Smelling Something Dangerous May Put The Immune System on High Alert Science Alert
Private Equity Investors Account for 40% of US Deals Bloomberg
Climate/Environment
Atmospheric rivers are shifting poleward, reshaping global weather patterns Down to Earth
Microsoft Azure CTO: US data centers will soon hit size limits Semafor
Extraction, Exploitation, and Religious Surplus in the Capitalocene Religions
How the Warmth Underground Could Heat and Cool Your Home CNET
Going off grid is a financial win for some, but it’s a threat for poorer families and the environment The Conversation
***
FEMA makes “operational adjustments” in hurricane response as threats spike Axios
Top U.S. housing official visits Asheville as advocates call for a rent, eviction freeze Asheville Citizen Times. ‘Housing Authority CEO Monique Pierre said that residents who have “experienced a hardship” due to Tropical Storm Helene would “immediately” have rents taken “down to zero”…She clarified later, via email, that “hardship” referred to a loss of income and that residents can request a rent adjustment. What that meant for potential future rent abatement or forgiveness was unclear.’
As many as 100,000 people in Western North Carolina don’t have running water after Helene Asheville Citizen Times
Pandemics
Africa
Congo Launches Strategy to Diversify Mining Investments Beyond China The Deep Dive
Uganda, U.S. -Heading for Divorce? African Stream
India
In India, the World’s Deadliest Industrial Disaster Has Outlived Itself Inkstick
China?
China launches military drills around Taiwan Channel News Asia. Commentary:
China confirm what many of us have long suspected: there is no plan to invade Taiwan; rather the plan is to blockade the island. Not remotely clear how America would respond to this given that they lost against the Houthis. 🇨🇳🇹🇼 pic.twitter.com/sysq7fcXPy
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) October 14, 2024
Congress’ tough stance on Beijing to continue: Ex-AIT director Focus Taiwan
GT Exclusive: Latest report shows US cyber weapon can ‘frame other countries’ for its own espionage operations Global Times
Marshall Plans Phenomenal World
Old Blighty
How to Support What Remains of Russian Civil Society The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies
Alex Salmond. Always My Hero Craig Murray
Syraqistan
Israeli Defense Officials: Gov’t Pushing Aside Hostage Deal, Eyeing Gaza Annexation Haaretz
Israel ‘wiping out Jabalia’, killing hundreds of people in north Gaza The New Arab
The Israeli army bombed the tents sheltering displaced people inside the Al-Aqsa Hospital. pic.twitter.com/LLncNpv4rJ
— Gaza Notifications (@gazanotice) October 13, 2024
Rashid Khalidi: “Israel Is Acting With Full US Approval” Jacobin
***
Four soldiers killed, seven seriously hurt in Hezbollah drone strike on military base The Times of Israel
15 UN peacekeepers injured after Israeli forces destroy main gate of UNIFIL compound in Lebanon Euronews
UN Troops in Lebanon Can Shoot Back at Israel Consortium News
US ‘training & equipping’ Lebanese Army is worst kind of déjà vu Responsible Statecraft
***
Iran blasts latest planned EU sanctions DPA
Adaptation in the Sanctioned Economy Phenomenal World
Why a Liberated Palestine Threatens Global Capitalism Jason Hickel, Transnational Institute
The great emigration: Israel sees an unprecedented number leave the country Jerusalem Post
Big investors leaving Israel’s real estate market Globes
***
Statement by Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder on the Deployment of a THAAD Battery to Israel US Department of Defense. With boots on the ground. Biden in 2024 SOTU: “No U.S. boots will be on the ground.” Commentary:
A single THAAD battery has 24 “hit-to-kill” interceptors. This means it can attempt to intercept a grand total of TWELVE incoming missiles.
So … if the Iranians launch a strike package of, say, 240 ballistic missiles … well, do the math. 🤦♂️ https://t.co/e1gAkDneTu
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) October 13, 2024
US military strikes ‘multiple’ Islamic State group camps in Syria France24
New Not-So-Cold War
US tees up Ukrainian and Syrian extremist proxies in fight against Russia The Cradle
Germany halts heavy weapon deliveries to Ukraine, Bild reports — but that’s not the full story Euromaidan Press
Ukraine’s deficit grows while intergovernmental aid stagnates bne Intellinews
B-a-a-a-a-d Banks
Woke guns? Banks want weapons badged as a social good Politico
Spook Country
It’s FBI vs. CIA in Michigan’s US Senate race. And the gloves are coming off Bridge Michigan
UFO drones are surveilling America’s most sensitive military sites — and the Pentagon says it can’t stop them New York Post
Trump Assassination Attempts
Man with guns arrested near Trump rally in Coachella; Riverside sheriff says they stopped assassination attempt The Press-Enterprise
Trump
Can Schedule F Save America? The American Conservative. The deck: “Trump has a plan for the deep state. Is it enough?”
Kamala
Harris’s Chance on Trade Zephyr Teachout, The New York Review
Is Kamala 2024 Clinton 2016? Jacobin
I’m still baffled that Harris at Univision town hall kept touting her endorsement by Bush’s AG Alberto Gonzales (who resigned in disgrace) as though that would mean anything to the audience. Kinda sums up how well this catering to the center right is going
— Luke Goldstein (@lukewgoldstein) October 13, 2024
GOP Clown Car
Steve Bannon Has Called His “Army” to Do Battle—No Matter Who Wins in November Vanity Fair
Democrats en Déshabillé
Whitmer apologizes for how Dorito video was ‘construed’ The Detroit News. The video:
How else can this be interpreted other than mockery of Catholics and the sacrament of Holy Communion, not to mention the distasteful pornographic innuendo? Gretchen Whitmer is only the latest example of the gross anti-Catholic bigotry festering inside the Democratic Party. pic.twitter.com/KG1BmHYkJM
— CatholicVote (@CatholicVote) October 10, 2024
Imperial Collapse Watch
America’s Midas Touch Scott Ritter Extra
The Univocal, Non-plural West Denies Itself Pluralia
U.S. Shipbuilders Falling Far Behind Navy’s Demand For New Nuclear Attack Submarines Military Watch Magazine
AI
Generative AI, the American worker, and the future of work The Brookings Institution
As AI takes the helm of decision making, signs of perpetuating historic biases emerge Minnesota Reformer
The Bezzle
A crypto king is now the prime minister of a tiny country Quartz
FBI created a cryptocurrency so it could watch it being abused The Register
Class Warfare
When Populists Rise, Economies Usually Fall Harvard Business Review. Confuses stock markets with economies.
California pledged $500 million to help tenants preserve affordable housing. They didn’t get a dime. Cal Matters
To Tackle Housing Crisis, These Organizers Want to First Change How City Hall Works Bolts
Tracking Marx’s Capital The Next Recession
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
131 comments
Comments are closed.
