SpaceX launches rescue mission to return stranded astronauts Phys.org
The lonely Lake Superior caribou and a lesson in limits The Narwhal
Climate/Environment
At least 64 dead and millions without power after Helene’s deadly march across the Southeast AP
Aerial footage captures the extensive flooding in Asheville, North Carolina, as Helene submerged buildings. pic.twitter.com/15R89vWTvf
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) September 28, 2024
Four ways climate change likely made Hurricane Helene worse Yale Climate Connections
Pandemics
A “Biosafety” Organization Partnering With Dr. Jay Bhattacharya To Guard Against Viruses Is Like A Zebra Teaming Up With A Lion To Promote Vegetarianism Science-Based Medicine
Africa
The Lobito Corridor: Washington’s Answer to Belt and Road in Africa Geopolitical Monitor
Japan
Japan’s new PM may have a bone to pick with the US Responsible Statecraft
Ishiba: Asian NATO Must Consider Introduction of N-Weapons, Japan-U.S. Treaty Should Be Pact Between ‘Ordinary Nations’ The Japan News
China?
Tian Xuan on Beijing’s dramatic week of econ policy intervention Pekingnology
EU Plans Oct. 4 Vote on Tariffs on Electric Vehicles from China Bloomberg
Unveiling the Remote-Poaching Model: Taiwan’s Strategy to Limit China’s AI Chip Progress The Diplomat
***
Troops from Taiwan training at Michigan base: Former U.S. diplomat Focus Taiwan
Harpoon land-based anti-ship missile systems arrive in Taiwan Taiwan News
Syraqistan
Israel ‘on the verge’ of Lebanon ground invasion, says US diplomat Middle East Eye
Hezbollah Strike Destroys Israeli David’s Sling Air Defence Battery as War Enters New Phase – Reports Military Watch
Lebanon locked down to prevent Hezbollah from rearming, IDF says Ynet News
Is Lebanon part of Israel’s promised territory? The Jerusalem Post
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend the interview by Julian Assange with Nasrallah from 2012.
Nasrallah believed in achieving a One State Democratic Solution in which all people, Jews, Muslims, Christians and others would share the land and exercise equal rights, freedom… pic.twitter.com/pYY0be2caQ
— Ousman Noor (@ousmannoor) September 28, 2024
Who is Hashem Safieddine, the new Hezbollah leader? BNE Intellinews
In Lebanon carnage, Biden deepens US ‘obligation’ to Israeli aggression Aaron Mate
***
IGRC general died in Israeli strike that killed Hezbollah leader, reports say New Arab
Iran calls for emergency UN Security Council meeting after Nasrallah killing AFP
Pentagon chief Austin tells Gallant US committed to deterring Iran Times of Israel
Exclusive: Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say Reuters
Israel Has Called Iran’s Bluff The Atlantic
Is Iran’s Khamenei Dead Man Walking? Is Erdoğan? Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum
Israel’s Short-Lived Glory Celebrated by Kneejerk Polemicists, + Ukraine War Updates Simplicius the Thinker
Israeli economy in ‘serious danger’: Washington Post Al Mayadeen
Old Blighty
Labour: the resignations begin Funding the Future
European Disunion
The EU as an existential threat to Europe Thomas Fazi
Thuringia Parliament: Opening Session Descends Into Chaos The European Conservative. The deck: “Mainstream parties are threatening to ban the AfD for adhering to parliamentary rules.”
Germany: Thuringia lawmakers pick CDU speaker, rejecting AfD Deutsche Welle
Austria: stuck in the middle The Next Recession
UniCredit’s pursuit of Commerzbank reflects a watershed moment for Europe — and its banking union CNBC
Norway to end automatic asylum for Ukrainian refugees AFP
EU Approach to Russian LNG Remains Fractured as Dutch Imports Increase High North News
New Not-So-Cold War
Russian Forces Hit Base of Western Foreign Fighters in Odessa Military Watch
Zelensky’s Trump meeting reveals futility of ‘victory plan’ Anatol Lieven, Unherd
The fog of war is lifting in Ukraine Indian Punchline
Blinken says China’s talk of Ukraine peace ‘doesn’t add up’ Deutsche Welle
Russia on track to set new military spending records The Bell
2024
Just Follow the Money Dollars & Sense
Project 2025: The Quickest Way to Decimate Medicare HEALTH CARE un-covered
Hillary Clinton defends ‘deplorables’ comment: ‘Too kind a word’ for some Trump supporters Fox News
Changing demographics and the political calculus of anti-immigrant rhetoric in swing states Arizona Mirror
Kamala
Kamala Harris stays quiet as California voters threaten to roll back sentencing reforms Semafor
Campaigning in Arizona, Kamala Harris pledges to “work across the aisle” to expand border police WSWS
Trump
Trump pounds immigration message after Harris’ border visit Axios
Immigration
JBS accused of abusing immigrant workers at Colorado beef plant Agriculture Dive
America’s largest corn company, Corteva Agriscience, pledges no supply chain abuses. It’s hired a repeat offender in Iowa for years. Investigate Midwest
AI
AUTHORS SUING OPENAI WILL GET TO SEE ITS SECRET TRAINING DATA IN HEAVILY LOCKED DOWN ROOM Futurism
TSMC execs allegedly dismissed Sam Altman as ‘podcasting bro’ — OpenAI CEO made absurd requests for 36 fabs for $7 trillion Tom’s Hardware
Why Taiwan and Its Tech Industry Are Facing an Energy Crisis Yale Environment 360
Imperial Collapse Watch
Why the U.S. Can’t Build Icebreaking Ships Construction Physics
Supply Chain
The Scourge of the Long Train Boondoggle
Our Famously Free Press
John Kerry calls for a Ministry of Truth:
“The 1st Amendment stands as a major roadblock for us right now” pic.twitter.com/1mtpjjxeM7
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) September 29, 2024
My Twitter Ban Is Political Ken Klippenstein
Groves of Academe
Cornell Under Fire as Suspended Pro-Palestinian Student at Risk of Deportation Common Dreams
Class Warfare
The California Ballot Measure That Could End Forced Prison Labor Bolts Mag
Sports Desk
White Sox Are Officially The Worst Team In Baseball History After 121st Loss Block Club Chicago
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
221 comments
Comments are closed.
“Ishiba: Asian NATO Must Consider Introduction of N-Weapons, Japan-U.S. Treaty Should Be Pact Between ‘Ordinary Nations’’
So Liberal Democratic Party President Shigeru Ishiba wants to turn Asia into a copy of Europe complete with nukes because, you know, it has really worked out well for the Europeans. An article I read today said that Europeans have spent the past several hundred years at each other’s throats and twice now it brought in the entire world into their fights. And that Asians are looking at their history and their wanting to bring NATO into Asia and are saying nope, no matter what some leaders want.
Who is to stop it?
Is Japan an independent country? No, it has been an occupied territory since 1945, just like Germany. So they have no say on the matter.
Are Russia and China going to physically remove the US from Japan? They can do it in half an hour, and then the US will have the choice of either ending the world or tucking its tail between its legs and retreating back to North America, the rational choice being the latter, but first, they don’t have the guts, and second, at least half of elites in both countries are Westen captured and dream of going back to the way things were 15 years ago with fighting back not only being the last thing on their minds but something actively against their interests, so that’s not even on the table.
But Eurination has worked out really well for “the right people,” and would work out just fine for the Ishiba set who control “policy.”
Hard to get over the quaint postulate that rulers and their government shells and shills exist to “serve the public.” Bears remembering that the operative model has long been characterized by the unofficial motto of the rulers of one notably corrupt entity, the city of Chicago and its nest in Cook County:
“Where’s Mine?”
Thanks for my new vocabulary word of the day: ‘Eurination.’ Excellent.
Would the tweak of calling it EUrination also be helpful at times? If not, then ” EUrination” will quietly die.
The sad thing is that the Japanese will very likely keep voting for the LDP, even as the leadership openly plans to sh*tcan the Constitution, eliminating Article 9 (to clear the way for those nukes), and getting rid of all that pesky “human rights” and “citizens” language, so that there are only imperial subjects. In effect, the LDP wants to reinstate the Meiji Constitution. Along the way, LDP members have also been ogling the Western MIC gravy train… and they want to be gravy train riders too, like in a norumaru nation.
Japan invaded China in 1931, beginning the World War, marauding and causing the death of millions of Chinese before the end came in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/asia/obama-hiroshima-japan.html
May 28, 2016
At Hiroshima Memorial, Obama Says Nuclear Arms Require ‘Moral Revolution’
By GARDINER HARRIS
HIROSHIMA, Japan — President Obama laid a wreath at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial on Friday, telling an audience that included survivors of America’s atomic bombing in 1945 that technology as devastating as nuclear arms demands a “moral revolution.”
Thousands of Japanese lined the route of the presidential motorcade to the memorial in the hopes of glimpsing Mr. Obama, the first sitting American president to visit the most potent symbol of the dawning of the nuclear age. Many watched the ceremony on their cellphones.
“Seventy-one years ago, on a bright cloudless morning, death fell from the sky and the world was changed,” Mr. Obama said in opening his speech at the memorial.
“Technological progress without an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us,” Mr. Obama said, adding that such technology “requires a moral revolution as well.” …
Things have changed since Obama. The past two Hiroshima commemoration events have had Japanese officials making speeches in which they never mention the actual identity of the country that nuked Hiroshima but they did mention that Russia was a nuclear threat. I guess that they are still sore how Russia kicked them out of Manchuria-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_invasion_of_Manchuria
Again, it’s an another example of Obama telling whatever lie that suits the occasion.
I usually agree with 95% of your takes but I think you are projecting here.
Asia has it’s own history of warfare. Human history is a history of aggression and conquest. The Japanese see China as a threat and are acting accordingly. Japan has cut multiple deals with the Americans.
Japan and the United States have naval dominance in the region. Their goal is to contain China and keep China as a continental/land power.
