and raise a family
      In boxes made of ticky tacky
      And they all look just the same

      Otherwise known as the “American Dream.”

      Malvina Reynolds “Little Boxes“
      1. Harold July 3, 2024 at 12:30 pm

         I can‘t stand the condescension of “Little Boxes.” I thought it was a stain on Reynolds and Pete Seeger.
         1. ambrit July 3, 2024 at 2:34 pm

            It may be condescending, but it is an accurate description of Twentieth Century American culture.
            I have always wondered if the continued references to “boxes” in the song is a call back to Skinner and his “Child in a Box” theory, and later experiment, the “air crib.”
            Today we would call the “box” theory “siloing?”
            1. Cat Burglar July 4, 2024 at 12:28 pm

               It was a description of Daly City, south of San Francsico, as it built out in the early 1960s. I remember it. The hills of the Peninsula were bare grass and unforested, and unbuilt until the early 60s.

               As development moved out of the valleys, it followed the first few existing roads that traversed the wild bald hillsides — so you’d see long lines of flat-roofed boxy new houses in gently climbing and descending lines across the open hills. They looked exactly like the song describes, and everybody in the Bay Area knew exactly what the song was referring to, which Reynolds’s daughter confirms. As time went on, more roads were built, and the open spaces filled in.

               As for the rest of it — the Bay Area suburbs of the time were among the most socially conformist places I have ever been, and Reynolds was just voicing the standard anarchist/lefty/beatnik view of the time. The mileu held that mass conformism stifled human potential and and was wrong, and they were confident enough to make the point publicly. She put it even more pointedly in another song.
      2. Ignacio July 3, 2024 at 4:14 pm

         That song was versioned in Spanish by Chilean author Victor Jara. There is another version in Spanish though I cannot identify the author. Little boxes is transformed in “Las casitas de la colina” (The little houses on the hill) and the lyrics adapted to the cultural differences in Spain. Our subversive teacher of music made us learn and sing this song in the school. Being this school a Catholic one filled with daughters and sons from households of PMC wannabes.
   3. flora July 3, 2024 at 11:11 am

      That one paragraph could explain the ever expanding administrative state: those college grads getting nice jobs have to enter the management track somewhere. The once mighty industrial factories are gone. Not much management opportunity there anymore. But hey ho, there’s still govt hiring, insurance companies, and Wall St. / ;)
      1. ambrit July 3, 2024 at 2:39 pm

         Don’t forget the “Organs of State Security.” Most coppers I have spoken to have related how their jobs now require college degrees.
         Don’t forget FEMA, supposedly a sub-unit of the Federal Government but which actually, as the story “Men in Black” pointed out, constitutes a parallel government structure. It takes training and credentials to manage all those “concentrated” deplorables.
      2. Kouros July 3, 2024 at 3:24 pm

         Management…, yuck! One can always decide to be a good professional in the field of study. Mid management with managing people is boring as hell.

         Also, I have been stuck for a year in mid and high level management discussions on devising solutions on preventing falls in seniors, as a professional observer in population health. Nothing came out of it, nothing at all, even after being provided with readily implemantable and inexpensive solutions, which only required of them to be pro-active…
      3. Leftcoastindie July 3, 2024 at 5:26 pm

         Not so much insurance companies… unless you live in India.
      4. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 7:43 am

         When Bannon says “deconstruct the Administrative State” , does he mean to sell all the National Parks to private buyers and fire all the park rangers? ( For example . . .)
   4. lyman alpha blob July 3, 2024 at 12:59 pm

      To clarify a bit, the paragraph you quoted was actually from Brooks, not Bannon. Brooks’ words are in italics in the conversation, Bannon in plain type.

      I actually had to reread it myself to determine who was speaking because I was very surprised that Brooks was able to describe himself so accurately.
   5. Yakov Blotnik July 3, 2024 at 1:38 pm

      Should have been filed under “PBS Clown Car”

      Ever notice how Bannon and other supposed white nationalist are afraid to talk about white people?

      And Trotsky? Right. Bannon (like Trump) is the Gorbachev in this equation. They still believe in the system.

      And like Gorbachev, Bannon will fail.

      Two reaons. First, you can’t step into the same river twice. But more importantly, populism is a behavior, not an ideology or a political program. And colorblind populism is an oxymoron.

      If Brooks hears horsehooves while talking to Steve Bannon, he is more out of it than I thought.
      1. Revenant July 5, 2024 at 4:50 am

         Because Bannon is really a zebra (exotic, not representative) or because Bannon is not the cavalry? I am not sure what the horses’ hooves is insinuating!
   6. gerry July 3, 2024 at 3:35 pm

      So many people think of Trump as the new Hitler when Bannon fits the bill so much better. Not that they have the same political ideas but that they have definite programs. Maybe Bannon’s stint in jail will give him time to lay out his ideas in a book. How about “My Struggle Against The Deep State”?
   7. Offtrail July 3, 2024 at 7:10 pm

      Brooks said that, not Bannon.
   8. CA July 3, 2024 at 7:28 pm

      “My quick story is that 20 percent of Americans go to nice colleges and get professional-type jobs…”

      Make that 62 percent of high school graduates between the ages of 16 and 24 were enrolled in college or university in 2022:

      https://www.bls.gov/news.release/hsgec.nr0.htm
      1. Lefty Godot July 3, 2024 at 10:03 pm

         I think something like 95% of the recent graduates from my town’s high school were going to local colleges, in state, or just over the border into adjacent states, and most of those colleges were community colleges or state schools. There were one or two going to “nice colleges”, two or three going to trade schools, and three or four going in the military. So not even 20% fit what Brooks and Bannon are getting at. This is a semi-rural town that I would say is slightly above average in prosperity, but still not a hotbed of future PMC mandarins.
         1. Mark Gisleson July 4, 2024 at 8:27 am

            An important distinction: the swells do not think of community college graduates as competition. More to the point, going to college ≠ getting a degree. Getting a degree ≠ being employable. Having a degree and having a job ≠ having a job in your field with career prospects.

            The system is designed to winnow everyone down to just the people they originally wanted to interview. This system is getting worse, not better. All the college enrollment signifies is future debt.
8. Stephen V July 3, 2024 at 7:56 am

   Re: Ukie loans — maybe they could sell their fancy cars to the Russkies?
   https://x.com/Panchenko_X/status/1807853700830085592?t=V8R5IJq8E2N3SnZwNrt7AQ&s=19
   1. SocalJimObjects July 3, 2024 at 8:16 am

      Maybe this time around they’ll really use Russia’s money to pay off Ukie’s debts.
      1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 8:23 am

         It is not so much about the Ukraine paying it’s debts back as it is western bond-holders trying to get their money out of the Ukraine. They were promised by governments that the Ukraine would be a bonanza for them with all it’s wealth and now they realized that they were suckered into investing their money there. If they had done due diligence, they would have discovered that 80-90% of the Ukraine’s GDP comes out of the Donbass region so it would require the conquest of that region to “liberate” that wealth. But then the Russian army came in to spoil the party.
         1. ChrisFromGA July 3, 2024 at 9:41 am

            Best option for Ukraine would be to default and zero out all those bondholders, but we both know that is verbotten by the IMF types that control the negotiations.

            Ukraine has de facto already defaulted because any debt service payments would come out of the aid packages from the West, which means the West is bailing itself out, yet again.

            Looks like another steel-toed boot meets tin can zombie special. Ukraine has very little electricity so generating organic GDP is going to be a wee bit of a challenge.
            1. ambrit July 3, 2024 at 2:43 pm

               I wonder what the IMF can do if there is no longer a Ukraine to pay those loans back? Go after the Ukraine LLC stakeholders? Repossess the offshore bank accounts and mansions of the crooks who signed off on those loans?
      2. jefemt July 3, 2024 at 8:35 am

         Seems the obvious steps are to pursue default, and then have the US military and advisors step in to protect the collateral. S L I C C.