JEWISH FANTASY
(melody borrowed from Memphis Tennessee by Chuck Berry but Johnny Rivers owns this song)
(Might as well put the YouTube link on Loop—we’ve got enough verses here to sing it twice)
Yeah, Israel’s a nation lost in their own history
Living in the Bronze Age but with modern weaponry
They go from dumb to dumber with their murder free for all
‘Cause they only know aggression—they’re as crazy as King Saul
They believe God gave them this land in antiquity
Back then he wasn’t God but just a tribal deity
So nowadays they twist that tale to add a sacred tinge
Yet all of them believe it, so their minds have come unhinged
(musical interlude)
‘The river to the sea’ is now the Jewish battle cry
An ethnic state is what they seek beneath the desert sky
But when the final tale is told, when Palestine is free,
Zionism will be called the Jewish fantasy
Their apartheid nation treats their neighbors pretty bad
With billions from America—our backing’s ‘ironclad’
Since stupid is as stupid does in Washington DC
We back these silly people and their Jewish fantasy
(play it again, Sam . . .)
They’ve raised whole generations narcissistic as can be
Raised on pure malarkey they can’t see reality
This world has slept and slumbered while they worked the Wailing Wall
But we’re waking to the wreckage they have caused to one and all
Cold elimination of a people guarantees
That you will stand alone—that’s clear from Nazi Germany
You can’t do genocide—it truly makes the whole world cringe
Murder with a smile marks you as lunatic fringe
(musical interlude)
The nation you foresee will wind up standing high and dry
On an endless losing streak unable to get by
A thousand years it will be told across all seven seas
That Zionism’s not a faith it’s simply a disease
Bloodlust and elation and the terrors by Mossad
Pulling on the trigger only kills the world you had
A people with no heart make rape official policy
‘No stone atop another stone’ the Jewish fantasy
Zionism’s not a faith it’s simply a disease
Turned on my phone yesterday evening to find Images of a child and mother in a tent burning in raging flames. We don’t, however back these silly people and their Jewish fantasy, no nothing silly about them, evil is as evil does. A disease has no moral agency/content, these “Zionist” are much worse than a disease.
“GT Exclusive: Latest report shows US cyber weapon can ‘frame other countries’ for its own espionage operations”
That’s not an exclusive. When Edward Snowden had all those files released about a decade ago, there was mention of one program where through the use of timestamps, a foreign word, etc. they could make an intel file appear to come from Iran or China or Russia or any other country. In fact, I have seen this technique used when an intel file is supposed to be Russian as the timestamp shows that it was created in daytime in Moscow or buried in it will be the name of a famed Russian spy like Beria. It’s old hat now.
This is not new, either. As early as the mid-90’s my friends and I were having fun, with the magic of shell accounts, spoofing IP’s from other countries. Compsci students at universities the whole world over were probably doing this with their school unix accounts. I’m sure I’ve coded a thing or two while seeming to be in crazy places like .lc (Saint Lucia) or .io (Indian Ocean). It’s extraordinary fun, anonymity has always been an attraction.
Nowadays even the non-technical use VPN, for example, to get around country-specific copyright blocks to watch television or movies. In essence doing the same thing, disguising their origin, appearing to be from other countries.
This is why I’ve long mistrusted any “proof” of origin of cyber attacks. If a report says there’s conclusive evidence an attack came from somewhere then it’s quite simply wrong, false flags are too easy, the best we can do is probability.
Probability doesn’t even help.
The only iron clad rule to out the “origin” of data nowadays is…
Cui Bono
If I remember right, this was also part of wikileaks Vault 7 release, which let the world see a lot of the spooks’ toys, and among them was the ability to falsely attribute espionage attempts to any party the US wanted. That’s the big reason they wanted Assange taken down.
The CIA was negotiating with Wikileaks to keep Vault 7 hidden. The negotiations foundered when the head of the FBI (whose name I forget) refused absolutely to grant immunity to Asange. Wikileaks then went ahead and published Vault 7, and Asange’s torture began.
Re: UFO drones are surveilling America’s most sensitive military sites — and the Pentagon says it can’t stop them (NYPost)
Here’s the original WSJ reporting the NYPost piece is based on. Much firmer linkage to China than most UAP stories. The type of incident is also more prosaic-sounding than most of the stories coming out in the post-2017 ‘Disclosure’ push.
Both the House (scheduled for November 13th) and Senate (November reported keeps getting pushed back) could be having UAP hearings between the election and inauguration dates.
Still intrigued where this is going, but still viewing through a cynical info-hazard protection filter.
Somehow I am expecting an unveiling of new wunder-waffen at the end of this.
“Four soldiers killed, seven seriously hurt in Hezbollah drone strike on military base”
A newspaper headline I saw today described it as a “horror strike”. No self-awareness about the fact that they were a legit military target being enemy soldiers while the IDF commits horror strikes on defenseless civilians each and every day of the week.
And before I forget. Something that really bugged me was when the Israelis wounded a coupla UN personnel. But when it was on the TV news, they refused to say the word “wounded” but used the word “hurt” instead like if you tripped over a hose or something yet. And yet the viewed TV report said that those UN troops were injured. Our media sucks.
Our media sucks
That is an understatement if ever there was one…also, you have to qualify the “our”, it’s “their” Media, bought and paid for in dirty lucre of blood, bribery, and blackmail.
InBritain, the mainstream news bulletins named the four individually, stressed they were teenagers just innocently eating a meal and showed some of them in civilian clothes. Meanwhile barely a mention of the latest tented hospital attack by the Israelis that burned alive numerous bedbound patients.
In Ireland, a zionist spokeswoman has berated the Irish for supporting Palestine, and hinted at blackmail, in that Israeli investors and tech companies with a presence in Ireland could leave the country if the Irish did not mend their ways.
Will the Irish have to tug their forelocks as well?
The poor Israelis are again the victim. At least they’re being extremely careful not to bomb Palestinians while they’re eating a meal by not allowing food into Gaza.
In the past 48 hours, Israel bombed a hospital in Gaza and burned a bunch of people alive, bombed UN Aid workers, and forced the UN to halt polio vaccinations:
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/israel-lebanon-iran-gaza-attack-10-14-24-intl-hnk/index.html
We should have a contest to see who can write a sentence in the most hilariously passive-voiced manner that exculpates Netanyahoo.
Here is mine:
“Metallic objects traveling at a high velocity emanating from the general vicinity of someone who might be related to a certain country founded in 1948 pass through skull of young terrorist (age 3.)“
I thought I heard the Israelis (Netanyahu himself?) say that they will regard any ambulance in Lebanon as belonging to Hezbollah because everybody knows that the secretive Hezbollah forces always travel around in white marked vehicles that have lights flashing and a siren going.
“Wounded terrorists of varying ages hiding in hospital tents foolishly refused to vacate their covert refuge after disciplinary air strikes by IDF aviators brought fire to bear on these recalcitrants. Death was the result in some cases.”
Apparently described as a three year old *lady*.
:-(
‘During the night, the Israeli military provided heat to refugees residing in tents outside Al Aqsa Hospital.’
>How to Support What Remains of Russian Civil Society The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies
Reading through this article, for Sh**s and giggles, I substituted the US, instead of Russia every time. Seemed to work pretty well.
Apropos, “substituting”, I was recently listening to some interviews of Yuri Bezmenov from 1984. if you substitute “Soviet Union” and “Marxist Leninism” in his description you get 2024 “collective West.”
Fascinating parallels. But the Soviet Union collapsed without much violence, the same doesn’t appear t hold as U.S.S.A unwinds.
Soviet Union had a lot going for it. Mostly people wanted reforms (a la Andropov, not Gorbachev). What they got was a man-made economic crisis (Gorbachev reforms) that led to a revolution in a top down fashion – while majority of the population is most republics wanted to retain Soviet Union, the new Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian leaders declared Soviet Union dissolved.