China is trying to break through before they face a steep population decline that will make expansion harder to achieve.
India has the same interests as Japan.
No one but China wants to replace 75 years of American dominance with Chinese dominance.
I know what you are saying but think about it for a moment. When you said that Japan and the United State’s goal ‘is to contain China and keep China as a continental/land power’, how would America respond if the Chinese and Russian fleets were sailing off the coast of America in order to contain it and keep America as a continental/land power? And just to drive the point home for Americans, have constant Freedom of Navigation exercises of Chinese ships sailing between Florida and Cuba and Chinese spy flights based in Cuba flying up to the American border. Americans are a proud people and would never tolerate this being done to them. You think about the flip side and suddenly a lot of Chinese actions become understandable.
When you said that Japan and the United States’ goal ‘is to contain China and keep China as a continental/land power’…
[ This is sheer moral madness:
Japan and the United States are evidently decided on and somehow justified in besieging a 5,000 year old civilization of 1.4 billion benign people. ]
Chinese arent a warrior people. At the height of their power they build a gigantic wall to insulate themselves. They wont start any wars with the west. But the west will, because a warrior people needs wars to fight or it will turn on itself.
https://english.news.cn/20240705/37271ddf6dc6415e93e66eea3533ba56/c.html
July 5, 2024
Decades-long devotion to guarding Great Wall
BEIJING — Even at 80, Mei Jingtian continues his patrol in the Shixiaguan section of the Great Wall. With over four decades of experience under his belt, he skillfully taps the grass along the way with a wooden stick, alerting wild animals to ensure his safety.
Mei lives in Shixia Village nestled near the Shixiaguan section of the Great Wall, an 8.6-km stretch located in the suburban Yanqing District of Beijing, with its oldest part dating back to the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-557).
Shixia Village residents have a deep affection for the Great Wall. Mei remembers the days when he ran and played hide-and-seek with his friends on the imposing wall as a child.
However, in 1979, when he returned to Shixia after working outside the village for years, he was stunned by the massive destruction of the ancient wall. “Some locals even took bricks from the wall to build their houses,” Mei recalled.
To protect the great wonder, Mei volunteered as a Great Wall guardian, patrolling 20 km daily to dissuade people from taking bricks, scribbling on the wall or dropping litter.
“My family worried that it would be dangerous to hike into the mountain by myself, so I always took a wooden stick with me to drive the wild animals away,” Mei said.
In 1984, a Great Wall protection campaign was launched in Beijing and was quickly echoed by villagers in Shixia. Realizing the significance of heritage protection, more and more villagers returned the bricks and joined Mei’s patrol…
We seem to be working on the “turn on itself” part.
Back when we led technological development, our internecine conflicts made us stronger by overriding rent seeking in pursuit of “ national interest” in our industrial plant and institutions of cultural reproduction.
Now that we’ve offshored the plant and MBEed the cultural reproduction, we’re the only societies we can still defeat, and the self defeating won’t buck up the industrial plant or the cultural reproduction.
Oldtimer: At the height of their power they build a gigantic wall to insulate themselves.
No. In the real world, the Great Wall of China, anthropologists and archeologists now know was built as much to keep in as large a population of proles, peasants, and slaves producing as large a surplus, agricultural and otherwise, for Chinese elites as possible, as to keep out any barbarians.
The same was true of the walls of Rome, of the walls of the first city-states of Mesopotamia, of Greece, or wherever — all these walls were built in large part to keep the proles and peasants and slaves in, producing surpluses for the benefits of that society’s aristocrats.
The comparison with Rome is particularly appropriate, as during the Jin to the Sui dynasties China was a power equal to the Roman empire, and like the Roman empire China’s power depended on massive enslavement of enormous numbers of slaves. Slavery in China remained ongoing into the 20th century and was only finally and fully abolished by the CCP in 1949.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_China
Oldtimer: Chinese arent a warrior people.
Chinese history is human history. To acquire the massive numbers of slaves the Chinese empire had at various periods China was warlike. Yes, by the time the Europeans rolled up, the Chinese assumed, as the US does now, that China was the world’s hegemon, and thus foreigners owed obeisance to that hegemon and when presented to the emperor must kowtow. That worked out as well as the US’s arrogance and stupidity is going to work out for the US now.
In the real world, 1996 — 1996! — was when the last eunuch from the Chinese emperor’s palace died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Yaoting
Born into poverty, his family home was burned and fields stolen by a landlord in their village; his family hoped that by making Sun Yaoting into a eunuch, they would gain Imperial influence, and would be able to take revenge on the landlord….
And so on. Is that your wise, peaceable Chinese people?
Yes, Chinese are generally far more intelligent, practical about cooperation, and capable of longterm planning than Americans. That’s a low metric, though, as many consider Americans a stupid people. If Americans are a stupid people, one of the most notable instances of that stupidity is their combination of near-total ignorance of history with an infantile belief that there must always be good guys and bad guys, like a Hollywood movie.
“No one but China wants to replace…”
This is entirely incorrect, false and offensive.
No one but an American neocon thinks China wants to replace 75 years of American dominance with Chinese dominance.
I wonder what western “expert” you picked up this “analysis” from. Mearsheimer, maybe?
Ishiba trying to outdo Abe as the Super Mario Prime Minister…?
https://twitter.com/populismupdates/status/1839551701914661249
EU Plans Oct. 4 Vote on Tariffs on Electric Vehicles from China Bloomberg ********* It’s heart warming to see Western leaders working so hard to lower mine and others standard of living by making everything we need more expensive, but why not instead a tarrif on billionaires? Tax their energy use at 20x what us Little People pay. I know it can be done. Many states give lowered energy rates for low income or those on government assistance. Would love to Bill Gates monthly electric bill for his masion in Seattle.
You mean this one?
https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1655658051855065090
I wonder if he claims the electricity used on his taxes on the grounds that this is also his primary office for everything that he runs.
What?! No solar panels? Or do my eyes deceive me? I know, I know, Seattle: what sunshine? But it’s not true. Not any longer, heat waves, heat domes…
How many bathrooms?!!
Don’t you know. He is actually benefitting the planet with his carbon offset purchases. s/
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/05/why-bill-gates-and-jeff-bezos-buy-carbon-offsets-how-they-work.html
That would be communism. You can’t have that.
More like socialism (regulating private assets for public benefit). Though critical infrastructure should be publicly owned (communism).
Can’t have socialism either though.
An ode to Helene will need to be penned. Damn it’ll take a long while for some places to be patched and mended. Caught many off guard even with the proper agencies forewarned and tropical storm warning for all to notice.
I lost really nothing, aside from power and ability to drive easily from here to there, or to easily find gas or a place to eat. This is a damned disaster, and upstate South Carolina is a simple stone throw from Asheville or Hendersonville…
People have been foaming at the mouth about Florida and climate disaster for years, wait until they realize that nowhere is safe and that the hurricanes we’ll be seeing can wash away their little Southern or Midwestern town just as easily as a Florida beach town.
Paul Beckwith touches upon this in his most recent video (RIP Shackleton) – our economy cannot handle rebuilding crap over and over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ02cv2cU10
In my neighborhood most of the road blocking trees have been cut up and shoved to the side. It looks like the old Lake Lure dam up in NC is going to survive. People around me are coping and staying in good spirits with property damage to houses and cars fairly limited (often the fallen trees were isolated city trees on the edge of the streets).
The real crisis may be city wide lack of power unless they get it fixed soon. There is power in spots and some stores may have generators but the ones that are opened are jammed. A drive by the nearest Aldi showed an empty parking lot except for a large dumpster into which employees were throwing food from the freezers.
At least we have NC. Thanks Conor for all the links.
It does seem to my eyes, the local county and state authorities have failed to rise to this occasion. Honestly there are too many intersections that are likely unsafe…4 way stops and patience don’t often go in hand with one another.
This scenario reminds of being in Dallas / Plano circa February 2011. A winter storm turned into a blizzard dumping heavy snowfall in the region. Many streets were just not plowed except by local traffic. “You’re on your damn own, Mr or Mrs citizen…”
Well my town did fairly promptly hire private contractors to clear the trees. The power problem (and some of the dam problems) under the control of Duke Energy and they are working on it. I’m told that Greenville is in worse shape on that front with some high tension towers out of service.
So really there’s not much state authorities can do. SCDot has been seen clearing the state roads. As reported in the above AP link many in the area are calling this the worst weather disaster ever. We don’t get big snow storms. One small mountain town up in NC got two feet of rain last week.
It’s true I do live in an affluent neighborhood where people can afford to make repairs and be away from work so this is a limited view. But I’d say it’s surprising how well the area is coping.
As a Greenville resident I can confirm that the destruction is widespread. I was in NYC when Sandy hit and this is far, far worse. Before we lost power at 7 am Friday my weather station had recorded 11” of rain over the prior two days and an 80 mph gust of wind. Earlier today county officials said that 86% of the county was without power! However, I hear a cacophony of chain saws late this Sunday evening, so we’re digging ourselves out of this mess. Gas lines were long since it’s a precious commodity to run portable generators, and the pumps, where working, were only dispensing low octane fuel. Everyone in our neighborhood has been working together and in good spirits; no doubt helped by the seasonable fall temperatures in stars of the humid and hot days of summer.
What a disaster… dispensed by something that sounds like a high society name circa 1921~
Couldn’t have been a more appropriate Magda or Helga, no…..
In some fashion when a house burns to the ground, there is closure for there is nothing left, while Helene and high water leave things seemingly intact, but not really-and a mess to be contended with where the sun does shine.
I’m not sure how much more broken windows economy the economy can long endure…
Internet service is still down here. Still no notification from Spectrum in regards to service. I’m signed up for service alerts, as well. This debacle continues.
Today the water is off, but fortunately the dehumidifier provides enough water for use, and any for drinking goes into the Brita filter first.
