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Links 11/2/2024

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Video shows a baby kangaroo on the loose in Colorado CNN (Dr. Kevin)

US authorities seize and euthanise Instagram-famous squirrel BBC (furzy) :-(

The Saga of a Celebrated Scientist — and His Rodent Dystopia The Chronicle of Higher Education (Anthony L)

The Varieties of Mystical Experience Book Forum (Anthony L)

Degrees of Wrinkledness London Review of Books (Anthony L). Debates over Mendel.

The Seventy Percent Harper’s (Anthony L)

Significance of the backyard pig with H5N1 Sharon Astyk (ma)

#COVID-19

>AP: Public Health Department Barred From Giving COVID Vaccine MedPage (Carla R)

Climate/Environment

Spain floods disaster: death toll rises to 205 as extra troops mobilised Guardian (Kevin W)

China?

China is tightening its grip on the world’s minerals Economist

China’s Skydio curbs sound the alarm for US battery supply chain Asia Times (Kevin W)

Analysis: Trade war would hurt U.S. farmers AgUpdate

Prejudice And China Louis-Vincent Gave (Anthony L)

Koreas

US Provides Proof that North Korean Troops are on the Ground in Ukraine Larry Johnson

North Korea test fires new intercontinental missile – and warns it is ‘bolstering nuclear forces’ Sky

North Korea pledges to ‘powerfully support and assist’ Russian army until victory in Ukraine Anadolu Agency

Africa

Malawi begins nationwide fuel rationing amid scarcity VOA

O Canada

Canada’s economy likely missed central bank’s third quarter growth forecast Reuters

South of the Border

Mexico’s New President Faces Her First Major Crisis New York Times (Robin K)

European Disunion

Dozens under investigation in Italy amid scandal over hacked government databases and illegal dossiers The Record (Anthony L). From a few days ago, still germane.

The German Coal Industry and the Rise of Hitler: A Reassessment Institute for New Economic Thinking

Old Blighty

UK Rout Deepens as Reeves Budget Worries Spread Across Markets Bloomberg

Car dealerships in chaos as shock ruling leaves market at risk of collapse Telegraph

Outraged farmers have warned that the Government’s brutal inheritance tax hike could put Britain at risk of food shortages Daily Mail

Israel v. The Resistance

Israel’s siege in north Gaza brings war’s ‘darkest moment’ Financial Times. When you’ve lost the pink paper….and notice they put this piece outside the paywall.

Israeli atrocities are nothing new. The only novelty is the scale Middle East Eye (guurst)

Israel has all but ended medical evacuations from Gaza Drop Site

* * *

Israel wants to enforce any Lebanon ceasefire deal, Netanyahu tells US envoys Reuters. Lordie. We are supposed to take this as a serious proposal?

* * *

IRGC Vows Unimaginable Response to Israel Tasnim. Alexander Mercouris discusses this story at the top of his Friday show. Note we had been skeptical of claims by normally very credible commentators like Larry Wilkerson that Iran had been talked into not retaliating…via things like US diplomacy. After new president Pezeshkian had just been duped by the US into thinking there might be some willingness to normalize relations and had to eat tons of crow publicly to restore some level of cred, the notion that Iran would listen to the US seemed astonishingly far-fetched. In addition, Iran had been very clear than any retaliation by Israel would lead to an Iranian response. So the question seemed not to be whether Iran would again hit Israel to maintain deterrence dominance, but when and how hard.

Israel’s ‘zugzwang’ moment with Iran Indian Punchline

* * *

More US bomber aircraft, warships heading to Middle East The Hill

EXCLUSIVE: Progressives Demand Biden Explain US Military Involvement in Israel’s ‘Expanding Wars,’ Float Israel War Powers Resolution Zeteo

New Not-So-Cold War

The Forest and the Trees: Ukraine’s Strategic Dissipation Big Serge

Find Out Where Most Ukrainian Refugees Fled to Since February 2022 Sputnik (Kevin W)

Russia says it is unhappy with Turkish arms supplies to Ukraine ekathimerini

Türkiye planning ‘foreign agents’ law – Bloomberg RT (Kevin W)

BRICS

Why Expanded BRICS Is Backing a Russia-Initiated Grain Exchange Council for Foreign Relations

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Loss Of American Leadership Competence Viewed From WWII Ian Welsh

Abu Ghraib Torture Trial Against Virginia-Based Defense Contractor Begins Again Intercept

2024

Julia Roberts ad sparks debate about gender gap, voting in marriages The Hill. Lambert has questioned the wisdom of taking partisanship into the bedroom.

Have yet to seem MSM propagation. Maybe anything Epstein too risky because other shoes could drop?

‘Union Joe,’ Harris and Trump all made gains with unions — but not enough Politico

Federal judge orders Musk back to PA court for lawsuit over ‘illegal lottery’ Fox (furzy)

US says ‘Russian influence actors’ are behind viral election video hoax Financial Times (Kevin W)

Texas tells DOJ that election monitors not allowed in polls Texas Tribune (furzy)

Pennsylvania Supreme Court again blocks counting undated absentee ballots USA Today (Kevin W)

Maersk chief predicts intensifying trade tensions after US elections Financial Times

Mr. Market Should Be More Nervous

U.S. Debt Could Drive the Next Financial Crisis Barrons

Almost half of Americans think that there will be “total economic collapse” in the United States in the next decade, a survey suggests. Newsweek

Inflation Doesn’t Want to Cooperate: PCE Price Indices for Core, Core Services, and Durable Goods Worsen Further MoM Wolf Richter

AI

AI And The Global Economy: A Double-Edged Sword That Could Trigger Market Meltdowns Forbes

The Bezzle

The Cult of Microsoft Ed Zitron

Class Warfare

Are You Garbage? Know The Signs Babylon Bee

Amazon Workers ‘Appalled’ by How Execs Made Return-to-Office Decision Gizmodo (Kevin W)

The Decline of the Working Musician New Yorker (Anthony L)

Farm loans above $1M soar as ag economy deteriorates Agriculture Dive

Eugenics movement on rise in political rhetoric, academic literature STAT (Dr. Kevin)

Antidote du jour. Tracie H:

A little over a week ago, at the end of one of our long Monday workdays in L.A., hubby and I found three motherless gray kittens on our doorstep. We left them there a couple of hours in hopes a mother cat would come retrieve them, but no. Due to how clean and flea-less they were, we’re pretty certain a neighbor left them. So we are bottle feeding and, already over-full in the kitty department, will soon be attempting to find them homes.

And a bonus:

A second bonus:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here

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208 comments

  1. Antifa

    TORN UP, TOO
    (melody borrowed from Close To You  by The Carpenters)

    All your tanks with all your fancy gear we’ve destroyed for a year
    Wait and see, you’re going to be torn up, too
    Armored cars full of soldier guys—we blow them miles high
    Wait and see, you’re going to be torn up, too

    Hamas looks on you with scorn your tactics don’t get better
    Misguided, out of date, you wander through
    Incompetence that we can trust—your guys aren’t bold
    Your tactics help us kill your crew

    Hamas guys come when you’re in town, from all sides, underground
    Wait and see you’re going to be torn up, too

    (musical interlude)

    Back at home your wives will mourn, a telegram or letter
    Will delight them with the news your war is through
    Had you been more robust you’d have grown old—
    This tour has ended bad for you

    Hamas guys come when you’re in town, from all sides, underground
    Wait and see you’re going to be torn up, too
    Wait and see you’re going to be torn up, too

    Wah, torn up, too
    Wah, your whole crew
    Wah, you’re in view
    Wah, torn up, too

  2. Ben Panga

    “Have yet to seem MSM propagation. Maybe anything Epstein too risky because other shoes could drop?”

    The Guardian has had it front page on website all day.

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffrey-epstein-tapes

    The same tweeter you embedded has a breakdown of the ‘revelations’. I’m struggling to see much there.

    Eg;

    Compromising Photos – Epstein had receipts. He allegedly kept photos of Trump with topless young women at his Palm Beach estate, pulling them from his safe to show Wolff. In one shot, Trump had a “telltale stain” on his pants while the women pointed and laughed, hinting at just how much leverage Epstein thought he held over Trump .

    No photo, no story.

    The source cited is this podcast interview with Wolff

    Clearly putting the name together in headlines is a no-brainer.

          1. Martin Oline

            Thank you for posting this link Kouros. It is shocking behavior by the British government but I cannot say it is surprising that they will do this sort of thing.

      1. ambrit

        If you really want to go all “scorched earth,” look up the Clintons, yes, both of them.
        It might be a good time for “certain actors” on the public stage to find out where the Mossad has the original material from Epstein and give the targeting information to Hezbollah.
        If the material is somewhere in the West, then look for “The Return of the Red Army Faction!”
        Staying safe is becoming harder and harder lately. Still, keep trying.

    4. Useless Eater

      If there was any real meat to it they’d have “released” it more than just a few days before election day rather than at the 11th hour. You can’t change many minds at this point. Everybody already knows Epstein and Trump weren’t strangers.

      1. The Rev Kev

        So where are the Epstein tapes talking about his other buddies Andy and Bill who stuck by him while Trump dropped him?

        1. Screwball

          Funny how the entire Epstein thing went down. He comes up dead, they put Maxwell in a trail and then jail, yet we never get to see the client list and that’s the end of everything.

          Strange that. Well, maybe not. Land of laws my backside.

  3. farmboy

    H5N1 spread by wildlife will leave no corner untouched, no pasture raised, backyard, fill the freezer hobby farm gets a pass. And these are the folks who oppose masks, vaccines, covid deniers all. A perfect storm of a witches’ brew post Halloween. Large confined operations, CAFO’s will kill the most animals and likely infect the most people, but backyard farmers will allow, even incubate the virus. Perfect Storm

    1. Samuel Conner

      It does look like a huge challenge to Gabe Brown’s (Dirt to Soil) regenerative agriculture principle of “incorporate [non-human] animals into the landscape.”

      Perhaps in future the only manure it will be safe to use in regenerative ag will be …. humanure. That would call for a radical reconfiguration of the sewage processing system, but perhaps that is coming anyway. I often wonder how municipalities are going to afford ongoing maintenance and eventual replacement of decades-old sewage systems.

      1. The Rev Kev

        How viable is human manure these days? I read how in the 19th century in England canal barges would pick up the human manure from the cities and transport it to the farms in the country. Sort of like a virtuous circle – but one that was very smelly. But now? Can you imagine how many chemicals are in human manure nowadays? Thinks of all the medications that people are on. I’m not even sure that they can filter out estrogen at scale and it may no longer be economically viable.

        1. Revenant

          This is a big problem. Current water-based sewerage systems use a lot of water and create a lot of effluent. There is a great reward to be had in recirculating these nutrients and reducing effluent into watersheds.

          however, reprocessing to recover phosphorous and organic nutrients is hard and the pharmaceuticals and heavy metal loads make use on land difficult. Sewage sludge was historically disposed of at sea in the UK but the EU made us stop that (our city has a canal and a swing bridge and it had a little barge for the sludge, which was the only remaining traffic on the canal, heading out to dea evry few days).

          Until we find a solution for breaking down and removing the contaminant from sewage, diverting it for fertiliser will be difficult (the disease aspect is easily solved by allowing it to rot properly at high internal temperatures or using a biogas digester to produce a crumb).

          1. Jason Boxman

            I dunno what it says about humans in general that we produce such sick waste. Sick waste, sick population. (In terms of chemical poisons, pharmaceuticals, ect.)