Concerning the top down dissolution of the Soviet Union, could you suggest any books or articles on the topic?
Also, I have also read or heard, that prior to dissolution, there was wide scale disillusionment on the USSR, falsification government and industrial records, general level of ‘lying down’… does anyone know of any good sociological/ cultural analysis on the malaise of USSR prior to its fall?
The books I’ve read or are reading are not as much about the political as they are about the economic of the time. And they mostly focus on Russia.
Collapse – The Fall Of The Soviet Union, by Vladislav M. Zubok from 2021 is probably the closest match I can think of right now. With the caveat that I haven’t finished it yet myself (way too common occurrence with me…).
Zubok says that there’s not much study of the era, because most people would rather forget the times than dwell on them.
if only Ligachyov was chosen instead of gorbachev.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Ligachyov
“Public ownership unites, but private ownership disunites people’s interests and indisputably causes social stratification of society…. For what purpose was perestroika started? For the purpose of most fully using the potential of socialism. Then does the sale of enterprises into private hands really promote the revealing of the possibilities inherent in the socialist system? No, it does not…. Lately people have begun saying, “Perestroika will develop, with the party or without it”. I think otherwise. With the party, and only with the vanguard party, can we move forward on the way of socialist renewal. Without the party of Communists, perestroika is a lost cause….
— Yegor Ligachyov[15]”
One of my Russian acquaintances (definitely not fond of Putin, and somewhat ironically, with a very “obviously Ukrainian” surname) practically described Yeltsin as commiting treason for pulling that off.
The author who could write this –
“Who can express the discontent directed at a political leadership that diverts funds from healthcare, education, road maintenance and water services, only to throw them into the massive conflagration of the ongoing war?”
– needs an irony transplant. As you noted, that would be true of the US at any time over the last several decades now.
yeah. substituting USA for Russia is quite the enlightening exercise.
think tankies should really get out more.
things arent near as rosy as they seem to assume.
and they are talking about meddling directly in the internal affairs of russia,lol…walk a mile in the other guy’s shoes, and all…if russia spoke this openly about stirring up shite in the usa, these same folks would have kittens(mmm…tasty…)
i wonder how much the author(s) got paid for this mighty effort.
I really have to wonder whether this tripe is even written by authors anymore, or just cranked out by AI.
“The Israeli army bombed the tents sheltering displaced people inside the Al-Aqsa Hospital”
Starvation, destroying infrastructure necessary to life, deliberately killing and maiming innocents, and now cremating the living as they lie in their tents at night. Just stone cold murder. Compared with the savage barbarism of the Zionists and the forces complicit in their crimes, including the Congress, the UK Parliament and the EU Commission, the Nazis were mere dilettantes exercising in the school playground.
It might be worse than you think. When the Nazis were slaughtering the Jews in WW2, you didn’t see the major countries like the US, UK, France, etc. shipping the Nazis weapons, ammo and money to finish the job while providing them political cover in the League of Nations and pretending to be helpless in stopping them.
Some countries did help the Nazis–Ukraine, Romania, Finland, and Vichy France were part of the Empire. I’m stretching it, but really Israel is part of the Washington Empire so its natural that the vassal states in Europe are part of the war-effort against those parts of West Asia that don’t genuflect towards Washington though the Gulf States are not genuflecting as vigorously as, say the Jordanians and Egyptians. This is part of the endless war that is Washington’s relentless effort to expand and secure its borders.
I usually am loathe to ascribe too much to individuals, but I think much of this is Biden didn’t tell the Israelis to make a deal around Nov 1st. Everyone with two grey cells knows Israel has to jump when the US says jump.
Netanyahu wants to look tough and have the US come to the rescue. It’s just Biden besides his disdain for non whites can’t comprehend Netanyahu’s tough guy routine is the same as Biden’s.
Groups like AIPAC were simply let off the leash, and they are run by people with religious fervor. Now everything has spiraled out of control because Israel’s economy is dead for a generation. Israel can’t fold now because they are too small to function cut off from trade.
Much of this stems from Biden not understanding for the US Israel is a dog that you let the leash go a bit and put back.
The US National Security State is subject to all the sins of groupthink since they have mostly purged all realists from gov’t and think-tankery. Careers only flourish when you are pushing for war, war, war in order to make this century another “American Century” with “full-spectrum dominance” which. They are deeply ideological and have no reverse gear. It’s world conquest or bust for those characters–Biden has no say in any of that. Washington wants to destroy Iran or any other country that will not accept either being a vassal state or just a state of passive neutrality.
My sense is that the two forces are the neocon/neoliberal (they are the same) FP community and the Jewish religious fanatics (their religion not being not to worship God but the community of Jews) and Christian end-of-the-world fanatics in the USA.
“Israel can’t fold now because they are too small to function cut off from trade”.
Excellent point. other than its bark a junkyard dog controls nothing.
Reagan made Menachem Begin jump high enough in the early 80s with ONE FREAKIN PHONE CALL.
This is happening 100% with the approval of the Biden regime. They should all be in prisons cells instead of running for re-election.
Important clarification; Finland did participate in the war against the USSR as a co-belligerent, not as an all of Nazi Germany. Furthermore (as per Wikipedia) Finland did not allow the Nazis to liquidate the Jews of Finland… indeed some Finnish Jews served in the Finnish Army to fight the USSR!
Fyi (the USSR attacked Finland in 1939, and some Russian Jews during the Czar period escaped and settled in Finland).
I take great issue at the idea that Romania helped Nazis. Firstly, Jews in Romania were not sent to the German death camps. There were a couple of pogroms, but on the big picture, it was little. Jews were killed in Bessarabia (many were partisans) and in Odessa.
Now why Romania joined Germany? Because USSR occupied (with the nod and wink from Germany) Bessarabia immediately after the Ribbentrov Molotov treaty of non-aggression (that was just between USSR and Germany, didn’t mean they could not agress others), what is now R of Moldova, as well as Northern Bucovina (now in Ukraine) and it joined Germany in a bid to recover lost territory. Didn’t go looking for Lebensraum.
As for the issues Romanians, and especially Moldovans (mostly west of Prut), had with Jews, is due to the fact that in order to have the Union of Moldova and wallachia recognized, the new Prinicpality/Kingdom had to accept a big size of Jews from Galicia, who all established themselves along the route from Suceava to Bucharest.
And they were not nice, and went into the business of opening pubs in every village and doing property management of absentee landlords, treating the villages on those holding worst than cattle. The last peasant revolt in Europe took place in Romania and started in the village of Flamanzi (The Hungry Ones) which was on a property managed by two Jewis brothers. More than 11,000 peasants were killed. So yeah, there was a lot of bad blood there between Romanians and the newcomers…
Were any of those uprising peasants able to get beyond the Jewish inkeepers and land managers to get to the actual landowners for whom those Jews did the management work?
Did it even occur to them?
The issue of Jews in Germany’s allies is complicated (a friend wrote PhD dissertation on this topic.) Generally, all of Germany’s more or less equal allies protected Jews–Japan actually had a sort of policy (the Fugu plan–although it was never formally adopted) to protect Jewish refugees fron Europe. Italians did not touch Jews while they were still sovereign (although some legal disadvantages were introduced in late 1930s). Hungarians and Romanians protected the Jews who were their own citizens. Ditto the Finns. The Vichy French, not being really sovereign were vicious, though.