I think there is a possibly widespread issue with networks and systems like for Spectrum. The nearby Ingles isn’t open today*…but they can sell gas which they’re doing. To the good, for here ( upstate SC ) I’ve had water without interruption.
Let’s see a Friday to Sunday for peak weekend grocery purchases…that kind of loss would perhaps sink a small business. But yeah I’m less than sanguine on official responses thus far. But computer networks for grocery chains or restaurant chains isn’t their purview I admit.
My power is now back on. I’ve had it be off for four or five days after an ice storm so under the circumstances that’s pretty fast. Doubtless burying the lines (the trunk lines are still on poles) greatly helps with the repair task. Otherwise they wouldn’t have spent all that money doing it.
I’m interested how the local county, and broadening out, other county school districts perform for this coming week. Doubtless you’ve been a longer time resident than myself.
Power came back, water never went off but everything else is up for grabs. I can’t watch the news so my views are, ahem, limited to what I see out the front door.
This is Duke Power’s Lake Wylie Dam releasing into the Scenic Catawba River run, yesterday the 28th, just 11 miles below uptown Charlotte NC. The boat launch/ramp is in the lower left corner.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjquc-X0-mIAxWDtYQIHTSUNvIQtwJ6BAgOEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D4n6TMDzwN7k&usg=AOvVaw2luGDd5Qj61m1yoXCllLtr&opi=89978449
There are big issues all along the Catawba River’s 120-mile-long basin above Charlotte up into Marion NC.
The river below the Dam rose again over Saturday night and, to me, that basin still looked like this 5 hrs ago. Friday/Saturday/Sunday–
The river is 6’+ above flood stage at 26.5′ and running at 83,000 CFS, reminding me of the Green in Utah or Colorado in Arizona in color, chop, and push.
The newly completed Catawba River Whitewater Park at the Great Falls has itself over washed and become a spectacular feature of submerged, exploding, whitewater.
Familiar Carolina Whitewater runs will be forever changed–and treacherous for those running them in this storm’s aftermath.
Very limited development in this southern flood plane is the only silver lining. Up basin not so much…
I pray this is it for my lifetime but the climate crises haunts me that it won’t be…
Exclusive: Iran’s supreme leader taken to secure location, sources say Reuters ******* Oh. So it’s (finally) occurred to Iranian leadership that they are targets. Run, Iran, run. That pretend Iranian fake missile attack on Isreal a few months back in which they gave advance notice on intent and probably targets sure is looking like a genius stroke in hindsight. By its own actions for decades, Iran is telling Israel “attack me we won’t do anything to you.” You’d think they would learn, but no.
They gave advance notice to drive home the point that Israel is utterly defenseless if Iran really wanted to hit them, even with unsustainably expensive foreign assistance to their “world class” defense systems. They did everything they could to dissuade them from further destruction, going out of their way to avoid human casualties while they did so, and yet you still try to make them out to be the assholes.
“They did everything they could to dissuade them from further destruction”….Except launch a REAL missile attack instead of a fake pretend attack. So yah, run away Iran. Run fast.
So, you don’t talk smack only about Rooskies.
Perhaps Zionist nukes and U.S. backing are giving the Iranian’s pause. Just a thought.
Maybe they want to avoid a war because of this?
For some countries war has real consequences.
How is giving up Iran’s right to self defense starting a war? Refusing to make nuclear weapons is part of what got Iran in this pickle. And Refusing to respond in self defense to Isreali attacks increases the likelihood of war, not decrease.
I think Biden should revise the U.S. policy in Midle East.
Old: Israel has the right to defend itself.
New: Israel has the right to attack Gaza, Lebanon, Syra, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt….
I think you’ll discover no such change is necessary since the former apparently amounts to the latter.
WOW
So there is a Russian and American going up to the space station,,,, stuck in elon musk’s rocket…
Talk about a trip from hell….. I hope they don’t start talking about politics///
You have to tip your hat to these two and Musk for acting like adults.
I’m not surprised.
When grunts talk politics, it’s to complain about the morons at headquarters.
It’s a common occurrence, two or three weeks ago, two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut flew to the Space Station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft. I assume that as Musk is not involved in Soyuz launches and that the Russian space industry is, there’s limited interest from Western media.
“SpaceX launches rescue mission to return stranded astronauts”
SpaceX and NASA having to clean up Boeing’s mess and bring them home early instead of waiting until next February as was planned. I wonder what SpaceX will be getting for this effort. Maybe all those pending environmental charges against them will go away? Meanwhile the Chinese are still pushing ahead with their plans and have just revealed their new Lunar spacesuit-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKBiQ4Varo0 (59 secs)
Why don’t they just take them to Mars and get it over with already?
And do what?
Die in the process.
Corpricon One?
The linked article says they are still coming back in February.
“When they return from the space station in February, they will bring back two space veterans—Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—whose stay on the ISS was prolonged for months by problems with their Boeing-designed Starliner spacecraft.”
Perhaps of interest to the NC community: “Remigration:” How a White a Nationalist Threat Spread From Austria to the US
And Putin says in full hubris mode that one goal of SMO is “de-nazification.”
Apparently would be easier to get rid of roaches, bedbugs and herpes.
Putin said “de-nazification” of specific geographic region. Sending some of them westwards is part of that process. Now you can have Slava Ukraini at home.
You left off the “again”:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/hunka-invited-toronto-event-zelenskyy-1.7105610
I wonder if Hunka will snap out a Nazi salute again, as he did for the cheering idiot Canadian legislators and rulers at his last major public appearance?
Even if he were to succeed at that in Ukraine, he would still have the problem of the simpatico sentiments NATO.
And who knows what’s going to emerge from behind the curtain of the non-transparent EU?
Don’t look. It’s Nazis all the way down – starting with Ursulla.
Indeed. I quipped about Ursulla the other day. And she is just part of the paving the way stage for more to come.
“Ursulla”, very good. How do you like my “Keir Stürmer” ?
The argument about a weak hand for the East Coast union may be a bit of an exaggeration. It’s worth noting that WSWS doctrinally hates unions. Not that they’re wrong about a lack of solidarity, a bridge that was crossed many, many decades ago, but it’s a like a Murdoch publication pointing to the evils of organized labor, just from a different perch. And in any event, existent backlogs on West Coast ports, and the economic and logistical difficulties of rerouting cargo to the West Coast, likely are more consequential than that lack of solidarity.
The excellent recent video at What’s Going On With Shipping has details on how the strike would cripple imports, without any assistance from other unions. I’m buying extra sardines today.
“Israel’s Short-Lived Glory Celebrated by Kneejerk Polemicists, + Ukraine War Updates”
‘Notorious neocon Francis Fukuyama says Ukraine should begin committing terror attacks against Russia in order to make Russian citizens “feel the war” more’ (see the embedded video)
What a creep and seeing him hang around with Azov wives not that long ago confirmed it. ‘Nazis are our friends!’ By his own logic then, the 9/11 attack was perfectly justified in order to make Americans feel the war more.
His “end of history” theory looks quite discredited now.
It seems to me that history is alive and well, and in re-runs in Europe.
I have no facts to back me up–just the intuition developed from my following of “non-trusted” news sources, but I can confidently declare that many more Russian noncombatants have been killed than Ukranian.
To clarify, you must be referring to the people of the four oblesks that transferred their political loyalties to Russia as Russians. Correct?
Please correct me if I’m wrong, as I’m not sure how Russian non-combatants would be counted. Based on what composition of “Russia”?
Perhaps Russian as an ethnicity? And starting the count from 2014, when the eastern provinces of Ukraine (70-80% Russian) refused to acknowledge the unconstitutional government in Kiev, which then promptly released neo-nazi football hooligans dressed as Ukrainian army on the civilian population there.
Yeah, I was about to write “American Osama bin Laden.”
Sam Altman, podcasting bro. This stood out, “The NYT claims it discussed OpenAI’s negotiations with nine people close to the discussions who wish to remain anonymous.” Nine seems like a message.
Sounds like Altman intends to build the Matrix.
Pretty sure I just heard John Kerry say he would like to hammer us out of existence. BTW, he looks terribly old.
I thought so too. He really should have invested in a Dorian Gray picture. The sooner people like that go the better. He complains that there is no consensus as people do not believe the truth holders such as the main stream media – while refusing to acknowledge that they lie their faces off each and every day and nobody believes them anymore. Are there any other Amendments that he wants to abolish as well? Meanwhile regarding the main stream media, this link never gets old-
https://twitter.com/ModernityNews/status/1748366347036176592#m (37 secs)
Maybe he’s become a poster child for over-consumption of Ketchup (family fortune and all that. )
Ronald Reagan admin declared ketchup is a vegetable. Maybe he was right. / ;)
Lol! Wasn’t that a school lunch requirement workaround?
It was. Thank you David Stockman!
Yep. / ;)
Speaking of school lunch, this really shocked me. The idea of shaming kids over hunger and money:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YypArYDcjA&ab_channel=LastWeekTonight
The “comments” are just as shocking.
They charge you for ketchup down under at take-aways, it isn’t as if we charge for Vegemite here.
And speaking of Dorian Gray, apparently, I’m not the only one to notice this:
https://x.com/howlett_shawn/status/1360331742050201603
or his other famous role: “You rang?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPMKlEwrIs8
He was also the judge in My Cousin Vinny.
Kerry’s was the presidential campaign that arrived in Minnesota knowing everything they needed to know. Like HRC in 2016, they brought their own facts and didn’t need to hear a damned thing from people on the ground. It wasn’t my first brush with the smug neolibs who took over the Democratic party, but it certainly proved to me that the Democratic party I knew was dead. It’s still dead.
This Democrat party should be called the New Fascist Union. They’ve united with neoconservatives to keep the forever wars going but mostly I think that the New FU would be a more accurate description.
Bonus: “FU” has another reading that fits the Dems well.