        2. Jeremy Grimm

          In his “Humanure Handbook”, Joseph Jenkins takes pains to draw a sharp contrast between “humanure” and “night soil”. Jenkins characterizes what is commonly referred to as “night soil” consists of uncomposted human wastes. “Humanure” is human and a mixture of other organic wastes that have been composted for a couple of years. Jenkins’s book has several chapters detailing what “composting” means in his usage. He quotes the 2018 U.S. Composting Council [USCC] definition of composting: “…the product manufactured through controlled aerobic, biological decomposition of biodegradable materials. The product has undergone mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures, which significantly reduces the viability of pathogens and weed seeds, and stabilizes the carbon such that it is beneficial to plant growth.” [p. 70] Jenkins spends the next three chapters detailing composting techniques for proper composting, extending and correcting some of information in Robert Rodale’s advice on composting.

          “Sort of like a virtuous circle – but one that was very smelly.” Jenkins response to this:
          “Always keep the toilet contents covered. If you’re using an adequate amount of appropriate cover material your loo will be odor-free, as will your compost bin.” [p. 222]

          Chemicals, medications, estrogen, heavy metals, may be present in Jenkins humanure, but not to the extent that they pollute sewage sludge. Chapter 10 “Compost Miracles” details how composting reduces all of these pollutants. “Current water-based sewerage systems use a lot of water and create a lot of effluent.” Current water-based sewerage treatment, and septic systems, exude relatively high levels of harmful wastes in their effluent. [Chapter 13. “Worms and Diseases”, see especially pages 194 and 195]

        3. Henry D

          I lived on a farm for a summer where the ~ dozen of us used a simple composting toilet. Just a 6 gallon bucket with a toilet seat mounted above it. After using it you simply tossed in a cup of wood chips that were kept next to it. You were not supposed to urinate in it. Men typically urinated out in the garden on a crop like corn that needed the nitrogen and women had a separate toilet to urinate in. I was surprised it always smelled like pine never nasty though once a week one person had to empty it into a large compost bin, which was not a terrible job, but I always wore gloves and stood back when rinsing out the bucket with the hose. After about a year the pile would be large enough to generate the heat needed to sterilize the compost and a new pile started. After another year it was spread around the hedge rows of fruit and nut bushes and trees not in the vegetable garden itself. I’ve since used modern composting toilets that use electricity or sunshine to speed the composting as well as a fan to ventilate and automatically separate out the urine. If you happen to end up in Georgia you can try one out at the Hike-Inn, though as the name implies you have to hike to it.

          1. juno mas

            The US Forest Service has been deploying composting toilet systems for decades. Keeping ‘liquid ‘ out of the ‘pile’ is essential. The USFS design uses a seat cover and a 10″ diameter vent pipe to maintain the pine scent inside and out of their campgrounds.

            The more important sanitary element is an adjacent hand-washing stand. (A campground in Oregon caused a wide dispersal of dysentery across the U.S., in a summer past.)

        4. Jabura Basadai

          the fertilizer Milorganite is the end result of the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) wastewater treatment process

      2. Jabura Basadai

        FWIW – when representing a very high priced filtration system and visiting a landfill that was sending its effluent to a local waste treatment facility, i was told that because of the level of PFAS/PFOA they were going to have to filter it out if they wished to continue sending their effluent for treatment – their existing filtration system couldn’t address that problem – around the same time a local farmer that had been receiving the sludge, which included human waste, had developed cancer which was attributed to the contamination of the sludge with PFAS/PFOA which was discovered when tested – the company i worked for tested the landfill effluent and was able to remove these contaminants but the problem was and i believe still is how to deal with the filtered waste containing these contaminants – this is a BIG problem with landfills and since i do not work for that company anymore don’t know how it is playing out – i have lived in the country for the last 40 years and have always used RO filtration for water that is consumed –

    2. The Rev Kev

      Gunna make a prediction here. When the election is over and Inauguration Day has come and gone, it will be then and only then that the government will feign surprise and announce that they have discovered that there is a threat from H5N1 and it has somehow spread far and wide. You are right in that it will be a Perfect Storm. But one that was allowed to brew up because it arose in an election year and the government was wanting people to forget Covid and did not need another virus coming onto the scene. I hope that you will be able to make do with your farm in the coming year.

      1. Mikel

        Many surprises could arise from many situations.
        But to go along with your speculation, and just spitballin’…there are more than a few who associate pandemics with central bank interest rate cuts.

        1. Fritz

          “…the stock market did not collapse (in March 2020) because lockdowns had to be imposed; rather, lockdowns had to be imposed because financial markets were collapsing. With lockdowns came the suspension of business transactions, which drained the demand for credit and stopped the contagion. In other words, restructuring the financial architecture through extraordinary monetary policy was contingent on the economy’s engine being turned off.”
          — Fabio Vighi
          https://thephilosophicalsalon.com/a-self-fulfilling-prophecy-systemic-collapse-and-pandemic-simulation/

    3. i just don't like the gravy

      Large confined operations, CAFO’s will kill the most animals and likely infect the most people, but backyard farmers will allow, even incubate the virus.

      It’s always the little guy that gets demonized.

      As if CAFOs and other industrial operations aren’t already incubating the thing.

      What about wild birds and feral hogs? So we’re going to be ridiculing hunters next because they may get exposed?

      If Kamala wins you bet the Democrat party will crack down on these people, not because they care about public health but because it will be politically expedient.

      1. mrsyk

        I don’t think the threat is team blue (or red, it’s a really big tent!) is a threat to back yard farming. Who’s going to risk trying to enforce measures in this direction?
        Bird flu is here to stay. I’m guessing that’s going to be “ok”, because it’s “mild”.
        (Reminder, you can’t spell mrsyk without a shite-tonne of sarcasm.)

        1. The Rev Kev

          Will they soon be saying ‘It’s just the flu, bro! It’ll be like 2020 all over again and I can hardly wait.

    4. Jeremy Grimm

      Small farms where humans are intimate with their animals and with their soil and its products offer a good place for pathogens to evolve for infecting humans and a range of animals. However, I am not convinced small farms might be any worse than the large factory operations. Large operations could provide PPE and institute safety practices that might be prohibitively expensive for small farms, but have they? will they? and what have they done so far?

      And where are government regulations, testing, and efforts to assess and control the spread of H5N1? Has the FDA gotten around to verifying that pasteurization kills H5N1 in milk?

      1. chris

        A large farm where humans are intimate with their animals is called a congress.

        As for your other statements, allegedly, in 2022, the Biden Administration rolled out the start of an actual pandemic response administrative organization. It has been muzzled in it’s response to both Covid and H5N1 because of business interests. As they say, the system isn’t broken, it’s fixed!

    5. amfortas the hippie

      no denier, here,lol.
      but yeah, i worry about it, a lot.
      wild migratory birds are attracted to the scratch i put out for my birds…and mom’s chicken house has wild birds inside the house most days.
      (not so much over here, because i feed my birds when theyre out and about, not inside the house).
      but aside from somehow confining my critters in a hermetically sealed edifice, i dont know what to do.’
      no dairies or big chicken farms within 100 miles that i know of…but there are feedlots/auctions for cows, sheep and goats and exotics scattered around.
      nearest…a cow auction…is 13 miles from me….next nearest, 60 miles.
      i dont get visitors, generally, and when i do, they arent interested in traipsing through the chicken runs…otherwise, i’d set up a shoebath.

      we get grackles from san antonio way in spring…and brownheaded cowbirds, some kind of thrush/meadowlark thing, and those black and yellow oriole looking things(a striking bird).
      only ones of the migratory birds that really interact with my birds are the long legged tree ducks/whistling ducks.
      they’ll hang out and talk to the geese on their way south or north,depending.

  4. Ignacio

    Spain floods disaster: death toll rises to 205 as extra troops mobilised Guardian (Kevin W).

    So why such high toll and enormous material losses too? In short: Chaotic neoliberalism + special weather circumstances. As per the latter not that similar storms were recorded in the past. I remember a very large and comparable storm before 2000 with lot’s of damage but nothing of the magnitude we have seen now. It was known that it could happen and it would be a disaster given the high temperatures in Mediterranean waters that have turned the new normal. As per the “chaotic neoliberalism”:
    – Building: occupation of previous flood areas (wetlands etc) with buildings and other constructions that channel floods. This helped channelling the waters through small corridors. Also reduction of water absorption underground because impermeable areas increased.
    -Other infrastructure: basically transport infrastructures which changed the natural land draining capacity. This include defence structures to protect such infrastructures and developed areas.
    -Faulty risk assessment and absence of centralized urban planning or at least, centralised help with risk assessment that municipalities cannot do or are not willing to do because business.

    1. Bugs

      The last time I was in Valencia and in the hills behind it, I noticed a distinct lack of drainage sewers and I figured that it was just how things were done in a generally dry, temperate region. It’s very disheartening to see what’s happening there.

      1. Cristobal

        The solution to such massive stormwater surges is to slow it down and spread It out. Preferably upstream. Admitedly difficult in that geography. Keep buildings out of the way. Its not easy, its expensive but It is cheaper in the long run. Conditions have changed and new acomodations must be made.
        The intergovernmental coordinación I was happy to see in the first days has now given way to the usual pretty politics, but the popular solidarity is inspiring.

    2. vao

      Almost exactly one year ago, storm Daniel caused an even larger, but similar devastation in the Libyan city of Derna. The Spaniards are “lucky” that they did not have to contend with dams collapsing under the downpour as happened in Libya. If such events are the medium-term future for Mediterranean coastal towns, then this may possibly mean the end of the “sea-sand-sun” tourism in the region.

      1. MFB

        Yeah, but Libya has no functioning government. This wasn’t supposed to be the case with Spain. They were on the side that destroyed Libya; they’re supposed to be the big boys who get to determine the doom of others.

        I’m sorry for the dead, but the destruction is, as far as I can see, self-inflicted. Have they never heard of a little thing called climate change?

  5. The Rev Kev

    “Israel wants to enforce any Lebanon ceasefire deal, Netanyahu tells US envoys”

    If you want to know how that would be done, just see what Israel is doing in Lebanon right now. Such a deal would permit the Israelis to constantly fly over Lebanon and bomb villages, mosques, farms, hospital, etc. on the grounds that they were all Hezbollah. And if you disagree with this, then you are probably Hezbollah as well. In fact, everybody that the Israelis don’t like are either Hamas or Hezbollah in their eyes.

    1. Polar Socialist

      Ah, but ceasefire would mean that Hezbollah ceases shooting back. Israel could still enforce this pre-emptively, pro-actively and against churches, schools and hospitals in case there’s a putative future terrorist using the facilities.

      It’s almost as if Israel’s war aim is to keep waging war…

      2. steppenwolf fetchit

        Well . . . . one can theorize that it is Netanyahu’s personal aim to keep waging war ifor as many years as possible in order to keep delaying his appearance in Court on various corruption charges for that same number of years.

        1. Late Introvert

          Dude’s retirement plan is wage war to stay out of jail, while getting his laundry down at the White House.

      3. ChrisPacific

        I’m trying to think of a way in which one of the two parties to a ceasefire can ‘enforce’ it. Doesn’t that end the ceasefire by definition?

        I think you’re right: Israel will consider an end to the shooting as long as they’re allowed to continue assassinating Hezbollah leaders in heavily populated urban areas with bunker buster bombs, and systematically demolishing the civic and religious infrastructure in south Lebanon. What a deal! I’m sure Hezbollah will jump at it.

    2. ilsm

      Israel and US should be talking 2 state solution and giving up Golan!

      Anything else is Chutzpah.

      One side can’t end this quickly, the opposition sees slow attrition as strategy.

  7. timbers

    Koreas

    US Provides Proof that North Korean Troops are on the Ground in Ukraine Larry Johnson ********** North Korea is saving Russia from defeat at the hands of Ukraine because she obviously has a longterm plan to invade Alaska, and order the USA to vacate all its troops from Japan, South Korea, South China Sea and also Hawaii – or Nuke’em all plus the entire US West Coast. And after that, It’s onward to Europe of course.