Responding to Rev Kev above:
Don’t forget IBM helping Hitler round up the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and the Developmentally Disabled.
https://ibmandtheholocaust.com/about-ibm-and-holocaust
And the Western powers keeping the Jews trapped in Europe long enough for Hitler to be able to get to them.
Off the top of my head; GM- Opal, Ford, ITT- Focke-Wulf, and of course IBM. All of the these companies were paid reparations for damage caused by 8AF strategic bombardment.
I would ascribe this to the fact that when Hitler & co. signed off the final solution in 1942, Nazis were already at war with everyone else, so the major countries didn’t have much choice.
The US did allow IBM to assist the Nazi regime in surveilling the jews before and during the WWII. Which is why the Nazis always knew exactly which houses to drag jews from and which streets to destroy and loot.
So there is that.
But we did see the major powers all doing all they could to make sure those targeted Jews would not be able to escape Europe while the job was beginning and then ongoing.
That “savage barbarism of the Zionist and the forces complicit in their crimes.” has been in our midst, lingering just below the surface for a long time. From the birth of this nation to the Rheinwiesenlager and Gaza, the blood and suffering of innocents cries out for the good to do something, but nothing is done and the killing continues unabated.
At a fall festival this weekend in my small hometown in Central, PA. I visited both the Kamal/Trump tents. I did not mince my words in either on the savagery you allude to…walked away leaving the nice ladies hawking their campaign paraphernalia somewhat disturbed…
I know many people find it difficult to believe outside of NC readers, but this is a world on the edge of collapse. Most US politicians cannot imagine decline. But having observed the collapse and decline of many imperial powers during my lifetime, some politicians have managed decline much better than others. I think particularly of De Gaulle, Macmillan and Harold Wilson.
I suspect Trump and Vance are the only two national politician’s in the US capable, not only of understanding and accepting decline, but of managing it successfully and turning America’s withdrawal from many parts of the world as a profoundly positive experience for the US polity and economy, and, while it is happening, all those nice ladies in Central, PA, will be cheering it on because, for the first time, the US will be giving up it’s imperial powers and bringing the potential for freedom and democracy to it’s former playthings.
De Galle was outside power at the point and saw the US in its hey day. He had real credibility, fighting for France when officialdom surrendered. He could do what Madison and Hamilton could do, reform society on their credibility without a full blown crisis (I know Algeria was part of France).
MacMillan and Wilson had Ike telling them what was what, knew the UK didn’t run India, and could do basic math. Then they had a large veteran population to answer to as well.
This is more akin to pre-World War relations between the US and the colonial powers. The US had surpassed these countries but couldn’t control them. Xi can’t tell us what to do. I’m reminded of the British refortifying Quebec City after World War I to protect it from the US. Like Taiwan, the US can’t win that fight even 30 years ago without a full nuclear strike. The Russians might be Getmany, but they aren’t overextended.
Trump has made noise about rebuilding the aurarky status of the US, but his presidency demonstrated he won’t do that and will mostly look for fights on twitter.
Wilson was PM 1964-70 and 1974-6, well after Ike. He did at least refuse to involve the UK in Vietnam.
i agree with you on the premise of systemic revolution, but (IMO) trump is not neo-FDR.
given trump’s past hires (kushner, pompeo, etc) , Harris v. Trump is like comparing which is worse: driving off a cliff at 100mph (Wile E Coyote style) or hitting a wall at 100mph (wile E coyote style)
agree to disagree
re. Harris’s Chance on Trade Zephyr Teachout, The New York Review
I like Teachout, but this is hopium of the worst sort on her part. Harris has said or done nothing substantively as outlined by Teachout. It is completely fair to judge Harris by the company she keeps and it is a redux of Clinton and Obama. Been there, done that.
My NYS ballot arrived; the only legitimate third party that made the cut (thanks to Cuomo’s COVID election reforms) is a LaRouche candidate for US senate. One has to write in Jill Stein (GPNY petitioning was a hopeless clusterf*). Just remember, democracy is on the ballot!
Many voters in New York State hope to be able to do that. But as of today Jill Stein has not been “certified” as a write-in candidate. The B of E won’t say who’s certified until tomorrow, at the earliest, and if you write in a non-certified candidate, your vote is voided. Only write-ins for President and VP require certification, which foregrounds the motive to eliminate third-party voting. Given how the New York officials eliminated RFK, Jr., on flimsy grounds, I wouldn’t write in Stein’s name and mail in my ballot until I’ve heard about certification.
I would write her in certified or not. In CA. uncertified write ins are tallied and reported as uncertified but not apportioned between Mickey Mouse, Jill Stein etc. You can still get a sense of the magnitude. Blanks get counted as “undervotes”.
To me the only wasted vote is not voting because that is spun as “they like the system and are happy with any garbage we send them”. Please vote if only to support your local mavericks and vote down corporate funded ballot initiatives.
In the most recent NY primary, the percentage of write in votes disappeared and wasn’t reported. You are correct that they would be considered undervotes, but you have to be looking and do the math yourself in order to find out the “numbers” or percentage of undervotes. It is all part of the Democratic Party controlled NY government to make voters disgruntled with both parties disappear.
This is one of the big reasons I laugh bitterly whenever I hear a hacktastic Democratic leader portray the party and themselves as the defenders of democracy, particularly Schumer.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1845625939469959344
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
A rare informed take on China’s economy in the Financial Times by @arkroeber, that emphasizes that China’s core strategy is to create a “technologically powerful economy immune to efforts by the US to stunt its rise”:
https://ft.com/content/008443cd-bb44-4b4f-b60e-17894fdba221 *
As I’ve myself often made the point, we’re witnessing a China that’s pivoting its entire model, from the old “made in China” + property bubble to a “designed in China” strategy that is driven by research and innovation and sells products under its own brands (meaning is at the top of the value chain rather than at the bottom), and where “houses are for living in, not speculation”.
This is because, as the article highlights, it’s the only way for the Chinese to “generate high-wage jobs and rising incomes” and also to reduce dependency on an increasingly hostile West: it’s painfully obvious that the US will use any technology that China doesn’t master (like advanced semiconductors) as a weapon so the logical thing to do is to master these technologies…
It also means that those who claim that China should prioritize a “pull” strategy of stimulating consumption first and foremost are getting things wrong: China will remain a “push” investment-driven economy for the foreseeable future, encouraging capital to pile up in its technology buildup, which in turn via higher wages will stimulate consumption.
* China’s real intent behind its stimulus inflection
8:41 PM · Oct 13, 2024
Great comment! I’ll add that this is the focus of the Belt and Road Initiative to increase trade so the areas outside the Washington Empire can thrive along with China to create new transportation networks and infrastructure to increase economic growth in poorer countries so that China becomes the center of the multi-polar world and hopefully stop the Washington Empire in its tracks. This is why there is so much anger and visceral hatred in Washington for China. The FP community sees a multi-generational crusade to “stop” China because they believe that there can only be one ruler of the Earth.
This. The financial press do not understand the point above. For example, there is a guy over at Seeking Alpha who keeps writing that Boeing is going to sell MAX planes to Chinese airlines. He keeps getting disappointed at the small number of actual deliveries.