I submit that the Democratic Party is not so much dead as (the) undead …
You hear this kind of statement in various forms throughout the Western media. It’s made with no shame but rather as a somewhat peevish complaint that the proles are no longer doing their job by meekly accepting the facts presented by the elite-controlled media. Rather, they are going around finding sources of information that are not under elite control and then going off and thinking their own thoughts and having their own discussions. These diverse popular information sources, with no sense of irony, are called “fake news,” and their very existence is a sign of how bad things are in the world.
It doesn’t require much perception or imagination to hear in these complaints a great longing for the good old days, when the entire information system consisted of three or four gigantic corporations which themselves were supported by other gigantic corporations. Elites had the whole thing pretty locked down for a long time, and there wasn’t much the population could do about it beyond stapling flyers to telephone poles and holding small talks in the back room of a union hall.
Thankfully, those days seem to be gone for good, though not without tremendous efforts to roll things back (cf Taibbi’s series on the various controls and systems built into Twitter to allow the right people to be amplified and the wrong ones to be crushed). It seems that the population has gotten wise to the sound of elite-serving news outlets, and we’ll quickly look for something else.
Matt Taibbi’s take on free speech and the threats thereto.
https://www.racket.news/p/my-speech-in-washington-rescue-the?utm_campaign=email-post&r=1auay&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The dirty secret of “content moderation” everywhere is that it’s a tiny sliver of the educated rich correcting everyone else. It’s telling people what fork to use, but you can get a degree in it
Free speech is upsetting the rich and their security staff, the three letter boys. They want to own all words and thoughts, like they own countries and politicians and natural resources.
“Is Iran’s Khamenei Dead Man Walking? Is Erdoğan?” : Jesus H. Christ. Words fail me. A serious proposal advocating for the straight-up assassination of every Middle Eastern leader or cleric, up to and including the President of Turkey and the Supreme Ayatollah of Iran, who has ever given any support to the Palestinian cause. And apparently this orgy of assassination should all be completed before January 20, with the justification that while Kamala Harris might say “naughty Israel”, Joe Biden can be expected to continue signing the transfer orders for bunker-busters even if Israel goes ahead and assassinates the head-of-state of a NATO country.
Fanciful indeed. If they hit Erdogan, you think that the Turks will keep the oil pipeline going into Israel or cut it and leave them high & dry? Will Turkiye demand an Article 5 be called and if there is no response by the US, then Turkiye will get out of NATO? That would mean that the US would have to shut down their nuke base in Turkiye which is something that they do not want to do. Maybe Turkiye can do the world a favour and decapitate the Israeli leadership if the Israelis tried something like this.
I had to stop at the beginning of the article from that deluded zealot.
His crossing red lines left out major historical facts and other habitual line stepping by the West…like the 1950s coup in Iran.
However, knowing these zealots have the opinion of Erdogan, I’m looking at the charges against that BS’er Eric Adams in a different light.
Just for the fun of it, Adams’ case should be assigned to Trump’s favorite judge and Erdogan should be named as a coconspirator.
241
With regard to the Hillary – “They are even more deplorable than I said 8 years ago” quote ———
She even admits in the same paragraph or two that was a big political loser……
I mean this in a totally serious manner…….. I have had the vibe over the past few weeks that the Dems are seriously trying to tank the election.
All in the same week –
We had the absolute most disastrous interview of Harris on friendly terms with MSNBC that I believe I have ever seen in my life from a presidential candidate.
We had Biden going to the UN, doing the best Dr. Strangelove imitation a dementia patient could muster and demanding total war.
We have now had John Kerry – “Who needs a first amendment anyway?” Discussion
We had Kamala Harris visiting the border, saying absolutely nothing of substance, all the while wearing her 70,000$ Tiffany necklace and “looking presidential”
And now this spout off from Hillary – revisiting her worst moment from her campaign – just to make certain it was on everyone’s mind again……
I am not kidding – I get a serious vibe that they know more about the disasters that await – and are trying to tank it – let Trump be the placeholder and we will come back in victory 4 years from now ( with whom is anyone’s guess – the guy I would have looked at Shapiro – has instantly disqualified himself as a member of the IDF signing bombs – the rest of them are a clown show)…..It is always possible that someone emerges from the mist like Obama did in 2008.
I do get that vibe.
Just a thought IM Doc. If you could go back in time ten years to 2014 and talk to your younger self and tell him everything that is going on with the Democrats right now, would he have believed you? Or would he have gone to fetch a butterfly net.
I get your point, but somehow, from my encounters with PMCs and PMC Adjuncts here in the North American Deep South, I get the feeling that this is a sign of continued flight from an unpleasant, to them, ground truth. The PMC class I encounter here exhibits many of the signs of Magical Thinking. Such as, if we only lecture the “masses” enough, said “masses” will see the light and vote for the “Approved Candidates.” Such as, if we throw enough tax breaks to the ‘Middle Class,’ they will all come out to vote for the “Approved Candidates.” Such as, most of the “deplorables” will be too drunk or drugged up to come out and vote for “Unapproved Candidates.” Such as, and this is the kicker for me, we may have to cancel the votes from some regions because the masses living in those regions do not ‘understand’ Democracy(TM) and thus vote for the “Approved Candidates.”
Underlying all of this I sense a basic flaw of the PMCs in America; the idea that, due to their credentials and training, the PMCs have a “Right to Rule.” These people really do view themselves as “Philosopher Kings.” Everyone else must, emphasis on must, step aside and let the PMCs do the work of governing.
Discussing this with Phyllis the other day, she came out with the quote from Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”
From which I gather that this sort of class struggle has been going on for a very long time.
Stay safe, be prepared.
Those irrepressible PMC people, as proxies for the current sociopaths. Their stenographers suppress news that they prefer you not see.
Here is one recent example that has not been covered enough. See the letter from ICE to Congress about all the criminals being let in. Quite an eye-opener!
Kamala doesn’t like to acknowledge that, or many other facts that get in the way of her visions and hallucinations. She is still busy being unburdened, while her prospective constituents find themselves with some locally toxic Newcomer burdens.
That border visit photo op stopped short of messy reality.
I tried to find a video of Kamala down on the border fence but, could only find photos. Not an immigrant in sight. Nice day for a stroll though. Compare this with RFK Jr’s. visit last year at 2am in the morning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_vW00Z-_Co
Apparently it’s only the second time she has visited the border since 2021.
The ICE data was brought up to some PMC friends of mine. All they did was laugh. How dare you question the great Kamala and Joe, we love immigrants, this is all good. No bad news allowed, and if it is bad news, it gets spun into good. So thousands of people with bad records coming into this country is just fine and dandy for these people.
But Trump…
Yea, what about Trump? Well they are outraged about him yesterday because he hasn’t said a word about the devastation from hurricane Helene. How dare him!!!!
Funny, I don’t remember much of a warning coming from sleepy Joe and the campaigning Kamala? Maybe I missed it.
After 8 years of my life being totally consumed with hating Orange Hitler one would think after this long it would get a little tiring, and I would want to find other things to occupy my time, but apparently not.
This is not to say that federal emergency response is or ever has been appropriate and adequate under any administration, but it’s easy to find links to what Biden/Harris have said and done. Here are two of them:
https://apnews.com/video/joe-biden-weather-united-states-government-hurricanes-and-typhoons-hurricane-helene-9500b60dec08420b9adf8e79957ce8f3
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/09/27/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administrations-life-saving-and-life-sustaining-response-efforts-to-hurricane-helene/
You are kidding, right?
Since half the state in multiple states do not even have internet service or electricity – and we are still pulling people off roofs – how on earth are they going to tap into the white house website for instructions?
We have fallen so far and so fast – that people actually believe that posting stuff online is going to help people in the middle of a disaster like this.
Speaking as someone who has multiple family member families in the affected area – who are not reachable right now – I find this kind of thing really disturbing…..
I have seen tweets and reddit posts all AM – with tens and hundreds of thousands of likes – “They are just deplorable hicks – who cares? – They have it coming for living in red states anyway?” —– The problem is I have multiple family members in one of these states in particular – NC – that are Dems – who may decide this election – the ones that can be contacted are none too happy with the Joe/Kamala team right now.
Real leaders would have already landed in the area – and would have been seen to be directing things – even in Washington DC –
I remember the days of Katrina – when this was literally on the news 24-7 for days on end – and Bush was in the plane within 24 hours. I have seen or heard nothing from Biden or Harris – and shame on them. The voters of these states have heard nothing either.
Not that I have seen much from Trump either – but he is not the President right now.
This is what the states’ National Guards are usually tasked with addressing. (Another good reason not to send National Guard troops off to fight in endless wars. We need them at home for disaster relief and recovery, among other things.)
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/hurricane-helene-national-guard-rescues/
Didn’t Bush just fly over Katrina and tell Brownie he was doing a heckuva job?
Jeff Wells of Rigorous Intuition 2.0 wrote a series of blogposts about Katrina specifically and listed under a category he called Katrina.
Katrina
The Ballad of Finis Shelnutt
My baby needs a shepherd
Category 911
Drowning by Numbers
Series of Dreams
The Last Refuge
New Orleans, Year Zero
Army Times: “Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans”
Because they can
Ring Them Bells
Helter Skelter
President Death
Catastrophic success
Crash on the levee
Here is a link to the ” top-of-the-category” article in that ” Katrina” category of articles. That link also allows you to click on all the other articles in that category one-by-one.
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2006/01/ballad-of-finis-shelnutt.html
Bush was indeed totally satisfied with the response to Katrina, also known as ” Operation Drown NOLA” and the ” Federal Flood”.
Katrina was clearly the moment in time that his complete incompetence in the situation became obvious to all.
At least he showed up. We cannot even count on that anymore.
Like East Palestine or Hawaii? In former times, looking Presidential meant showing up in person to a mass disaster site to show that the Feds had your back. Now if the President bombs some faraway place, the media will literally call this being Presidential.