    1. Louis Fyne

      the bigger (unsexier) story is that NK, the size of something like Wisconsin and a poplulation a bit more than tri-state NYC, can produce more artillery shells than all of Europe and the US

      1. Skip Intro

        That’s not really fair to our far superior system of free market capitalism. The west could product far more artillery shells, but demand, as revealed by price, is just not sufficient to incentivise production. Using Laffer Theory, we can construct a graph that proves that there is a price point at which the west would out produce NK.

        1. timbers

          Exactly. After all, if military shells sold for the same free market price as US Healthcare like insulin or personalized cancer treatments made by Bristol Myers Squid or Moderna, there wouldn’t be a shell shortage in The West.

          1. ChrisPacific

            The solution is clear. Raise the prices, and allocate more taxpayer money to the defense budget to buy them!

            1. MFB

              And borrow money to pay the consultants who come up with the brilliant plans to execute this, and also to silence anyone who wonders what happened to the shell factories in five years’ time.

              If we’re still here in five years . . .

      2. Polar Socialist

        I doubt they are outproducing The West in the real world, but both The West and North Korea benefit in different ways from exaggerating North Korean military industrial capability.

        Radio Free Asia (yeah, “independent” CIA propaganda outlet) had a story some months ago that after Kim’s visit to Russia and promise of help, North Korea opened two new shell production lines with planned total capacity of 12,000 shells a month, eventually.

        According to my very crude calculations based on North Korea iron ore output, the steel required for 3 million shells would be around 8% of North Korea’s annual production. As a piss-poor country in technically at war, I doubt it can afford to export such a humongous amount a national resources.

        Who knows, maybe South Korea has been causing tensions lately just to prevent North Korea from shipping off any of it’s reserve ammunition…

        1. NotTimothyGeithner

          The North Korean defense posture was built around threatening Seoul with unrelenting artillery barrages which is the only reason the US didn’t try anything in all these decades.

        2. jrkrideau

          How much surplus steel would China have lying around? Or, Russia for that matter? DPRK is so longer in a vacuum. Under the old sanctions regime you are right but the rules of the game have suddenly changed.

    2. ilsm

      Defending Japan is a US burden.

      Japan deferred on building something like US’ east Europe Aegis (phased adaptive approach) Ashore, with newest tech. US Navy keeps several Aegis destroyers on station donating a lot of Japan’s minimal missile defense. THAAD already deployed on Korean peninsula, untried boost phase mission..

      While US frets about imagined Russian trying “coalition war”.

      Defending Japan is huge burden to US! US needs more of GDP for defense, so others don’t have to.

      1. JTMcPhee

        “Defending Japan” against what, exactly? Like “defending Europe” and all those other “shitty little countries” where the US lily pads and spook reservoirs and tripwire deployments are situated?

        Who is going to defend them against the collapsing empire and uninhabitable climate? Or who’s going to “defend” the PMC and the Deplorable Garbage People?

        And iirc Aegis Ashore is seen for some as part of a first strike package.

        “The only way to win the game is not to play.”

        1. Santo de la Sera

          Sometimes I wish Japan would start defending itself against the United States, which has been the invading and occupying power there for 80 years, using Japan as a landed aircraft carrier off the coast of Korea and China, certainly not to the benefit of the locals.
          But somehow I don’t think that’s what @islm has in mind.

      2. AG

        Postol said THAAD ain´t workin´
        p.s. any info whether those S-500/550 truly did take down MIRV when testing?
        Martyanov argues a true RU-stye SDI will be long-term goal, and this time a working system.

  8. Carla

    Newsweek better hire some proofreaders, and I refer to the percentages quoted, not the obvious typo:

    “Republican respondents were much more concerned about the future of the economy than Democratics — 21 percent of Republicans said that economic collapse in the next decade is very likely, compared to only 22 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independents.”

  9. Steve H.

    > The Seventy Percent Harper’s (Anthony L)

    >> “Eight or nine out of ten things in life won’t be to your liking, / and yet you can speak about no more than two or three with others.”

    That stings a bit. Ah, well.

    >> The 70 percent in the middle have the potential to shift toward something better, so long as the 10 percent do not hold them in utter contempt because they don’t meet their expectations.

    Expectations. Who/Whom. As opposed to Anticipation. John Robb: ‘mind-state mapping involves modeling the mind-state of other people in order to anticipate their actions/reactions.’ Dan Brooks: ‘Trusting people who are unfamiliar takes time and effort. In most large urban centers, people who work with people they do not know well live in neighborhoods of people with whom they are familiar. This buys the time needed for cooperation and familiarity to breed trust.’

    Cooperating with neighbors is well defined. It doesn’t have to be friendly; rival gangs build trust they’ll stay out of each others neighborhoods. It takes effort to move, which is why liberal capital flows will always outrun labor. It is so easy online to Big Sort into mirrored silos, banning and cancelling with a finger flick, into neighborhoods of confirmation bias, and that 70% becomes Othered with wee bots reinforcing the disagreements.

    >> the minor characters in War and Peace (and there are nearly six hundred of them).

    That’s a full neighborhood, too many to remember by name. But it’s not the same world without them.

    1. Craig H.

      That is not a bad essay but the main point is absurd. The heroine of the book is Maria Bolkonsky. (Not Natasha.) Nikoloi gets Maria. He is by far the luckiest and happiest man at the end. Closer to 99 percent than 70.

  11. Carolinian

    That’s a good Ian Welsh history lesson. A story here a couple of days ago talked about how many upper class Brits hoped that Hitler would save them from the Bolshies. Whereas the reality is that the Russians saved England from Hitler. The current UK hostility to Russia just shows that no good deed goes unpunished.

    And a similar lack of perspective applies to the aristocratic and neocon faction here although America was never in the same peril as Britain. My South with its many military bases tagged along for the ride with the Cold War becoming a kind of jobs program in the country’s poorest region. There are so many uses it seems for Russia as the Other. And they are still doing it.

        1. Michaelmas

          In the interests of credit where credit is due, folks —

          Ian Welsh’s post is in this case Ian elevating what a commenter — a Stewart M, in this case — has said re. a previous post by Ian.

    2. .Tom

      What do you think about this sentence of Welsh’s, “What gets me is that the US’s leadership is more arrogant and more convinced of its supremacy despite the fact by all objective measures, whatever power the US actually has is far less relative to the rest of the world than the US during WWII during Marshall’s and FDR’s time.” ?

      I often sense some desperation in DC, as though some of them glimpse their own illegitimacy and impotence but can’s say or do much about it. The story of NK deployments to Russia doesn’t feel like it’s coming from people convinced of their own supremacy.

      1. Yves Smith Post author

        Oh, yes it is. First, the NK story originates out of Ukraine, which IS desperate. The US and Anglosphere officials faithfully all sorts of Ukraine fabrications like the Ghost of Kiev and the idea that Russia would shell a nuclear power station it controlled.

        Second, the related manipulation reinforced the supremacy of the US v. its vassals. The NK hysterics are to justify SKorea providing F-16 planes and pilots to Ukraine, when the SKorea public is deeply opposed to getting involved in Ukraine.

        Third, you seem to be lucky enough not to have encountered any/many serious narcissists.

      2. ilsm

        Ian Walsh article struck me not so much clarifying the Lend Lease meme, in fact it was Britain it saved!

        I remembered the good fortune I had to be raised by parents, aunts/uncles and family friends who were the broad shouldered soldiers, sailors and workers who executed US missions in WW II.

        Further my first CO and XO were WW II officers who served their career long enough to give me motive and example.

        Now US has no Marshall*, Ike, King or Nimitz. We may have egos but none with talent or resolve.

        Nevertheless, if the Wehrmacht had gotten Stalingrad…..

        *Marshall made the right call on Chiang being unpopular and surrounded by corruption!

  12. The Rev Kev

    ‘Nature is Amazing ☘️
    @AMAZlNGNATURE
    Follow
    Bobcat after a boy saved him from a fire’

    That’s amazing that. That Bobcat really knows how to show affection.

    1. Lee

      Unlike my house cat who invites being petted then bites me when I do.

      I’ve actually trained my dogs, including a pit bull, to bite softly when we play fight. The cat for these last 16 years remains incorrigible.

      1. amfortas the hippie

        ay. Bobcito the cat is the same.
        boys rescued him from side of road when he was a kitten, and i fed him cream(not milk, cream) on the porch before they talked me into bringing him in.
        he’s a real dick.
        bites unexpectedly when being petted…and now that he’s old(14?) he’ll cop a squat on my bed in the winter.
        oh, and runs between my legs when im entering the house with an armload…idk how many times he’s made me fall spectacularly on my ass.

        1. Lee

          Such are their mind control powers over us that we feed and care for them instead of wringing their wretched necks.

            2. MFB

              Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals has a pretty good Filipino recipe for stir-fried dog with pineapple.

  13. .Tom

    I like The Seventy Percent, the essay by Yiyun Li in Harper’s. In our American electoral politics/theater, who is Nikolai Rostov? I thought of Ken Bone but his subsequent celebrity doesn’t correspond. I guess that’s part of what Li is saying, that incorporating the middle 70% into political thinking is something we’re doomed to doing largely privately since politics and media has so little use for it, except the occasional nod to a sort of Normal Rockwell picture of America’s middle.

    Anyway, I like Li’s story about the personal dossier the school teacher used to threaten the pupils.

    1. The Rev Kev

      I like that essay too and she would be a great teacher I think. But with those Chinese personal dossiers, don’t they have something like that in the US school system called permanent records?

    2. Kouros

      Only sortition, as an election method, could truly bring the 70% to the fore, because the present style of elections, everywhere, is aristocratic and competitive in nature, rather than democratic and collaborative.

    3. amfortas the hippie

      yeah…y’all made me go back and read it,lol.
      it was really good.
      sent it to my youngest, at Texas Tech, who has found the ravenous knowledge seeker within,lol.(he’s reading Zarathustra, right now)

  14. The Rev Kev

    “Texas tells U.S. Justice Department that federal election monitors aren’t allowed in polling places”

    You read a title like that and then you say to yourself that this is just Texas being Texas. But when you stop to think about it, the Biden DoJ has not exactly covered itself in glory the past coupla years and even if there wasn’t a Texas law baring monitors in polling stations, they may have cause to be suspicious of them. So maybe the takeaway from this story is not Texas being obstinate but that the reputation of the DoJ has really gone down due to their actions and lack of actions.

    1. IM Doc

      The “rule of law”. It is a thing.

      And once we have entered a zone where one side has been OBVIOUSLY doing all they can to tear that down – ie Lawfare, Liz Cheney and her manipulation of witnesses, ridiculous court cases, charging one side with something the other side was doing as well, “defund the police” but only let the poor neighborhoods suffer, having pretty much everyone have some kind of story in their family or friends about how the courts have screwed them or their kids, on and on and on –

      And then have the mainstream media collude in the lies……

      They have destroyed the rule of law in this country. The consequences are going to be grave. This is why if Trump wins – handcuffs, indictments, public very open trials, and jail time are going to be essential. It is the only way to regain confidence in more than half the country.

      1. Duke of Prunes

        We can dream… Given how entrenched the blob seems to be, I have a hard time believing Trump will be able to pull anything like this off. I guess we can hope for a few token convictions which might get the ball rolling.

      2. JP

        The universe of the American electorate is supported by lies all the way down. Which set of lies you wish to believe in defines the tribe you belong to.

        I wish to remain a non-believer however I do appreciate the irony of the guy who made his fortune by suing every contractor and vendor he did business with to avoid payment now being a legal target.

      3. JBird4049

        A nation of laws, not of men, but this interferes with the corruption, which means that it must go.

        However, the corruption is vast, almost omnipresent, across the entire political system; maybe they could start by sending some particularly odious Republicans into the dock. Is Mitch McConnell still alive and even slightly mentally competent? Or has the Turtle retired already?