While they’ve taken a few token deliveries, Boeing’s drama and disarray has given the Chinese C919 manufacturer an opening to start replacing those falling apart planes with homegrown Chinese ones. Next step is to replace the GE engines used in the planes with homegrown ones. Eventually, the entire supply chain needs to be in-sourced to protect against hegemonic and hubristic sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction legal trick-witchery.
actually you can do both. actually you can be a high wage economy, and a high technology economy. ben franklin laid that out quite plainly. i see others in the third world are balking at being just a supplier to china.
Every scientific discovery is turned into weapons eventually. Doesn’t matter whether physical, chemical or biological. So the country that owns and protects the most advanced technologies always wins the wars.
If China has the best tech, then arguably in the future it could control the most advanced weaponry and also sell it if it wants to. Britain used to have the best tech & weaponry. Then it was the US.
Now Russia is the one. And then it will be China. Or maybe Russia + China will be the unbeatable duo for a while. While we still have a habitable planet.
‘Philip Pilkington
@philippilk
China confirm what many of us have long suspected: there is no plan to invade Taiwan; rather the plan is to blockade the island. Not remotely clear how America would respond to this given that they lost against the Houthis. 🇨🇳🇹🇼’
Actually Taiwan is screwed if they try to declare independence to please Washington. Turns out that most of their exports go to China and most of their imports come from – you guessed it – China. They are totally meshed in with China’s economy and if they became totally a part of China, then I would not be surprised to see China build a bridge or a tunnel connecting it to the mainland.
I said YEARS AGO that China would blockade, not invade. This was obvious. So were US officials that stoopid or was hyping invasion a MIC enrichment plan?
You may be right. But China has developed a large sealift capacity and a large airlift capacity and has large paratroop and marine contingents. So if they wanted to they could invade. Of course it would be sensible to do so after a blockade had starved Taiwan of fuel and demoralised the population.
They do not need to invade.
Look at Taiwan’s imports and exports.
1. China is its biggest trade partner. The economy depends on it.
2. Taiwan is FAR from self sufficient in food and fuel.
All they need to do is let pharmaceuticals in for appearances’ sake. Taiwan won’t last 3 months with a tight blockade.
And China per its recent international posture is all about promoting peace, so they have geopolitical reasons to avoid bloodshed and infrastructure breakage.
I suspect that it’s rather that you only plan for things that you can in theory do. Everybody has recognised for a long time that it’s impossible to break a Chinese naval blockade of Taiwan if that’s what they decide to do. On the other hand, you can at least plan how you would respond to a deliberate attack. It’s not politically acceptable, in the US or for that matter in Taiwan, to just shrug and say “sorry, nothing we can do,” so the military will be told to find a response of some kind, even if it’s to an unlikely scenario. Of course the fact that China does have a capability for a sea/air invasion is itself an added means of putting pressure on Taiwan, even if it’s never used.
Furthermore, Mr. XI said unity by2049 if not before. There is no real rush. The US, the empire is being its usual ridiculous self. It might not look quite so foolish if Congress contained more fully sentient beings.
Occam’s razor suggests stoopid, albeit with the MIC whispering sweet nothings in their ears about the US having the mightiest naval force in the known universe not already at the bottom of the ocean ‘n’all.
New naval drone technology makes a blockade cheap. No need to send big battleships and such to enforce it. A few thousand naval drones packed with explosives similar to the ones the Houthis used successfully in the Red Sea and Gulf area and it’s “GAME OVER … INSERT COIN TO PLAY AGAIN!”
110 mile long bridge or tunnel.
Quite a bit of engineering.
I hear Chinese are pretty good at artificial island construction. In the southern part of the Taiwan Straight there’s a Taiwan Bank, a rather shallow area stretching from mainland China to Penghu Islands.
Since the west agrees on ‘one-China’, it’s odd to me China accepts that they Taiwan sells the west their best chips but allows the west to veto sales to China. Seems china could just explain to its Taiwan province that they will destroy all plants that produce only for the west, never any need to invade. And maybe no need to blockade, simply stop all trade.
Or China can start making their own chips and “de-risk” from Taiwan (or “The West”). In some parts of the globe rational actors try to avoid “kinetic solutions”, since they rarely improve any situation in the long term.
[ China can start making their own chips and “de-risk” … ]
Domestic chip-making is precisely what China is already doing. China has spent years designing and making the most advanced technology products. After all, China was being cut off from advanced technology production by 2011 and that cut off was designed to undermine and prevent Chinese economic development. Indeed, China has introduced resolutions in the United Nations to make economic development of nations a basic right but the United States made sure the resolution would fail.
China poured in money on advanced technology research and development at a portion of GDP that was more than twice that of any other nation. There has been no lessening of research and development spending in China.
An example has been work on the most complex and powerful gas turbines these last 15 years. About 13 years were needed to produce an F-class heavy-duty gas turbine, considered a “crown jewel” of manufacturing. Two years more and the turbine had become 6 times more powerful than the original powerful turbine. A 50,000 component product, completely domestic.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2024-10-08/China-s-first-F-class-heavy-duty-gas-turbine-completes-ignition-test-1xxb9FTxLdm/p.html
October 8, 2024
China’s first 300MW F-class heavy-duty gas turbine completes ignition test
China’s domestically produced 300-megawatt F-class heavy-duty gas turbine successfully completed its ignition test in Shanghai on Monday, marking a significant advancement in the nation’s gas turbine technology.
Known as the “crown jewel” of the equipment manufacturing industry, the heavy-duty gas turbine can operate for a long time in environments of high temperature, high stress and high corrosion, making it the core equipment for power plants.
This 300-megawatt F-class heavy-duty gas turbine consists of five major systems and over 50,000 components and is the first domestically developed heavy gas turbine in China with the highest power output and technical grade. It will serve as an important force driving the development of the high-end equipment manufacturing industry…
Here’s a good article from the US Army War College Quarterly on Taiwan’s Food Resiliency in a conflict with China:
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3222&context=parameters#:~:text=sectors.,are%20also%20important%20food%20suppliers.
The US is the number one source of food imports, followed by Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and Thailand.
Alastair Crooke discusses the Hudson-Wolff interview and links to NC today.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/10/14/israel-does-what-does-was-always-planned-this-way/
(Someone should thank Nima for organizing the Hudson-Wolff interview.)
Thanks for this. I’ll add Crooke’s weekly interview on Judge Nap today which is very good
Covid news from the trades: R&D for Long Covid is Collapsing
From September but still germane (apologies if this has been linked) tl;dr it’s another indictment of the pitiful RECOVER
RE: Can Schedule F Save America? The American Conservative.
Oh brother.
“Slow down services,” “less prepared,” “ERODE TRUST IN GOVERNMENT”?????
Where has this guy been? Oh, right, in the “senate.”
Can’t believe he didn’t say it will mess up the stock market and everyone’s 401K, since the “creation” of government jawbs is always a big driver of the monthly “jawbs” report that sets off weeks of claims of a “robust” and “growing” economy and “justifies” stratospheric stock “valuations.”
I mostly agree with you but there are still actually existing services that help people. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing (it might bring in people who actually do the job?) but perhaps sometimes preserving even the pitiful safety net in place is better than not having anything at all or corporate grifters. A few privatizations in the UK come to mind.
