Slow Going Atmos
BLS Data Slipups Are Becoming a Pattern Bloomberg
The La-La-Land Fairy Tale of a “Soft Landing” Of Two Minds
Inside the ‘golden age’ of alien hunting at the Green Bank Telescope Phys.org
‘Gateway to Hell’: Giant Hole in Siberia Is Expanding Rapidly Science Alert
Climate/Environment
BREAKING: record Arctic temperatures look “like something that shouldn’t be physically possible” as global climate enters a “catastrophic phase” 🧵
— Ben See (@ClimateBen) September 1, 2024
A Storm of Sand: The Powerful Intercontinental Reach of Saharan Dust SciTech Daily
Protecting the Prairie Zero Sum
Pandemics
Mpox cases in Nigeria rise to 48, spread to capital, 20 states Anadolu Agency
How Pakistan’s Peshawar has emerged as mpox ‘epicentre’ Firstpost
The Mpox Global Health Emergency — A Time for Solidarity and Equity New England Journal of Medicine
Bangladesh
The Contest to Shape “Country Platforms” Phenomenal World
PacNet #61 – Rethinking Bangladesh’s arms import strategy: Curbing reliance on China Pacific Forum. Board of Directors.
China?
US Offers to Escort Philippines Ships in South China Sea as Part of New Anti-China Escalation Orinoco Tribune
Blacklisted Huawei posts record profits despite U.S. sanctions — Chinese tech giant raked in $7.7B in net profit in 1H 2024 Tom’s Hardware
China’s air travel shows significant recovery, record high expected this year Channel News Asia
How deeply rooted are China’s economic woes? Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum
European Disunion
East Germany votes for right-wing AfD, against Ukraine war Asia Times
Scholz urges German parties to exclude far right as AfD poised for state election victory The Guardian
Mathew D. Rose – German State elections: a Tectonic Political Shift Brave New Europe
***
Confusion with Italian governing parties position on Ukraine Euractiv
Council of Europe calls on Italy to strengthen anti-corruption measures Jurist News
***
Hungary’s gas deliveries guaranteed for long term, chief diplomat says in St Petersburg bne Intellinews
EU Pro-War Foreign Ministers Take Aim at Hungary in Tense Foreign Council Meeting Hungarian Conservative
Old Blighty
I heard years of Grenfell testimony. Here’s why the disaster could have been prevented BBC. See NC on Grenfell here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Labour chooses austerity: the black hole is an illusion Counterfire
Syraqistan
General strike against Netanyahu begins over hostages, as Israel continues bombing of Gaza The New Arab
Moody’s warns of rating consequences of escalation Globes
US to offer final hostage deal framework, ‘critical days ahead’ officials say Ynet. The deck: “Biden set to offer a ‘take it or leave it’ deal to both sides in final push to secure hostage deal, report says; American officials tell families of hostages with U.S. citizenship that the ball is in Hamas’ court.”
U.S., Israel-Hamas Mediators Have Lost Faith in Netanyahu, PM’s Intentions for Gaza Deal Haaretz
How the U.S. Enabled Netanyahu to Sabotage a Gaza Ceasefire Drop Site
***
The Islamic State Is Trying to Rebound Arab Center Washington DC
US ramps up military reinforcements at its occupation bases in Syria Al Mayadeen
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia attacks Kyiv with missile barrage, says Ukraine Anadolu Agency
Foreign Minister Sikorski says that Poland should down Russian missiles over Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda
F-16 fighter jet in Ukraine unlikely shot down by ‘friendly fire,’ NYT suggests Kyiv Independent
***
INTERACTIVE MAP: HUNDREDS OF KNOWN RUSSIAN MILITARY OBJECTS ARE IN RANGE OF ATACMS Institute for the Study of War
Russia is now weaponising both geography and physics. pic.twitter.com/0mpUOSW5CA
— КАЦ 🇰🇪🇾🇪🇵🇸🍂 (@iFortknox) September 1, 2024
Ukrenergo warns the population to brace for a hard winter bne Intellinews
***
Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is legitimate, says NATO’s Stoltenberg VOA
Kursk Offensive: West Heralds ‘Rebirth’ of Maneuver Warfare Simplicius the Thinker
🧵1/3 🇺🇦Relatives will be held accountable for draft dodgers, – Zelensky’s government.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal presented a list of measures that will be applied not only to draft dodgers, but also to their close relatives (spouses, children, parents, sisters, pic.twitter.com/Z926YtXaWd
— Pete Liquid Питик (@PeteLiquid) September 1, 2024
ANATOL LIEVEN: HOW THE RUSSIAN ESTABLISHMENT REALLY SEES THE WAR ENDING Foreign Policy
The Caucasus
Armenia suspends participation in Russian-led CSTO ‘at all levels,’ Armenian PM says Kyiv Independent
“Sign a peace treaty on already agreed terms”: Pashinyan’s proposal to Baku JAM News
Georgia awaits a historic ruling from the Constitutional Court on the “foreign agents” law JAM News
South of the Border
Honduras Condemns Armed Forces Coup Attempt (+US Extradition Treaty) Orinoco Tribune
2024
Democrats en déshabillé
AOC criticizes Jill Stein on Instagram, saying her Green Party presidential campaigns are “not serious” and “predatory.”
“What does this person do to grow power?” pic.twitter.com/M1wMHDqdtH
— bryan metzger (@metzgov) September 1, 2024
Realignment and Legitimacy
The Constitution Is Sacred. Is It Also Dangerous? New York Times
Our Famously Free Press
Liberalism Removes its Mask Matt Taibbi
Socialists should support Brazil’s Twitter ban Carl Beijer
European Allies Are Doing America’s Dirty Jobs The American Conservative
Gunz
TEXAS IS ARMING MEXICO’S GUNMEN Texas Observer
Police State Watch
TEXAS STATE POLICE GEAR UP FOR MASSIVE EXPANSION OF SURVEILLANCE TECH Texas Observer
AI
Palantir Gets A BUNCH of New Deals Daily Palantir
Microsoft Bing Copilot accuses reporter of crimes he covered The Register
‘A tech firm stole our voices – then cloned and sold them’ BBC
Zuckerberg wants to control the next platform—no matter what it is Diconnect
Intel’s big turnaround plan is now looking very expensive and poorly timed Marketwatch
Intel Rallies On Report Chip Giant Is Exploring Options Including Foundry Split Investor’s Business Daily
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Antitrust
Here’s 22 Examples of Google Employees Trying to Avoid Creating Evidence in Antitrust Case 404 Media
Imperial Collapse Watch
If you must win, you must make your partner country a winner too Gateway House
America isn’t ready for another war — because it doesn’t have the troops Vox
How Lula and Modi drove a splinter through the heart of the BRICS bloc Strategic Culture
Class Warfare
THE CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF U.S. TEACHER STRIKES National Bureau of Economic Research. From the abstract: “…we find that, on average, strikes increase compensation by 8% and lower pupil-teacher ratios by 0.5 students…”
10,000 US hotel workers strike over Labor Day weekend Al Jazeera
The Unsung History of Heartland Socialism In These Times
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
216 comments
Comments are closed.
re: Stealing our voices. I can’t ultimately stop AI from scraping my research from the web. But I can identify YouTubers who have done so (enabling me to reduce my too-large number of channels I subscribe to). I deliberately leave out key aspects of my research. When a YouTube channel reports on something that looks remarkably similar to a blogpost I made in the previous 6 weeks, and I have seen a “weird” uptick in views in that period that cannot be explained by (for example) Lambert giving a shout-out (as he did to something of mine recently, enabling me to gauge exactly what the “NC effect” is) then I get suspicious.
I have no concrete evidence my blog was scraped to produce a YT video. However, my deliberate omissions of the “holes in the theory” to test for “copies” are instructive. The YT video in question never mentioned these “holes” (nor my or my two world-leading contributors) when discussing the topic (it’s electoral reform, if you’re interested).
Suffice to say I’ve unsubsubscribed to that channel. My complaint to YT will inevitably be ignored. The only irony is that I get £80 in royalties per annum for my textbook (yeah write Harry Potter, not “how to understand how humans make choices”)…..which is the exact sum my accountant bills me for doing my tax return HMRC demands (since by once having two sources of income I am – it seems – permanently made to self-declare and the government website sends me into meltdown).
“Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is legitimate, says NATO’s Stoltenberg”
As Alex Christoforou was pointing out, Stoltenberg is way too late to this particular party. If he had said this three weeks ago at the start of the invasion, well, that is just Stoltenberg being Stoltenberg. But now? The Ukraine has lost seven thousand of their best remaining troops. They have lost 73 tanks, 34 infantry fighting vehicles, 62 armored personnel carriers, 432 armored fighting vehicles, and 201 other motor vehicles. Russian forces have also destroyed 45 artillery guns and 13 multiple-launch rocket systems, including four US-provided HIMARS launchers. The eastern front is collapsing at a rapid rate as the troops defending it were sent to Kursk and those formations have been so badly mauled that there may be no point sending them back east. And with all this in mind, Stoltenberg crawls out of the woodwork and says that the Ukraine has a right to defend themselves. To quote Bugs Bunny – ‘What a maroon!’
In the meantime, Stoltenberg’s own country, Norway, has been secretly splurging around USD 400 million on long range US missiles, and other war materiel for its fleet of F35 planes. Norwegian media have been deathly silent about this, and it only emerged via a US DSCA press release. Now what would a peaceloving Norway that has had a peaceful border with Russia for decades, want with such destructive toys?
https://www.dsca.mil/press-media/major-arms-sales/norway-advanced-medium-range-air-air-missiles-extended-range
“Is Norway Next?”
“Fredericksen States Long-Range Nuclear-Capable Missiles Purely Defensive, Lauds Acquisition As Great Deal.”
“Russia Has Right of Self-Defence.”
Possible future headlines
The newly acquired missiles will be used for ground-based air defense in the Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System (NASAMS).
Seems like they are restocking what was sent to Ukraine.
Surely then Mr. Stoltenberg must agree that Hamas incursion into Israel was also perfectly legitimate.
Or, Swedish incursion into Norway…or the German one.