        Too bad that I don’t see a modern Hellhound of Wall Street (Ferdinand Pecora) anywhere in Congress or even another Senator from Pendergast (Harry S. Truman).

  15. Carolinian

    Re The Cult of Microsoft–interesting if way more than I wanted to know about the company that once seemed very important and now, to me at least, is a blast from the past like Xerox. Does anybody even care about Windows 11 or any other manifestations of Nadella’s Dale Carnegie throwback ideas? Surely their continuing wealth owes more to the Gates/Balmer licensing system and their status as a tech incumbent. These days perhaps we should be more worried about the cult of Google and all those personal computers people are carrying around in their shirt pockets.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Just finished reading that post myself and I came away with the impression that Microsoft is now a dinosaur. You have a very small brain trying to do the thinking and a huge body lumbering along. It’s all top-down thinking and it seems that they do not want to even hear from the troops. And yeah, nobody cares about Windows 11 as why should they? I myself gave up on them when Windows 8 came along. Took one look at it and said ‘Nope!’

      1. doug

        I read that there are 400 million windows 11 users, so right many somebodies care about it, IMO.
        We use it at home and work. and it is fine far as I can tell. I also run a linux box, just to have an alternative……not for production.

        1. juno mas

          My understanding of Win11 is it turns your laptop into a cell-phone. Win11 monitors your activity and reports back to MS.

          (I’m contemplating the Linux alternative.)

    2. Duke of Prunes

      Nadella did two smart things. He leaned heavily into cloud services with Azure, and dropped their Windows bigotry in Azure. He now qualifies himself as a super genius. I’ve seen this movie before.

      My biggest fear is that this “management philosophy” infects other companies similar to Neutron Jack’s stack rankings.

  16. TomDority

    “Farm loans above $1M soar as ag economy deteriorates”
    Depends on which side of the lending you stand.
    If you are an investor/financier the Ag economy is a fantastic opportunity to buy distressed property, anticipate larger profits as large operations and supply chains consolidate pricing power, drive increases in rentier profits extraction, increase your take on increased overhead and artificially amplified depreciation.
    As for any small or small-ish operation say 20 mill or less – you will be left to dry on the vine as your life blood is sucked out of you like the water beneath your feet.

  18. Screwball

    Only a few more days until the election. Things seem to be at a fever pitch level of anxiety. I get a sense that many are about to freak out, as they seem to be getting more and more testy. We need to save the country from the other side – our lives depend on it – the most important election EVER.

    And you can always count on guys like David Frum, who my PMC friends adore. In a Tweet sporting a picture of Curt Russel when he played the hockey coach in the Miracle on Ice movie about beating the Russians in the 1980 Olympics captioned “We can beat these guys.”

    Frum Tweet link

    The Tweet contains a couple of things; just above the picture of the coach it reads;

    “As we enter final period of the championship match between Team USA and Team Putin/Trump …”
    (I wonder why the choice to put Putin first?)

    a Tweet above that Tweet says;

    “Liz Cheney is a warmonger” is code for “I will betray Ukraine and Taiwan.”

    I think there was a controversy over something Trump said about warmonger Lizzy. Something along the lines of grab a gun and go have at it, which was taken out of context and used as a hammer until caught. No matter, I think the same should be said for Frum. You have been warmongering and lying for years – how about you pick up a gun and go have at it – and take all the other chickhawk warmongers along with you.

      1. Screwball

        Thanks for the link flora. Good article, couldn’t agree more.

        On the one hand you have the Times, which has diminished itself over the past eight years to little more than the Democrats’ house organ, already preparing to suggest that the malign enemies of American democracy corrupted the elections. Believe me, you will hear this if Kamala Harris loses but not if she wins.

        That part caught my eye. Diminished itself is too kind IMO. I’m at a loss for words on why anyone would read that rag, other than to see what propaganda and spin will become the next narrative, or what country should we should bomb next. It is also the same paper our PMC class considers the “news” and we are all dumber for not reading it. Shame on us.

        Thanks, I’ll pass.

        1. tegnost

          Democrats’ house organ

          Thanks, I’ll add pbs to this, a shameless campaign commercial…
          The friday atlantic thing is a reprehensible neocon circle jerk.
          (jim lehrer is spinning in his grave, yelling get off my lawn!)

        1. Screwball

          Couldn’t agree more, but why hasn’t this happened? My PMC friends are against it, so I’m guessing the democrats are too. I don’t know about the other side, but guessing they are against it too.

          It makes too much sense, unless of course, someone wants to cheat. I think the “KISS” rule applies here – keep it simple stupid.

          2. marym

            Hand marked paper ballots:
            28 states have no-excuse absentee voting, 8 states plus DC have all mail voting, and the other states have varying requirements.
            Lists https://www.ncsl.org/elections-and-campaigns/table-1-states-with-no-excuse-absentee-voting

            Most counties in most states have hand marked paper ballots for election day voting.
            Map https://verifiedvoting.org

            Hand counting: some Republicans in the last few years have said they wanted it, but it hasn’t been widely promoted.

            1. Polar Socialist

              Just remember that hand counted, hand marked ballots won’t change the type and quality of candidates the plurality voting produces.

  19. The Rev Kev

    “The Loss Of American Leadership Competence Viewed From WWII”

    I’m thinking of a Lao Tzu quote here-

    ‘Too much success is not an advantage.’

    And that is what happened in the 90s. After the USSR went away Washington started to not only think of word dominance but also extending that dominance into the 21st century as well. It was the end of history and Washington would be rewriting all the rules. With the resources of the world at your fingertips through the magic of financial engineering, who needed to pay attention to such mundane things as industrialization and efficient production. They could just go out and buy what they wanted – while selling off American productivity. The effects on American workers was just “collateral damage” but in order to have winners, you needed to have losers. Maybe that is what they told themselves. But in their hubris, they did not recognize that the conditions of the 90s was just a historical aberration and no more. So what happened? China through a lot of hard work became the industrial powerhouse and Russia came back again. But with a hollowed out America, the present leadership class in America still think that it is the 90s and they are as hubristic as Israeli leaders are. They still refuse to adapt but think that through the dollar and the US military, they can get it all back again but they won’t.

      1. Kouros

        There was an exchange between Matt Lee and the State Department spocsx ghoul about this. I think what was missing from Lee’s argument was internal US pooling showing that 60-70% of Americans want the embargo lifted as well. How is this a democracy?

    2. flora

      If we are in a WEF orchestrated WWIII one would expect a different kind of leadership focused on a different kind of outcome than leadership in either WWII or WWI. imo. Lot’s of ifs. / ;)

  20. flora

    re: BREAKING: The October Surprise is here! The Daily Beast just dropped over 100 hours of Jeffrey Epstein recordings where he talks about his relationship with Trump and spills inside info on the Trump White House.

    Is it real or is it Memorex AI voice impersonation? / ;)

  21. Revenant

    Notes from the UK (1) – car loans

    The reporting on this judgment is very bad. There is no new finding of a fiduciary duty for loan brokers. The previous judgments which distinguished secret and “half-secret” commissions already both agreed that loan brokers owe a fiduciary duty.

    The issue is that one precedent considered the lender to be liable in some circumstances and the new judgment has affirmed and extended that principle to cover both sets of circumstances (in fact, I believe it has criticised the original distinction the earlier cases drew and proposed a different ratio decidendi on the very reasonable principle that there’s no such thing as a half-secret!).

    Obviously the banks absolutely hate the idea that their predatory lending strategies may have real financial penalties enforceable by the court and the UK equivalent of class action suits rather than the supine regulator, the FCA. They are making a big noise about how forcing them to disgorge the unjust enrichment of predatory lending will raise the price of credit for the poors. Whereas not lending to deadbeats and vulnerable people would of course lower the price of credit (fewer write-offs) for the rest of us but be less profitable (lower interest rates, lower penalty charges, lower volume of business mainly won by big banks rather than shady small ones).

    The banks fingered in this are Lloyds Bank (should know better, venerable conservative institution, but I think they acquired their car finance arm, possibly from stupid Bank of Scotland in the shotgun marriage), Motonovo/Aldermore Group (ultimately owned by FirstRand in South Africa) and Close Brothers. It is notable that Aldermore and Close Bros both had high levels of “retail” depositors (“” because it includes SME’s) because they offer high deposit rates. We have a savings account with one of them. I am disappointed to learn in all this that the higher interest they pay is sourced from the predatory car loans they extend. :-(

    The similarity of all the newspaper pearl clutching and the collective bad take makes e wonder whether it is the common ignorance and laziness of the UK fourth estate or an elaborate briefing operation by the UK banking industry….

    M’learned friends have a calmer take on it all:
    https://www.parksquarebarristers.co.uk/news/consumer-credit-appeal/

  22. Revenant

    Notes from the UK (2) – inheritance tax on farms

    This is an astonishing policy. I really don’t know where to start! Its stupidity is … cosmic!

    Put to one side the nonsense about “funding” anything and “balancing the books”. We all know that is not how money and government finance works and we will say no more. But even in the context of Labour’s own lies about the UK finances, inheritance tax is a rounding error in the solution. Some sort of wealth tax would be a great idea, provided other taxes were lowered to compensate and provided the wealth tax was set at a level to reduce plutocracy, not to break the middle classes.

    The current IHT regime charges a 40% tax on the estate of the deceased. There is an allowance of £325k that is not taxed and a further £175k for domestic property left to a direct descendant. These allowances are transferrable between married persons and there is no IHT on transfers between spouses. So the latter to die of a married couple can leave £650k of any assets to anybody and £350k of residential property to their direct descendants.

    Anything else is chargeable but Agricultural Property Relief (APR) and Business Property Relief (BPR) give 100% relief from this charge on the relevant kind of property. The changes will cap the 100% relief at £1m in aggregate for APR and BPR and reduce it to 50% relief about this (i.e. 20% tax rate). £1m sounds like a lot but any reasonable business (other than a lifestyle business) or farm will be significantly more valuable, especially if it owns its premises.

    if you own a very profitable business, there is no problem: you can borrow to pay the 20% tax on the excess. If the excess is £1m, you need to borrow £200k and the interest charge will be £10k p.a. and the repayments £10k p,a, over 20 years so a total drag on future profits of £20k after tax (which might require £30k before tax, worst case). Provided the yield on your business is greater than 1.5% (£30k/£2m, the £1m excess and the £1m with full relief), then you can afford the pay the tax – obviously, if your yield before the tax charge was 6%, your post-tax income from the business is going to be reduced to 4.5%, which is not pleasant but you’ll just have to work harder.

    Unfortunately, farming has a yield of 1-2%, let’s say 1.5%. You can see where this is going. Most family farms are heavily mortgaged anyway (heavily with respect to the income, not the capital value). Even if you have no mortgage, if you have a £1m excess value on your farm (I am ignoring the allowances because the farmhouse will typically eat these up), you need to borrow £200k, you have to pay say £30k per annum and your yield is 1.5% so the entire profit of the £2m farm goes to service the debt! Worse, this yield is, for a family farm, based on unwaged labour, i.e. the farmer depends on the profits for their livelihood, they are not drawing a salary from the business before the profit. So your family income goes to zero.

    In practice, the situation is even worse. Most farming families have second jobs / businesses (agricultural contracting, building work, relief farming, tree surgery, working in local care homes, food and hospitality) because the core farming business is inadequate to live on. They are farmers because that is their identity and because there are many barriers to quitting that identity, from the emotional to the practical (where will I live) to tax (capital gains etc.) to dividing the family finances.

    This tax change is going to EVISCERATE family farming in the UK. And it is such an own goal. All that was required was to set the cap on the APR and BPR at say £10m rather than £1m. Then working strivers would fel they had a shot at making bank for their family but plutocrats would clearly have to pay their way. Most family farms are not >£10m in value.