Yes, it’s important to keep in mind there’s still plenty of scope for things to get worse.
Ameliorate, don’t destroy: things come apart more easily than they come together.
Yes. As a former state official who had substantial interaction with federal officials, state and federal officials are highly knowledgeable about the capabilities of their agencies. Bringing in political appointees every election changeover will induce bureaucratic gridlock/whiplash.
Now, are some agencies poorly staffed or hindered by bad administration? Yes, but that can be corrected. (Google James Watt at US Dept. of Interior.) Speaking of Interior, many of the federal staff in that agency have advanced science degrees and are dedicated to preserving America’s greatest idea: National Parks.
“Man with guns arrested near Trump rally in Coachella; Riverside sheriff says they stopped assassination attempt”
This is kinda bizarre. So this guy turns up at a rally with fake ID coming out the kazoo and several weapons as well. With two attempted assassinations attempts on Trump’s life, the local sheriffs were taking no chances so busted him and took him to the local jail. Fair enough. But then he was released Saturday on $5,000 bail. Seriously? Did the judge believe the guy’s story of being a Trump supporter? Did anybody offer bail to Lee Harvey Oswald? Did the FBI and the Secret Service not want to have a serious question-answer session with him?
Evidently there were no charges for the “multiple phony passports and driver’s licenses, and fake license plate.” Only the gun charges, for which he was allowed to post a relatively modest bond, in spite of being from out of state. Bianco, the sheriff, said “if there are any further charges, they would come from the federal government.” I bet if you got popped by your local PD with multiple fake driver licenses they wouldn’t wait on the feds to charge you.
Meanwhile, Routh and “Crooks” have gone down the memory hole. Nobody seems to want to talk about them anymore.
If he had multiple phony passports, was he planning to do a runner overseas? Use one passport to fly out to say Mexico and then dump it. Use the second to fly from Mexico to another country and then dump that one. When he is at his final destination he would only have the final passport with him which would be his new identity.
And who is this Routh and Crooks of whom you speak?
While you two are scouring the memory hole could you have a look for Sean Combs?
Or Seth Rich?
Lol! The only time I’m seeing either of those names is waiting to pay for groceries.
This is another incident that is going to get weird IMO. I saw this yesterday not long after the news hit X. I have no clue who this women is but she claims to know this guy and they are business partners. Link to to Tweet; The man they just arrested for supposedly “trying to kill” Trump in Coachella….is my good friend and business partner for America Happens, Vem Miller.
I hope this is not against site policy, but I will past the contents of the Tweet since many here are not on X.
Again, I don’t know who this person is, but she has over 400k followers on Twitter. This should be interesting. How will it be spun, and how long until it goes away?
“ a good guy with a gun in an unsafe shithole like California” really?
Maybe Bakersfield or Redding are kind of sketchy but the rest of the state is really nice.
Fox interview with the guy yesterday.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/man-arrested-outside-trump-coachella-rally-denies-assassination-intent-support-trump
Here he is, post-incident, explaining his version of the arrest: https://rumble.com/v5im5xh-vem-millers-statement-about-the-3rd-assassination-attempt-on-donald-trump.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
It’s Chinatown, Jake.
re. Can Schedule F Save America?
Unfortunately Van Buren neglects to discuss the implications on policy for the 40% of civil service employees that are NOT the “60 percent of whom work for the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security”.
My brother worked for US Fish and Wildlife for 38 years in Alaska, starting as a temp, then at Arctic Refuge on the north slope and eventually becoming a refuge manager in several locations. A refuge manager, regional director or similar positions in the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, EPA, etc, are “civil servants are in positions “of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character”. Think of the Environmental Impact Statements for the Ambler Mining Road or mining around Bristol Bay.
The pressures on these people to facilitate resource exploitation or develop regulations is intense, even with civil service protection. Making these positions “at will” political appointees will create a policy management industry hacks that will spin in and out of the revolving door.
I’m all in favor of culling the deep state. But slash-and-burn for the environment is NOT a good thing. Firing a couple hundred managers in USFWS or EPA is easy; getting rid of tens of thousands of well-connected bureaucrats at DOD, “intelligence” or DHS is a completely different animal. Van Buren doesn’t get it.
Fits perfectly with the Republicans agenda, slash and co-opt the regulatory state under the cover of attacking thr “deep state”.
And one of Project 2025’s brilliant ideas is to get rid of NOAA which provides among many other services, storm warnings and collection of data on climate change which is used around world. Of course Trump has never heard of Project 2025.
“The great emigration: Israel sees an unprecedented number leave the country ”
For what it is worth, don’t forget to read the comments at the bottom of this page. Lots of huffing and puffing about this happening by the locals. Israel may very well find that it is the brains that are leaving the country and the author Robert Heinlein pointed out the example of how last century Germany lost a key war by chasing out a mere handful of specialists.
I looked into heat pumps last year. The article lays it out well–geothermal heat pumps are more efficient than air source heat pumps, particularly in the winter, which of course is when you need to use the heat pump most. But air source heat pumps are getting more efficient, and that, combined with their lower cost, caused one supplier I spoke to to decide to phase out their ground source heat pumps entirely and focus solely on air source heat pumps. They said this would happen across the industry but perhaps they were wrong?
As far as geothermal goes, my hope is still resting on deep boreholes. I think there may be a few companies trying to develop this tech, but the one I am familliar with is Quaise, an MIT spinoff who hopes to use milimeter electromagnetic waves to vaporize rock and make very deep boreholes possible. Deep boreholes will get hot enough that it should become possible to replace coal and oil with geothermal in existing power plants (and future ones). Or so they say. https://www.quaise.energy/
At a college reunion I spent a good bit of time speaking with an MIT researcher who worked the microwave “boring” investigation. They had “borrowed” a very high power microwave generator from DARPA and were doing test drills. Our conversation started quite accidentally when I supposed out loud there was a “lot of oil and gas deeper than 10 km”, I had thought drills bits would work!
If they can keep a steam loop running the idea is to use conventional generating plants hooked to a deep steam well! I do not know who is working keeping the plastic rock from closing the loop…..
I lost a fair bit (to me) of money betting on a company here in Australia a few years ago that we’re developing Geothermal energy in South Australia’s Cooper Basin.
They were called Geodynamics and they were drilling 4km deep boreholes to pump water down into and up from, after it was heated.
Their brochures said there was the equivalent energy down there as “the entire oil reserves of Kuwait”.
Eventually the technical problems did them in, although they did prove the concept by entirely powering the (lucky) little local town near their drilling sites.
After this they had to build a 450km power line to get their power onto the national grid network. At that point the capital markets lost interest and 5hey went under. All of us enthusiastic greenie types looking for a clean power miracle lost all our money. About $10,000 in my case.
A real shame.
Most Right Reverend,
The problem is that Heinlein was wrong. Germany lost a key war by having chosen to locate itself in between its enemies and nowhere near any significant petroleum deposits.
.Interesting article on Schedule F.