         Maybe we will need a little drama in the process , some more Shock and Awe. We need more shock and awe, everywhere, all at once!

         I feel like a six year old in the Taylor Swift Vortex. Where is my pilllowwww?!
9. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 8:01 am

   ‘Warren Gunnels
   @GunnelsWarren
   Novo Nordisk charges Americans with diabetes $969 a month for Ozempic while selling it for just $59 in Germany. Novo charges Americans with obesity $1,349 a month for Wegovy while selling it for just $92 in Britain. It costs just $5 to manufacture these drugs. Greed kills.’

   This is just pathetic this. So old Joe and Bernie are going after some Danish corporation rather than any home grown corporation like these ones listed-

   https://www.globaldata.com/companies/top-companies-by-sector/healthcare/us-companies-by-market-cap/

   If Novo Nordisk are charging such sky high prices, it is to bring them into alignment with US drug prices. Like with insulin-

   https://www.rand.org/pubs/articles/2021/the-astronomical-price-of-insulin-hurts-american-families.html
   1. jefemt July 3, 2024 at 8:38 am

      Lookit all the money those nation-states with national health and regulated health care are leaving on the table. It is OBSCENE!

      Talk about a worthy effort! Get a country, say Great Britain or Canada, to dump out on National Health. THERE is a worthy place to spend a few M in lobbying efforts!
   2. IM Doc July 3, 2024 at 8:46 am

      The $969 quote must be wholesale ( if that even exists in Pharma ) – by the time it gets to the retail pharmacy here in the USA – the price is usually 1200-1300$ – at least this month – it has been on an extreme upward slope lately. I am acutely aware of this because I have so many patients with screwed up deductibles,etc that many are forced to pay full freight – and believe me I hear it.

      Add that to insulin ( which in my youth as a physician was 2-3 bucks a month – and the 1980s version worked GREAT – which is now often 500-750$ a month) – and you can see why so many diabetics are just unable to play the game. And this is the take home – THEY ARE NOT PLAYING THE GAME. The out of control diabetes is just through the roof – The prevalence is now just at scary levels – and the future health care costs – ie dialysis, coronary disease, strokes, etc are just going to be the end of this country – there is absolutely no way this will ever be paid for. I have so many Type I diabetics who MUST take insulin that are rationing it and just cruising with their sugar a little higher that I get beside myself sometimes.

      I have an entire 1.5 FTE in my office – who all they do all day long is fill out forms and deal with very angry patients so we can get the cost of these drugs for them down to 750 or so. It is all day every day. Please note – I refuse to write Rx for these drugs for weight loss – it is just diabetes only. And anyone whose answer to this is “They have coupons – They have GoodRx, etc” can just cram it. If you read that as an answer anywhere – please disregard that writer as a moron.

      Let’s talk about Paxlovid. It is now 1000 or so bucks – even higher for some – we are in the middle of a surge – and thankfully just a few stragglers are demanding it. It really does not work. Indeed, I have had two admissions to the hospital this week – both maximally vaxxed – and both started on Paxlovid late last week. But when the patients who do want it get to the pharmacy and find out the cost – wow – I have not seen such rage in some time. Since it takes days to do all the pre-auth papers – acute meds like this are really not amenable to the insurance games – so most of them are paying full freight.

      I can go on and on with all kinds of meds. And please note – there are so many national shortages on so many things I am surprised that we are not more dysfunctional than we already are – the latest big problem is testosterone – Never have I had any problems with supply on this before – for the past 2 months it is to be found nowhere.

      Looking forward to retirement very soon. I never signed up for all of this.
      1. Pat July 3, 2024 at 9:39 am

         I am so sorry you have to go through this and even sorrier that our elected officials, including JRB and Sanders, didn’t do their jobs decades ago and regulate both insurance companies and more importantly pharmaceutical companies. Not only should the advertising have been prohibited there absolutely should have been regulations that made the theft and mistreatment of the public we see impossible. But too many were not just protecting their donors but their stock portfolios.

         And there is no market, our current system creates individual drug monopolies. So they should take that argument and shove it.
      2. zagonstra July 3, 2024 at 9:49 am

         Well if your first hand account doesn’t fit with John Adam’s admonition to future generations, I don’t know what does.

         Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. Morality and virtue are the foundation of our republic and necessary for a society to be free.
         1. Carolinian July 3, 2024 at 1:07 pm

            I get your point but John ‘Alien and Sedition’ Adams turned out to be a poor spokesperson for “free.”

            And morality (better term: virtue) doesn’t require religion although in many cases it doesn’t hurt. What he is really saying is that sociopaths are bad news and that I think we can all agree on. The mantra of the sociopaths “greed is good.” Oliver Stone’s satirical scene hit the target with that one.
            1. Ellery O'Farrell July 3, 2024 at 10:00 pm

               The difference between morality and religion is the difference between “love your neighbor as yourself” and “love one another as I have loved you,” the new commandment Jesus gave to his disciples as he was about to give himself up to be tortured and die, or “greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
               He said a lot of similar things. In religion, you forgive everything, you love everyone. It’s not human. It’s not supposed to be.
               Not that most religious institutions talk about this, preferring human morality as they do.
      3. Socal Rhino July 3, 2024 at 10:28 am

         If China does decide to sanction the US to give us a taste of our own medicine, let us hope it doesn’t include pharmaceuticals/precursors.
         1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 10:38 am

            A high-ranking US officer remarked recently that the US needs all the parts and gear that China sends in order to build their equipment. So China could target anything related to the US military in the same way that the US is targeting companies linked to the Chinese military.
         2. Paradan July 3, 2024 at 5:14 pm

            China could shut down every hospital in the US in just two weeks. It’s not just the meds, there are also a ton of single-use items that aren’t able to be sterilized in an autoclave. China is not the only manufacturer, but there probably isn’t enough capacity to fill demand.
            1. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 7:52 am

               Perhaps if China did this hard enough for long enough, the DC FedRegime might find itself forced to support the restoration into existence of a domestic National Health Defense industry to make that ton of single-use items that aren’t able to be sterilized in an autoclave.

               It might provide a bit of unintended protectionism for America the same way that various sanctions against Russia have provided unintended protectionism for Russia, pressuring Russia to develop a healthier more diverse and multifunctional economy.
      4. CA July 3, 2024 at 12:07 pm

         An especially important and revelatory post.
         I am always grateful to IM Doc.
         1. Michael McK July 3, 2024 at 1:08 pm

            I basically just skim the comments looking for his. He will save your life.
      5. Chris Cosmos July 3, 2024 at 12:08 pm

         The fascinating thing is that we had an opportunity to rethink HC during the “Obamacare” “debate” and here I blame the corporate media and the Democratic Party that refused to discuss the full range of rational options available. Instead we got a lobbyist written bill that brought more money to the powerful. Remember, real Americans actually work for Big Pharma and real scientists still skew their data for the profit of industry. The go home and love their pets and even their kids–they walk about us showing off their prosperity. In the USA morality has no part to play in the System. As we used to say when I was a gov’t contractor–“no good deed goes unpunished.” Is it any wonder our lifespans are declining and we go to war just for oligarchs to make money.`
         1. Scramjett July 7, 2024 at 8:37 pm

            Your comment made me think of Hannah Arendt’s “Banality of Evil.”