Doltenberg. The perfect useful idiot, the face of the decline of NATO. Considering Swedes’ view of Norwegians, sort of country bumpkins, simpletons, it’s hard to imagine how he convinced Sweden to join NATO while epitomising their views of Norwegian “intellect”.
Come to think of it, our current politicians are a bit like Stoltenberg, a bit forced and unnatural in behaviour and speech. And I don’t think they tell a lot of Norwegian jokes. So they probably get along well with him.
Huawei and record profits: maybe every company should ask to be sanctioned by the USA?
It’s working for Russia also. More sanctions, more prosperity!
Shhh…that’s classified Russian intelligence information you’re talking about.
Well, one third of the world is under US sanctions right now so that must mean a lot of companies-
https://thecradle.co/articles/one-third-of-the-world-under-us-sanctions-report
Meanwhile that reliable moron Noah Smith prattles on that this “actually” doesn’t equate to success on the part of Huawei. He’s fooling nobody …
Re Labour & Austerity. Wow, I knew Starmer was leading us down a dead end but even I didn’t think he’d announce it within a couple of months of getting elected!
I’ve lost quite a few friends by not signing up to the “New Labour Project” which is now firmly back in control: see this.
We can’t even call ourselves a banana republic with nukes because we have no bananas and (allegedly) most of our nukes don’t work.
Will Starmer keep spending on default Ukraine while letting Britons on the cold?
If he does then Farage will be PM in 2029. A speculation I get laughed at but which is looking more and more likely as each day unfurls.
My favourite bit of trivia is that the “renowned” satirical show “Have I Got News For You” (HIGNFY – BBC) chased viewers for years by having a certain Boris Johnson as a panellist. Then had the gonads to do a “Boris is deposed” special one-off edition. Now they’ve been getting Farage on. FFS.
Ian Hislop and Paul Merton are, in my opinion, in it for themselves and have precisely zero interest in the public good which at least one of them profess to espouse. *Cough*MMR fiasco*cough*
Thank you, Terry.
It’s not just HIGNFY. Not long after Sunak took over, a hearing was held in Parliament to discuss standards in public life. Hislop was invited to address and had the nerve to slag off Johnson. Had it not been for Hislop, Johnson would just have been another Tory MP.
Hislop was educated at Ardingly, a private school in Sussex, and Oxford. The Johnsons are his crowd. He’s just pretending on screen. One hopes JohnA pipes up as he and I have exchanged comments about the shyster Hislop.
I agree with you about Farage or a more presentable Tory in 2029, if not a year earlier. The leaderless Tories are on 26% and Labour 30% at the moment.
Thanks Colonel. You know what makes me most scared? That my nightmares about this country are all too predictable by certain people like you, who “know the insides”.
I got very very suspicious of Private Eye during the MMR stuff (because, although a non-clinician, I knew how to read the literature and science etc) and I began to suspect there was an agenda. Now I won’t listen to a single word Hislop or his pet Medic will say.
History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme. I’m looking at 1990s Canada. Reform rhymes with….Reform! This won’t end well.
Thank you, Terry.
If readers and you would like to know how bad the elite is, search online for “paste bin” and “George Osborne”. This is just a snapshot. Enjoy.
Hi Colonel, and lest we forget, Hislop’s wife, another Oxford grad, has made a fortune churning out bestselling fiction set on Greek islands. Private Eye is as establishment protecting as it comes.
Thank you, John.
I wasn’t aware of Hislop’s wife, so thank you.
Gasp! So now I have to get over the trauma of discovering that it was Suede Corner all along! Where is the fainting couch?
Stay safe over there.
I’m afraid that Starmer and the people he is working for will make sure that anybody who breathes even a hint of dissent against the ruling oligarchs, including Farage, will at best be discredited through skullduggery, and more likely will be jailed or worse before 2029.
The forces of totalitarianism, once clothed in neoliberalism, are now showing their true faces. They must feel they are unassailable. And I fear they are right.
Israel seems to be the test bed. What can the monsters behind western governments get away with? And the answer seems to be, so far in Israel, whatever they like. No matter how many mothers, children, doctors, journalists they slaughter, the oligarchs just keep sending them more weapons.
The guys at The Duran were discussing how Starmer is destroying the UK economy while arresting anybody that looks sideways at him and his beliefs. His popularity as it was is already circling the toilet-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj0GyYwd7Jo (16:03 mins)
The guy might end up with the nickname Stasi Starmer before long. Might be time to reactivate Radio Caroline as a political news broadcaster and take it back out to sea-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Caroline
On days like these I’m tempted to use my Aussie passport and move back down under.
Then I see that at the coldest of winter, there are parts of Australia that are usually 6 degrees but which now are over 30 degrees celcius.
We’re shafted and you’re cooked. Choose your poison.
Three weeks ago we had a cold snap here and I was rugged up in tracks pants and even a winter dressing gown. The past coupla days it’s been so hot I could sit around just wearing a pair of shorts. And it is only the second day of spring. Go figure
Yep. It’s all in the variance, not the mean. As we in Europe will soon learn.
Having a high mean to start with will make things doubly bad down under, unless the Antarctic winds save you.
Best place to live is probably somewhere in Tasmania.
Yeah, nah! In today’s news-
https://pulsetasmania.com.au/news/150km-h-winds-37000-without-power-as-severe-weather-lashes-tasmania/
And re your idea that Farage might be the PM in 2029. That is the estimation of the guys at The Duran so you are in good company.
I watch V for Vendetta increasingly not for fun but as prediction of where we’re going.
Older family members are glued to GB News. We had extended family week away. There were *issues* over the dining room telly during breakfast.
Suffice to say my sister and I have agreed we will NEVER go on extended family holiday again. Just like they say in USA: don’t discuss politics or religion over thanksgiving.
Well, not until you put away the knives after dinner first.
Haha! We had a swimming pool at our place…. Plausible deniability ;)
FAO GCHQ/FBI etc. That was a JOKE!
Hey now. Here down in the North American Deep South the phrase “Fork you!” is not just a euphemism. The general perception that Southron Deplorables eat with their fingers is a base canard. We are well acquainted with dual use edged and point weapons, such as knives, forks, and the dreaded sharpened spoons.
I’ve been looking into a move into the country for the extended family: kids and grandkids. I’ve tried moving abroad during the Bush years and found the bureaucratic burden and inherent uncertainty of dealing with immigration authorities to be a major drag. On top of that, most of what I don’t like about American culture has imprinted itself abroad, at least in Europe, so I’m inclined to stay put in the USA.
My initial investigation was into some rural areas not far from Cleveland where there were substantial populations of Amish and Mennonites who know how to live without electricity and gasoline (even if they are all pedos). That turned out to be a bust because those technology resisters unfortunately settled on land with lots of frackable gas underneath them. It’s ruining their underground and surface water sources because of the “drill, baby, drill” attitude of our state and federal authorities. So I began to make a list of things I wouldn’t want my grandchildren to grow up near. Here’s where I’m at so far:
1) within 100 miles of a nuke plant;
2) on top of any frackable geological formations, lithium deposits, or uranium ore;
3) within 5 miles of any hog or chicken “farm;”
4) within 5 miles of any freight carrying railroad;
5) in the midst of any forest;
6) within 50 miles of the track of any eye of a hurricane in the last 10 years;
7) in any 100 year flood plain;
8) anywhere south of the 37th parallel because of heat and the incursion of new, nasty insect borne diseases like Zika that are moving north;
9) places with steep slopes that exacerbate flash flooding;
10) places where the Dallas Cowboys are the favorite sports team (sorry, amfortas).
There would be more I’d like to add, like no tornadoes in last ten years, but I think my list of 10 already eliminates about 99% of the continental U. S. No wonder the billionaires who produced all these risks with their obsessive lust for profits are limited to New Zealand and Mars in their quest for safety.
Northern Island of NZ is pretty variable so is difficult to get “definitively safe spot”.
South Island is complete earthquake territory. I am puzzled as to the attraction of NZ. My (admittedly UK biased) guide suggests somewhere like Jersey or Guernsey. Or the island those rich owners of the Telegraph newspapers have had.
Good for tax. :-)
Jersey requires “qualies”, you need a Jersey passport or serious savings (£10m+) to obtain one.
Guernsey has a dual market. Guernsey residents can buy on the closed market if they sell on the closed market. Open market properties are a multiple (2? 3?) as expensive but no dearer than choice southern England (Devon, Cornwall etc).
Sark (part of Guernsey but self governing) has no taxes, no housing rules and no modernity (horses and carts only, sailing harbour too small for most motor vessels, no health service, well water, septic tank drainage, diesel generator / solar electricity, organic farming). It’s essential already the Jackpot. It’s a good place to get in practice for the real thing….
Unfortunately, all within sight if Cap la Hague nuclear reprocessing and power(?) plants on French Cotentin peninsula.
PS Sark was the island the Barclay brothers, owners of the Telegraph passim., tried to take over. They bought an even smaller island off Sark (an island off an island off an island of an island!) Called Brecqhou, and proceeded to sue the Seigneur of Sark, their feudal overlord, in the ECHR, for infringing their rights. Sark has had to adopt separation of powers (!), reform.the franchise (away from 40 properties with voting rights to universal suffrage etc) and the seigneur has accepted parliamentary supremacy of the Chief Pleas. A sad day for feudalists everywhere.
The Barclays also bought most of the businesses on Sark. Then, when they lost their fight with the Seigneur, shut them in puque. Now they have gone bust. The island is holding its breath to see what happens. Unfortunately in the interim a lot of libertarian tech bros have moved onto the island instead. The great wheel of life…..
WTAF is the only response to that! Thanks!
A pretty concise explanation of what can go wrong when economic power is concentrated in too few hands, or clans.
Hi Ambrit,
Sark is more a textbook case of not allowing the neoliberals into a feudal society. It literally all worked fine until the Barclay’s showed up with their money and their cash nexus….
It is hard to know where to start when describing the Barclays. Identical twins who live together with their families. The house they built (Scots baronial castle McMansion, 700 miles too south off the coast of France). The family feuds (£100m in contempt of court on divorce settlement, buggjng the conversation of other family members over selling the Ritz). The petty behaviour towards Sark. The media interests and corporate raiding and Tory support.