Apologies if it wasn’t clear that I wasn’t suggesting people suffering from the storm follow some links, just that others of us evaluating the administration’s statements and responses should include additional information about work that began before the storm and is on-going.
https://www.fema.gov/press-release/20240928/fema-federal-family-helene-response-update
I don’t follow tv or print mainstream news media, but on twitter WH, POTUS, VP, and government agency accounts have been active.
“I have seen tweets and reddit posts all AM – with tens and hundreds of thousands of likes – “They are just deplorable hicks – who cares? – They have it coming for living in red states anyway?”
These Presidential election years are a bit like the 2 Minutes of Hate periods in the novel 1984. And with the same purpose.
I wonder if those are bot generated for political reasons. / ;)
I hear echos of The Hill comments sections (and other mainstream news media comments sections) during the Covid Pandemic before comments were turned off. Lots of othering and ill will.
Negative metta? Anti-metta?
Spent some time with the NY Times informed. Here were bright people still saying that while they are relieved that Biden is out that he isn’t as demented as Trump. That they are so relieved that the right people will continue. It was as if Trump was the only danger facing us. No recognition of the attacks on freedom of speech. No recognition that we are actively antagonizing half the world. No one got that Kamala is an empty pant suit (or that her speeches are as disorganized as Trump’s or more.)
I admit much of my references are from fictional accounts but more and more I am getting that we are in the roaring twenties with a mix of the years before Germany invaded Poland. The last few days I have had running around in my head F Scott Fitzgerald’s famous line “ They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.“ and thought it was like that not just our western governments but that the people at the parties and in Gatsby’s life could be the Hollywood style liberals and PMCs.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/327461-they-were-careless-people-tom-and-daisy–they-smashed-up
April, 1925
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
[ Superb analogy. ]
That Gatsby quote is evergreen.
Listen, they had to do “something” to suppress wages, and so what if a few criminals get let in. Can I still afford to pay someone to mow my lawn, and can I afford to go to a nice restaurant? What about my housecleaner?
This is how they think.
Think “Scarface.” Immigrant makes his way in America and fulfils the American Dream. (And he’s an entrepreneur too!)
“…so what…?” Malefactors are integral to the op. Like bad guy goes to prison, private profits ensue. Ba-dah-bing.
Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard year ’round residents, not the summer people, are having second thoughts.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/migrant-crime-crisis-comes-nantucket-marthas-vineyard-playgrounds-rich-famous
If Harris were more aggressive, she would start referring to ” Trump’s Open Border” and the ” Open Trump Border” and ” Trump’s Open Trump Border”. If the media asked here why she used those words that way, it would give her a chance to discuss the BiPartisan Senate Deal to pass the Republican Senators Wish-List Close-The-Border Bill which they were going to pass till Trump instructed them not to so as to allow him to keep using it as a campaign issue.
But Harris is not aggressive like that.
she might be responded to with this chart
https://images.wsj.net/im-11900205/?width=2000&size=1.9493177387914
not a good look there…but it sure does look aggressive
I have seen speculation that the intent now is to pop the AI/financial bubble on Trump’s watch. Also repeated claims that the “internal polls” (surveillance of opinions gathered by the likes of Palantir and FB) look very bad for Harris. No evidence for either.
I’d agree but for one fact: Under Trump the monstrously corrupt DOJ will lose its crooked leadership and truth will come out about J6, Russiagate, the laptop, Biden’s Ukraine dealings, maybe even military corruption. Healthcare alone will destroy the credibility of the Democrat party.
Current D politics are all Ponzied. You cannot build on wokeism because wokestry is a nihilistic electoral strategy that fragments itself even as media enablers ratchet up the crazy.
Democrats may be getting set to lose but that’s because they cannot win short of blowing up the election. I think the Pentagon just let them know they won’t permit it. Every Harris path to victory relies on voting machine fraud but there’s a limit to that and frankly they exceeded it in 2020.
Plan B will be to focus their vote steal on keeping the Senate. Then they use the Senate to block Trump’s appointments and to keep his administration understaffed. The disinformation will go into a higher gear and entire areas of govt will become nonresponsive to Executive branch authority (see 2017-21).
It won’t be enough because Trump will still be able to expose enough lies to do in the current establishment, Obama included. All the huge donations will be rerouted to traditional (easily bought) Republicans who will make sure that when Trump leaves office, a registered member of the duopoly will be his replacement.
IF RFK Jr and Gabbard can be approved for Cabinet level positions? Things may get better. I’m betting they’ll be smeared beyond recognition and will give us a first peek at who the new democracy-blocking Senate RINOs will be.
Interesting thought. While I wouldn’t put it past Dem High Muckity-Mucks to be totally out of touch and enbubbled, earnestly thinking these were all the right moves, I do remember Rishi Sunak, and the scuttlebutt that he didn’t want to preside over this particular episode in the decay of the state.
Another interesting and bizarre twist.
We are now two days into a major weather event that has obviously crippled the highway system and the rail system in a huge swath of the country with multiple states involved. The pictures from the region on twitter that I have seen are showing major damage to all kinds of infrastructure – interstates, rail lines, bridges, highways, etc. I have seen estimates that the cost of this event to insurance may be in the hundreds of billions……
And yet when you look at the front pages of cnn.com, nytimes.com, msnbc.com, abc.go.com, Washington post.com which I look at every day for a glance – this event has seemingly been scrubbed from the headlines. We have inane Trump and Harris commentary, and there is even coverage of an airplane incident in North Carolina that killed a few people – but the ongoing disaster and multiple dozens killed and an entire sector of the country crippled is just not there. You have to scroll down 2-3 pages to even begin to see stories. And the headline stories on each one are very much minimal takes on what appears to be a rather big deal.
Interestingly, 2 of these states are swing states.
Have I heard a single word out of Kamala – front and center on the TV – well actually no. There have been a few tweets – but I have heard more from DeSantis sending troops and help to NC than I have from Kamala.
I find the whole thing very bizarre. And again, I have the vibe that this is all purposeful.
Some of this might be lack of communications; Spectrum is the major provider of service here, and they also have an agreement with Verizon and run the backplane for Verizon cellular service. They share an agree over the towers, equal service, no throttling.
Anyway, Spectrum has been down without any service notices for days now. There’s no communication of any kind from the provider. So getting information in and out and coordination of emergency services is an issue as well. (Because apparently in 2024 there’s still no way to reliably communication between different emergency services, even though this was highlighted in the 9-11 commission report 20 years ago.)
Out here, I now have working Internet via Spectrum cellular towers, but Verizon using ostensibly those same towers does not have Internet service. SMS messaging seems to be functional, however. Not sure about voice calls. And that’ll probably vary widely depending on which side of which mountain someone is on.
We got it relatively lightly, all things considered. Here, all main roads are intact. The creek overflowed its banks, with the attendant inundation of anything in its path, but only smaller objects were carried away. And the usual downed trees. Water system seems to be intact, unlike in Asheville. This area even has electricity.
What I’ve seen on Twitter, there are places that don’t exist anymore. Just gone. All of Asheville on the French Broad flooded. Roads washed away in places or blocked by rockslide.
With the east coast dock strike coming, I’m somewhat concerned about food availability, given we’ll have run down stock and resupply is likely going to be difficult for weeks already. But that’s just conjecture; I haven’t ventured out, I want to conserve fuel in case I really need to drive somewhere; So I haven’t been to any grocery stores since before this began.
(As of last night, gas stations here were dry for non-diesel anyway.)
People on Twitter are musing about 9 billion for Ukraine, and whether any money for people here that have lost everything will be forthcoming, or not. This is an opportunity for the Biden administration to go big. I don’t have any hope in that regard.
California is overdue for an earthquake bigger than the 1989 Loma Prieta, say at the level of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. I wonder if it would be ignored just as the damage from hurricane is being?
If a similar temblor to the 1868 Hayward quake were to hit, the levee system on the California Delta would fall apart, hello salt water intrusion to a suddenly parched population all reliant upon somebody else’s water.
If that big quake happens during an October high wind event the fires will be historic, there will be no way to ignore it.
And of course the new Eastern span of the Bay Bridge will be down due to the shoddy quality of the construction.
There were whistleblowers at every stage of the construction pointing at serious flaws which were and have been totally ignored.
After 1989 quake one of the big problems was that emergency services were unable to communicate with each other.
They still can’t.
Yes. I saw from a comment yesterday that Interstate 40 was seriously damaged and closed thru eastern TN/ western NC. I had to seriously search for any information in the national media. Pretty sure that if I-95 was affected like this, there would be lots of coverage. There is info on local news and the DOT sites of the affected states.
https://wlos.com/news/local/parts-interstate-40-26-remain-closed-after-helene-storm-damage-flooding-mudslides-road-conditions-asheville-buncombe-haywood
I agree it’s odd that Kamala isn’t in NC and GA both. Maybe it’s a dem thing, NY and CA for money and hugs, Fugedaboud anywhere else, they’ll vote blue no matter who bc everybody knows we’re the best/brightest. And if they don’t they’re deplorable.
Neither candidate is acceptable, so who is lesser evil if you’re in a swing? If I was in such a place I’d have to say the Donald.
Thankfully – I have now heard from one of the four families that I know in the area.
It was the nurse that was in my office when I first moved here. She moved back home to the Asheville NC area about two years later – getting married etc.
She was a fairly typical millenial – very full of spunk – ardent pro choice – and very liberal in her outlook. Mostly like I am politically albeit quite a bit younger.
This is part of the communication we have all just received –
“Thank everyone for their prayers. This has been a rough two days. It appears from what the authorities have told us that we have very likely lost our home, everything in it, and our livestock. We have one car that we are driving now. Everything else is gone. Although it was quite alarming the first few hours because ( 8 year old son) was not with us. We are all together now – and will be starting a new life. We do not know what God has in store for us. We are all scared, but thankful.
To say the least, it is total chaos on the ground. There is no help. There is none on the way that we can tell. We are all alone standing in our church gym with dozens of others. I am angry. We feel abandoned. Has there been anything said or done on a national level on TV? We have no TV so we do not know.”