    My spouse is close to the policy making here. Nobody at DEFRA was allowed to know about this IHT change in advance. Indeed, DEFRA and the National Farmers Union believed it was not going to happen. Nobody at DEFRA was asked about the impact either. This has all been cooked up by the Treasury, which is full of arrogant recent Oxbridge graduates who know nothing about anything much but like to be where the power is (rather than in any of the government departments that actually *do* anything and have to implement policy and deal with citizens other than bankers).

    The suspicion is that Labour is entirely ignorant of the structure of the farming sector and believes that any business is like another and there will be no particular impact. Idiotic soundbites are eing trotted out that 73% of farmers will not be affected. But anybody who know the distribution of farming activity vs income knows that the majority of “farmers” in the UK statistics by number are landowners who happen to manage small parcels land agriculturally (e.g. golf courses). If you look at the actual farmers who generate their household income from farming, i.e. produce the nation’s food, they will ALL be caught. And the more productive farmers on the more valuable land will be caught harder.

    One solution is for family farms to break up the asset among the living, to reduce the value of the estate £1m invested in them) and of course the global super-rich will have their affairs run from Jersey etc. Abolishing “non-dom” sttus is meaningless: these people will just reduce their days in the UK to below the new residence test requirements and ensure they are tax resident somewhere else like Ireland or Switzerland.

    Of all the hills they choose to die on, this tax is truly stupid given how many intelligent ways there would be of introducing a wealth tax (for example, land value tax, removing the relief from capital gains tax on your house house etc.). It is playing into the hands of the Tories who want to abolish wealth taxes entirely by creating a cartoonishly villainous outcome on media-sympathetic working families.

    Moreover, the Reform party was second placed in many rural constituencies. If Nigel Farage plays his cards correctly, he will win many more seats at the next election because of this policy.

    My prediction is therefore that will be *intense* pushback (Elon Musk just got involved!) and the government will re-runs its models, realise without admitting it that the Treasury was talking horseshit about the number of *real* farmers affected rather than people labelled farmers statistically and then decide that a higher threshold of £5m or £10m will raise the same amount of revenue (because taxpayers can mitigate the policy) and everything will go quiet.

    1. Lee

      A country that is only 65% food self sufficient (Wikipedia), and as of June 2023 with 17% of its population experiencing food insecurity (Wikipedia) should take no measures that might upset the apple cart.

      1. amfortas the hippie

        yeah.
        just a bit more openly egregious than whats happened in the usa for 50 years.
        here, only people who know about how frelled agriculture is are those who are engaged in it.
        i am, thankfully, totally black market with my agriculture. its mostly for me and mine, anyway…but what i do sell is for cash, only.
        and i give most of the surplus away due to lack of a place to set up outside the city limits(so they wont pester me) with my truck on the side of the road…but where folks can find me.
        eldest just made me a facebook page for marketing, so next spring, we’re on.
        never gonna get rich with it,lol.
        nor am i likely to ever make enough to owe taxes.
        due to barriers to entry, lack of labor and capital…and thus limited capacity anyway.
        i’ll continue to demand cash for what i sell, and also continue to have my focus on feeding ourselves.
        they hate small farmers…too independent minded, i suppose(per Jefferson, et alia)
        but even neoliberalpmc people hafta eat.
        i’ll be here, growing more than i can eat, when the big boys crash and burn.
        (eating a radish i picked 5 minutes ago with this here shiner bock)

    2. Anonymous 2

      Matters may well turn out as you suggest.

      I suspect it does not help farmers that they have the reputation of being Tory voters.

      I remember a story of a Labour politician who was being baited by a Tory voter. The politician turned to the voter and asked him ‘what could I do to persuade to vote for me?’. The voter replied ‘There is nothing you could do that would ever persuade me to vote for you’. The politician replied ‘so why should I waste any more of my time on you?’.

      1. Revenant

        I find it hard to see old school party or machine politics at play here.

        Labour have actually won their huge current majority because Reform and Tories split the near-50% right wing vote in the shires, allowing the Libdems through and some cases even Labour in first place. If you force the right wing vote to recoalesce around Tories or, more likely, Reform (because Farage understands how to fight and has no sense of entitlement to power), that Labour majority vanishes. This policy only comes into force in 2026 or 2027 so a party that promises to overturn it can campaign today for 2029 and credibly offer to prevent this policy ever hurting many people. Imagine giving your political enemies a free five year opportunity to explain I’m detail how they can reverse your biggest policy error before it does any damage?

        I imagine if you run the numbers, this is a suicidal policy in rural constituencies. Everything is farming in these places: it may not look like it but when you get up close the aristos own the big acres, the yeomen farmers and tenant farmers do the hard graft of agriculture and rural tourism, everybody else is their supplier in some way or dependent on the tourists they bring. From the rich man in his castle to the poor man at his gate, they are all farming adjacent and intuit exactly what this policy will do to “land rich, cash poor” rural life. Moreover, this policy also binds the generation together because everybody in a family is affected by this.

        And this is just the countryside and agricultural property relief. The attack in business relief is an attack on the family firm and the hopes of people to build and leave something to their family. Again, firms in diversified financialised ownership will be untouched but their chef-atron competitors, owned and run by entrepreneurs rather than committees, will be caught. These people however are much more mobile: these urban gentry will just move to Jersey. Amazing Reeves has left the stable door open and not (yet) imposed an exit tax on emigrating rich tax residents.

        I cannot imagine how this policy was ever developed or what political objective they stated they were trying to achieve with it. Divert attention from actually taxing plutocrats by raising a shitstorm between the poor’s and the landed bourgeoisie?

        The Treasury has consulted nobody so it seems to be special adviser groupthink and an arrogant mandarinate enabling them. Nobody with a political bone in their body or who had ever met a farmer can have been asked. My spouse was asked by head of DEFRA how she had spent her morning and the head was shocked to hear the answer was hearing from me about how this policy would affect our farm (not much because of lucky planning) and our cousins (a lot, they cannot give the farm to the kids because of mental health issues, they cannot sell it because the relief is zero on listed market investments).

        1. amfortas the hippie

          among other things, this sort of out of the blue nonsense is why i lobbied mom so hard for 20 years to get the place into a trust.
          of course, i wanted allodial title,lol…but we cant have that.
          so this is as close as we can get to the property being “out of the Market(holy, holy)”.
          from my reading of the documents, the property just Is, like Yaweh…and makes no income.
          income is strictly an individual affair.
          i just stays here,lol.

          all that said, i aint a tax expert, nor a property lawyer…i do my best, with what i got.
          i fully expect shenanigans from the state and feds…but mostly the state…going forward.
          it’s what they do…fill up budget holes by taxing folks no one cares about…see: smokers.
          the only good thing is that “Family Farmer” still retains a lot of weight , politically…even though there aint that many actual family farmers around, these days.

    3. The Rev Kev

      What if those family farms set up a trust so that it is the trust that owns the farm and the assets and not the actual people. If one of them dies, it would not affect the trust itself. As to why this is being done, perhaps it is to force small farmers out of business so that corporate farmers can take over those farms instead. The new style Latifundium.

      1. Revenant

        That’s definitely an option. If the current owners are young enough, they can set up trusts every seven years and shelter £325k of any assets and another £1m of APR/BPR-qualifying assets.

        But trusts come with a lot of admin and expense and the defect of UK inheritance tax is already that the tax is entirely voluntary if:
        – you have liquid wealth and can afford to set up structures like this in advance; or,
        – you trust their family more than the taxman and give everything away in your lifetime and avoid the tax.

        Rachel Reeves has designed a tax that is laser-targeted to hit “working people”, manual labourers in fact, who just happen to require for their job that giant low yield tool called a farm. Plus, on top, she’s done the same for anybody who has built any owns a business. While sparing anybody with £10m+ of liquid assets and good accountants. It’s very hard to see this as socialism, it looks like incompetence / vindictiveness plus being thoroughly bought by the donor class.

  23. Es s Ce Tera

    re: Prejudice And China Louis-Vincent Gave (Anthony L)

    This is extremely well thought-out and reasoned, I wish there was more writing like this in general. Thank you Anthony L.

  24. Es s Ce Tera

    When we have Epstein reaching out to Noam Chomsky, of all people, someone very far outside of his usual circles, I don’t know how we can’t but conclude he was an operative tasked with creating or gathering kompromat and that someone wanted to target Chomsky.

    If the recordings are real, that Epstein is now being used in this way, in this political context, given this particular timing, suggests his employer was likely American. If not real, I guess his usefulness extends past his existence and might be good to use against others in this way.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Please use a search engine before making comments like this.

      Chomsky and Epstein were NOT in different circles.

      You are not understanding Epstein’s MO. He regularly held reportedly amazing parties, in terms of the number of famous people who attended, extending well beyond probably Lolita Express passengers. That included public intellectuals and prominent women. He made substantial donations to many universities, including MIT, which which Chomsky was deeply connected for 66 years, to build connections to others who gave to the university plus its administrators and its academics, ideally marquee names. From Slate in 2023:

      Anyway, a number of newly identified Epstein contacts are in the news this week thanks to the Wall Street Journal. The Journal reports that it has obtained “thousands of pages” of Epstein’s emails and schedules from the period between 2013 and 2017 that include the names of individuals he was scheduled to meet with. In terms of star power, the biggest is probably linguist and activist Noam Chomsky, who confirmed to the Journal that he occasionally saw Epstein to discuss neuroscience and other subjects. (Epstein liked to make a show of his interest in science. Chomsky is not accused of any inappropriate or criminal behavior.)

      https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/05/noam-chomsky-jeffrey-epstein-cia-director.html

      I am quite convinced he was a money launderer (that seems to be part of his services to Leon Black) and he did some fancy financial footwork in connection with money tied up in a Chomsky divorce: https://www.businessinsider.com/jeffrey-epstein-moved-over-250k-between-accounts-for-noam-chomsky-2023-5

      1. Mikel

        That’s why I said previously that comparing Diddy to Hefner is a better analogy than comparing him to Epstein.

      3. Es s Ce Tera

        I already knew all of this and it doesn’t change my suspicion.

        While I have no doubt he was laundering, for a money launderer he sure liked to accumulate evidence, emails, diaries, and appointment books. His financial career from start to finish is just too coincidental, too time compressed, with too many sudden switches in financial specializations needing deep expertise ordinarily requiring years of experience, and even his wiki says with everything known about him the numbers don’t add up, so that I think he had a little help. Especially given one of those specializations was recovering embezzled funds for wealthy clients, which I would argue would require access to information and forensics only governments/states would be able to conduct.

        Moreover, there’s something strange about a) Chomsky claiming he didn’t know how to move his $250k from one account to another, needed Epstein to do it as a “favor”, b) that Epstein could be bothered about a measly $250k, c) their acquaintance was to discuss science, regardless of his being a major MIT donor. Chomsky is not my go-to when I think of science. I’m confident they weren’t discussing science.

        It’s fairly established his houses were wired from top to bottom for recording video specifically for use to blackmail, and then after his remarkably lucky financial career he somehow feels he needs to start an Israel company which just so happens to have an IDF chief of staff and the director of 8200 as his execs….

        I’m simply not persuaded.

        1. Yves Smith Post author

          Do not bullshit me and readers in a lame effort to save face.

          You did NOT know this, otherwise you would never have started with the demonstrably false claim that Chomsky and Epstein were not in the same circles.

          1. Es s Ce Tera

            With respect, I think you and I must have very different ideas of what it means to be in the same circles.

            To me, Epstein was a financier whose circles were wealthy elites, politicians, people in the entertainment industry. Chomsky is someone like me, likely would rather be in his books, is likely allergic to all of the above. Especially given he’s a critic of power he’ll want to avoid being seen to be too close to that power.