            Also, I am a public employee and all too familiar with the modern public sector’s precept of “no good deed goes unpunished.”
   3. Useless Eater July 3, 2024 at 9:01 am

      If the USA doesn’t subsidize Europe’s low prices, who will?
      1. Carla July 3, 2024 at 9:06 am

         If insurance execs don’t make hundreds of millions of dollars, who will?
         1. wendigo July 3, 2024 at 10:09 am

            Apparently more private influence is needed to cut down on profits.

            https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/how-biden-team-plans-raise-cost-prescription-drugs-americans

            Who knew how vital PBM’s were to keeping prescription drug costs down
      2. Ignacio July 3, 2024 at 4:32 pm

         Please, can you explain to mere mortals how that money flows from US customers to “subsidize” prices in Europe?– This IMO is the dumbest commentary I have read in decades here.
         1. Joker July 3, 2024 at 4:43 pm

            I thought it’s a joke.
         2. CA July 3, 2024 at 4:54 pm

            [ Please, can you explain to mere mortals how that money flows from US customers to “subsidize” prices in Europe? ]

            Rest assured, the comment was nonsensical and cannot be explained. As for your comments, they are always helpful.
         3. Paradan July 3, 2024 at 5:32 pm

            Tweet from Cremieux.
         4. CA July 3, 2024 at 5:32 pm

            Notice that from 2000 through 2023, real per capita GDP growth in the EU and US was just about the same:

            https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pMT8

            August 4, 2014

            Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for European Union and United States, 2000-2023

            (Indexed to 2000)

            https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pMSM

            August 4, 2014

            Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for European Union and United States, 2000-2023

            (Percent change)
         5. CA July 3, 2024 at 5:47 pm

            The pronounced growth difference from 2000 through 2023 comes with China, and here EU countries need to decide whether to maintain needed trade relations with China or go along with US sanctions which will in turn limit EU growth:

            https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pMU9

            August 4, 2014

            Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for European Union, United States and China, 2000-2023

            (Indexed to 2000)

            https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1pMU0

            August 4, 2014

            Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for European Union, United States and China, 2000-2023

            (Percent change)
         6. Useless Eater July 3, 2024 at 6:35 pm

            This should not be rocket science to understand, unless you are of the opinion that governments can dictate prices without affecting supply. But your remark about money flowing “from US customers” does indicate a certain obtuseness. Or perhaps obliviousness.
      3. Adam Eran July 3, 2024 at 5:20 pm

         Former NEJM editor Marcia Angell notes that big Pharma claims it gets paid more to do more R&D, but the facts are that it spends 55% of gross profits on marketing and 15% or R&D…and the R&D is typically to extend the life of already-patented drugs. (Think “time-released Viagra.”)

         Mariana Mazzucato reports 75% of innovative drugs come from government-funded research.
         1. CA July 3, 2024 at 5:56 pm

            Excellent and increasingly important after 20 years:

            https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/06/books/indicting-the-drug-industrys-practices.html

            September 6, 2004

            Indicting the Drug Industry’s Practices
            By JANET MASLIN

            THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DRUG COMPANIES
            How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It
            By Marcia Angell, M.D.

            https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/14/health/policy/a-doctor-puts-the-drug-industry-under-a-microscope.html

            September 14, 2004

            A Doctor Puts the Drug Industry Under a Microscope
            By CLAUDIA DREIFUS
   4. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 9:19 am

      It’s a plan to kill the poor. Eugenics through the “market” or a genocide of sorts.
      1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 9:23 am

         Kill all the poor did you say?

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4J4uor3JE (2:39 mins)
         1. Joker July 3, 2024 at 4:21 pm

            Kill the poor did you say?
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWrJAaUU1r8
      2. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 7:55 am

         A classicide.
10. zagonostra July 3, 2024 at 8:09 am

    The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse YouTube (Micael T)

    Reminds me of Gillian Welch & David Rawlings’ “Everything is free”

    Everything is free now, that’s what they say
    Everything I ever done, gonna give it away
    Someone hit the big score, they figured it out
    They were gonna do it anyway, even if it doesn’t pay

    I can get a tip jar, gas up the car
    Try to make a little change down at the bar
    Or I can get a straight job, I done it before
    Never minded workin’ hard, it’s who I’m workin’ for

    Everything is free now, that’s what they say
    Everything I ever done, gotta give it away
    Someone hit the big score, they figured it out
    They were gonna do it anyway, even if it doesn’t pay

    Every day I wake up, hummin’ a song
    But I don’t need to run around, I just stay at home
    And sing a little love song, my lover, myself
    If there’s something that you wanna hear, you can sing it yourself

    ‘Cause everything is free now, that’s what I said
    No ones gotta listen to the words in my head
    Someone hit the big score, I figured it out
    And I’m gonna do it anyway, even if it doesn’t pay

    https://youtu.be/31qwSm3chn4?si=Eg44QhzM3MOBbY0d
    1. jefemt July 3, 2024 at 8:46 am

       My gosh David Rawlings guitar, Gillian Welch’s voice, and T Bone Burnett bringing in that Gretsch tone… thank you for that must-watch 4 minute respite. And the message.
    2. Alice X July 3, 2024 at 8:51 am

       I’m in time panic mode today, but, without analysis of the links (my bad), I have to say with some informed certainty, that there is still great music out there (the same as before). Commercial music, on the other hand, is still disposable, the same as before, there is maybe just more of it.
       1. juno mas July 3, 2024 at 1:41 pm

          Agreed. But real (live) music requires real people in the seats. Here’s what’s goin’ on in L.A.: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2024-07-03/can-jazz-survive-in-la-sml-jazz-supergroup
          1. Giovanni Barca July 4, 2024 at 12:37 am

             I run into people often enough who tell me how much they loved my previous band. Why, I ask, didn’t they come to the shows then?
    3. Lena July 3, 2024 at 9:53 am

       Recommended Gillian Welch song for the vigil: “I Dream a Highway”
11. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 8:16 am

    Kidding, Not Kidding: The philosophy of wisecracks. The Chronicle of Higher Education
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I like to joke around as much as the next nearly senior citizen trapped in a 12 year old boy’s body, and there’s a fine line between kidding and being serious, not that i’d ever know.

    I like to mix it up, blurring things vis a vis absurdism and its easier done than said, things can get lost in translation by word of mouth-but not by QWERTY.
12. Samuel Conner July 3, 2024 at 8:30 am

    Ron Klain, “outfielder” (have not noticed this story previously at NC; my apologies if I’m repeating a link), helped to deal with concerns about JRB’s cognitive state.

    IIRC, the hypothesis that JRB’s public appearances have been pharmacologically enhanced has been in view at NC at least as early as the 2020 primary,

    Last paragraph:

    “We’re clearly dealing with two sets of one person, and it really needs to be explored, according to the people I’m talking to,” Bernstein said. “I think an awful lot of major Democrats believe this, including some who have made statements to the contrary. But this is a problem that’s not going to go away unless it’s explicable.”

    It’s explicable — the meds aren’t working as well as they used to — but that may not make the problem “go away.”
    1. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 8:34 am

       Joe’s ironyclad, some say steadfast-as he still has much to do in making America greater than that other guy could ever attempt to pull off.
    2. Useless Eater July 3, 2024 at 10:23 am

       Perhaps even more than the meds, I think the problem may have been getting the questions and practicing the answers ahead of time. He was up there trying to recite instead of trying to speak. Maybe he is no longer capable of either reciting or speaking. Even rigged debates aren’t foolproof.
13. zagonostra July 3, 2024 at 8:31 am

    >Most US voters prefer different Democratic candidate than Biden for 2024 presidency: Poll Anadolu Agency

    “We understand the concerns. We get it. The president did not have a great night,” spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, noting that Biden had a cold and was hoarse.