Neither I nor any of my family have heard from some of our family members. We are all hoping it is just a communication issue.
That’s awful, but not surprising.
I read a little bit ago elsewhere someone talked to relation in NC, they would not have power for over 2 weeks. I can’t remember where they said they were. They were leaving for up north and a hotel.
Adding; Asheville is where they said a couple of weeks. Read another person who has a relative stuck on a mountain and can’t get down.
Sounds like a real mess. I haven’t read anything from FEMA yet. Maybe too early to assess?
For North Carolina in particular, [FEMA Administrator Deanne] Criswell said the agency has had teams in the area for several days and is sending more search and rescue teams. She said water remains a “big concern,” and the Army Corps of Engineers is working to see what can be done to get water systems back online. And she noted that the agency is also working to bring in satellite communications.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fema-administrator-deanne-criswell-helene-flooding-north-carolina/
Sep 29, 2024
President Biden has granted Governor Roy Cooper’s request for a Federal Major Disaster Declaration for Tropical Storm Helene providing immediate federal help for 25 North Carolina counties and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. The declaration means that FEMA will be able to speed additional help to the state…This declaration is in addition to the federal emergency declaration already in place prior to the impacts of Tropical Storm Helene.
https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2024/09/29/north-carolina-receives-federal-major-disaster-declaration-north-carolina
Disaster Response Surges in Western North Carolina Following Hurricane Helene
Power, Cell Phone Service Being Restored, Food and Water Airlifted to Region
Sep 29, 2024
Critical supplies are starting to reach Western North Carolina communities hit hard by devastating Hurricane Helene as crews make progress toward restoring power and cell phone service and repairing roads.
Food, water and other needs are arriving in Asheville and also being airlifted by the North Carolina National Guard into counties across Western North Carolina. Cellphone providers are working to fix the damage and get stopgap solutions in place and rapid progress is being made.
https://governor.nc.gov/news/press-releases/2024/09/29/disaster-response-surges-western-north-carolina-following-hurricane-helene
Thank you for this, and good to hear.
I remember Katrina and how awful that was. We organized some events in this little Ohio burg and sent a full semi-truck full of help that way, along with a bunch of cash. I hope people step up and help this time as well – they will need it.
As of last night at least, the one local FM station with news had nothing actionable. No lists of places with gas, boil water notices, curfews, where food might be. Nothing. Not helpful really.
Late update…..
2 of the other 3 family groups have been at least heard from.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of the other family. Even more ominous, the law enforcement have visited the area and told some of their church friends to expect the worse. That does not sound good at all. Our only consolation is that they were serious survival folk. Tough as nails. They were also told that there may be 1000 or more casualties over that area of the state. Private helicopters and boats are now apparently doing all the work. Absolutely no sign of FEMA or any agencies at all. Seriously, what the hell? Is this really true?
I am reporting what I am being told by a very elderly and distraught aunt so please take this into account.
If this is true, this is a national shame especially 3 days into it.
There’s an agreement called the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) through which states provide each other with emergency support. If you do a search on EMAC North Carolina you can find links such as the first 2 below to info about deployments from several states. The third link is a tweet from FEMA about resources in NC. I can well believe many people haven’t yet seen a rescue team. In the few photos I’ve looked at the vast extent of flooding and devastation is horrifying.
“The 19-member MI-TF1 team deployed September 26 for a nine-day mission. The team is comprised of responders from 10 local fire departments from across Michigan and will join rescuers from North Carolina and several other states.”
https://www.sooleader.com/local-news/michigan-answers-north-carolina-call-for-flooding-help-9583091
“The Maryland Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team saved 17 people, including two children and a baby, from North Carolina’s Hurricane Helene Sunday, according to officials.
The team was deployed to North Carolina to assist local fire, police and emergency personnel in their rescue mission, officials said.”
https://www.wjla.com/news/local/maryland-rescue-team-saves-seventeen-people-children-woman-men-hurricane-helene-north-carolina-state-emergency-virginia-glenn-youngkin-firefighter-deaths-building-collapse-fallen-trees-destruction-dmv
https://x.com/FEMAspox/status/1840405375570395606
The videos I’ve seen on Twitter now that I have occasional 3G cell service remind me of the live cam out of InterNIC (?) during Katrina, but worse. Could see rising smoke from some buildings, the occasional national guard vehicle passing by on the street below.
The scale of destruction seems vast and complete.
Interesting. I was sort of noticing that but I chalked it up to me not paying enough attention to the domestic news last few days. That is indeed weird–almost makes W look caring and attentive in comparison and Harris is not just a canddiate, but the sitting VP no less–isn’t it VP’s job, practically, to say stuff at times like this?
We had Biden going to the UN, doing the best Dr. Strangelove imitation a dementia patient could muster and demanding total war.
We have now had John Kerry – “Who needs a first amendment anyway?”
We had Kamala Harris visiting the border, saying absolutely nothing of substance, all the while wearing her 70,000$ Tiffany necklace and “looking presidential”.
And now this spout off from Hillary…
[ Brilliant. ]
Maybe the Dem’s have very slowly, but finally, worked out that, of the two, Trump’s hands are the safest in which to place their own future because he is much less likely to simplemindedly cackle his way to nuclear devastation.
RE: Blinken says China’s talk of Ukraine peace ‘doesn’t add up’ Deutsche Welle
IMO, Zelensky almost certainly rejected the Brazilian/Chinese peace plan on US orders. “If you go for it forget about any more economic/war support”. The US does not want any negotiation on schemes devised by any other country— less so if one of these is China.
It has been suggested that Brazil’s Lula wanted a truce so that he could big note himself for such a successful negotiation and stopping a war but Zelensky dumped all over him something chronic. Lula should have known what he was dealing with as he has had bad experiences with Zelensky before.
It also could have been a clever move by China to drive a bigger wedge between Brazil and the “West.” Brazil being in the ‘New World,’ how much further “west” can you be? As Rabid Ghandi showed me several years ago, I live in the North American Deep South. He, being in, I believe Uruguay, is in the “Real South.” Everything depends on your point of view.
re: JBS accused of abusing immigrant workers at Colorado beef plant Agriculture Dive
Imo, illegals are the new “near slaves”. Slavery was once very, very profitable in the US. See the history of Yale, of Lehman Brothers, of Brown Brothers, of Chase bank, of the then wealthiest part of the US, the South.
https://moguldom.com/196647/revisiting-lehman-brothers-j-p-morgan-chase-history-with-slavery/
Today, “near slavesery” is almost as profitable, imo, with less financial risk to the importers/traffickers and the corporate employers. The organized importation/trafficking of “near slaves” is backed by large financial interests.
Thanks for the info.
Yet when I was listening to Stein´s running mate Ware I could not but remain in irritation – do they really think talk of paying Blacks trillions today as compensation is a serious political project?
Not to speak of it´s effect on voters?
If that´s her standing just like in case of putting Putin, Biden, et al. into the same basket – that doesn´t increase my faith in her ability to grasp how this works.
So eventually you have her, you have Cornel West who might picture himself as merely a “disruptor” and old dog Kucinich.
No wonder DNC has such an easy game fucking over everyone else. They simply have no serious challenger.
With the Democratic party once again leading the charge while many of those in the opposition benefit? Slavery got financial support from the North.
Around here the many construction jobs seem to overwhelmingly be held by Hispanics and some no doubt are recent immigrants. They seem to be hard workers and not pet stealers but I think it’s legitimate to question the motives of a party that says it’s all and only about being good Samaritans. As economist Dean Baker once said, if all the immigrants were economists then the attitude of left economists toward immigration would be quite different. One is entitled to wonder if many of the immigrants fleeing our foreign policy are just pawns in the class war being conducted by Wall Street.
Oh, Flora, the slaughterhouse workers cannot be ‘illegals’ because in the US it is illegal to hire an undocumented person. JBS could be subject to a $500,000 (wow!) penalty if they ‘knowingly’ allowed an undocumented person to work. (Lotsa luck getting that charge to stick!)
And the corporate slaughterhouses are keeping their low-paid workforce from communicating with each other and organizing by adding another language to the Spanish and various Asian and African languages spoken; French-speaking Haitian immigrants. See Springfield, Ohio.
We should stick it to ’em by all becoming vegetarians. Or eating only locally-raised meat. (OK, that’ll be a cold day in hell.) But, at the very least, when you bite into your juicy burger or chomp down on your chicken fingers, give a brief thought to the low-wage, no benefits worker, standing in the freezing cold on the slaughter house processing line, slashing through bloody flesh and bone, 8 to 10 hours a day. Until they miss, and cut off a finger or develop repetitive-use muscle or tendon problems. Unemployment? Workers’ comp? Physical therapy? Hah!
Joesley and Wesley Batista are the billionaire owners of JBS. I am sure they sleep really well at night.
Avaya Chomsky has a book, “Undocumented: how immigration became illegal”.
Her thesis is that US policy in practice is to have illegal immigration. “Illegal” so the migrants have no rights, “immigration” so there is an ample supply of vulnerable labor. So not being able to pass a comprehensive immigration bill fits this scenario perfectly.
My group, Tucson Samaritans, works with other groups on the Arizona border, where a plurality, possibly a majority, of border crossing happens. We are currently seeing around 100 people a day crossing, some for asylum who present themselves to BP, and some travelers who do NOT do so. My understanding is that most drugs come through the ports of entry (e.g. Nogales) in vehicles. NONE of it comes via asylum seekers, since they soon will be in BP custody. There are many families, many children, and some unaccompanied minors of various ages.
Anyway, just a little background, I could go on for hours.
From Scheerpost:
Dennis Kucinich: Mistaking Militarism for Statecraft, Empire for Democracy and Debt for Prosperity
https://scheerpost.com/2024/09/28/dennis-kucinich-mistaking-militarism-for-statecraft-empire-for-democracy-and-debt-for-prosperity/
I get that this phrasing is how people think, but debt *is* prosperity, just for the few and not for the rest of us.