            To me, being in the same social circles would mean having family, friends or acquaintances in common, regularly attending the same affairs, having more than just the occasional meeting, but I don’t see Chomsky ever attending an Epstein party, I don’t see them ever having dinner, I don’t think either have been to each other’s homes, I don’t think they’ve even met more than 2 times and on introduction? It’s that introduction, that intersection, that I find immensely suspicious.

            I’m willing to be proven wrong but in any case my thesis is based primarily on his constantly shifting financial specializations, not this. And anyway, I think this is just a distracting grain of sand, sorry to bother.

            1. Yves Smith Post author

              So let me get this straight…all you have is your personal projection about how Chomsky behaves? Seriously? You assume he’s an introvert because you are?

              Do you have any idea of the role celebrity academics are expected to play for their institutions? It appears not. Some big donors, and Epstein was clearly cut from that cloth, make donations in order to mingle with top thinkers. So your surmise that someone at Chomsky’s level would be removed from the world of big funders is not at all well founded. The fact that Chomsky and Epstein spoke about some of Chomsky’s interests more than once and that Chomsky sought out Epstein’s help on his own money matters directly refutes your claims, yet you offer no evidence whatsoever to bolster your beliefs.

              Chomsky in fact eagerly seeks out speaking gigs. And he even takes calls and makes admissions against interest to ideological opponents (see https://www.hoover.org/research/noam-chomsky-closet-capitalist). That’s not the behavior of an introvert. See this clip with Porfessor Marandi, starting at 1:18:30, for the marked contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBy0d3QK19A

      4. CA

        Noam Chomsky was married from 1949 to 2008 when Carol Schatz died. Chomsky married again in 2014, and remains married to Valeria Wasserman.

          1. The Rev Kev

            Unfortunately he is no longer in his prime and says things like how those who refuse to take vaccines should be isolated from society and in 2020 saying that people should vote for Biden to protect the environment. He’s not the man that he once was.

            1. CA

              “Unfortunately he is no longer in his prime…”

              Yes, you are right and I was thinking poorly. The linguistics insights are however important and I would not have them neglected.

          2. Acacia

            Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent was (still is?) an important book, his propaganda model might still be useful, and thus for many years he was persona non grata in the Western mass media. He was too critical of the USian Empire, especially for milquetoast liberal outlets like NPR. But then over time view his political positions came to sound more like those of the NYT, and now he’s an “acceptable” source, dutifully supporting the Democrats, saying Putin is evil, etc. etc.

            1. tegnost

              I ascribe this sort of thing to their student relationships (platonic).
              Like kruggles, they’re spending all their time with this precocious set and are invested in their success, not unlike parents…

  25. Tom Stone

    There are a few books that I feel are helpful in understanding how America actually works, among those I consider essential are Alfred McCoys “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Dan Moldea’s “Dark Victory.Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob”, Gary Webb’s “Dark Alliance” and Whitney Webb’s “One Nation under Blackmail”.
    There are several good books covering organized crime’s links to Hollywood and the NFL and for those interested more in the financial end the life of Murray “The Camel” Humphrey who handled $ for “The Outfit” in the same way Meyer Lansky did for the (Mostly) Italian Mafia is worthy of attention.

    1. Kouros

      Zephyr Teachout – Corruption in America From Benjamin Franklins Snuff Box to Citizens United

      It is network of networks, reinforcing each other all the time, and with extreme prejudice to the majority of Americans… who are just marks…

      1. JBird4049

        Zephyr Teachout’s comparison of how the then Congress concerns over Mr. Franklin’s gift to how our current Congress acts now is both interesting and depressing.

        1. NYMutza

          If you REALLY wish to know how America works read Nick Turse’s “KILL Anything That Moves -The Real American War in Vietnam”. Nothing has changed since that war ended nearly 50 years ago.

  27. Mikel

    Amazon Workers ‘Appalled’ by How Execs Made Return-to-Office Decision – Gizmodo

    The Gizmodo comment section had a couple of interesting posts reflecting on the role of commercial real estate and the threat to city and state tax incentives for large corporations in return-to-office decisions.

    1. XXYY

      I still have yet to see any plausible or understandable motive for the continued efforts by C-suite personnel to get their workers to return to the office.

      We all know that these people are moved solely by financial considerations. They are not interested in creating a vibrant creative work culture or whatever the prominent excuse seems to be; if they were passionately interested in that, every corporation and workplace would be drastically different from the way it is now (e. g., worker ownership, free meals, defined benefit pensions, childcare, housing assistance, national healthcare, etc.).

      So, what are the financial benefits to the C-suite of everyone coming back to the office 5 days a week (not 2 or 3 days a week, but 5!).

      One benefit is obviously better worker surveillance. Another may be preserving or increasing the value of employer-owned commercial real estate. Another may just be ego gratification of supervisory personnel (“look at all my serfs hard at work!). Hard for me to think of other financial motives that would have great appeal.

      Anyone?

      2. Es s Ce Tera

        In most offices I’d argue return to the office would mean a productivity hit. People spend an awful lot of time socializing, visiting desks, gossiping, travelling between rooms, parked in bathroom stalls watching their fav channels or shows, and don’t forget it takes an hour long discussion to decide lunch. Also, sexually harassing, bullying, office romancing, etc. And in-person meetings mean a return to the, was it 7, or 12, standard behaviours that disrupt meetings – and the people who are oblivious to the fact they’re doing it. I would argue we see a reduction in those behaviours with virtual meetings. So on, so forth…

        This isn’t profit driven, it’s driven more by stupid people in positions of power.

  29. JB

    Irish journalists at On The Ditch have been doing a stellar job this year tracking arms shipments over Irish airspace, on the way to Israel, and this is starting to bring heat on the government in the run up to elections in Ireland.

    The latest story, with some background:

    https://www.ontheditch.com/fedex-deletes-evidence/

    At the bottom, it notes that a court case is now being threatened against the Irish government:

    https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/legal-action-threatened-over-reported-israeli-weapons-flown-through-irish-skies-1689329.html

    This seems small, but may be significant – as it will make it moderately more difficult for US arms shipments to reach Europe, without going through Irish airspace (the first port of call) – which could throw a nice spanner in the works for the supply chain.

    The main achievement of this journalism though, is forcing the Irish government – one of the most outspoken critics of Israel (as are the Irish in general) – to back up its critical words with action, or to humiliate itself by exposing its own hypocrisy, in the run up to an election.

  31. IM Doc

    A dispatch from the blue hive.

    I think the bed wetting is now in full earnest. We have had two articles in the local paper this week during early voting. The polls are crammed with people – hours long waiting. And they are “those” people – the ones who never vote, etc. I do not know what is going to happen – but many on the PMC side are starting to realize that something may be up. The last two days in my office and the crying and the wailing have just been epic.

    I am taking nothing for granted and have come to the realization that we are in a very bad situation no matter who wins. I would prefer one over the other – but am preparing myself mentally for a close election and our family and friends will just deal with whatever happens like adults. My wife and I have volunteered to take the elderly and handicapped to the polls all week. She has done it all day long since Monday – I have helped for 2 afternoons and every day from 5 on.

    Between the two of us – 74 people for the week – Interestingly, only 38 of them have voted since 2000. And in my time with them – I can tell from the conversation in the van – “joy” is not the password. The issues I heard being discussed all the time – immigration, eggs being 4 dollars a dozen, and surrounding oneself with warmongers – I had not expected the third one – but it is exactly what I was hearing.

    1. Screwball

      The last two days in my office and the crying and the wailing have just been epic.

      I’m seeing this too. In the last week I have also found another bunch, I think. Those who I usually can talk politics with that are no longer interested in talking about it. They have had enough with the endless emails, text messages, robo calls, wall to wall TV commercials, etc. They have tuned out and will continue to be until after Tuesday. Without doubt they will be voting, but they are sick and tired of all the stuff that goes along with it. I can’t say I blame them.

    2. Jason Boxman

      Blue Twitter has been pointing out that in early voting women have been crushing it. So who knows. The only thing for certain is a winner will eventually be declared, one way or another.

    3. chris

      Interesting. My friends from the blue hive in NOVA and NoVA adjacent areas are gearing up for war. They expect another Jan 6. They plan to make sure it doesn’t happen. These are not violent or trained people. So I’m not sure what they mean.

      1. Screwball

        Here’s what I can’t get a grip on, and it is so sad. I read and talk to people who wish others dead because of politics. Maybe a brutal way to say so, and maybe they didn’t say it that blatantly, but that’s what they think.

        During COVID they wished the people who refused to get the shot to die. Now they are hoping COVID killed enough red state anti-vaxxers to elect Harris. I have heard and read this over and over.

        This is where we are. So sad. No words.

  32. Wukchumni

    Greetings from Tecopa hot springs where the volunteer fire department is throwing a fete and our friend Wonderhussy is doing a meet and greet, where the line of 50 never decreases, oh and I’m listening to a Elvis impersonator from Sonoma, who isn’t half bad.

    Epstein was the November surprise, how droll.

  33. Heather B

    FYI, the link via the kittens picture for this post on the main page is broken (says “/2024/10/links-11-2-2024.html”, and the 10 needs to be updated to 11).

  34. Kouros

    The Council of Foreign Relations on BRICS proposed platfrom for foodstuff:

    “The group’s firm stance against “undue restrictive economic measures” is a rebuke against the West’s economic coercion, such as the collective sanctions against Russia. Yet, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pointed out, there are no G7 sanctions against Russian food or fertilizer exports, contrary to Russia’s claims. It was Russia that chose to suspend the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a UN-brokered deal between Russia and Ukraine that had partially resumed exports of agricultural products, including grain, through previously Russia-blocked Black Sea shipping routes in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s termination of the agreement worsened food insecurity in Ukraine and increased global food price volatility. ”

    Those two “truths” are standing on a forest of lies and deceptions, both of them. As such, they are immaterial.

    1. schmoe

      And those are not entire truths:

      “But the carve-outs [for fertilizer and ag products] may not work perfectly. Even if sanctions do not directly target food and fertilizer exports, some do target individuals—e.g., oligarchs—who may have business interests in these sectors, and in general they can make trade more difficult. For example, importers may choose not to purchase from Russia and Belarus because of the added costs of doing business (for example, having to deal with more restrictive banking regulations), or due to overcompliance, i.e., the perceived risk, even if erroneous, of being ensnared in financial sanctions for having done business with these countries. Some companies have also stopped trading with Russia due to negative public opinion, or as a result of concerns expressed by their employees.
      https://www.ifpri.org/blog/how-sanctions-russia-and-belarus-are-impacting-exports-agricultural-products-and-fertilizer/

    2. The Rev Kev

      ‘It was Russia that chose to suspend the Black Sea Grain Initiative’

      That’s not what happened. When it came time, the Russians simply did not renew that deal. And the background reason was that in return for the Russians allowing grain being shipped along the northern Black Sea, the EU would allow Russians ships to export grain and fertilizer from their posts where some Russians ships were stuck. But what happened was that the EU totally reneged on their half of the deal and the Ukrainians were using the grain route to attack Russia. So the lesson learned for Russia is that the EU too is agreement-incapable.

      Stuff like this is starting to annoy me. How like Germany’s Scholz claimed the other day that it was Russia that cut off Germany’s gas when it was the US that blew up the NS2 pipelines but even before then, Germany was refusing to validate those new NS2 pipelines. There is still one NS2 pipeline intact but Scholz refuses to turn it on so this is all on him but nonetheless he comes out with statements like this and thinks that people do not have a memory.

      1. Polar Socialist

        I recall the deal was that if Russia allows Ukraine the export animal feed to EU, The West would allow some Russian banks back to SWIFT to receive payments from African countries for the Russian grain and fertilizer. Russia did it’s part, but The West never got around to enable the payments.

        In the end Russia donated the already exported stuff, let the deal end and kicked on the second gear in the BRICS Clear.