They would not be believable as characters in a Victorian melodrama!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_and_Frederick_Barclay
That is a very extensive list of requirements. In the past 8 or so years I’ve become quite happily contented with living in the upstate region of South Carolina; Greenville , Spartanburg, Anderson..which has seen pretty good economic growth and a growing influx of residents. Yeah it’s pretty warm in July to August…but generally the winters are mild comparatively speaking.
Alas we have gotten tornado warnings quite often, and Hurricane Michael ripped things pretty good back in 2017. Favorite nearby sports teams, best and easy guess it’s either Clemson or South Carolina.
Problem easily solve with QGIS (free source). A multilayered intersection for exclusion.
You need to add availability of water for the long run… (so exclude everything above Oghallalla Aquifer for instance).
Very true. I’d only been thinking about water quality, not the reliability of the quantity.
Thank you, Terry.
My parents and I are contemplating going to Mauritius. Some racist attacks in mid Buckinghamshire have spooked my parents. My parents, who will be 80 in November, came here 60 years ago. I was born and raised here.
A friend, ex US Fed and Bank of England, is contemplating what Yves has done. Said friend came to London around 1990.
So sorry to hear that. General “anti-social” behaviour is definitely on the rise. One of the reasons I refuse to be carer to mum on weekends (i.e. do the shopping with her) is that “apparent middle class” people in Sainsburys will “accidentally on purpose” hit me with a shopping trolley – almost certainly because I wear a mask. (Believe me I’ve watched and counted.)
These people are scum. I’m glad I’m gay and don’t give a family blog about the next generation because where I live, in a supposed “nicer” part of the doughnut surrounding Nottingham, there are fewer than 5% of people who are actually worth saving.
Mum likes our new Labour MP because he’s “a nice gay man”. I struggle to get through to her concepts like “Hitler was a vegetarian”. The guy either gets MMT (in which case he’s a liar and hypocrite for supporting the Party line on funding) or he doesn’t (in which case he should have stuck to his position as leader of local council as he is too THICK to be an MP). I’m glad I did as Jonathan Pie suggested and drew a big spaffing cock across my ballot on 4th July. And yeah, I’m angry. Every Brit should be. We are demonstrably a failed state.
Thank you, Terry.
I’m sorry to hear about your circumstances, too.
Please have a look at Richard Murphy’s posts today and what I have written BTL. It speaks to what you conclude.
Thanks. My Long COVID is setting in rapidly today so I can’t see a BTL person that I can link to you in his last 3 posts. But thanks for the thought.
I myself made a substack to attempt to explain why the “Aussie voting solution of AV” is flawed both mathematically and in practice. Quite a few people reading it (which makes a change given that I talk gobbledegook to the average person!).
I thought it was fascinating, and an unexpected result. thanks for it.
A read many years ago the Jenkins report and it seemed to me of trying to pull bunnies from a hat. I haven’t worked the mathe properly, not because it is hard, but because it was on my own time and got bored.
What elective system would you endorse?
I ultimately decided for good old sortition, for two principal reasons: it is the only one truly democratic (election of reps via competition can be described as an upshot of an aristocratic approach to things), and it matches the sexual reproduction, one of the basic inventions of life, where the gamets of the two sexes before being formed get the genetic maternal and paternal mixed up randomly and thrown into the world to create the widest spread, and maximizing chances of survival for the next generation in an ever changing environment.
Sortition likely worked in human communities for many thousands of years and life persisted for billions of years. Thus, the fundamentals are right.
What say you?
It worked for the dinosaurs for many years. Until it didn’t.
I’m actually for sortition, for your first reason, but the second seems to me to be mixing up unrelated things.
Sortition has the advantage of inducing a sense of responsibility in the “winner,” rather than a sense of entitlement or mandate.
Bingo!
I don’t have a one size fits all solution. Each country must decide which principle they are willing to compromise on, then the “best” voting system is relatively obvious.
Generally I like the idea of two chambers, one being heavily proportional whilst the second acting as a check/balance by being less obviously democratic and more “drawing on expertise” to stop populism.
I believe Hitler was a vegetarian for health reasons, not ethical. He also wasnt really a vegetarian as he ate copious amounts–to the point of being unhealthy–animal organs.
Why “before long”? Just start calling him that, and see if others join in.
I call him Herr Starmer (pronounce the ‘S’ as an “sh” for extra fun).
Sarah Wilkinson details her arrest, the ransacking of her apartment, confiscation of personal items including cash and passport (neither of which were listed by the authorities as having been taken). They are demanding she turn in her passport but she can not because they took it w/o accounting for doing so, which puts her in jeopardy of not complying with an order which she can not comply with. All in all it was, if described accurately, a horrific display of malicious autoritarianism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjwycG_9Ujo
ufb. Führer Starmer
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the terror squad which brutalized Sarah was initiated and led by Mossad agents. It seems to be the way of things as the UK sinks lower than a snake’s belly.
Indeed. Balaclavas? Why?
What would happen if all the Leftists driven into exile from the Labor Party were to create a party of their own? They could call it Old Labor, or Labor In Exile or some such thing.
Labor in Exile?? Bad acronym….
How about Old Labor Out Of Power? Better acronym?
Or Labor In The Wilderness? At least not as bad?
And Labour have even had the gall to claim Mr Market would have crashed the british economy if they handn’t terminated the cold weather payment to pensioners!
To Ignacio, the payments to Ukraine will continue for sure. for as long as it takes in Starmerspeak. Uber zionist Starmer also lamented the death of the 6 Israeli hostages, while never mentioning the tens, if not now hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of all ages. He is a bigger fraud than Blair.
Terry Flynn: (allegedly) most of our nukes don’t work.
Interestingly, it’s specifically the Trident ballistic missile component supplied by the US that’s failed major launch tests twice now.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/europe/trident-missile-uk-failure-intl/index.html
…the submarine crew completed the drill perfectly using a dummy warhead. The Trident 2 missile and dummy warhead were propelled into the air but the first-stage boosters of the missile did not ignite and it subsequently sank into the ocean.
The fault was specific to the test kit and that the launch would have likely been successful if it had occurred out on a patrol, using a real nuclear warhead, according to the source.
The Ministry of Defense confirmed that UK Minister of Defense Grant Shapps was on board the HMS Vanguard at the time of the test anomaly. The First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key was also on board.
Shapps said in a statement released Wednesday that the test anomaly has “no implications for the reliability of the wider Trident missile systems and stockpiles ….”
“No implications” despite two failures in a row. Lolz.
Wow. I admit I posted based on vague recollection but that’s the real deal.
In keeping with the US holiday spirit, “yes we have no bananas”. I have no idea why I know that phrase from a 60s England … But looking it up, I get this.
https://youtu.be/dOrGCdUsFfM?si=S6Z5sKqRNmiekoQQ
“‘A tech firm stole our voices – then cloned and sold them”
Isn’t it remarkable how all this high tech industry that we are supposed to be impressed by in the end relies on theft, fraud and false pretenses to work at all. They don’t have to do it this way but they do it anyway rather than obey the law by paying proper compensation which for them would amount to a rounding errors in their accounts book. The makers of the game Fortnite also indulge in this form of pirating by copying dances of real people and then have their characters in the game performing them too.
Hey, the bearded one called that the “primitive accumulation of capital”!
Edward Teach would have been very interested to learn that term. Haaarrr! :)
> They don’t have to do it this way . . .
Yes they do, otherwise where would their stupendous profits and stawk prices come from?
🧵1/3 🇺🇦Relatives will be held accountable for draft dodgers, – Zelensky’s government.
There is nothing more indicative of an emerging liberal democracy than the adoption of collective punishment. /sarc
It is actually highly ominous. See my comment yesterday.
Just posted my comment and then saw yours appear with the same thought. Only, I am not so charitable. I would not say ‘It looks as if the Ukrainians really cannot help it’ so much as ‘It looks as if the Ukrainians really cannot help themselves.’ Will they string up deserters to lamp posts like the Nazis did in WW2 as an example to the troops?
Thank you.
Two week-ends ago, my parents and I were in Deauville for the races and noted the number of Ukrainians and Israelis enjoying themselves at the seaside, including at the races. My former RAF officer dad added how many of the men looked of military age.
One hopes Paul Greenwood pipes up from Germany as he has made similar observations there. @ Paul: Dad’s younger sister lives and teaches near Dusseldorf and made similar observations, but added that many are Russians, not Ukrainians, but from Ukraine. That echoes what mum has observed in the Thames valley.
I remember the Poll Tax riot in London. I thought “yeah we still know how to do a Peterloo!” & “this will defeat you definitively you Grantham piece of scum” (and my family knew her…. And her father….. Rather too well)…
Now there are riots over the wrong things and otherwise crickets chirping. What has happened to this country? Have we collectively just decided to give up?
For those who missed the reference a few years ago, my paternal grandmother was a member of the “other” Roberts family in Grantham, UK. I am convinced that her brother did all his ancestry investigations to ensure that his family had NO connection to Alderman Roberts of Grantham (father of the woman whose painting was recently disposed of).
He proved “our” Roberts family had no link to “theirs” as far back as 1600. (Phew). Random aside: my great grandfather Roberts was reportedly the sweetest gentlest man ever (I only knew his wife – my great grandmother). But he had one iron rule. NO child of his was to go to Alderman’s shop unless he was with them. I draw absolutely no conclusions….particularly under our new government.
Somebody will have to take charge of Ukraine/Israel after the wars are over, nein?!
To my regret, my attempts at sarcasm are frequently unsuccessful.
No, they’ll use shrinkwrap. They think it’s hilarious.
https://observers.france24.com/en/europe/20220404-ukraine-poles-public-humiliation-punishment-looting
Once again, I had to use Yandex search to find anything about this. Google gave me a site calling it “Russian propaganda” in the lede…but that actually confirms that it happened!
https://romea.cz/en/world/russia-distorting-photos-for-propaganda-purposes-roma-nonprofits-alert-ukrainian-authorities
So, since now own one can be held responsible, not just for ones acts and misfortunes, but all of everyone of the relatives? Even if this is limited to conscription, it is quite a step towards fascism.