    The real issue. as Col. Macgregor has articulated many times, is that the Presidency is in the hands of the “unelected.” It is the permanent bureaucracy, or as Lambert Strether of Corrente refers to as an “extra-constitutional entity” that is the real issue, not that the president had a “cold” and had a bad night. I’m not sure that Lambert settling on “circle” cuts it, but his struggle to come up with a term is itself, instructive.

    I’ve been trying to think of a word for this extra-constitutional entity, this small group that would play — or perhaps is already playing the same role in the Biden Presidency that the group around Edith Wilson played in Wilsons. The Axios URL shows the original headline was something like biden-debate-replace-advisers, but the editors jacked it up to read “Biden oligarchy.” But that’s wrong; oligarchy is an entire political system…I thought of cabal, milieu, gang, clique, crew, faction, team, troop, club, coterie, posse, and finally settled on the term “circle,” since a circle has a center (Biden), connotes repetitiveness and stability, and has allied terms “social circle” and “inner circle.”

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/07/bidens-slips-cog-second-time-as-tragedy-second-time-as-farce-or-both.html
    1. jefemt July 3, 2024 at 8:53 am

       Over at Jesse’s Cafe he asks the same question: Just exactly who IS running the show?.
       Fair point, But, it’s hardly new. To imagine the President as being ‘in charge’ of a nation- state that now has 350 Million residents, 50 states, several territories and protectorates, the world largest economy and military… well one guy cannot possibly do it alone. Maybe a woman, but not a man. Well, maybe Jamie Dimon, I will have to ask his PR folks… Do we NEED Trump or Biden at this point?

       But, seriously, perhaps the trajectory to a fiery end, for something phoenix- like to rise up? Or just a new placeholder for the role of Empire?

       Lets ask an AI …. maybe the AI would suggest itself as the answer. “Trust me…”

       Where T F is my pillllowwww… I have that 6 year old Taylor Swift thingy coming on again…
       1. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 8:58 am

          So far militarily, there have been giant turning points every fourth turning, and why not financially as well?

          1781: Yorktown
          1861: Fort Sumpter
          1941: Pearl Harbor
          2022: Ukraine

          1944: Bretton Woods
          2024: ?
          1. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 9:25 am

             How could you forget 1971 for the financial list?
             1. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 9:30 am

                Kinda works:

                1893 Panic
                1971: Panic

                1907: Panic
                1987: Panic
                1. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 9:54 am

                   1971 has also been referred to as the “Nixon Shock.”
                   1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 10:01 am

                      WhoaMolly once gave a link that showed 1971 to be the year that everything started to go sideways-

                      https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

                      Check out the first chart.
                      1. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 10:17 am

                         That was a favorite post of mine for the longest. I stopped because I didn’t want to violate NC’s “broken record” policy.
                      2. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 10:39 am

                         But scroll all the way to the end for the quote:
                         “I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.” – F.A. Hayek 1984
                         1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 10:46 am

                            I bet that the Crypto bros use that quote to justify what they are doing which amounts to not trusting government money but trusting crypto money made by fly by night corporations.
                            1. Jabura Basaidai July 3, 2024 at 11:55 am

                               my CPA called crypto the perfect pyramid scheme – nothing to back it but the next sucker – hmmmmm……..?
                            2. Daniil Adamov July 3, 2024 at 12:05 pm

                               Ha, well, the quote on that site does link to the bitcoin paper.
                            3. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 1:20 pm

                               Probably. I think that quote was put at the end of all those charts as a way to say the results of the charts are by design. Or I like to think of the quote that way.
                               I don’t look at the charts and say, “Yeah, Bitcoin is the solution.”
                            4. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 1:24 pm

                               Or I like to think of the quote that way.
                               I don’t look at the charts and say, “Yeah, Bitcoin is the solution.”
                      3. juno mas July 3, 2024 at 1:55 pm

                         Well, the chart may be a lagging indicator for the US economy responding to the political/economic consequences of the expanding war in Vietnam (1968) and then the Yom Kippur war (1973) and the resulting energy shocks to the US economy of high gasoline prices ever since.
                      4. Adam Eran July 3, 2024 at 5:54 pm

                         Quick note: 1971 was US (pre-fracking) peak oil. The ’70s was the first time the US, previously an oil exporter, couldn’t produce its way out of a shortfall (and the Arabs curtailed production in 1973).

                         The result: Inflation! (But isn’t “inflation…always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon”? – says Milton Friedman)
                2. ChrisFromGA July 3, 2024 at 10:10 am

                   1929: Panic
                   2008: Panic (close enough for gubmint work!)
       2. GC54 July 3, 2024 at 9:27 am

          Time to split the Empire. Reno as neo Byzantium to focus on the “China threat” while neo Rome continues to obsess on Persia and the Huns? An appropriate inversion.
    2. Another Scott July 3, 2024 at 9:10 am

       The Democrats had a chance to vote for someone else in the primary and picked Biden. They need to live with it.

       The issues with Biden’s mental health were there four years ago to me (and likely others) and it has gotten worse. That’s why I didn’t vote for him (I didn’t vote for Trump either, just whichever third party candidate was on the ballot in Massachusetts).

       It wouldn’t surprise me if this was the insiders’ plan all along with trying to manipulate the primary (moving South Carolina in front of New Hampshire, having Biden not debate his challenges) as it allows them, and not the voters to pick the party’s nominee. If Biden had shared a stage with RFK Jr. and Williamson in November or December and performed that poorly, more prominent and “qualified” Democrats probably would have run. And then needed to prevent a populist from winning. Now that the voters can’t do anything, the Dems have the chance to pick their preferred nominee.
       1. Katniss Everdeen July 3, 2024 at 9:42 am

          As you say, questions about biden’s cognition were there four years ago. They were “handled” at the time by obama’s manipulation of the primary slate of candidates, deep state propaganda with social media complicity, a basement campaign justified by covid, and a claim that he would be a one term “president”–a “bridge to the next generation” as I recall.

          With biden’s decline so obvious to everyone, I can’t figure out why they didn’t stick with the one term pledge, spending the last four years grooming, introducing, and promoting their preferred successor. They could have completely avoided this whole mess.
          1. Samuel Conner July 3, 2024 at 10:20 am

             Wondering “what is the point of hanging on?”, I wonder whether there may be other shoes to drop in the “influence peddling” department, and that remaining in office is a way of delaying the bad optics of the inevitable need to issues blanket pardons to family, friends, and self.
             1. Chris Cosmos July 3, 2024 at 12:17 pm

                Are you serious? Washington is, as it has been for awhile, governed by (criminal IMHO) gangs who are usually networked pretty widely. The role of the President is to broker agreements between gangs and come up with policy. That’s why we have war as our most important product. That’s why we have a health-care system that (as a system) only focuses on profit and anything we might consider to be honorable, honest or moral cannot be a product of any power equation. I have lived to see a semi-corrupt system in the 50s and 60s turn into a 100% corrupt system from government to corporations. We are living in a science-fiction nightmare and most people don’t seem to care as they push the their mice into more pleasuarable activities.
             2. Randy July 3, 2024 at 6:56 pm

                Maybe Biden needs to hang on for the same reasons Nuttenyahoo needs to hang on.
             3. Randy July 3, 2024 at 7:33 pm

                Maybe Biden needs to hang on for the same reasons Nuttenyahoo needs to hang on.
       2. Dr. John Carpenter July 3, 2024 at 10:06 am

          “The Democrats had a chance to vote for someone else in the primary and picked Biden.” Did they though? 2020 pre-Night of the Long Kives, sure? But 2024? Primaries were a mere formality. Was anyone else even on the ballet? Not to mention, as you note, the amount of fingers on the scales.