Otherwise a decent enough rant, too bad no one will read it : (
re: John Kerry. What a doofus. He’s too dumb to be an enemy of the state, I guess. He’s a good weathervane for what the ultra rich are thinking.
adding: If his current gig doesn’t work out he can always try show biz. / ;)
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1f/f6/ca/1ff6cad8498f6369828be39e0841738c.jpg
Kerry is a politician. Today, that is Show Biz.
Yes. Just yesterday, my wife and I were discussing this, vis-à-vis P Diddy and outcomes due to entertainment’s close proximity to politics.
“Politics is Show Biz for ugly people”. I thought the quote was from Andy Warhol, but find that it has been attributed to many others.
Andy Warhol would never let himself be quoted uttering the word “ugly”, never, it’s too direct. Not his style at all. “Unattractive” perhaps but never “ugly”.
They should lower their fossil fuel dependency by using tried & tested German model.
Dude! My keyboard! Coffee everywhere!
The “tried & tested German model”. [Snort.] I consider the Energiewende to be one of greatest public policy “counter-examples” of all time.
USA actually suggested denuclearization of North Korea according to Libyan model.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/libyan-model-north-korean-denuclearization
Same problem coming to Arizona and other places…eventually.
RE: Israeli economy in ‘serious danger
Interesting punctuation on that one. I don’t read Al Mayadeen all that often, but don’t remember seeing Israel in scare quotes before. Maybe people are getting more comfortable questioning Israel’s legitimacy as a nation. And hopefully Al Mayadeen’s office is out of Israeli missile range.
I take it the answer is yes, and the scare quotes are meant to signify “the Zionist entity”.
How Bad Would a Trump Presidency Be for Labor?
By Chris Bohner
The Right has given us plenty of indications of the dangers a second Trump term could pose to labor. To see how bad things might get, we can look to another example of a brutally anti-labor presidency: Ronald Reagan’s.
https://jacobin.com/2024/09/trump-labor-unions-reagan-harris
Chris Bohner is a union researcher and activist.
The issue with this piece is it´s speculative tone. Too much that “could”, “would”, or is “just a toss-up”.
Is that helpful?
Others here can judge this better than me.
Intro:
“(…)
In the late 1990s, as AFL-CIO president John Sweeney led the federation’s ultimately failed program to boost union organizing, the phrase “organize or die” was standard rhetoric in labor leader speeches and commentary. Unions did not organize at scale, however, losing 1.9 million members since 2000, with union density (the percentage of all workers represented by unions) declining from 13.5 percent of the workforce to 10 percent in 2023.
Yet instead of dying a slow death, organized labor’s finances have actually flourished. Labor’s net assets (assets minus debt) grew from $11 billion in 2000 to $35 billion in 2023.
How did organized labor escape the “organize or die” theory of decline? Two key pillars have allowed unions to remain viable despite a steady decline in membership. But a second Donald Trump presidency could unravel both. For some sense of what that might look like, we can examine a previous right-wing administration that was a bloodbath for the labor movement: Ronald Reagan’s first term as president.
(…)”.
Via Ian Welsh, Jared Kushner declares victory.
“As the Iranian proxies and threats dissipate, regional security and prosperity will rise for Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. Israel now finds itself with the threat from Gaza mostly neutralized and the opportunity to neutralize Hezbollah in the north. ”
I didn’t know Jared was invited to the latest season of Saturday Night Live.
Jared Kushner really should have a long talk with someone like Scott Ritter to learn some home truths. Come to think of it, if Trump gets back in again will Kushner be once again near the gears of power?
All of our significant political players are Zionists.
Kushner is among the more radical Zionists but he is and will not be alone in the Trump administration.
The only hope to stop this from escalating is for Iran to enter the war and the US telling Israel deal with the consequences of its actions.
Or we enter the war and the American Empire unravels faster than we expect.
I for one am looking forward to Jared Kushner’s Iraq concert, and you’d hope Lil’ Antony Blinken would treat us to some Thin Lizzy while strumming on a stratocaster, in honor of the thin man sequel.
A classic childrens story at Task and Purpose: Jared Goes To Iraq! A Picture Story
Story review by QUARTZ
But one take was particularly brilliant: Task and Purpose, a news website dedicated to US veterans, told the story of Kushner going to war in form of children’s literature. Task and Purpose readers apparently loved the story—it has so far been shared over 58,100 times.
The piece, “Jared Kushner goes to Iraq! A picture story,” is penned by Adam Weinstein, a navy veteran who also worked as a civilian contractor in Iraq from 2008-2009. The story pokes fun at the US president’s 36-year-old son-in-law, now charged with making decisions on top security issue—and posing for photos in Iraq—despite having no foreign policy nor military experience. The story really gets going here:
One day, Joe had a question for Jared. “Would you like to see the war?” Joe asked.
“Golly, would I!” Jared said.”
I saw this earlier. Everyone should read it, especially those who have any false hopes about Trump’s Middle East policy. While typically vague, the noises Trump has made about Israel and Iran indicate that he fully subscribes to this Kushner family worldview. He would get full backing from the overwhelmingly pro-Israel Republicans and their ultra- Christian Zionist Speaker of the House (who seems to be really, really ready for Armageddon). And we all know about the Democrats.
So there’s our “choice.” Our current genocide enablers who pretend to care about Palestinian lives, versus their opposition who don’t even pretend.
AUTHORS SUING OPENAI WILL GET TO SEE ITS SECRET TRAINING DATA IN HEAVILY LOCKED DOWN ROOM – Futurism
“No outside electronics will be allowed into the room, and although the reps may be allowed to take notes, making copies of any portion of the data is strictly forbidden — a wild request, we should note, since it’s all material created by the public in the first place.”
Those are some arrogant and hypocritical grifters. Nastier by the day. But it’s right in line with the history of IP theft by SillyCon, while they have built buildings and institutions to protect what they consider their own patents and IP>
I recognize this: at the timr TTIP was a thing journalists in Europe could visit a room but not bring a pen or paper or recording material if they wanted to look at the agreement.
Now that you mention it, I remember something about that.
Those ideas haven’t been abandoned. These days, there’s an urgency to the doubling down on dystopia that needs to be examined.
“Norway to end automatic asylum for Ukrainian refugees”
I think that Norway woke up to the fact that the Ukraine is getting ready to collapse. And when it does, there will be a wave of millions of Ukrainian refugees heading west. No loyalty with fellow blue-eyed, blond-haired people there. And if the Russians bomb the last of the Ukrainian electrical grid, then all bets are off. Maybe that is why Germany ditched the Schengen agreement and are starting to lock up their borders as is the Netherlands. They want the eastern European countries to deal with them since they are so keen on this war. The Norwegians certainly don’t want Ukrainian military-aged men in Norway – they want them in the Ukraine fighting the Russians.
They know that the winter Is coming.
Aren’t Ukrainians fellow vikings, who admire the exploits of the Wiking Division back in the early 40s? Surely, these count for something,? /s
Hillary Clinton defends ‘deplorables’ comment: ‘Too kind a word’ for some Trump supporters – Fox News
She came out, right before the election, to double down on comments that contributed to one of the Dems big losses.
I’m laughing because I can’t be sure this is even about Trump.
Agree – this is just sublimated rage.
“Is Lebanon part of Israel’s promised territory?”
The article basically said that as far as Greater Israel was concerned, the sky is the limit, baby. But it looks like The Jerusalem Post has yanked that page as it was talking about the quite bits out aloud and was getting too much attention.
Yes, I noticed it had disappeared. But it had been archived several times already, so I was able to read it.
Here are the concluding paragraphs, which might account for its disappearance:
“The River Perat, commonly identified with the Euphrates River, is situated in the Middle East. It flows through several countries, including Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, before emptying into the Persian Gulf. In biblical contexts, the Euphrates River is often mentioned as a significant boundary in the promises made to the Jewish people regarding the Land of Israel.”
“If one looks at a map, they will be astounded by how far north this river extends and how vast the Land of Israel truly is. While we may not be able to reclaim all of it in our time, Hashem will surely return it to us soon.”
The quiet bits out loud indeed.
Found an archived version:
https://archive.ph/kFmFP
And yes, according to the article the Torah says West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq are all part of Israel.
And by the way, everything in the Old Testament up to and including the 12 tribes of Israel is Bronze Age stuff, meaning there is no supporting archeological or historical evidence whatsoever, no corraborating witness in the artefacts of any other cultures. And in any case, the text is self-contradictory, has multiple authors, has had multiple edits/rewrites, and was still being comprised in 5-10th centuries BCE through 100 CE, the entire OT only being completed around 100 CE. So, in other words, the authors are claiming territory they never had, were never promised, retroactively, and also making sh*t up. A good part of Judaism is about trying to reconcile and explain away the inherent contradictions and discrepencies which have resulted from the book being mostly fiction and no one author having an overview, e.g. authors in earlier passages have no idea about Jewish traditions, beliefs and laws which came later, hadn’t been invented yet.
If Israel is going to use the Torah as the basis of a land claim and justification for a genocide, they’re going to need to face some uncomfortable scrutiny and facts about their primary text and recent archeological findings which tend to contradict it. This will essentially put the Jewish religion on trial. Perhaps even put religion on trial insofar as there are two other religions which reference the OT. Maybe Christianity will need to make a clean break from the OT if it wants to have cleanse itself of sin.
“If Israel is going to use the Torah as the basis of a land claim and justification for a genocide…”
As I say, beware any person talking about they are among “chosen ones” – whatever the belief.
The oldest exploitation game running.
Marcion tried that in the second century AD. He had to cut much of the NT too. Too many references to the OT.
Marcion of Sinope compiled the first bible, excluding the OT, c.130 CE. He was a sort of gnostic who considered the ancient Arabian thunder god Yahweh a demi urge who created the material world and all its evil. The church handed back a large cash contribution from Marcion and excommunicated him.