It’s just the Ukrainians taking inspiration from their ideological predecessors. Nothing like a bit of Sippenhaft to get the troops motivated again-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sippenhaft
Neither this tweet nor others repeating the material cite, refer, or even allude to a text, speech, or video from Shmyhal. I can find no corroboration to suggest Shmyhal has spoken of or hinted at such measures.
wow
It is shocking to see how far AOC has fallen. I wonder if when she reviews her diatribe in that video, she will feel as embarrassed as she should. She comes off as a clueless, entitled moron.
She should know better than to criticize ANYONE… for “not doing something”.
Here was this person who had the personality to make waves… and ended up with a seat in congress…. but then what a fizzle. It is monumental how far she has fallen. What has she done?… standing up for defenseless people/women/children being slaughtered in an open air prison…. nope… just the opposite.
has she told a foreign apartheid state that it is not allowed to interfere with the rights of Americans’ freedom of speech; as was promised to them by the bill of rights. NOPE….
Has she spoken out about the enfeebled president…(before it hit the fan).you know…. the guy who is “the head of the party”….. NOPE…
Has she spoken about the abuses of international law, by neo-fascists and neoconservatives in their ill fated proxy war in Ukraine. NOPE…. she just figured … well what did she figure?
She has proven to be a hack. She has proven herself to be the scum of Washington. part of the get along gang. Her position is to be completely useless… and look good while doing it.
So , she shouldn’t wave her pretty finger at anyone who is actually trying to help the situation. She isn’t. She is a fraud.
That rant was really dumb. But since she’s only been in office five years or so, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt that she was too young to remember Obama’s eight year long epic fail at “growing the party” Even National Propaganda Radio had to admit it – https://www.npr.org/2016/03/04/469052020/the-democratic-party-got-crushed-during-the-obama-presidency-heres-why But that was SO long ago, maybe AOC doesn’t even know who he is!
The Green party doesn’t spend bags of cash every election cycle trying to remove other candidates from the ballot, as the Democrat party does to them. Perhaps if they put their efforts into providing concrete material benefits rather than hippie punching, people wouldn’t see Donald Trump as a viable alternative to their disastrous Republican-lite politics.
When AOC came to Congress, she embraced Nancy Pelosi as her “Mama Bear” mentor. It seems she has learned her lessons well. Perhaps she, too, will be Speaker someday, if there is still a House to be Speaker of.
She actually protested Pelosi’s office in 2018.
Ocasio-Cortez Joins Protesters at Pelosi’s Office
That was just after she got to congress. It was about climate change.
During the pandemic in 2020 there were people asking for medicare for all, which turned into the “force the vote” thing. The plan was to force a vote for M4ALL by withholding their vote for Speaker (Pelosi) until they brought that to the floor.
AOC didn’t play along. I don’t know if this would have worked, but I thought at the time it was a good idea. I mean, medicare for all in the middle of an unknown pandemic doesn’t sound crazy to me. At least force a vote and see how they vote. Good thing to know? I would think so.
No matter, the rest is history and AOC is a Pelosi clone in waiting it appears. She must have gotten an offer she can’t refuse.
Five years of earning a steady Congress-critters salary (and support staff) will make a bar maid out of you! Let’s see what her constituents think next election.
Screwball, I was referring to AOC’s appearance on The View in Feb 2020, wherein Whoopi Goldberg took AOC to task for being insufficiently respectful towards Pelosi and Feinstein. It was pretty clear from her response that AOC had “fallen in line” like the good Democrat that she is. She will continue “fighting for” all sorts of progressive policies, but forcing a vote would be embarrassing for The Party.
Thank you, no worries. I was agreeing with you and didn’t do a very good job of saying so. :-)
How often do we see a new hope, they do some things to get you on board, then pull a Lucy and the football?
Nothing changes. Ever.
AOC claims that Stein has done nothing between elections. Here is Stein on the Ukraine war, in 2022. (It would only have taken AOC a few seconds on Yandex to find it).
Fallen? Nah. This is who she is. The progressive cosplay was the fake.
I will say this about her tweet: I have been on record as to sitting out this presidential election and not voting. I now know I was lying, and I will be voting for Ms Stein. Thanks AOC.
C’mon man. She did show so much courage and bravery wearing that dress at the Met Gala… Fraud is being polite.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/14/aoc-defends-tax-the-rich-dress-met-gala
re: AOC
Thanks for the post and replies on AOC.
A separate minor analysis of this matter could be interesting.
Is anything in her comment justified? (probably not from what I gather here).
Why does she do it (“predatory”?!) WOW. What a choice of words.
Would she be doing this if there was real trust in candidate Harris?
If RFK hadn´t joined Trump?
As someone from the Stone Age I am surprised to see these officials put out such disrespectful, teenage-like video messages.
It´s embarassing and revealing. Better not say anything. Because in the end it comes across as a pretty desparate move.
Cause, why else care if that party of Stein´s is in fact so freakin´ small and insignificant due to Stein´s alleged incompetence/lack of leadership?
p.s. I am German. Come and visit me in Nürnberg. There you find the Nazi Party Rally Grounds, it was over 10 square kilometres huge. Leni Riefenstahl shot some of her “leadership” footage there. We can still teach you something about leadership…
p.p.s. Wonder what “The Squad”-author Ryan Grim would say about this AOC thig.
Re: Climate/Environment–
Interesting article at Resilience.org that traces the rise of consumer culture through Bernays and Lippmann. As a teaser, here’s a quote from the article that comes from a 20th century American economist, Victor Lebow:
We’ve been trained to overconsume and to find “our spiritual satisfaction and our ego satisfaction in consumption. Or as Jackson Browne put it:
“The Pretender” Jackson Browne
As the article notes, this drive to buy and throw away is not born out of basic human needs or drives. It is a Bernays-constructed distraction so that the powerful can run things as they like while we scramble to buy the latest giant pickup or smart phone.
From the immortal words of President Bush #43, just mere weeks after 9/11…” Our economy is strong and open for business “. Not quite on the upper level of Presidential idiocy* spoken to the masses, but it’s memorable to me for a few varied reasons. Count me in as a highly cynical , mostly careful American consumer when it gets around to eventual replacement of the trusty 2008 Honda, or the simple need to finally get a coffee making machine since the old reliable Mr Coffee bit the dust at last.
With all due respect to his very classic, succinct speech in Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin in the film could update for the 2020s… Always Be Consuming…Always…
*Presidential idiocy or statements of finality or conclusion where the statements did not age well. Bonus points it’s an equal opportunity sport.
Given the massive growth in the “market” of rental-storage facilities,” maybe people are not just uncluttering into landfills and Goodwill and Salvation Army dumps, but “setting aside for future use.”
I’m thinking of one episode of one series where foreclosed storage units get auctioned off. The successful bidder acquired about 300 small and large firearms, multiple sets of body armor, sniper tools and other high-end optics, multiple full-auto weapons like M-60s, converted AKs and ARs, a German MG-42, literally thousands of loaded 30-round AK and AR magazines, crates of 7.62, .308, 5.56, 50-cal, 40mm grenade rounds and Wait! Here’s four more large gun safes, with even more treasure, altogether way more stuff than was in the armory of my unit in Vietnam. Oh, and a giant plasma big screen TV and a ton of VCR tapes, and a couple of moldy mattresses.
The successful bidder thought he’d died and gone to Heaven.
Multiply by millions, most containing more prosaic junk and mementos. America’s attics, indeed.
“But what does it mean?”
I have kept goods in storage for the last many years. I used to live in a house with my wife and children. My wife divorced me and we sold the house. I ended up with more stuff than I could fit into the apartment I could afford after paying child support. The stuff I have in storage includes my library, bookcases disassembled into boards and metal supports, cooking utensils and most of my dishes. The stuff I have in storage includes photos and artwork, and the single piece of furniture I kept from my house, a rocking chair. Everything else that I own folds or disassembles to portable pieces. I have moved three times in the last decade. I moved after my children completed high school and again after the place I moved to was sold to a real estate investment company in Brooklyn. They immediately raised the rent and found ways to shift costs the previous private landlord had paid in accord with our lease agreement with him. I moved my stuff into storage. I moved to another apartment out of state and moved my stuff to a new storage unit closer to my new apartment. I have recently been informed that the landlord who owns my current residence is anxious to sell the four-plex where I rent. He is raising the rents and put the four-plex on the market. Meanwhile, my daughter who lives in Brooklyn has been informed that her landlord is raising the rent and putting the apartment complex where she lives onto the market. I have offered to help her keep her stuff in storage when she has to move. I am storing no guns, ammo, or more sophisticated weapons. I am storing the goods and things that I am unwilling to throw or give away, goods I could never replace, like my books and the art I have collected.
What my storage use means is that I once lived in more space and through a series of moves I keep moving to smaller and smaller living spaces. I believe part of the pattern of storage use reflects the way the u.s. real estate market is turning many of us into gypsies and the less fortunate into homeless. I am surprised that so much weaponry was obtained from the auction of storage contents. Most of the stuff I have seen people move into storage matches the kind of stuff I have tried to keep. However, I have heard that the ground floors of the more expensive climate controlled storage contain a fair number of collector’s cars. I cannot imagine how anyone would let the armory you described become lost to an auction of storage contents. Where I live, stuff like that is what people invest in and trade instead of stocks and bonds.
There is this movie “The Man from Earth” with a guy that lived for over 30,000 years.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/
Nothing to show for and he explains it why. Kind of liberating…
What you may discover is that the “space” to eliminate the need for storage is very elusive. BTDT.
Yeah. So after my divorce I moved into an RV and all the rest like books, sports equipment etc. went into a storage space. The reality is that I rarely open it up. But your theory is pretty good….with time we move into more constrained living spaces as economic times worsen.
Thanks for the article HMP. This is one of my favorite wheelhouses.