          If you are point the blame at the Democrat Party, I’m on board. But the voters aren’t at fault here. IIRC, there was a lot of undervoting or no confidence votes, indicating “the voters” did all they could under the circumstance, which wasn’t much.
          1. lyman alpha blob July 3, 2024 at 10:24 am

             The Democrat party clearly feared winning with Bernie more than losing to Trump.

             I’ll grant that 2024 isn’t the voters’ fault. But I saw through the charade of the Night of the Long Knives in 2020 and so did many others. But evidently not enough.

             But then again, maybe there were enough. There were lots of shenanigans at caucuses in both 2016 and 2020 where Bernie “lost” although it did appear he had the most support.

             But then again again, I do know quite a few diehard Clinton and Biden supporters who won’t tolerate any criticism and will pull the lever for either no matter what. They also tend to skew a lot older, and they do vote consistently. Fear of the 401k tanking while they’re in retirement was one argument I heard against Bernie.

             What I do know is that a great many liberal leaning people have completely lost their minds since Trump came on the scene. Could be why they’re willing to vote for a candidate who has lost his.
       3. tegnost July 3, 2024 at 10:11 am

          Now that the voters can’t do anything, the Dems have the chance to pick their preferred nominee.

          IMO definitely the plan. And it must be an existential crisis so as in france it can be demanded that the left has to put aside it’s differences and vote with the right wing centrists to prevent yada yada yada from ruining yada yada yada.
          I’m like bill burr watching the news, I just have to laugh…what did these over educated morons think was going to happen?
          Oh, that’s right…we’re all so stoopid that we’ll get back in line for another (caca, feces, guano, and etc…) sandwich
          1. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 8:14 am

             One wonders if a lot of potential DemParty voters will remove a last-minute removal-and-replacement of Biden the same way that a lot of potential DemParty voters viewed the removal-and-replacement of Eagleton back in 1972.

             There might be some high Dems saying to keep Biden on the ticket for fear of getting an “Eagleton removal reaction” if he is removed.
    3. britzklieg July 3, 2024 at 10:08 am

       how about the word that’s only used for others, not us?

       regime

       the top two definitions in the American Heritage Dictionary

       https://www.wordnik.com/words/regime

       noun A government, especially an oppressive or undemocratic one.
       noun A usually heavy-handed administration or group in charge of an organization.
       1. .Tom July 3, 2024 at 12:19 pm

          That’s what I use.
    4. Revenant July 3, 2024 at 10:19 am

       The Biden Mob because Family is important.

       Nobody fucks with da Bidens….
    5. John k July 3, 2024 at 8:29 pm

       I read that dear hunter is now at all the pres meetings/calls etc. maybe a gang of 2 with a supporting role from dear brother. Imo before they give up the family will demand a huge payoff (100 mil book deal?) plus, obviously, pardons. Wonder if they’re already written and signed just in case. Seems sensible.
       Does Obama like Kamala? Otherwise I doubt the deal would include her, probably not even as veep. Obama fully backing a new team that includes another black as veep would keep that minority happy enough.
       The point will be to beat the bad man. My guess is somebody from Midwest with money… ca is where you go for donor money, not candidates. Ca won’t go red no matter who, gotta hold the rust belt. Pritzer?
    6. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 8:00 am

       Circle is a good non-clever term which best conveys the meaning sought-for and intended.

       When I see clever attempts to find clever and then even cleverer words to use instead of “circle”, I am reminded of something Colonel Lang wrote to a commenter on his blog in a very different context . . .

       ” That’s very clever. I don’t like clever.”
14. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 8:46 am

    “It’s completely invasive’: New app lets you spy on SF bars to see if they’re poppin’ “San Francisco Standard

    This is shady when any club could live stream at any time they wanted to. So this is not about promotion.
    1. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 8:51 am

       And I mean shady because: why the middle man if you think this is good promotion?
    2. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 8:54 am

       Of course that app would be useful to some people who are trying to find out if their partners actually are working back or whether they are out on the town instead – and who with exactly.

       I ask you – how many people in those bars actually asked for those cameras to be installed?
       1. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 10:59 am

          I would think if a club was live streaming because they had a special guest DJ or band would announce it.
          And what’s with this “we-don’t-need-no-stinking-release-forms” attitude dimwits are so accepting of:
          “Standing away from the mosh pit Berkeley resident Alex Sherman, 33, said he was only “casually concerned” that he was in a livestream, given that there was no sign or other disclosure he could be on camera….”
    3. FreeMarketApologist July 3, 2024 at 12:41 pm

       I’m reminded of the NYTimes story from years ago about the newly published directory of restaurants that were kid friendly. An older matron picked one up, and her friend wondered why she was interested in these places, since all her kids and grandkids were grown up. “It’s so I know where not to go!”, she said.
15. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 8:49 am

    They told him after the debate, “Don’t you ever come around here”
    “Don’t wanna see your face, you better disappear”
    The fire’s in their eyes and their words are really clear
    So beat it, just beat it
    You better run, you better do what you can
    Don’t wanna see no direction, don’t be a 1-termer man
    You wanna be tough, better do what you can
    So beat it, but you wanna be bad
    Just beat it (beat it), beat it (beat it)
    No one wants to be defeated
    Showin’ how funky and strong is your fight
    It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right about Medicare
    Just beat it (beat it)
    Just beat it (beat it)
    Just beat it (beat it)
    Just beat it (beat it, uh?)
    They’re out to get you, better leave while you can
    Don’t wanna be a lame duck, you wanna be in demand
    You wanna stay alive, better do what you can
    So beat it, just beat it
    You have to show them that you’re really not scared
    You’re playin’ with your life, this ain’t no truth or dare
    They’ll kick you, then they’ll beat you
    Then they’ll tell you it’s fair
    So beat it, but you wanna be bad
    Just beat it (beat it), beat it (beat it)
    No one wants to be defeated
    1. griffen July 3, 2024 at 9:40 am

       Well done on that version of the classic Michael Jackson song. For those who enjoy worthy covers, the band Fall Out Boy does a worthwhile cover. Tony Hale of “Arrested Development” or Veep has a hilarious part in the video as well.

       Added. “No one effs with the Bidens”
16. sarmaT July 3, 2024 at 8:51 am

    🇨🇳 China Foreign Ministry Spox.: “The reality is, it is NATO that has been challenging China, interfering in China’s domestic affairs, misrepresenting and vilifying our domestic and foreign policies and seriously challenging China’s interests and security.” pic.twitter.com/JF8Ex20ZUr

    — COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) July 2, 2024

    Nah. It’s all Chinese propaganda. NATO just wants to liberate and democratize China (and everyone else), just like it did to the fortunate sons of Europe. What NATO sets its eye on (and boots), is destined to become brimfull of unicorns, and rainbows, and pots of gold.
    1. jefemt July 3, 2024 at 8:57 am

       I thought in Brooks interview with Bannon, Bannon’s take on China, totalitarianism, communism, needing to go was interesting, and a bit of a contradiction. Precisely how does Steve-o suggest that occur… and no shots being fired, no authoritarian exertion or reaction? Dang.
       1. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 8:10 am

          Probably because Bannon actually plans on as much shots being fired, authoritarian exertion, etc. as needed to pursue his anti-Communist crusade in China. That’s the quiet part he isn’t ready to say out loud until he gets a Bannonite President and cadres of Bannonite officeholders in Congress. Then he and they will come out and say it.