And the latest Turley is a bit of a Musk gush but he makes a convincing case that the fake left have lost their minds over Elon.
https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/14/liberals-are-losing-their-minds-over-elon-musk/
And fake left isn’t too strong a description for people who embrace censorship and like Dick Cheney. They are nothing like the left that some of us remember. One might almost say that our tribal conflict is less between the rich and poor but rather between “get it done” America and storyteller America. The former can be seen in my town where the giant disaster of Helene has almost been shrugged off after the debris has been pushed aside and the power–through a massive effort–restored. The latter seems to center on Hollywood, aka DC for pretty people. If you are George Clooney why wouldn’t you feel guilty at being worth half a billion dollars based on modest talent? DEI is mere greedwashing for many if not necessarily Clooney. They see the get it done folks as a physical threat.
I give Rieger credit in “Extraction, Exploitation, and Religious Surplus in the Capitalocene” for a reasonable holistic presentation of how human commercial activity (in this case specifically as arranged under capitalism) is embedded in the operations and limits of the biosphere, including his observations of how non-human and human reproductive processes are exploited for the benefit of capital, a process which is partially hidden by an economics which (bizarrely in logical terms, but more legible as propaganda) treats these fundamental inputs rather as “externalities.”
I don’t see any evidence, however, that Rieger’s framework considers religion before the European medieval era — at least I can’t recall seeing any reference in this paper to earlier religions or civilizations. And I can’t help but recall from my years (4 decades ago?) reading English Romantic poetry Blake’s less than complimentary references to “priestcraft.” I don’t see any acknowledgment on Rieger’s part the role that religion has played (for thousands of years) in justifying exploitation and extraction. I am not suggesting that religion cannot play a constructive role in shaping a better dispensation for labor (and unpaid human reproductive work), just that it seems to me that in order for it to credibly do so some accounting for its failures in the past in this regard is in order.
– ‘It’s FBI vs. CIA in Michigan’s US Senate race. And the gloves are coming off’ – Bridge Michigan
CIA Democrat vs. FBI/MIC Republican – what a perfect representation of our kayfabe politics at the national level today. Reading this story, including between the lines, makes clear that beneath the harsh partisan rhetoric of this political theater are two devoted members of the bipartisan War Party ready to do their duty. Yay Democracy!
“US ‘training & equipping’ Lebanese Army is worst kind of déjà vu”
This is ridiculous. Washington has deliberately kept the Lebanese armed forces in an extremely weakened form with only old equipment like M113 troop carriers. Wikipedia says that ‘The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) has 72,000 active personnel, including 1,100 in the air force, and 1,000 in the navy.’ Does Washington expect that they can throw money at this problem and suddenly there will appear highly-trained, well-equipped motivated soldiers willing to fight Hezbollah on behalf of Israel who kills them from time to time? Maybe, just maybe in a decade’s time but now? Forget it-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Armed_Forces
As far as I know, the Lebanese Army serves two purposes: give credibility to Lebanon’s claim of being a real state (instead of a bunch of tribal elders sharing power in a very complex way) and to provide impartial armed force to man the checkpoints between more or less warring factions.
Mostly it’s actually a respected (as in every other actor understands the need for it to exist) stabilizing force inside Lebanon. Lately some Lebanese have began demanding it to act in the defense of the state, which is not it’s purpose or within it’s capabilities. Some parts of the population being bombarded and shelled by Israel are not really accepting this.
Meanwhile, about 12,000 Hezbollah fighters have fought 80,000 Israelis to a standstill.
Swedish “Nobel” economics prize awarded to Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson.
I do miss the Baseline Scenario blog.
The apology from the Gretch.
Not really her apologizing for her behavior – she was just apologizing because things “were contstrued” the way they were. Did any of these people ever have parents? I would not allow that from my kids for 2 milliseconds if they are having to apologize for something.
Nevertheless, during our adult meeting after church – this was played on the screen for the whole group to see. Audible gasps. Most people had never seen this yet.
The damage was done – the issue this year seems to be that the Harris campaign is turning into the not so much an election effort but an “outrage of the day” operation. And they seem to be getting worse every week.
So, I am sure this Gretch thing will soon be forgotten anyway – only to be replaced by the next disaster. I do believe, however, that this will not be forgotten easily if she decides to run for national office in the future.
>So, I am sure this Gretch thing will soon be forgotten anyway – only to be replaced by the next disaster. I do believe, however, that this will not be forgotten easily if she decides to run for national office in the future.
I think we can count on that.
Probably somewhere there is a warehouse( though these days a server) the lines of that in the closing scenes of the first Indiana Jones movie, where all this stuff is stored to trot out when a politician from either party( or any of us) makes a run of it office.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRP0MBNoieY&pp=ygUnQ2xvc2luZyBzY2VuZSBpbmRpYW5hIEpvbmVzIGZpcnN0IG1vdmll
“U.S. Shipbuilders Falling Far Behind Navy’s Demand For New Nuclear Attack Submarine”
Does this mean that Oz will have to wait till the 2030s or the 2040s before we get any of those submarines as part of the AUKUS pact? Asking for a naval friend.
How Climate Disasters and a Housing Crisis Are Shattering Lives (NY Times via archive.ph)
Neoliberalism is working!
“US tees up Ukrainian and Syrian extremist proxies in fight against Russia”
This is a really bone-headed move by the neocons. They had the brilliant idea to fly two or three hundred Ukrainian specialists south to teach the Jihadists in Idlib how to use drones and fly them against the Russians and the Syrians in Syria. No way will any of those Jihadists ever use that training and equipment by going off the reservation to attack other targets and this all in the name of plausible deniability of course. But then the Russians could teach other local groups about how to use drone technology and they could use it against all those bases that the US has in the Middle east killing American troops. It didn’t have to be this way but some smart guy in Washington thought that it would be a brilliant idea as what could possibly go wrong?
They love manoeuvring their jihadis round the Calvinball court so much though
From Is Kamala 2024 Clinton 2016?
Worse, she actually sabotaged raising the minimum wage by refusing to override the Senate Parliamentarian. So any delusion that Harris supports a higher federal minimum wage is just that. Weird that Jacobin doesn’t point that part out.
“Is Kamala 2024 Clinton 2016? Jacobin”
No.
Professor Lichtman predicted Trump in 2016. This time he’s predicting Harris.
And given all the noise in both traditional polls and betting markets, I’m inclined to place my money on a Lichtman approach.
Sad that it’s come to such … but here we are.
I’ll take the other side. She wins MN and NV, but imo he could sweep the rest of real clear swings. Plus imo the trend is not her friend. We’ll see soon!
I’m not taking sides here.
The choice seems to be ones predilection toward “overt” vs. “covert” fascism in mind. Neither an appealing choice to me.
Just pointing out the lack of reliability in any polls to predict, and thus defaulting to Lichtman. There are all sorts of videos out where he describes his “keys” to the Whitehouse in 2024.
Here, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoWt1EOA340
Which one is covert?
Fascism, like the capitalism it seasons, has lots of flavors.
I think maybe, while capitalism is global, the politics that place it above everything else are unique in each locality.
The one w/o the swastika flags at the rallies.
Kamala Harris’ New Economic Agenda Reveals What She Would Do To Help Black Men (HuffPo which I’d forgotten existed)
“Harris’ opportunity agenda for Black men includes a laundry list of policy proposals, including providing a million loans to Black entrepreneurs and others to start businesses, investing in Black male mentorship and training programs, protecting cryptocurrency assets, launching a health equity initiative focusing on diseases that disproportionately impact Black men like diabetes and prostate cancer, and legalizing recreational marijuana for Black men to participate in the burgeoning industry.”