My cynical opinion is that we are fire-garbage chimps that through evolution have been selected to more efficiently consume, burn, and discard. Although it destroys the natural environment it dramatically increases both individual and species-level fitness, allowing for accelerating reproduction. Fossil hydrocarbons being the physical manifestation of our memetic desire – something we can’t help but drill, baby, drill.
Bernays et al just had the genius to observe this natural tendency and reinforce (exploit) it.
“About 70% of monthly payments on large SUVs like the Tahoe are at least $1,000, and for large trucks such as a Sierra, that share is over 40%, said Joseph Yoon, a consumer-insights analyst at Edmunds.”
How often does one see the big, if not massive, shiny, new (at least new-looking) pickup sitting in front of an abode that most of us would be reluctant to put our pets in? And not infrequently more than one such vehicle. Granted, such a vehicle is almost always necessary for the owner to do his or her work. Sarc….
About 70% of monthly payments on large SUVs like the Tahoe are at least $1,000, and for large trucks such as a Sierra, that share is over 40%, said Joseph Yoon, a consumer-insights analyst at Edmunds.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/a-1-400-suv-payment-a-1-600-truck-payment-sounds-absurd-but-its-becoming-more-common-7dd92b39
How often does one see the big, if not massive, shiny, new (at least new-looking) pickup sitting in front of an abode that most of us would be reluctant to put our pets in? And not infrequently more than one such vehicle. Granted, such a vehicle is almost always necessary for the owner to do his or her work. Sarc….
I am reluctant to judge folks on their choices of cars/houses without knowing their complete history. Perhaps a shiny massive vehicle is the highest possible consumption ‘achievement’ to them? Many live in crap houses because that is the only choice. Not all folks can ‘achieve’ a home nice enough for everybody’s pet even with hard working room mates……
Back in the 40s and 50s (of the previous century), my parents would sometimes sneer at the sight of big, fancy cars parked outside of small weather-beaten houses. It was a common attitude at the time. What few people paused to realize is that these were Black neighborhoods, where red-lining prevented the inhabitants from moving to better housing but not from spending their money on cars.
I should add, plenty of people realized that these were Black neighborhoods and sneered at “those people” who just didn’t know any better — and had a liking for flashy cars.
I sometimes wonder if the whole “déplorables” theme hasn’t just migrated from the no longer socially acceptable disdain for poor Blacks over to those who can more or less safely be classified as “trash,” as they don’t “share our values”.
Monster trucks are a serious threat to pedestrians, cyclists and small cars. Yesterday in a rain, we were crossing the street and one of these monsters roared out of a parking spot and passed by very close; my chin was at the level of the hood. How can the driver see anything 10 feet in front of the truck? Such large vehicles have virtually no utility except for a very few tradesmen. This says nothing about climate impacts. I judge owners of monster trucks as “guilty”.
The Resilience article referencing Bernays is getting at what made me hope Michael Hudson would comment on the role of advertising in the comments on his debt posting the other day. One thought experiment I have is: what would happen to the economy if there was no advertising? If, instead, there was a publicly funded search engine that allowed you to discover information about products and services available in your local area (and beyond, if desired), but that ruled out any pushing of such information on you. Would the economy collapse? What parts of the current economy would immediately become non-viable in such a reality and what parts would still be able to be healthy? Would debt be as big a factor in the economy or would it decrease for both individuals and businesses?
I think the course of action the government took regarding the internet in the Clinton years has massively accelerated the contradictions and traps in the economic system. What if the US Postal Service had provided an email box for every citizen? What if the government had taken Alta Vista or some other early search engine and made it a public, tax-supported good with no advertising or information harvesting? Obviously these questions assume a more benign government than what we’ve had (since World War II ended, at least). In the early 1990s, the attraction of the internet was that it was not television and might be something much better than what television quickly became. Now the internet has taken the worst of television and multiplied it. It would almost be better for human civilization if the internet came to an end ASAP.
Jaspers – The Santaroga Barrier…
File one under Class Warfare I suppose, or when the going gets tough the tough just pack up their belongings and file for chapter 11. Or for a further analogy, in the immortal yet fictional words of Michael Scott from The Office…” I declare bankruptcy!”
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/01/restaurant-chains-that-filed-for-bankruptcy-this-year.html
Clearly the Red Lobster might be the largest or well known of these chains which have filed, thus far in 2024. Doesn’t stop some locations from staying open, if foot traffic stays high. I think the last visit I made to a Red Lobster was in 2015 or 2016.
If the big chains start failing, I wonder if that will open up space for new, local restaurants catering to local tastes.
It certainly has here: from white working to middle class to mixed ethnic working class (due to white flight to suburbs) we’ve gone from corporate restaurants to local multi ethnic establishments. Red Lobster, don’t let the door hit you on the way out!
I have noticed that the more touristy a town etc is, the more franchise eating establishments the town has. Anecdotal for sure. Has anyone else noticed this?
Not in Coastal Maine, but that is because tourist season is too short and many visitors come for fresh fish and lobsters.
Maybe just as troubling from that article (bold mine);
Too bad those poor sots can’t include their student loans in the bankruptcy.
Thanks Joey!
As Professor Hudson says, debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid.
Or as my grandpappy used to say, “You can’t get blood out of a turnip.” And he knew whereof he spoke. It seemed to me that my grandma used to cook those foul-smelling turnips about once a week.
“Zuckerberg wants to control the next platform—no matter what it is’
You don’t suppose that Big Zuck is hoping that Telegraph will be seized and handed over to him by any chance? Washington and Brussels would know that if Big Zuck got his grubby mitts on it, that it would be in “safe” hands – for them.
I think he probably wants Telegram but he could get the Daily Telegraph as a job lot. :-)
Apparently foreign press owners are now unacceptable in the UK (despite Lord Lebedev owning the Evening Standard and hiring George Osborn) so a Gulf Sheikh was refused permission to acquire it but maybe there is an exception for Zuck?
Simplicius picked a terrible post to try to grow paid subscribers. I read a lot of his stuff but throwing around the Kagans!
The last thing in this imperfect world I want to do is wade through the agitprop spewing from the Nuland-Kagan kitchen table (aka ISW). Correlation is not causation but US has lost a lot of wars since a certain family held teaching positions at West Point.
NATO planners have no idea of maneuver warfare!
NATO’s Kursk excursion looks more like the US 1st Armored Division at Faid Pass in the opening engagement of the embarrassment at Kasserine Pass.
I hate to be unkind to the antidote for today, but instead of a three toed sloth I get some very odd Morlock vibes from the animal’s eyes…oh no don’t eat that young Eloi Mr sloth! Sorry if the \sarc does not convey well…
Morlocks and Eloi, gets me considering just what an HG Wells or a comparable author of his era would write about today if they were living.
I remember reading once that the three toed sloth was supposed to be the kinder gentler sloth.
The two toed sloth was supposed to be the angrier one, more liable to scratch and bite.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrFAD5bEdZmfSoCm7tXNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=two+toed+sloth+image&fr=sfp
The “Confusion” with Italian Governing Parties and Project Ukraine.
I am here, as your Reality Czar, to dispel confusion: The Euractiv site makes it look as if the Italian government isn’t pro-Ukraine enough.
Which is true. Because the populace does not support the war at all. So you have Meloni as generally supportive — it’s the magic of Biden touching her hair — yet the paleo-conservative types in Fratelli d’Italia are skeptical. Matteo Salvini barely supports the war and doesn’t want Italian weaponry shooting at Russia. Tajani and the Forza Italia are creeping (they’re good at creeping) back toward the center, and Tajani (foreign minister) has said straight out that no Italians are going to Ukraine to fight.
Confusing indeed. An ill-planned war with no strategy has consequences. Che sorpresa! Are we pretending Tajani’s reaction is unexpected? Also see article 11 of the Italian Constitution, which prohibits war as policy.
The article betrays itself. Lia Quartapelle? From the wing of the Partito Democratico that just loveses the war in Ukraine? Come on. But there’s bottom to scrape: Borghi from Italia Viva? Maddai. Ci risiamo.
As former PD member and long-time communist, Massimo D’Alema, keeps saying: A party of the left that doesn’t talk about peace is not a party of the left. And that’s where the Partito Democratico is and, natch, where the U.S. Democrats are. Sloppy chardonnay liberals who believe that there are vegan bombs.
In the case of the largely irrelevant Spain some disputes are starting to be seen regarding the spending on weapons for Ukraine. Most of the governing partners of Sánchez disagreed with him when he compromised 1100 million € more for 2024 without seeking for congress approval. The reason for this discontent is that all these aid will be nothing but waste for a project that cannot succeed though they continue supporting Ukraine when asked publicly. According to some polls 58% Spanish still support such military aid, though i guess that if the question had attached some strings like what sacrifices are you ready to stand for that support the result would be quite different. I don’t think anybody here devotes even a single neurone on the Ukraine issue Spain must obey its majors, no questions, no doubts.
I suspect the issue of “whether you have a sovereign currency” might be about to re-appear. Eurozone countries must sacrifice something at home to save Ukraine.
Non-Euro countries can in theory hold out for longer.
Byebye Ukraine.
Ignacio: Spain isn’t irrelevant. It’s behind the Pyrenees. Yet we all know that one morning those darn Russian regiments are simply going to drive through the Pyrenees, probably near Perpinyà, pass Madrid, and be in Lisbon that afternoon.
The geographic isolation of Spain is what may be in play here.
On the other hand, the bigger threat is the article posted here at Naked Capitalism a day or so ago about tightening revenue rules in the EU. The Italians are already fully aware of the impending tightening of the thumbscrews. People fancy that the EU is cracking down on Hungary. Not so. Those chaste fiscal rules are to keep Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece in line.
Indeed. In Spain is typically at the level of Comunidades Autonomas where they get the money… and don’t pay the supposed beneficiaries for years though part of this is because the projects suffer important delays. For what I have read in Spain with regards to projects like NextGeneration completed projects are only about 30% of those awarded while it reaches 60% in Italy or 70% in Poland.