          I also noticed Bannon’s veiled promise of future threats against Jews safety in America if American Jews don’t hard-weld themselves to National Christianism. If enough Bannonites take enough offices, they will decide on the right time to make these threats overt and extortionate.
    2. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 9:00 am

       I, for one, remain disappointed. I had hoped that we would see a new organization being setup – the Indo Pacific Treaty Organization (IPTO) but it seems that NATO will brook no competitor and it looks like we can expect to see NATO flotillas in the Pacific instead and they have already set up an office in Asia. Devastated I am, devastated. /sarc
       1. Neutrino July 3, 2024 at 9:06 am

          In the planning stages?

          Indo Pacific Solipsism Operation
          Foreign Asian Captured Trust Organization
       2. Kouros July 3, 2024 at 3:48 pm

          The flotillas runing from the Red Sea?
17. timbers July 3, 2024 at 9:12 am

    The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse YouTube (Micael T) ******* This is a thing wirh audio tracks in physical media. A few examples: Criterion routinely filters audio by for example limiting high end frequency at 70 and chopping out high end and also LFE low end, reducing or eliminating that sound that “makes your walls shake”. Paramount recently used a de-hissing what bloggers dubbed “S filtering” on Rosemary’s Baby which caused “We went to see the Fantastics” to “We went to see the Fantastic” and removed an entire line “we’re in labor here.” The dialog occurs as her Doctor steps on a creeky floor board that Paramount apparently tried to remove. Generally the trend is to crappify and smoothout high and lowd audio to accommodate listeners using earphones on tiny screens vs earlier consumers wanting audio for living room AV setups. Movie buffs are essentially unanimous in dissaproving of this practice.
18. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 9:13 am

    Novo Nordisk charges Americans with diabetes $969 a month for Ozempic while selling it for just $59 in Germany. Novo charges Americans with obesity $1,349 a month for Wegovy while selling it for just $92 in Britain. It costs just $5 to manufacture these drugs. Greed kills. pic.twitter.com/jcrdpcgIma

    Then the establishment looks like deer in headlights when workers ask for pay raises.
    1. griffen July 3, 2024 at 11:57 am

       Will no one say the quiet part out loud? Who is thinking about the senior executives and Board members offspring? Won’t anyone think of their children? \sarc

       The distribution goes through just a few large logistics or channels before reaching to the PBMs. Cardinal Health is one such distributor. Inventory must be managed and profits optimized.
19. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 9:21 am

    “SITREP 7/2/24: Ukraine Bleeds Troops and Territory as New Russian Tactics Prove Unstoppable”

    Every one in awhile I read something that absolutely floors me. Something that defies common sense and makes nonsense of how you think the world works. Like when I learned that at one stage, ‘The Internationale’ was owned by a small German business man and the Communists had to ask his permission every time that wanted to officially play it. And then today I read this-

    ‘Another alarm among the troops: apparently the Bundeswehr has far too few assault rifles. They are “barely able to defend themselves in ground combat”.

    The Bundeswehr is running out of assault rifles. Not even every second soldier can still be equipped with the standard Heckler & Koch G36 rifle. According to WirtschaftsWoche, the troops only have 50,000 to 60,000 rifles left.

    “Too few and too broken for almost 200,000 soldiers,” is the opinion among military personnel. Many G36s are also in need of repair due to heavy wear and tear, says a high-ranking officer. The Bundeswehr is “barely able to defend itself in ground combat”.’

    The Bundeswehr can’t even equip their own soldiers with guns. What happened to them?
    1. sarmaT July 3, 2024 at 9:34 am

       They still have more rifles than they need. Who would they assault anyway, with all those assault rifles?
    2. AhMoStoBene July 3, 2024 at 12:34 pm

       A few years ago we learnt that Germany had ammunition for twenty minutes of shooting. I kinda figured this was because they’re not Germany’s occupying army? I imagine the Yanks could go a little longer
    3. Kouros July 3, 2024 at 3:53 pm

       What floored me recently was a tidbit from an interview with Annie Jacobsen on her new book about nuclear war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXgGR8KxFao

       Apparently, to hit North Korea with ICBMs, US missiles would have to go over Russian space… Ponder on that! And it is a known fact in the decision making elites. Annie found this by interviewing Leon Pannetta…
20. ilsm July 3, 2024 at 9:26 am

    Biden has not resigned!

    The ‘constitutional system’ is kaput!
    1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 9:35 am

       He will never resign. The Democrats have really boxed themselves in here and cannot force him out if he refuses. And it is not like there are a lot of candidates that they could replace him with anyway. One lunatic scheme I heard about was to let him run and when he wins, it is with the understanding that he will step aside and let Kamala become the new President. Why would they trust him to do so? A major problem is that all the money raised for the elections is attached to his name. So if they pushed him aside for Kamala, that money would not transfer to her or any other person. It’s a dog’s breakfast as the Democrats had three and a half years to work out a plan and they did nada. So expect to see old Joe running – or shuffling – this November.
       1. tet vet July 3, 2024 at 11:45 am

          Why is the 25th Amendment not considered as an alternative?
          1. Big River Bandido July 3, 2024 at 1:07 pm

             Oh Lordie. Because the 25th Amendment must be executed by others — the VP, Cabinet, possibly also members of Congress. And who, in all that mess will stand up to a notorious bully like Biden?

             No one will have the courage to strike the first blow. Because the “blow” can only be to tell the President he needs to resign. If he then says “no” — as we *know* he will — then what? You, the person who just told him he needs to go — you’ve just ended your career.

             That’s why the 25th Amendment is not considered an alternative. Indeed, that’s probably a fatal weakness in the Amendment itself.
       2. John k July 3, 2024 at 8:41 pm

          They’ll have to buy him out. Imo the family is for sale, but not cheap. The cleanest way is for him to live until the convention and then say he will not run. Dems pick replacement, not Kamala. Then, if he dies after convention she becomes pres but won’t be the dem candidate.
       3. Es s Ce Tera July 3, 2024 at 9:05 pm

          I now care less what Trump thinks about immigration than I do about the US starting wars left and right and also supporting a genocide. I can’t be the only one. I think he lost the election, before the debate, with his support for Israel. I did wonder if his debate performance was intended to push the national focus off topic, put the dominant narrative on anything but genocide/war where he loses votes.
       4. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 8:06 am

          If the DemParty loses with Biden, its seniormost leaders, especially Obama, will console themselves by saying . . . ” well, at least we didn’t win with Sanders”.
    2. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 1:28 pm

       I said I was going to re-watch the 1964 film The Best Man. (It’s been posted by somebody for free on YT).
       They were ready to throw out the nomination for Henry Fonda’s candidate because he once had a nervous breakdown.
       1. britzklieg July 3, 2024 at 2:43 pm

          Thomas Eagleton, McGovern’s first Veep choice

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

          He was briefly the Democratic vice presidential nominee under George McGovern in 1972. He suffered from bouts of depression throughout his life, resulting in several hospitalizations, which were kept secret from the public. When they were revealed, it humiliated the McGovern campaign, and Eagleton was forced to quit the race.
          1. doug July 3, 2024 at 4:00 pm

             The only national candidate declared ‘sane’ by shrinks I ever recall. When it was discovered he was ‘sane’, he was forced to drop out.
21. lyman alpha blob July 3, 2024 at 9:43 am

    RE: How to create a ‘world without waste’? Here are the plastic industry’s ideas.

    Haven’t read the article but I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that none of the ideas are “stop producing plastics”. That of course would be an actual solution.
    1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 9:52 am

       Agree with your idea. It is the only solution. And yet I keep on reading how they want to expand and build more factories to make more plastic.
       1. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 10:02 am

          The military in various places must also need plastics.
22. Carolinian July 3, 2024 at 9:46 am

    Re The Register and the SC decision regarding social media and their “free speech”–the article makes plain the weird intellectual contortions around this issue. The court said, perhaps correctly, that social media are private actors whose content decisions cannot be regulated by the states while, at the same time, ignoring the argument made in the Missouri case (just sent back for lack of standing) that federal government pressure on these content decisions make social media de facto government actors rather than private.