        So, it is a “fact” that Russia did end the deal, and there’s not a journalist in The West who would dare to ask “why did Russia do that?” or add any context on the issue.

        As people said some years back: the fact checking is supposed to happen in the news rooms, but it has now been externalized to spook-infested social media sites.

      2. AG

        re: Black Sea Grain Initiative

        Amazingly the dishonesty by EU in that deal was laid out in a lengthy German piece by a decent man from the Wuppertal Institute, in the weekly FREITAG here (and subsequently again by a FREITAG author.)

        https://www.freitag.de/autoren/hans-jochen-luhmann/getreide-abkommen-der-westen-ist-beim-deal-mit-russland-nicht-ganz-ehrlich

        He even compared the readouts from the German and the RU government and showed how former lied…

        I have no other way than to post his entire google translated text here (emphasis mine):

        “(…)
        Nov. 16th 2022
        Grain agreement: The West is not entirely honest in its deal with Russia

        Diplomacy – Grain exports from Ukrainian ports, in return for exemptions from the sanctions against Russia: This was agreed with the UN, but remains largely unfulfilled

        by Jochen Luhmann, he is a senior expert at the Wuppertal Institute

        There have been two attempts to enter into negotiations in the war over Ukraine.
        The first attempt was made immediately after the war began on February 24. Ukrainian-Russian talks became manifest in the Istanbul Communiqué of March 29, 2022, without any conclusion to negotiations with a tangible result such as a ceasefire.
        A second attempt was made to transport grain and fertilizers from Ukrainian ports, the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative. It began on June 7, 2022 with a meeting of the defense ministers of Turkey and Russia, who agreed on a grain export corridor from Ukraine. These negotiations were successful in that an agreement entitled “Initiative on the Safe Transportation of Grain and Foodstuffs from Ukrainian ports” was concluded on July 22, 2022. It referred to the “export of grain and related foodstuffs and fertilizers.” From the outset, the Black Sea Grain Initiative was under the auspices of the United Nations, which was itself a signatory to the agreement. UN Secretary-General António Guterres wanted to contain a simmering world food crisis that was being exacerbated by a lack of supplies from Ukraine and Russia as well as a price surge on the world market. Because of this dramatic development, Guterres had already spoken to Vladimir Putin on April 26th, and Putin in turn spoke to Macky Sall, the President of Senegal and Chair of the African Union (AU), on June 3rd.

        Second part of the grain deal with Russia: easing of sanctions

        Not formally, but in fact, the Black Sea Agreement includes a second agreement, which was concluded at the same time and also made public by the UN on July 22, 2022. The mutual conditionality of both contracts was to be expressed by the statement: “At the same time, an agreement was reached with the Russian Federation on the scope of the United Nations’ commitment to facilitate the unhindered export of Russian food and fertilizers to world markets, including the raw materials required for the production of fertilizers. This agreement is based on the principle that measures imposed on the Russian Federation do not apply to these products. At the same time, the Russian Federation has committed to facilitating the unhindered export of food, sunflower oil and fertilizers from the Black Sea ports controlled by Ukraine.” The second sentence indicates that the Western sanctions against Russia on the products mentioned should be exposed. So far, however, there is no question of that. It is still the case that these sea-based exports from Russia, especially those of fertilizers, are not taking place because of the West’s sanctions practice. A special case seems to be the export of Russian ammonia from the port of Odessa, which is delivered there by pipeline. It is once again revealing that this “tit for tat” connection hardly ever appears in Western reporting, although the UN Secretary General never tires of emphasizing this connection. He himself wants to fulfill the commitment he made to Russia so that the Black Sea Grain Initiative was even possible. As is well known, the Black Sea Agreement expires in mid-November and is to be extended. In order to achieve this, the commitments made to Russia would also have to be put into practice, and the West’s abandonment of asymmetric reporting on the Black Sea Grain Initiative could be a contribution to this. If one sticks to the previous presentation, the commitments to Russia are at best hinted at. This was done in an exemplary manner at the recent meeting of the G7 foreign ministers in Münster. What was declared there reads as follows: “We support the call by the Secretary General of the United Nations to extend the Black Sea Agreement on the export of grain, which has reduced global food prices. We urge Russia to heed the Secretary General’s appeal.”

        Grain agreement: The West must also keep its promises

        A one-sided allocation of responsibility, which conceals the fact that this is a negotiation situation in which the West also has to deliver. In a postscript, this is addressed in such a way that only insiders can guess the context. It says: “We are accelerating (…) our efforts so that fertilizers can reach the weakest.” The task of qualified journalism in Germany, which of course knows the contract texts and the context, should be to break through this fog of information for the German public. Why is this not happening? It would be more than desirable to know. Due to the increasing complications with the Black Sea Grain Initiative, there was a telephone conversation between President Putin and Chancellor Olaf Scholz on September 13th. The journal Russland-Analysen # published by the University of Bremen has compared the official statements from both sides.

        [https://www.laender-analysen.de/russlandanalysen/424/pressemitteilungen-zum-telefonat-zwischen-wladimir-putin-und-olaf-scholz/]

        The key term is “complete implementation”, but the press office of the Federal Chancellery does not mention a single word that the Black Sea Agreement is part of a more comprehensive deal that has not yet been “fully” implemented. The reason for this abbreviated representation is probably the tactical behavior of a government agency in the hybrid information war against Russia. The real phenomenon, however, is that German media unanimously follow this abbreviated representation of a complex treaty. What the Kremlin published about the Scholz-Putin exchange of views was completely ignored. In the statement, it says that Putin referred to the
        agreement was “concluded as a package” and his concern is explained “with regard to the unbalanced geographical distribution of Ukrainian grain deliveries by ship, of which only an insignificant part reaches the countries that need them most”. At the same time, there is “no movement in removing barriers to the export routes for Russian food and fertilizers”. The Russian side is prepared to “supply large quantities of grain to external markets and also to give needy countries the fertilizers that have been seized in European ports free of charge”. Not a word about this in Germany.
        Precautions have obviously been taken so that if the grain agreement fails, the German public will blame Russia’s destructive arbitrariness and not the failure to balance legitimate interests on both sides. However, “preventive blame” is pretty irrelevant for world hunger.
        (…)”

        p.s. of course Moon of Alabama e.g. along NC, The Duran et al. had extensive coverage of the deal and how it was abused.

  35. AG

    What is going on with Marcetic and JACOBIN now?

    Trump Is Planning a Third Red Scare

    By Branko Marcetic

    Donald Trump and his allies aren’t making a secret of it: if they win, they’re going to launch a campaign of repression to destroy the pro-Palestinian movement and the organized left.

    https://jacobin.com/2024/11/trump-red-scare-palestine-blm

    Walter Kirn is totally correct they are writing witing witing about things being said. That´s all.
    Where was this outcry of ALL left media when Socialist groups opposed the US involvement in Ukraine?
    Any protest of this massive scale?
    So far nobody was imprisoned by the GOP.
    How many have been shut out and shut down by the current administration.

    “(…) This election season has been a tumultuous and widely debated one for the Left, on both moral and strategic terms. But strangely absent from these discussions have been the explicit promises and detailed plans from Donald Trump and his team to kick off a third Red Scare and destroy the organized left if they win.

    Just this month, on the anniversary of October 7, the same Heritage Foundation that brought us Trump’s Project 2025 released “Project Esther,” their “blueprint to counter antisemitism in the United States.” On the basis that the American pro-Palestinian movement is “part of a global Hamas Support Network” that is “supported by activists and funders dedicated to destroying capitalism and democracy” and gets the “the support and training of America’s overseas enemies,” Project Esther lays out a strategy to “dismantle” this movement within one to two years and “level a decisive blow against both antisemitism and anti-Americanism.”

    That strategy envisions a whole-of-government campaign of intimidation, slander, and “lawfare,” at both the federal and state levels and working with private organizations, to crush pro-Palestinian activists’ First Amendment rights and carry out a wave of repression. The stated end goal is to make it impossible for activists to organize while turning the public against the movement.
    (…)
    As per the document, the hoped-for goals and outcomes of this campaign are the same ones that came out of that shameful historical episode, as well as the earlier Red Scare of the 1920s
    (…)
    Trumpworld’s plan is, in other words, an unholy cocktail of the “war on terror” of this century and the Red Scare of the last one; and it is, quite openly, one targeting the entire Left, not just antiwar campaigners.
    (…)
    Project Esther singles out what it calls the “Hamas Caucus” — which it specifies as Bernie Sanders, the Squad, and a number of other progressive lawmakers — as part of this “cabal” serving in Washington, who must be “marginalized” as one of the nineteen core goals that will lead to the project’s success.
    (…)”

    There is this quote from the WaPo (an article however 1 year old now)

    ““We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said last Veterans Day.”
    see:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/12/trump-rally-vermin-political-opponents/
    https://archive.is/BbRJX

    There is at least this (but I have never seen JACOBIN call Schumer a fascist for scanting “ISRAEL-ISRAEL-ISRAEL!” as Aaron Maté reported vividly):

    “(…)
    Trump’s planned assault on the pro-Palestinian movement and leftists will likely get crucial support from right-wing Democrats in Congress who have an antagonistic relationship with the Left and have sided with Republicans over the past year in support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer is already promising to pass a speech-chilling “antisemitism” bill in the lame duck period after the election, which would be a boon to Trump’s McCarthyite plans. Corporate-funded groups that hold sway within the Democratic Party like Third Way have long been looking for the opportunity to purge the party of its progressive and socialist wing.

    It’s not clear if the liberal establishment press, which has played a key role in demonizing pro-Palestinian protesters and legitimizing police violence against them, will step up either. Look at the recent exchange between Vance and CNN’s Jake Tapper over Trump’s threat to sic the military on what he called “the enemy within”: when Vance protested that Trump was simply talking about “far-left lunatics” and “people rioting” — meaning, in the language that elites in both parties now use, George Floyd protesters and other demonstrators — Tapper ignored this flagrantly alarming statement and instead repeatedly pressed Vance on whether Trump was actually talking about Democratic members of Congress like Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. The question raised is whether Tapper would be comfortable with Trump training the military “only” on powerless protesters instead of powerful Democratic officials.
    (…)”

    Eventually he gives some examples of actions not just words:

    “(…)
    If you’re still not convinced of Trump and his allies’ seriousness, then consider the fact that we’ve already seen Republicans put this agenda into motion on a smaller scale.

    There was, for instance, last year’s campaign by ultraconservative state-level Republican officials to undermine the American Library Association (ALA) over its election of self-described “Marxist lesbian” Emily Drabinski to its presidency. One part age-old Red Scare hysteria, and one part Biden-era right-wing “groomer” gay panic, the controversy saw state Freedom Caucuses work, one after another, to withdraw their state libraries from the ALA over Drabinski’s political beliefs and sexual orientation.

    The episode is one illustration of the way that Trumpworld’s planned crackdown would work in practice. The aim here wasn’t necessarily to destroy the ALA, but, as with Scalise’s threats against universities, to intimidate and incentivize it to cut ties with and carry out its own repression of left-wing and other undesirable voices. And unfortunately, Drabinski’s constitutional rights did not always get a full-throated defense from liberals, who responded more with a defensive crouch.

    Indiana, meanwhile, has seen several bills passed through its GOP-controlled state legislature and signed into law this year that read like a state-level forerunner of Project Esther.(…)”

    The entire piece is a bit longer than the usual so I have to leave you with this much quoted.

    p.s. unfortunately I believe most of this to be hot air. On the other hand the situation is already bad enough and won´t change much to the better regardless who wins. But Marcetic couldn´t admit that. Why? Does he really buy his own scaremongering?