AOC on Jill Stein – “If you run for office over and over and are leader of your party and you can’t grow your party with elected officials at the other levels – That’s bad leadership!” (Rough transition from memory). The most predictable character trait of neo-liberals & neo-cons is self-projection. Didn’t Obama’s bad leadership result in Democrats losing a record shattering 1,000 elective offices during his reign – greatest number of loses in US history? Did AOC call for Obama’s resignation as a result of his disastrous leadership? She certainly has fit in well with the powers that be in Dem circles.
I thought that she had quite the hide as the Democrats – her party – actively seek to destroy any third party in the US. The shenanigans launched against JFK’s bid forPpresidency were awful and which included lawfare, suing them in every State and slipping in Democrat operatives to sabotage them from the inside. After the past four years, her voice is starting to grate on me and I think that I would rather listen to Kamala Harris speak. But I have to confess to wondering if in that video whether AC was actually high when speaking. Something about her mannerisms.
thought the same thing RK – she was stoned on something but what? – and btw i know you meant RFK not JFK – it was a bizarre and desperate rant by her –
AOC got into politics in part thanks to the 2016 NY Presidential Primary, when thousands of potential Sanders voters were denied a ballot after being purged from the rolls.
Alas, she has no doubt heard of how Democrats have purged people who crossed Pelosi or favored Mideast peace such as Cori Bush, Jamal Bowman, Andy Levin, Mondaire Jones, Marie Newman, Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson, and Cynthia McKinney. Her fame may be how she hangs on.
I would personally keep standing for peace, even if I was risking being forced out. At least, I would hope so.
Was that bad Obama leadership? Or was that good Obama sabotage? What was Obama’s real mission?
Was he a CIAsset smuggled into the DemParty? Is he still a CIAsset?
“Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal presented a list of measures that will be applied not only to draft dodgers, but also to their close relatives”
This is the second tweet that has been posted here at naked capitalism regarding this alleged policy. I can find no backup for this policy anywhere. How can I believe something that is unsubstantiated? I don’t live in that world anymore…
Because the US media has abdicated its responsibility to report on Ukraine with sound journalistic practices or integrity, we are left with largely difficult-to-confirm sources. The media are content to repeat one-sided propaganda and laughable lies like “Putin has cancer” with zero substantiation. That leaves us with X.com and Telegram which both are problematic. I generally don’t believe anything I read today.
I don’t claim to have any knowledge one way or another on what particular “story” is true or not. Just an observation that we’re all left to our own best judgment these days.
Maybe it’s an idea that Kamala would approve of, considering her jailing of the parents of truants in California.
If she is successfully ‘installed’ as Presidenta, she will do as she is told. Willie Brown trained her well, well, up to a point. Then her ambition kicked in and she accepted the gig as Veep to the dementia case. Now she evidently takes orders from powerful forces that Brown warned her against years ago.
Here it is in Pravda (2 weeks ago).
This appears to be an English language version of a Russian news site. The story therein not being an admission against interest, it seems almost safe to dismiss in this case.
My local friendly somewhat Ukraine-aligned Ukrainian and Russian language speaking Russian tells me that ‘https://t.me/otryadkovpaka/43082 is a Russian Telegram channel that pretends to be a Ukrainian “underground movement”‘; that the telegram channel describes Shmyhal as a ‘sorosling’; and that the language in the linked image of the letter misspells/uses a dated Ukrainian form of ‘проєкт’ which Shmyhal is not likely to use.
Thank you for that gk, and thanks also to tired for his commentary that supposes is this is misinformation.
Given the Americanized spelling of the prime minister of Ukraine’s name I was able to find this portal into the Ukraine government:
https://www.kmu.gov.ua/en/news/u-derzhavi-iaka-boretsia-za-svoie-vyzhyvannia-ne-mozhe-buty-liudei-iaki-stoiat-ostoron-denys-shmyhal-shchodo-pryntsypu-voiui-abo-pratsiui
This link goes to the only article I could find in the last month dealing with recruitment for the Ukrainian army. Spoiler alert, it doesn’t talk about what this memo says, even though it was written within a few days of when the story gk provided was published.
Also there’s a search function there so I searched for every instance of Denys and reviewed all the postings for the last month. There are regular postings where he addresses a government meeting that seem to be pretty good source for what he’s working on week to week. There is no mention of this letter or any program as described in the letter.
So, my investigation leads me to believe that this is in fact fake news.
At that same portal I found this publication that the Ukraine expects to receive $50 billion of the Frozen Russian assets by the end of the year
https://www.kmu.gov.ua/en/news/nashe-zavdannia-otrymaty-50-mlrd-dolariv-vid-zamorozhenykh-aktyviv-rf-do-kintsia-roku-denys-shmyhal
“Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal presented a list of measures that will be applied not only to draft dodgers, but also to their close relatives (spouses, children, parents, sisters)….” ********* Shouldn’t the list of measures also be applied to Ukraine’s leadership, like Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Zelensky, and others? After all it is THEY – not the people of Ukraine – who are the ones who implemented these failing draft policies and the ones who bear responsible for it’s perceived failure.
I did some debunking on the source of that letter, https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/links-9-2-2024.html#comment-4096482
So, sports fans, we have a general strike in Israel. It sounds like the airport was shut down earlier. Does anyone think this moves the needle on getting rid of Netanyahu, or will this all just blow over in a day or two?
(The usual liars in the State Dept. are busy at work.)
“Regarding the strike, btw, the Histadrut announced it will end at 6pm today. Meaning, as expected, it will have no effect whatsoever on the political situation that is thwarting a hostage deal/ceasefire.” — https://x.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1830543910134755416
[sad face.]
A real attempt to actually get rid of Netanyahu and his Smotrich-benGvir controllers would be met by the launching of a Civil War on their part. The Histadrutians and other Liberals and Leftians in Israel don’t have the stomach to wage and risk losing a Civil War. The Likudians and Smotrichians and benGvirians do.
In my purely amateur opinion.
“Foreign Minister Sikorski says that Poland should down Russian missiles over Ukraine”
Well of course Sikorski would be saying stuff like that as he is an Uber Neocon. He is the same guy that tweeted ‘Thank you, USA’ when the NS2 pipelines were blown up. But the Ukraine may not be so popular this week in Poland thanks to the efforts of the Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Kuleba. Poland said that they will not OK the Ukraine going into the EU unless there is an accounting for the Volnya massacre of the Poles by the Ukrainians back in WW2. So Kuleba piped up and said ‘leave history to historians’ and not to dig up the bad things that the Poles did to Ukrainians and Ukrainians to Poles.” That not being enough-
‘Kuleba also invoked the 1947 Operation Vistula, a forced resettlement of Ukrainians from southeastern Poland to the west of the country. The controversial action was aimed at the destruction of local UPA holdouts, as the resettlement deprived them of the support of the locals. Some 140,000 people were deported during the operation and became scattered in the west of the country.
Kiev’s top diplomat also brought some of his own demands for Polish authorities, such as respecting the “memory of Ukrainians” who had been forcibly expelled from Ukrainian territories. The remark was extremely poorly received in the host country, as some perceived it as a thinly veiled hint at potential territorial demands.’
https://www.rt.com/news/603347-poland-ukraine-eu-bid/
And Sikorski the husband of uber-Neocon Anne Applebaum.
Thank you, both.
Plus Oxford and Bullingdon Club and former friend of Boris Johnson. The pair drifted apart over Brexit.
Sikorski’s studies at Oxford were paid for by the long suffering UK taxpayer, the good old days, the not just neocon, but neoliberal couple don’t like. Sikorski, according to a contemporary, now well known journalist, pretended to be a Mitteleuropa aristocrat on his uppers. The journalist expressed pangs of jealousy at not being invited to join the Buller (and having advances towards Rachel Johnson rebuffed on account that, her words, he came from the middle of middle England.)
When first appointed to government and as speaker of the Polish lower house, Sikorski and Apfelbaum had to declare their earnings. The amount of money from proxies of the US MIC was breathtaking.
The Eton and Oxford fees for their two sons and town houses and country homes around Europe and the US don’t pay for themselves, so one can understand why the pair sell themselves.
– ‘The Islamic State Is Trying to Rebound’ – Arab Center Washington DC
Summary: We can’t abandon our military installations in Syria or Iraq, because ISIS! That’s what our continued presence is all about – protecting the region from ISIS. Don’t let that kerfuffle down in Gaza distract us from the real danger of those fanatical IS terrorists who seem to be strikingly resilient even though they are apparently enemies to everyone in the region. Those Arabs who resent the appropriation of Syrian oil and gas revenues by the SDF just don’t understand what would happen to them if the US was to leave. The role of CENTCOM, as always, is a humanitarian one. We are needed to protect the peoples of the region from each other.
There seem to be a lot of these types of articles popping up lately. I wonder why?
The CIA is desperately throwing feces at the wall hoping something will stick. Activating the Islamic Gladio network (ISIS) is one of the few cards they have left to play.
Quds and IRGC did most of the hard work to quelling ISIL.
The U.S. get out of the business of blunting the regionals who would get ISIS in short time.
US using Kurds to muddy water also keeps ISIS chugging along.
Cake and eating circular money drill.
US has always occupied parts of Syria….
Why? well, although Trump was justly criticised for claiming to have “solved” the problem of IS when the SDF took Raqqa in 2017, it is true that they lost a lot of their capability as a result. Mass casualty attacks in Europe became much less common as the logistic infrastructure fell apart, although small attacks continued: there was one in Strasbourg recently, which killed three people. But IS was always a partly virtual organisation, making a lot of use of the Internet for recruitment and planning, and they have been restructuring since, as well as making continued attempts to cross into Lebanon and create havoc there. The problem is that an absolutist, fundamentalist regime which treats all others, including most Muslims, as enemies or heretics, seeks to conquer territory, establish the Caliphate and install a theocratic dictatorship to bring about the end of the world, isn’t like your routine terrorist group that can be outfought and may eventually just give up and fade away.
The main problem now stems from the tens of thousands of foreign fighters who traveled to Syria from 2011 to 2016. Most were male, but many were either already married, or married there under Islamic law and had children, just as many of the women (who ran the religious police) often took children with them. The survivors have been living in SDF camps since 2017, because no nation wants them back. (Many came from Europe, but actually the largest single contingent was from Tunisia, and they don’t want them back either.) There is now an entire generation of teenagers brought up under fundamentalist Islam in pretty awful conditions, in a country where there’s not much security but an awful lot of weapons. You can work the rest out for yourself.