“Thuringia Parliament: Opening Session Descends Into Chaos”
Of course all the chaos was caused by the losing parties and it looks like they are going with the old dog in the manger ploy for the rest of the term limit of that Parliament. Good thing that that will never stoke up strong feelings among AfD members in the rest of Germany.
The outlines of a zeitgeist begin to emerge, from Macron to Thuringia, the war parties defeated democratically after firing all their lawfare ammunition against their opponents, now simply refuse to cede power. We know the Cheney Dems have been telegraphing this course of action since they made a protest at the capitol into an insurrection.
There she was just a-walkin’ down through the party, singin’
‘Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do’
Snappin’ her fingers and shufflin’ her feet, singin’
‘Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do’
She looked good (Looked good)
She looked fine (Looked fine)
She looked good, she looked fine
And I nearly lost my mind
Before I knew it she was walkin’ next to me, singin’
‘Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do’
Holdin’ my hand just as natural as can be, singin’
‘Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do’
We walked on (Walked on)
To my door (My door)
We walked on to my door
Then we kissed a little more
Whoa-oh, I knew we was being video’d
Yes, I did
And taped testimonials of all the things
Diddy been schemin’ of
Now we’re in the news nearly every single day, singin’
‘Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do’
A-Listers so unhappy, and that’s all they’re gonna say, singin’
‘Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do’
Well, I’m on screen (I’m on screen)
She’s online (She’s online)
I’m mute, she’s a mime
Viral numbers are gonna climb
Whoa-oh-oh-oh, oh yeah
Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do, we’ll sing it
Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do, oh yeah, oh, oh yeah
Do wah diddy diddy dum Diddy do
Do Wah Diddy Diddy by Manfred Manns Earth Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UingsUi0mI
UFC* 86
Kamala (Hock to a girl) Harris vs Donald (the Ayatollah of Diet Coca-Cola, Teetotalitarian leader) Trump
In an attacking mood, Donald chastises Kamala for having no offspring and perhaps a Cheshire or 2, while emphasizing JD’s advance work in ferreting out tail-tales from Springfield.
Nobody does dancer’s eyes and a withering smile better than the Kam… and on the offense she goes, relating that although it was a burden to her middle class family’s income, she once brought a tabby home in Montreal when she was going to school there.
*Ultimate Feline Catcalls
$49.95 PPV
$29.95 PPV HD
https://x.com/AlexanderSoros/status/1840059072336277613
Superstar of this year’s general assembly! Great speech by British FM @DavidLammy on Russian imperialism and agression. 🇬🇧
https://x.com/AlexanderSoros/status/1839391057215414557
Always a highlight to get to see Polish FM @radeksikorski, no matter the topic you always leave with a smile because of his incredible wit! 🇵🇱🇪🇺
https://x.com/AlexanderSoros/status/1839307417043235024
Inspiring conversation with @Tsihanouskaya, who embodies resilience and determination, in her unwavering struggle for democracy in Belarus.
Treating a New Species: Homo Fragilis
Subhead: Our fragile patients are increasingly dependent on a crumbling healthcare system
https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/rural
From Sept. 17; still germane.
For someone who has been politics-adjacent for much of her life, it’s amazing how politically tone deaf Hillary Clinton remains. One would think that ass kicking she got in 2016 by the deplorables would cause her to do some internal reflection (or at least show some outward respect), but no, it’s still everyone else’s fault. As Lambert says, she can never fail, she can only be failed.
Reviving and reiterating her contempt for much of the US population on the eve of a presidential election where her candidate seems likely to lose is par for the course, but nevertheless amazingly lame. I think the greatest favor this one-time Goldwater Girl can do for the sake of our long-suffering humanity is STFU from now on.
She is a lot like her followers. Tone deaf, no self reflection, just blame other people.
Yes, please, STFU – and I will add – also go away.
She believes her ass-kicking came from Putin/Russia.
She also cackled about how “we are going to put a lot of coal miners out of work”. She then pretended to care and pretended to offer the pretended concept of other pretended jobs they ” could do”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksIXqxpQNt0
But remember that she only won two elections in her life: both in a heavily Democratic state (which she selected to win a seat) behind the other Democrats on the ticket. She is not very good at get elected. If she were left to her own abilities (and not her husband), she likely would have topped out as a District Attorney or State Attorney General.
The governor’s mansion may have changes her, but Hillary strikes me as too flippant and disinterested to run and win a job where she would have to work.
If she really wanted to be president, she could have moved to Illinois and eyed the open senate seat in 2004. She simply never demonstrated the fight she would need to win. She polled the worse of any Democratic hopeful in 2008, but winning an open and properly contested seat would demonstrate potential on the national level. Reagan and Nixon both won in California, and Shrub beat Ann Richard’s. Hillary picked a state with dozens of potential candidates, hence her celebrity outdid the primary candidates. That won’t work against a major party nominee.
An article from before Jack Ryan’s scandal showed Obama as a hungry candidate fighting for every vote. Hillary whines about voters not recognizing her divine right.
Do you remember the good old days when “The Adults will be in Charge” and everything would get better?
Before the percentage of American Children living in Poverty rose from 5.2% to 14.7%?
Before the wars with two Nuclear superpowers and before the USA became complicit in the ongoing Genocide in Palestine?
Good times, good times.
I do find it interesting that both major candidates are promising to continue violate both US Law and International Law and the MSM never seems to mention it.
I suppose it’s just BAU and no big deal to our betters, but it leaves a foul smell in the air.
14.7% Children living in Poverty only?
We have a much higher % in Germany. Officially for the first time scratching the 20%. My guess it´s more like 25%.
Percentages 12.6 for all ages and 15.5 for children from 5 to 17 respectively in 2022:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1uwFY
January 15, 2018
Estimated Percent of People of All Ages and Children 5 to 17 in Poverty for United States, 2000-2022
Do you remember the good old days when USA was not complicit in the ongoing genocide, or war, or slavery, or some “burning crosses” activity?
That link to “Is Israel Part of Lebanon’s Promised Territory?” is a 404 on the Jerusalem Post website, and has been for a while since publication, per the paywall-breaker archive.today (aka archive.ph ) . I had to go back several spider crawls to finally find the original article, which this should be: https://archive.ph/Z1oF5
Ukraine – Washington – as reported tonight and as expected, UKR intends to still use longer-range missiles.
Which means, there must be some backing from Washington on a wait and see basis.
Sigh. Yawn?
UKR or UK?
re: Germany and Habeck smearing BSW
Habeck via his attorney has agreed to not say publicly no more that BSW is funded by Moscow and Bejing.
This guy is really too stupid. Incredible.
see BERLINER ZEITUNG (I can´t get the translated version archived and the non-archived links never worked, so this is the German original from today):
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/wagenknecht-partei-ueber-habeck-fake-news-des-kinderbuchautoren-wurde-riegel-vorgeschoben-li.2258416
Hillary tried to smear Tulsi Gabbard with the same accusation but was forced to back off because she too was just lying.
No surprise there’s little traction right now on Klippenstein’s banning from X, particularly in light of the mass garment rendering over the Twitter files. All the chumps and suckers that lined up behind Musk’s alleged free speech principles are going to be at pains to explain this one away. It’s hard to ignore the Wallet Inspector vibes this gives off.
FTR – I was pretty ambivalent about the Hunter Biden laptop story. Twitter arguably pressed their thumb on the scale here (and is to me a case study on content moderation and it’s travails) but I also do not think it would have been as impactful in swinging the election as conservatives seem to have believed. Given how little Hunter’s legal issues since then had little salience with the broader public I’m pretty firm on my assessment.
Funnily enough I can feel certain I saying that Hunter’s laptop would absolutely have swayed more voters than the news that Trump had paid off Stormy Daniels. Especially as selling governmental influence is more of a political crime on its own. But Trump has 34 felony convictions but Blinken and the other liars he lined up are not facing so much as a reprimand in their permanent record. Just think what the DOJ would have done if Don Jr had provided such a laptop.
Something to keep an eye on;
Chemical fire closes stretch of I-20 between Augusta, Atlanta
Link is to a TV station there. In the article is says this;
Like they don’t have enough trouble down there already with the recent storm.
I was about five miles southwest of Covington yesterday and all looked good. A few cut up fallen trees to clear the roads. The rivers and streams were high, brown and fast. Wet land areas were swamped.
There wasn’t a lot of damage seen on the 50 mile drive there from southwest of there.
Atlanta is now covered in a chlorine haze. Hopefully no one gets injured and it clears up soon.
Rest In Peace Kris Kristofferson. Broken Freedom Song
A man’s man. I’ll never forget him coming to aid of Sinead O’Conner on SNL. Rest in peace.
Taibbi’s latest. Public excerpt.
My Speech in Washington: “Rescue the Republic”
Freedom of speech isn’t a legal right, but a way of life
https://www.racket.news/p/my-speech-in-washington-rescue-the
(Actually it is a legal right. Maybe Matt meant to to say “isn’t only a legal right”. / my 2 cents)
Probably meant that rights determine a culture. So if John Kerry got his wish and the First Amendment went away, what would the culture of America be then? Likely for a start there would be a proliferation of a class of informers like in ancient times where informants got a kickback for the prosecution of individuals saying the “wrong” thing.
“
Freedom of speech isn’t just a legal right, but a way of life…”
Taibbi made your point, didn’t he? That statement was from the link you posted.
He’s now released full speech without paywall. Same link as Flora’s above
https://www.racket.news/p/my-speech-in-washington-rescue-the
Hurricane after math is bad, seriously bad, getting politicized on top of it. Although this was interesting –
Meteorologist Vernon Turner
@WeathermanVern
The only available wifi in #Asheville is at the public library downtown. Here’s a look at images taken by our photojournalist Maurice Griffin.
https://x.com/WeathermanVern/status/1840436098901639197