    Marc Epstein, senior counsel with the Digital Justice Initiative at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, praised the ruling in a statement also sent to The Register.

    “We’re pleased at the decision today,” he said. “It means that social media companies can still remove hate and disinformation on their platforms.”

    Translation: we are pleased with this free speech excuse to allow Facebook to censor free speech.

    Here’s suggesting that the good liberals such as Epstein and perhaps even the ACLU could care less about free speech on a practical level and really want to censor speech including the “hate speech” that the ACLU once defended. Apparently logic is hard when sliding down a slippery slope.

    And personally I’d say the issue shows why all of these social networks–created for commercial purposes–are a menace. Any web “gatekeepers” who aren’t neutral should be regarded with very great suspicion. Some of us avoid them altogether.
23. Carolinian July 3, 2024 at 9:57 am

    Re Is Joe Biden the Worst Option for Democrats to Beat Trump?

    The post-debate Data for Progress poll tested the odds of eight Democrats who have been floated as possible alternatives to Biden, including Vice President Kamala Harris and multiple Democratic governors. Biden’s self-proclaimed advantage is tempered by the lack of name recognition — so far — for the other options. Aside from Harris, prospective voters were so unfamiliar with these Democratic leaders that between 39 and 71 percent of respondents said they hadn’t heard enough about them to have an opinion. Even so, each potential candidate performed the same or even better than Biden.

    What the Dems prefer not to grasp–so far–is that this election is a referendum on Biden, not Trump, so of course the above is true.Perhaps the only reason for not dumping Biden is that at this point the process is so discredited that they are going to lose no matter what they do. This was the point made by Walter Kirn.

    It used to be Anyone But Hillary however Anyone But Joe is gaining momentum. None of the Above sounds good too.
    1. Louis Fyne July 3, 2024 at 11:33 am

       If I recall correctly, under federal election law, only Harris can inherit BIden’s campaign cash (not that Jill Biden would allow someone else to take the honey pot).

       Even w/mega-donors, a candidate needs the donations from the minnows.

       Democrats needs a literal “generic Democrat” on the ballot. (Assuming Kamala would go gently into the night) However pretty much everyone is polarizing—even Gretchen Whitmer….due to policy, Covid lockdowns, wtc.

       The closest thing to a generic Democrat is Gov Jared Polis from CO. But he’s just as an attached to Big Money as Newsom or Pritzker and bald, tubby (compared to Ike’s bald and fit).

       Superficial comment? yes. But the media and electorate are superficial even more!
       1. Carolinian July 3, 2024 at 11:38 am

          Yes a recent article said the 91 million can only go to Harris. Alternately it can be refunded or go to a generic committee.

          For sure Anyone But Kamala may become another Dem problem.
       2. John k July 3, 2024 at 8:47 pm

          I didn’t know that wrinkle, though I assume she wouldn’t have to be at the top of the ticket if he withdrew as candidate for election. Can the family get what is left of the money if he runs and loses?
24. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 10:19 am

    “Ukrainian Air Force’s Greatest Loss So Far: Top Fighter Unit’s Su-27s Neutralised in Missile Strike”

    Well there is good news and bad news here. The bad news for the Ukrainians is that an entire squadron of Su-27 has been destroyed or damaged which they cannot afford to lose. The good news for the Ukrainian pilots that flew those birds is that now they cannot be sent on any crazy suicide missions in order to make the government look good.
25. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 10:42 am

    ‘Dr David Berger, aBsuRdiSTe cROnickLeR
    @YouAreLobbyLud
    WOW! Irish hospitals drowning in COVID, no universal masking, but they issue a ‘hospital acquired COVID infections’ leaflet to patients telling them how to try and protect themselves. This is ‘You do you’ gone mad.’

    Not so much ‘You do you’ as ‘You’re On Your Own.’ The later is more accurate.
26. rudi from butte July 3, 2024 at 10:49 am

    The National Weather Service is forecasting Death Valley to hit 130°F (54.4°C) next Monday, which would tie the highest the highest temperature ever reliably recorded on Earth.

    134.1 °F
    The current official highest registered air temperature on Earth is 56.7 °C (134.1 °F), recorded on 10 July 1913 at Furnace Creek Ranch, in Death Valley in the United States.
    1. Verifyfirst July 3, 2024 at 12:12 pm

       yes, but it is a MILD heat…… And it’s not airborne.
       1. juno mas July 3, 2024 at 2:40 pm

          …make that a ‘dry’ heat. BTDT.
    2. johnnyme July 3, 2024 at 4:30 pm

       There is some controversy regarding the reliability of the 56.7C record:

       It is worth repeating, because this is the best argument which demonstrates just how improbable the Death Valley 134F temperature in 1913 was: “Maximum temperatures at desert weather stations during hot and dry summer weather are very predictable.” Freaky, unexplainable temperature patterns do not occur in a well-mixed lower troposphere. The atmosphere obeys the laws of physics and plays by the rules. During the hottest week in July 1913, while the closest neighboring stations had maximums some 3-to-8 degrees (F) above normal, maximums at Greenland Ranch were about 11-to-18 degrees above normal. The maximum temperatures in the region not only suggest, but they all but prove, that the associated airmass during the period could not support the high temperatures that were reported at Greenland Ranch in Death Valley.

       The 54.4C record is this highest undisputed recorded temperature on Earth.
27. ChrisFromGA July 3, 2024 at 10:50 am

    Edifice Wrecks Update: (h.t., Wukchumni)

    Timberrr!

    Delinquency rates of office mortgages backing CMBS spiked to 7.6% in June, according to data by Trepp, which tracks and analyzes CMBS. This was the highest rate since the worst moments of the oil bust that had devastated the Houston office market in 2016. Mortgages are considered delinquent after the 30-day grace period has expired without interest payment.

    Check out Wolf’s wicked cool chart on the first page.
    Once we take out that peak from 2017, it’s nothing but clear air ’til the Financial Crisis high (11%)

    Come on edifice wrecks, you can do it!
28. more news July 3, 2024 at 10:58 am

    Hillary Clinton pranked by Russian pranksters Vovan & Lexus pretending to be Poroshenko.
    https://x.com/simpatico771/status/1808417631445164396
    https://rumble.com/v5557yx-prank-with-hillary-clinton.html
    1. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 11:04 am

       Pretending to be Poroshenko? They do this again and again and again but western leaders keep on falling for it. I think that it was David Cameron that fell for this recently. Don’t they ever learn?
       1. Wukchumni July 3, 2024 at 12:49 pm

          A peck of pickled peppers Peters Piper picked. If Peters Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where’s the peck of pickled peppers of Petro Poroshenko that Peters Piper picked?
29. The Rev Kev July 3, 2024 at 11:00 am

    “U.S. faces aircraft carrier shortage as tensions rise everywhere”

    Probably because the Washington keeps on sending carriers out while forgetting that they need to come to port for maintenance while their crew needs rest and relaxation. The Eisenhower for example has been kept months longer near the Red Sea than it should have been and is overdue to return home. The same happens to other classes of ships as the Navy won’t push back on this but just continue to send out those ships with their tired crews. The ship accidents that we have seen with the US Navy have resulted from this deployment pressure.
    1. juno mas July 3, 2024 at 2:45 pm

       When will the US recognize that aircraft carriers are no longer a viable vector of force projection. They are simply targets for hypers-sonic missiles. If the Houthis can chase them off, imagine what the Russians can do to them.
       1. Paradan July 3, 2024 at 5:37 pm

          Why are the Chinese building so many carriers then?
30. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 11:21 am

    Are the Bidens hanging around to keep Hunter from facing more charges?
    1. Dr. John Carpenter July 3, 2024 at 12:06 pm

       My thought is immunity/protection for Dear Hunter could be a heck of a carrot to get Genocide Joe to do step down.
       1. John k July 3, 2024 at 8:50 pm

          Biden will pardon.
31. Jokerstein July 3, 2024 at 11:42 am

    Re the Congo: “There are approximately 6.5 grammes of cobalt in every cell phone, three pounds in every computer, and thirty pounds in every electric car battery.”