>>>You can work the rest out for yourself.
Yes, the next generation of jobs and money for the security state so that it can “protect” us.
I think you describe the situation and the problems it poses for Syria, Turkey, and the other surrounding states quite well. My reaction to this article stems from its suggestion that the continued U.S. presence is intended to protect the region from this threat, when its
main purpose is to *perpetuate* it and the resulting instability. I don’t doubt that a U.S. withdrawal would be bad news for the Kurds, who have allowed themselves to be used as proxies, much like Ukrainian nationalists, in the belief that the U.S. and its allies actually cared about their goals. But otherwise this article is a complete whitewash of the role of the U.S. In the region (not to mention the interests of Israel).
The Reconciliation Centers in Syria have been pretty good at returning surrendered ISIS fighters back to the society. Naturally they can’t operate on areas occupies by Turkey or USA (sorry, Syrian Democratic Forces – which are neither Syrian nor democratic).
Which is why the issue will persist. In most societies reconstruction and reconciliation is the default unless actively prohibited.
Neither Syrian, nor democratic, and not much of a force.
You don’ t suppose this budding ISIS could pose a threat to the quisling monarchs in those countries that are loyal servants of the UU/Zionist project in Palestine? Which side are you on? On the other hand, Who is supplying the guns and nice new Toyota pickups to the fighters? It gets complicated.
Turkey trying to mend relations with Syria:
https://www.newarab.com/analysis/why-turkey-accelerating-towards-normalisation-syria
5 haiku for my congressman, after subjecting myself to his campaign literature
The war’s gone missing
From your speeches and your posts.
Because you’re ashamed?
“Combat veteran.”
But unlike Smedley Butler
You choose not to speak
“I will fight for you!”
The battle will never end
No diplomacy
Pose before the flag
Wave the banner of freedom
Pure fabrication
Whom are you serving?
What is it that you protect?
War you dare not name
Have a great Labor Day everyone.
Thanks for the Taibbi link. As Taibbi’s last line says: “They just don’t feel like hiding it anymore.”
KH on twtr-X:
This is INSANE: Kamala DEI Harris actually suggests the US government should shut down X because she doesn’t support the first amendment
https://x.com/BrendonLeslie/status/1830274763480310230
The current, elite liberals hate the Bill of Rights, imo.
Sahra Wagenecht described “Liberals” as vicious authoritarians, which is an accurate depiction IMO.
Look at how many reporters are facing terrorism investigations and charges, Craig Murray already had a Law tailored for him, the “Jigsaw Law” and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he landed in prison again for the heinous crime of dissing the powerful.
Here in the USA the Rule of Law is gone and the consequences are becoming brutally apparent.
It’s going to keep getting worse until this “Controlled Flight into Terrain” ends.
It won’t be boring…
I’ve read all the articles from Taibbi to Reich in the Guardian. I see all this as evidence that we should listen to what they are telling us – censorship is on the menu – and they want much more of it.
Why wouldn’t they? The serfs are getting uppity and the world these slime balls have created is an unmitigated mess. So the best thing to do is not allow free speech so the serfs can’t find out how bad they are getting screwed. They might figure out what Carlin told them back in 1991 – they don’t give a *family blog* about you.
It seems the only platform they cannot control they way they want is X – so Elon old boy – you would be the biggest bullseye. Beware dude.
Maybe Musk and Trump can share a jail cell between late September and the election – you know – doing that saving democracy thing.
Jimmy Dore and Chris Hedges. utube, ~19+ minutes.
TikTok Sensors Accurate Criticism Of Kamala Video By Chris Hedges!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Lm63-weV9M
– ‘Socialists should support Brazil’s Twitter ban’ – Carl Beijer
I don’t trust Musk at all as an arbiter of truth. He has demonstrated his own biases; that’s not the issue. But how does Bejier’s position translate to the US context and the championing of censorship by our own “liberal authoritarians” (see Taibbi’s piece above)? We are a “procedural” democracy. So does that give our government the “lawful authority” to lie about, say, Russiagate or the war in Ukraine and censor any media platform that might question the official narrative?
Oligarchs and their lackeys in the media will always defend “free speech” if it is their views being suppressed, and they are happy to squelch the views of their opponents. This is true of right-wing Republicans screeching about “antisemitism” and it is true of CIA Democrats screeching about Russian propagandists. I understand that Greenwald’s free speech absolutism is problematic when all mass information is controlled by centralized corporate or government entities. But then who gets to do the censoring, and by what criteria?
pjay: I have been pondering this mess, keeping in mind Musk’s megalomaniacal idea that he can “coup” Bolivia. Like many Anglo-Americans, it is highly likely that he knows zilch about Brazil. But he wants a fight.
I admire Glenn Greenwald, but I suspect that even Glenn Greenwald doesn’t believe that the current administration of Pres Lula is authoritarian. Come on.
This article from generally reliable Brasilwire goes into some of the differences in what is allowed as free speech in Brazil. Most of the exceptions that Lawyer Aranha discusses are more or less understandable, if we may not agree.
https://www.brasilwire.com/brazilian-lawyer-exposes-deceit-at-heart-of-twitter-files/
Note the problems for Michael Shellenberger, who has occasional bouts of sketchiness.
I am a First Amendment absolutist, too, but I am fully aware that now that I live in Italy and have Italian citizenship, Italian perceptions of free speech are not the same as U.S. perceptions.
As mentioned, I think that Musk just wants to have a fight. It’s click-bait.
PS: Having read Carl Beijer’s notes, I’d say I tend to agree. Musk is fighting a judicial system that has more moral authority than he does.
Thanks for this link and your comment. It adds an important dimension to the discussion. As I say, I have no illusions whatsoever about Musk, or about a lot of the “libertarian” free-speech rhetoric on the Right for that matter. Much of it tends to be cover for partisan interests. I think Tiabbi has already realized this to some extent and pulled back from some of his own ‘Twitter Files’ allies (not sure if that includes Shellenberger). And I would trust the ethical standards of the current Brazilian government over those of Musk. Still, some of the very examples cited in the Brasilwire article illustrate the dilemmas. Protection from “hate speech” can be used for good; it can also be used as cover for censorship, as it has in the US when “antisemitism” is used to stifle criticism of Israeli genocide. And if media manipulation was being used to censor information about, say, the lawfare frame-up of Lula, I’d be much less tolerant. On that issue, our own ‘Twitter Files’ investigation uncovered what I consider to be some very disturbing links between our National Security establishment and our social media institutions in the US. Perhaps Shellenberger, and certainly Musk, had partisan reasons for contributing to those exposes, but they were important nonetheless.
I’m trying to avoid saying that “it depends on who’s doing the censoring, and why,” because it sounds like saying “it depends on whether I agree with those being censored or not.” As I said in a comment yesterday, if we actually had open fora where issues could be debated freely with full information on all sides then free speech “absolutism” would be easier. But we don’t, so it’s not.
Per Greenwald, one of the big problems is that this judge is issuing his orders without any judicial proceedings, due process, or even backing by laws. He just signs some paper saying this or that person should be banned from internet, and that’s end of it. That puts a quite a big hole in the argument that it’s democracy & people vs. capital, and Beijer doesn’t address it. The judge doesn’t strike me as Marxist either, so how long before he starts banning communists for example?
Active listening…wha??
On Android and in some browsers apps are supposed to ask for permission to use the microphone although some of us have wondered why they thought they needed it. Of course Snowden said you should tape over your smartphone camera lens.
Big Snoop is out of control.
Just in the middle of Sarid’s latest novel “vulnerabilities” that gives you a great idea of what they can do (unlike his masterpiece, The Third, I assume it will soon be available in English)
An article about NGOs in Serbia.
https://eagleeyeexplore.com/en/2024/09/02/children-of-ned/
Children of NED (National Endowment for Democracy)
America isn’t ready for another war — because it doesn’t have the troops – Vox
I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a bit.
All of that based on a looking at a “prime recruiting age of 17 -24.”
Before a big one, low troop numbers and recruiting problems are nothing new.
The government can bring back the draft, the pool to select from goes from 17 to early 30s, possibly includes women and prisoners, and will include more immigrants.
As for drug use and the military…well, it’s not ideal but plenty of militaries have been known to be fielded with drug use running high among members. They’ll screen more for addicts than for “use” in a war emergency.
About 80 years ago, the US ramped up from about 200,000 active duty to 8 million in just 5 years or so. Maybe weight/substance abuse/educational standards have to be relaxed, but so be it. There could be more draft riots nowadays. To prevent those, they need another good casus belli like Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
There are other fundamental demographic issues:
Median age USA
1950: 28.9621
2024: 38.289
Trend: continuously upwards since 1970. For all the immigration, the USA is an aging society.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1qscu
January 30, 2018
Age dependency ratios for China, Germany, India, Japan and United States, * 2000-2023
* Older dependents to working age population
Nowadays, no doubt the much greater problem than finding the bodies is finding the industry to equip them
Or finding the supersize uniforms to fit them.
…and now for something completely different. utube, ~2+minutes.
Termite Colony The Size Of Great Britain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko_sbLRoEpc
In other news, fire-raining drone.
https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/121747
Hey, Peeps, isn’t it Labor Day (on the wrong day of the year) in the U S of A?
Bread and Roses, the great revolutionary song for the complete revolution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFsb3nmoBjg
Nah, not the wrong day of the year, the right day of the year. Labor Day was won by US labor unions back in the day. The old joke back then went something like this:
Marxist to US labor union worker: Comrad, why do you not rise up to create a workers’ paradise?
US union worker: We already have a workers’ paradise.
(40 hour work week, decent wages, guaranteed pensions, health insurance, etc.) Like I said: back in the day. / ;)
Unlike, say, the Bolsheviks back in the day. May Day is, or was for Red Square, not the US. Back in the day. / ;)
adding, even eariler in back in the day, and still in many areas in the US: May Day is a day to carry little paper, home made, cone baskets of garden flowers or small candies to neighbors’ and friends’ houses, to leave at their doors. Much better than a military parade, imo. / ;)
flora: May Day observed as a workers’ holiday started in Chicago. The September holiday in the U S of A is considered less “inflammatory” — the labor movement tamed.