Neolibs and loans go well together, just like Bonnie and Clyde.
…and none of it will materialize should she win, which, imho, is looking less and less likely.
Of course, if she loses we can look forward to 4 more years of TDS, supercharged into full throated, homicidal psychopathology. Rachel Maddow will be mad as hell and just won’t take it anymore.
Trump has gone completely off the deep end. Aside from his ever ending shrill cries about immigration and the “Southern Border”, now he is promising tax cuts to every Tom, Dick and Harry. What’s next, free houses? Trump seems desperate. For all her many faults Harris has a huge advantage – the mainstream media (from which the vast majority of Americans get their information) support her 100%, as does the Deep State. Her campaign also has boatloads more money to spend than does the Trump campaign. The race may be a close Harris victory, or it could be a blowout Harris victory.
I have never seen less enthusiasm for an Election, including mid terms.
And I first voted in 1972…
There are fewer signs and bumperstickers across the board including local races and propositions than I saw in the last mid term elections.
The big deal locally is Measure J, which would ban CAFO operations outside of the Coastal Zone, which has its ow regulatory regime…
“No on J” has the most signs with Harris/Walz a close second and Trump a very distant third.
“Hillary Lite, with a Tan” doesn’t seem to be selling very well.
Hillary lite with a tan, but without the charm…
Granted, she’s gonna get way more votes than she did in the 2020 dem primary… I’m guessing maybe 250 more.
Insider talking about how big pharma works. utube, ~44+ minutes.
Greed and the Pharmaceutical Industry-Ron Piana
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foj4sfQP3ek
RE: Recent Hiring Spree by WestExec Advisors
I like Ken Silverstein. He’d been a great journalist for a long time. I learned some new things from this article. Why in an otherwise great piece does he feel the need to throw in this kind of thing about people who should be his allies? –
“This shouldn’t be surprising, but it’s obscured by much of the mainstream media and more openly craven hacks such as Rachel Maddow at MSNBC and Scott Dworkin at Occupy Democrats who would have you believe Kamala Harris is a modern day Mahatma Gandhi, and their MAGA World counterparts like Jesse Watters at Fox News and “independent journalists” Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, who suggest Trump is being undermined by the Democratic-dominated Deep State because he’s an enemy of American imperialism. These viewpoints are both embarrassingly stupid, and for the same reason: they’re partisan perspectives designed with the specific intent of obscuring the fact that both major parties are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the 0.1 percent and the corporate oligarchy.”
Last I checked Taibbi and Greenwald had started their own media outlets which would make them independent. They have a lot of haters (like Silverstein apparently) who feel they have somehow become right wing over the years. If they were receiving some kind of outside funding which influenced their journalism, I’m sure someone would have pointed that out by now. So if Silverstein is going to use scare quotes to describe their occupations, he’d better come up with some proof that they aren’t independent.
I’ve read and listened to their journalism for 20 years give or take a bit and what Silverstein claims they are about is not what I’ve heard from either of them. Neither are part of “MAGA world”. I will note that Taibbi gets hundreds and sometimes thousands of comments on almost every article. Silverstein currently has 8 comments on his piece. I have to wonder if there might be some very unprofessional jealousy at work here.
The world is in rough shape. We need as many journalists with integrity as we can get. Enough with the circular firing squad, please. Instead, solidarity.
He was once a partner to the late Alex Cockburn of Counterpunch (and much else) and St. Clair over at Counterpunch still pushes the Taibbi and Greenwald as unreliable leftists line. I don’t think that means we have to imitate their “litmus test” in regard to either of them.
On the web we must be hunter/gatherers for the good reporting and comment that is available. I think this blog does that which is one reason we are here. These days I don’t read much Counterpunch which was once a staple. But one doesn’t wish them ill either.
what about Harpers btw?
I dont really read them.
Some longer items I found good enough to share.
But that was about 3 pieces in 3 years.
Balkanization or Plantation.
Setting one group of problems against another.
Planting Presbyterians into Ireland with ‘free land’.
Tempting Jews into Israel when Judah settled in Judea, not Israel. So the ignorant went into a cauldron. The smart ones avoided it.
The colony does not get $$$ from the USA. It gets munitions and expertise so that their sons and daughters slaughter the innocent.
What happens when the flow of ammunition stops?
I came across this interesting reader´s comment at Craig Murray´s blog:
User by the name Tatyana found Navalny´s daughter Daria apparently working for the Harris campaign.
The full comment here
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/10/simply-no-red-lines-at-all/comment-page-2/#comment-1070108
(Usually not a user leaving typos. So ignore those.)
“(…)
came here with the latest gossip. Do you know who works for Kamala? Navalny’s daughter Daria!
Made today a small research, screenshoted.
Her Linkedin page says she is employed in Harris for President
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dasha-navalnaya-87ba301aa/details/skills/
https://prnt.sc/WE79yTUbq8Sw
Her skills are confirmed by one single person, a Thomas Lee, the CEO of Cobra Capital
https://prnt.sc/o9Fa2hdu8c42
Mr. Lee on his page ( the URL is funny, it’s Thanos Lee) says about his background
https://prnt.sc/-KpcRaFo6kGo
https://www.linkedin.com/company/rand-corporation/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/mckinsey/
One can see McKinsey&Co and RAND Corp. there
Cobra Capital has active link on Linkedin.
https://prnt.sc/5tdChrabrk3a
Their page says they are in New York, 601 Lexington Avenue! It’s a famous skyscraper in Manhattan, must be expensive to rent a room there. 86 people follow Cobra Capital on Linkedin, still the wevsite is truly strange – all the pages are epty, non-existent, also it has no web security certificate. Looks like a landing page.
http://cobracapital.com/
Only 2 members of the CobraCapital are on Linkedin: that Thomas Lee and an unknown investor from Langley. The latter profile is closed, I cannot access it.
https://prnt.sc/20ZpxtfB4XVs
Well, I googled for Lee and Cobra, and got this
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07850935/officers
Cobra Projects Ltd, with Thomas Lee Kneller and their address is 1 Langley Court in UK.
Must be just a coinsedence.
Still, very interesting person this Navalny’s daughter is. Nice connections.
People say she was invited to study at Stanford where her teacher was Michael McFaul (ex-ambassador of US to Russia). He gave an interview to Ksenia Sobchak once, and when asked how Darya got there to study, he answered directly – because of her father’s last name. This is what he said:
“We don’t have ordinary students here, excuse me, please, we don’t have ordinary people from Montana or China, you have to have some special feature to get here.”
(…)”
RE: Going Off-Grid with Solar PV
Yes, it is stunningly cheap to install PV and get off-grid. Today’s system cost is probably 20% of this 1990 installation:http://www.land2plan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/PV-House.pdf
And the improved efficiency of LED lighting, propane refrigerators, and battery energy density (L-ion) makes the change near hassle-free. (Installations are all modular now: Inverter-battery bank-control units are plug-in compatible. In 1990 I had to explain to electricians how to install all the un-integrated parts.)
The issue with a diesel back-up generator is readily resolved by using propane as a clean fuel source. (Also reduces engine maintenance.) Using a propane refrigerator and a low-power hydronic heating system was essential in 1990 to reduce wattage consumption.
At today’s PV prices a tract-built home is readily convertible.