    These figures are BS, and don’t even begin to come close to passing a reality check. Why should anything else in the article be believed without checking?
    1. Catoblepas July 3, 2024 at 12:12 pm

       6.5 grams in a cell phone is a figure from “The One Device: The Secret History of the iPhone”, and the 30 lbs in a car figure can be found in, among other places, IEA: Minerals Used in Electric Cars…. While these figures could be wrong they did not emerge from thin air.
       1. Grebo July 4, 2024 at 1:45 am

          I suppose my phone could be 2% cobalt, but I’m pretty sure my computer is not 66% cobalt.
32. TomW July 3, 2024 at 11:48 am

    Bannon:
    “something that’s different than America First; it’s American Citizens First.
    What does that mean?
    It means Americans have to get a better deal. Right now, the American citizen has all the obligations of serving in the military, of paying taxes, of going through this grind that is American late-stage technofeudal capitalism. But tell me what the bonus is.”

    Should that frighten David Brooks? I have no idea, but it doesn’t sound extreme to me. This isn’t simply a populist thing, it is popular. And has been for a long time. I am personally offended by the excuse that there is any serious technical difficulty in controlling our border.
    Anyone that thinks walls are ineffective needs to visit Istanbul. They kept out barbarian hordes for 1000 years. But you have to be willing to enforce them with state power. We are willing to enforce rules in airports without any hesitation to use any degree of force.

    _____

    Good links today!
33. Sub-Boreal July 3, 2024 at 12:20 pm

    Interesting speculations on outcome of 2nd round of French elections: what next?

    I haven’t seen this reported elsewhere in English media, but apparently a pretty good proportion of centrist 3rd-place finishers in the 1st round have actually dropped out, leaving the runoff to the RN and Popular Front candidates. I’m still pinching myself at the idea that centrists didn’t automatically side with the fascists!

    Local observers, please comment.
34. Kontrary Kansan July 3, 2024 at 12:48 pm

    “The court is designed to stand against everyone and everything except for the Constitution. It was forged for this moment.”

    Jonathan Turley begs the question in hos concluding remarks. Whether SCOTUS is representing the Constitution with its Presidential immunity decision is precisely what is up for debate. Simply asserting otherwise won’t pass muster. Even an attorney should know that.
    1. Carolinian July 3, 2024 at 12:56 pm

       Instead of taking a rhetorical shot at Turley perhaps you should make your case for why the Constitution does not give presidents immunity and then why W. Bush, Obama, Biden should not also be prosecuted.

       The court is merely following precedent. It’s the Dems who want to overturn that precedent. Perhaps they think they will never again lose and turn these prosecutorial powers over to the Repubs? That is how they act.
       1. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 8:26 am

          W. Bush should have been prosecuted and Obama should have been prosecuted for refusing to permit the prosecution of W. Bush.

          Refusal to see that the laws be faithfully enforced does not constitute official repeal of those laws.
          The Supreme Court has decided to retro-justify the allegably illegal actions of W. Bush and B.Obama
          and make such actions legal now under cover of ” Supreme-Court-granted” immunity for breaking international treaties, committing mass war crimes and crimes against humanity, etc. , so long as they are ” carried out as Official Duties of the President” which Bush’s actions were.
35. Carolinian July 3, 2024 at 12:58 pm

    Hedges on Craig Murray’s bid for Parliament

    https://scheerpost.com/2024/07/01/chris-hedges-craig-murrays-campaign-against-empire/
36. Michael McK July 3, 2024 at 1:17 pm

    The only way team D can win is if they draft Sanders and back his program. Sadly, I suspect they actually prefer Trump.
    1. Dr. John Carpenter July 3, 2024 at 2:21 pm

       If this was 2016, yeah. But Sanders barely backs his own program these days. No way he’d make a move against his good friend Joe and of course the Dems would rather fund-raise off Trump.
       1. Michael McK July 3, 2024 at 4:59 pm

          I also suspect most corporate Dems like T’s policies better than any form of mild socialism.
          It is sad even Sanders does not seem to back his former self.
    2. steppenwolf fetchit July 5, 2024 at 8:30 am

       They do prefer Trump to Sanders. Also, Sanders is too nice of a guy to be President or even run for President. He showed that by refusing to back Biden into a mental-compromise-revealing corner in the Sanders-Biden debate. Or for that matter refusing to answer the ” Clinton’s illegal server” question by saying something cold and emotionless like ” I don’t feel qualified to offer an uninformed opinion on something the FBI has not yet had a chance to investigate in patient, thorough and granular detail.”

       He was too nice a guy that time too.
    3. Wukchumni July 5, 2024 at 8:34 am

       If the Donkey Show only had an earnest godcatcher, that dogma might hunt.

       I remember when Sanders got run over by the D bus in South Carolina, and showing an early indications of what a lapdog he was, requested that said bus be put into reverse and run over him again, just to be sure.
37. Mikel July 3, 2024 at 1:34 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq3mRW4xAIo&ab_channel=WayneWard/

    Enjoy!
    1. RookieEMT July 3, 2024 at 1:44 pm

       Am I the only one getting a perverse pleasure watching that lil’ Biden lead on 538 completely reverse?
38. RookieEMT July 3, 2024 at 1:45 pm

    Am I the only one getting a perverse pleasure watching that lil’ Biden lead on 538 completely reverse?
    1. britzklieg July 3, 2024 at 2:45 pm

       stealing from a comment yesterday: Bidenfreude
39. Mattski July 3, 2024 at 1:54 pm

    “Biden blames jet lag and travel for poor debate performance BBC. Lordie. If you are explaining, you are losing. His trips were only to Europe and he had six days to rest, FFS.”

    Plus, as I understand it, this is his job?
40. Kevbot9000 July 3, 2024 at 3:16 pm

    It’s only a small part of Bannon’s interview, but where he talks about West Point circa ’07 and how it’s full of working class kids, having gone to a not West Point Academy (so similar demographics) in that era, working class is not how anyone would describe the cadet population. It mostly looked like that 20% strata that lets a a handful of working class types in but he otherwise defines as the PMC. It’s a small point but it makes me wonder about either his definition of the working class, his exposure to the working class, or his views on what class buzz cuts belong to.
41. Kouros July 3, 2024 at 4:05 pm

    With Bannon’s platform, I wonder how fast rivers will start again catching fire in the US…?
42. Barnes July 3, 2024 at 4:57 pm

    OMG I am slightly aghast for Rick Beato’s “The Real Reason Why Music Is Getting Worse” was in my YT feed a few days back. Now it’s on NC through some random “Micael T”. Not so random after all. Bloody hell!
    1. Trees&Trunks July 4, 2024 at 4:03 am

       Who is stalking who? YT or you or micael t or rick beato or everybody after everybody?
    2. Mikel July 4, 2024 at 9:16 am

       I posted it in comments the day after it was released. Discussing the part of his video where he gets into what convenience does to the appreciation of art…or something of that nature.

Comments are closed.