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html
Thanks.
The tradition of giving May Baskets in the US goes back much earlier. / ;)
adding: trying to change the US traditional May Day celebration back then from something for children and friends and neighbors into something that’s a highly charged political fight would never have flown in the larger US. Maybe in Chicago it would work at the moment. Fine. But in the larger US it would have been a deep, cultural failure. Labor Day designated as the first Monday in September is much better. / ;)
See also: May Baskets.
And going on much too long: Those of us old enough to have participated in giving out May Baskets as children, and now old enough to be charmed by finding an unexpected May Basket on the door step, will tell you that mixing politics with that charming old tradition was never, ever going to fly in the US back then, when May Basketing was done everywhere in the US by almost everyone, rich and poor alike. / my 2 cents
And so we have Labor Day, the recognition of labor and labor unions, on the first Monday (after the first weekend) in September.
Labor Day is also associated with Chicago, the great Pullman strike of 1892.
I did quite the double take when the Italian WW2 red partisans song ” Bella Ciao “played loudly on the gyms PA system last month. It was the Becky G rendition.
https://youtu.be/l5TMjYj-8MQ?si=J58LQKT887mXih7R
America isn’t ready for another war/doesn’t have the troops Vox
Establishment vent reveals the task and purpose of the old basket “deplorable” framing: an underclass no longer willing to sacrifice themselves or their children for the compulsive designs of a ruling criminal apparatus.
Also presages some new spectacle to startle the herd.
Happy Labor Day.
So the NY Times Constitution piece immediately quotes, yes, Trump. We know they lie about Trump quotes, so what was said, exactly?
And Snopes actually links to the WayBackMachine cache of the post, so we can probably believe it, whereas the NY Times just links to another NY Times article.
Make of what he said what you will, but there it actually is, rather than the single scary quote from the NY Times.
Compare with the NY Times context free quote:
Yep, that’s all you get. Just that. You can play that game with all kinds of quotes, and NY Times does.
And then the “threat” that their Democracy faces:
Be afraid.
They butcher the Constitution as well
Checks & balances shows up nowhere in the document, and I think only once or twice in the Federalist papers.
A Necessarily Evil by Gary Wills of Bomb Power fame is a good read in regards to this. But suffice to say, the Constitution was setup to give Congress the leading role.
Yes, the Constitution was set up to make Congress the ultimate controller, the first among equal branches, but since the end of the Second World War, or arguably the First World War, its members have deliberately refused to do their more of their job each generation. Since the Congress destroyed much of its own bureaucracy including the elements that did the research and writing needed to oversea the rest of the government and to write legislation about thirty years ago, it has neutered itself. Then add the reality that average member spend the majority of his working day dialing for dollars from wealthy donors, not doing his job as a member of Congress.
To date there has been no “revelation of massive & widespread fraud & deception” before, during, or after the 2020 election, despite 60+ court cases, numerous full and partial recounts, other state canvass and audit procedures, and numerous investigations. Also, the Electoral Count Law, both at the time, and after changes in 2022, along with the Constitution specify procedures under which electoral ballots can be disputed, and further action taken by Congress. The procedures, with a slight interruption during the day, were followed in 2021. It doesn’t seem logical to argue that Trump doesn’t support “the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution” by quoting him saying just that.
“To date there has been no “revelation of massive & widespread fraud & deception”
Didn´t Taibbi in fact confirm around the time of RNC that he has not heard of any evidence suggesting fraud?
Just because Trump claims it (does he still???) and just because his lawyers who do everything if you pay them try to make a case doesn´t make it true.
So why are we talking about it?
If there IS serious evidence I would be eager to read, however.
One of the few instances when I did not understand RU analyst Gordon Hahn was when he stated last year that the 2020 election was fraudulent.
So what is going on? Why can´t “we” agree on this?
Why It’s So Hard to Find a Therapist Who Takes Insurance (Pro Publica)
Condos are being stolen from Florida owners!
I’m having personal experience with this as we speak. Senior homeowner I know received a letter from a bill collector (law firm) representing the HOA, for dues in arrears from 2022, totaling $1,600 including $400 of ‘legal fees’, threatening liens without payment in 45 days. Senior procured the evidence of payment (by check), but not before settling this fraudulent debt out of fear, and is now being given the run around to get it back.
The HOA then held a referendum on the covenants to change the threshold for quorum from 70% of the entire community, to 50%+1 of those who attend each vote. The community is 40% renters, and this was allegedly pursued due to absentee landlords “in China” failing to participate in the process, thereby hindering ‘progress’. Lawyer leading the HOA meeting led with, “Your HOA is a business, and needs to move at the speed of business”. They somehow managed to procure an impressive 97% vote in favor of this change, despite the alleged difficulties in conducting governance.
Apologies if I missed this in Links:
Turkey Bids to Join BRICS in Push to Build Alliances Beyond West
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-02/turkey-submits-bid-to-join-brics-as-erdogan-pushes-for-new-alliances-beyond-west
Seems like pretty big news for a NATO member to try to join BRICS.
Share of World GDP, 2023
BRICS = Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Africa.
Brazil ( 2.3)
China ( 19.1)
India ( 7.6)
Russia ( 2.9)
South Africa ( 0.6)
BRICS+ = Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates
are full members of BRICS.
Egypt ( 1.0)
Ethiopia ( 0.2)
Iran ( 1.0)
Saudi Arabia ( 1.3)
United Arab Emirates ( 0.5)
“Turkey Bids to Join BRICS”
BRICS+ already counts for more than 1/3 of world GDP, and to the extent that they work together, say on trade alone, the countries can and I think will profoundly influence development aspect of trade. BRICS has an international bank, which gives an Egypt or Ethiopia an alternative to the IMF or World Bank. The use of sanctions against a country such as Iran are going to be significantly limited in effect.
Turkey will not be the only country to apply for BRICS membership this fall.
The G7 had a share of world GDP of 30.1% in 2023: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom and United States
BRICS+ had a world GDP share of 36.5%
Re: The Constitution is sacred.
No it isn’t. It is a badly flawed relic that was based on the elites protecting themselves, not trusting in democracy and the voice of the people. Maybe appropriate at the time, but not know.
Don’t tell me we are a democracy when as I enter my thirteenth Presidential election and my vote has not mattered in a single one. I could go on, and on, but what’s the use.
Sez you.
Is the Constitution the problem, or is corruption (by unconstitutional means) the problem?
Both
That answer is a dodge, imo. Why both?
In truth nothing is sacred. As such, there is faith. If you look closely, you will find this underpins most human endeavor. Some place their faith in an ideal and seek to uphold it, while others trust human nature above all else. Which would drive your choices in the formation of a more-perfect Union? They would both give you hell.
One should applaud Hungary’s stance on the situation in Ukraine but badly criticize its stance on the Israel/Gaza issue:
https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/current/eu-foreign-council-meeting-brussels-tensions-pro-war-hungary-peace-mission-viktor-orban-josep-borrell/
“The meeting also addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas. In this context, Szijjártó asserted that Borrell had completely lost control and had made extremely dangerous and unreasonable proposals regarding the Middle East. The Hungarian FM specifically criticized the High Representative’s recent proposal that the European Union should impose sanctions on two Israeli government ministers. ‘This is an extremely dangerous and absolutely unreasonable proposal, as such a decision would raise extremely serious questions in the Middle East and would undermine cooperation between the European Union and Israel as a whole,’ he stated.”
Here Hungary defends Israel’s policies on the occupied Palestinian lands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVMHVuIlvjs
The overriding problem with such “how much economic trouble is China in” articles * is that there is a refusal to consider China as a socialist economy. China however is a socialist economy and needs to be considered from this perspective. The socialist perspective has allowed for astonishing growth these last 45 years and the growth is becoming increasingly technically advanced and sound.
* https://www.omfif.org/2024/08/how-deeply-rooted-are-chinas-economic-woes/
How deeply rooted are China’s economic woes?
With apologies, maybe this was linked the other day and I missed it. Either way, not a good look. I’ll take a paper ballot please, and have it hand counted if you don’t mind.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/01/us-election-software-national-security-threats-00176615
Yes, a country that has privately owned, opaquely managed, voting machines is not a democracy. And that is why they are everywhere in the US.
The only real question at election time is – what do the owners of the voting machines get for providing the right answer, and who do they collect from.
And in different states the answer might differ, so that’s where the “competition” comes from
Opti-Scan ballots are not hand counted. They are machine counted by Opti-Scan machines. But at least the Opti-Scan ballots are marked by hand on Legal Ballot Paperboard. Which means they could be hand counted if questions arise.
Whereas casting a ballot electronically on a screen as the “first footprint” is truly a guarantee of precisely nothing at all, and cannot possibly be true-counted if questions arise.
At least I live and vote in an Opti-Scan state. If I lived in a touch-screen voting state, I would not vote. I would stay registered and keep not voting and keep explaining to the relevant authorities that I would start voting when a Legal Paper Ballot system is adopted as the actual ballot-casting method.
Someone has posted a captioned picture noting our steady social amenities decay. ” Has anyone else noted how successive governments’ wars on teenagers, homeless people and other ” undesirables” have left us with basically zero public seating?”
link
https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1f75h7c/yup/
Here is a little story-ette I found scrolling reddit. It is titled . . . ” Hamas threatens to release video showing six slain hostages’ ‘last message’ ” It is said to be from the Jerusalem Post. If it is a true story, then there is a chance that such a ‘last message’ will actually be released. Here is the link.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-817404
My question is: if this is true, why would Hamas threaten to release this instead of just actually releasing it? Have they sent a back channel message to the IsraelGov telling it what to do in order to get the message not released?
I suppose we will just have to await further developments or further non-developments.
If he’s under a lot of pressure, Netenyahu’s next move will be to escalate again against Iran or Hezbollah with another assassination bomb.