  36. flora

    This fellow David A. Hughes Phd is an interesting thinker, imo. Here’s a ~1 hr interview on twtr-X. Sounds farfetched on the one hand, but could be right when I consider what we’ve seen for the past 2 decades and the modern MSM and academia refusing to ask certain questions, and silence those who do ask. I don’t have a better explanation. Coincidence alone as an explanation would suggest that things would shift back and forth yet they seem to always move in only in one direction, imo.

    ‘The “#polycrisis” described by the #WorldEconomicForum is not only no accident, it is a deliberate act of total war on our entire civilization.

    Driven by the ruling elites, its aim is to establish a worldwide totalitarianism’

    https://x.com/LifeSite/status/1851617483091746936

    .

      1. tegnost

        Yes to this…the euro commission (banksters in charge) is the globalist model
        It’s been a while, but globalists used to tell me americans were going to have to get used to a lower standard of living, and kind of guilt tripping that maybe I’m racist for not wanting the third world to become wealthier…never heard them say their ownselves should get less, quite the contrary, indeed…

  37. IM Doc

    Well, my New York Times told me this AM that the Kamala Harris campaign had DCd all of Biden’s campaign activities and phone calls, etc.

    I am not sure how you explain this latest fiasco –

    https://x.com/RNCResearch/status/1852801908815122507

    I am sure that will go over real well with those still wondering if his addled brain thinks “slavery is still a thing”. This is all of course happening in a phase of the campaign when they are struggling with the black male vote.

    The powers that be obviously have no control over the man.

    Just look at that face when he says those words. This after biting babies the other night and then of course the whole garbage thing.

    Here is the thing – As the VP, if I understand things correctly, it was her job – one of the few she has – to actually start the proceedings to 25th Amendment him. This obviously should have been done long ago. Total and complete incompetence. This is absolutely true in medicine – and I am sure it is true in many other professions – total incompetence often comes back to bite – and to bite hard.

    And this man – who probably has passed the phase of the illness where he can no longer feed himself – has his fingers on the nuclear button. Again – total incompetence. They assure that all is well in this regard, however, they assured us just yesterday and again in the papers this AM that he would have no further role in the campaign.

    2. Screwball

      I don’t know why they keep putting this guy in front of a camera? Oh, wait, he’s our president.

      Now we have this squirrel thing hitting the news…

      I’m 68 years old and I can’t believe what I am watching in today’s world. Whisky Tango Foxtrot!

      Insanity.

    1. chris

      We’ll have to see whether it is good or bad. Just like we’ll have to see whether life will get nominally better or worse depending who is elected. The only person who has prior we can somewhat use to predict future behavior is Trump. And his past administration suggests that not much will change, there will be chaos, and various agents will fight him or just go around him to do what they want to do. Lina Khan is probably gone. The Ukraine War is probably over. The Israeli war will probably downshift to a slow burning murderous crawl. A new twist this time might be his defenestrating his enemies, which will create a unique situation where the elite in our society actual have something to be concerned about as opposed to the usual order of things where the poor and middle class anxiously wait to see how they will be screwed for the next four years.

      If Kamala is elected, things will stay largely the same, except we will get more war and likely more aggressive policing of American citizens. We will also see her adopt more right aligned policies domestically and abroad. We will probably see a pre-emptive strike against her purported enemies too, a kind of anti-Jan 6 against the Bros and anyone deemed unpersons. Various agents will do what they want to do, with her approval or without. Lina Khan will be gone.

      Exciting times :/

      1. tegnost

        Trump has said he won’t run again so I wonder what msnbc will talk about in the event harris wins…I mean it’s been 10 years at least since they had a show that didn’t feature the orange man…

  39. AG

    Has actually any media on the left ever written anything normal, analytical, without hysteria about Trump???
    Like normal, sound assessments of what he did or does or the people supporting him?

    I remember only one interview on DemocracyNow during the RNC when the NATION´s senior editor spoke more or less seriously on economic issues. That was mostly about how bad everything is but at least in a weighed manner and addressing the shortcomings of both, Biden and Trump.

    EVERYTHING has turned into a freak show. Whether Fox News or Jacobin. It doesn´t matter any more.
    This is sick and noone writes about this in those spaces this should concern most.

    Apparently they really do not see it.
    Frankly I find this very disturbing and worrying.

    1. mgr

      The discussions on “The Duran” (on Youtube) with Alexander Mercouris and Alex Christofornou about Donald Trump also and in particular in their recent interview with Robert Barnes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGPiGSlcoD8) have been excellent. They analyze and discuss Trump without hysteria. It paints a different picture. In this election, there is actually a choice of sorts. The conclusion I have come to is that whatever else Trump may be, he is not a neocon. And in this place and time, that actually is a significant difference.

      1. AG

        Thanks for the latest Barnes link! (I might not agree with everything he suggests but I sure listen to every minute usually!)

        THE DURAN is not your usual media.
        That´s the issue here. So if they are normal on Trump, everyone else is not.

        Even German left daily JUNGE WELT, which is actually being observed by German FBI and always in danger of being banned doesn´t regard The Duran as proper source!
        (Actually I should write them an email on this problem because that´s just dumb.)

      2. AG

        …betting on elections?
        That´s dystopian, is it not?

        p.s. that much at stake for the world tomorrow? – somehow I have my doubts…but it sure sells news for everyone.

  40. IM Doc

    FYI – This AM Joe Rogan dropped a 2 hour interview with John Fetterman – Dem Senator from PA. From the best I can tell, it already has 1.1 million views just after 3 hours across all the platforms.

    We are still canning food – so I have been listening to this. Again, after an hour or so, I have a much different perception of this guy than I ever have before. Very relatable – and he and I agree on so many issues.

    And – he is at times hysterically funny. You can tell he has had a stroke – but he clearly has been working hard on his speech. My physician’s hat is off to this gentleman – I know from the decades how difficult his road has been.

    I promise – if Kamala loses, her failure to go on this show will be seen as a critical mistake.

    Also – he already has more views in just 3 hours than if you added all the shows from the political networks added together on their best nights. The mainstream media does not realize how dead they are.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y-59phRHRM

    1. flora

      Thanks for the link. Fetterman’s ‘veggie tray’ ad run in his Senate campaign was so funny. He owned Dr. Oz with that one. / ;)

      1. AG

        Not being in the US I only remember that Aaron Maté initially endorsing Fetterman as a politician after he had come back was aghast over Fetterman´s pro-Israel position. But I guess it´s that wrinkle that you have to take with most politicians especially in the US. Fetterman was described as Israel´s best friend by Bibi as late as this summe I think. But in that F. is just an average individual in the Senate. I guess his Ukraine positions are also aligned with Ds progressive mainstream. China too?…

        1. hk

          Fetterman sounds a bit like Dem a Donald Trump, in some ways. (Everything I know of him is second hand.)

    3. Ben Panga

      IM Doc: I promise – if Kamala loses, her failure to go on this show will be seen as a critical mistake

      I agree but maybe ‘failure’ conceals the reason she didn’t. Rogan’s aim is to get his guests to be real, and he gives them a platform to explain their views, into which he will gently explore. She didn’t go on because she’d be an unmitigated disaster. I’ve not seen or heard her passing the “real” test. Her word salad would not suffice in the face of Rogan’s polite questions.

      “How would your economic plan change anything?”

      “Is Trump really a fascist?”

      “Why did you say Biden was compos mentis?”

      “Who are you, really?”

      It would be a car crash.

  41. Balan Aroxdale

    Israel wants to enforce any Lebanon ceasefire deal, Netanyahu tells US envoys Reuters. Lordie. We are supposed to take this as a serious proposal?

    No-one can. It’s a transparent proposal to occupy and ultimately colonize south Lebanon.

    But what we can take seriously is the Israeli government’s focus, indeed obsession, with gaining land out of this present war. This is most important currently in the context of the North Gaza genocide escalation. But we can expect on all current and future fronts a consistent push by Israel for more land. The logic of their position demands it.

    1. ChrisFromGA

      At first I thought it was equivalent to surrender, but it’s actually worse. In a surrender, the losing side at least gets an end to the killing.

      Bibi wants a license to kill an unarmed populace. Someone on MoA likened it to the Einsatzgruppen from Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa:

      https://www.britannica.com/topic/Einsatzgruppen

          1. Polar Socialist

            You do know that since 1933 the Nazi propaganda claimed that Germany was under attack and must defend itself…

            1. The Rev Kev

              I think that it was Goering that said that when you tell people that, that they will support the government which by definition makes those that oppose the government guilty of sedition.

              Still works…

    1. Jason Boxman

      Interesting 8 years of Trump Russia/Hitler/Democracy have made “The future of democracy” an issue where an issue never existed. Propaganda works!

    2. hk

      Now, this is surprising, and, in many ways, more “believable” than most other polls, if only because Iowa Polls is both local (so knows its people better than nat’l orgs doing state polls) and has had a very good track record, plus, Iowa is a weird state that has surprised multiple time even in recent past. True, I find it really hard to believe, but that’s a datum that I don’t think should be dismissed lightly.

  43. adrena

    I prefer visiting the dentist whenever I’m in The Netherlands. It’s kind of reassuring when both the dentist and his assistant have healthy but imperfect-looking teeth. They are all about saving natural teeth.

    Imperfection is perfect for me.

  44. ChrisFromGA

    Ode to Antony Blinken

    Sing to the tune of, “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road”

    By Loudon Wainwright III

    Verse:

    Crossing the Atlantic late one night
    Blinken’s tryna please the left and he’s tryna please the right
    He didn’t see that Bibi’s built for war
    The deal got squashed and there you are

    You got yer, dead ceasefire in the middle of the road
    Dead ceasefire in the electoral road!
    Dead ceasefire in the middle of the road!
    Stinkin’ to high heaven!

    Take a whiff on me, that ain’t no diplomatic rose
    Roll up your window and hold your nose
    Ya dont have to look and ya don’t have to see
    Cause we’ll exterminate the Gazans like 1500 B.C.

    You got your dead ceasefire in the middle of the road
    Dead ceasefire in the middle of the road
    Dead ceasefire in the middle of the road
    Stinkin’ to high heaven

    Yeah you got your dead-cat deal and your dead-donkey show
    On a moonlight night you got your senile Joe
    Iran’s gonna bomb Tel-Aviv real soon
    The blood and the guts are gonna make you swoon!

    Ya got your dead ceasefire in the middle of the road
    Dead ceasefire in the middle of the road
    Dead ceasefire in the middle of the road
    Stinken’ to high heaven
    Come on, Blinken!

    Sorry Kammy – it’s dead!

    It’s in the middle …

    Dead ceasefire in the middle of the electoral road
    All over the road
    Oh you got pollution
    It’s dead, Jim
    And it’s stinkin’ to high heaven

  45. JBird4049

    >>>Eugenics movement on rise in political rhetoric, academic literature STAT (Dr. Kevin

    From what I can see, eugenics has never truly gone away especially as it is too handy a tool to justify austerity and repression; the generation that saw the results of such ideas in the Holocaust never stopped being eugenicists, but like Francis Galton, pulled away from building that particular road to hell. That generation is almost all dead, leaving another generation to embrace learning by doing instead of listening.

  46. Antifa

    IN PALESTINE
    (melody borrowed from Draggin’ The Line  by Tommy James & The Shondells

    Starvin’ ain’t livin’ no how no way
    My kids they get skinnier every day
    Lives of endless pain in Palestine
    In Palestine (in Palestine)

    Bombs come down at crazy hours
    Our lives are no longer ours
    There’s no flour or grain in Palestine
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)

    Kids are cryin’ dinner is roots and vines
    That”s all that I could find
    My children are cryin’
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)

    Bombs landing closer we all hear it
    Each of us knows to dread and fear it
    How can we know if it’s our turn this time?
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)

    I keep tryin’ while I’ve got me and mine
    But we’re in an awful bind
    When grass is all we find
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine (in Palestine)
    In Palestine

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