Worm reproduces by injecting sperm into its own head ABC Australia. Anthony L: “Old, but gives a whole new meaning to “‘dickhead'”
World’s largest crocodile in captivity dies BBC (Robin K)
Meta’s Plan For Nuclear-Powered AI Data Centre Thwarted By Rare Bees Financial Times
Israeli, Tajik Archaeologists Prove Early Human Presence in Central Asia Haaretz (Robin K)
Nietzsche’s Debt to Zoroastrianism: How a Cultural Collision Contributed to Also Sprach Zarathustra Journal of the History of Ideas Blog (Anthony L)
Spa Owner Accused of Performing Thousands of Fake Botox Injections Gizmodo (Dr. Kevin)
Climate/Environment
New Study Suggests Oceans Absorb More CO2 Than Previously Thought ScienceTech Daily
Ethiopia bans imports of gas-powered private vehicles, but the switch to electric is a bumpy ride Associated Press
World’s largest transformer maker warns of supply crunch Financial Times
L.A. County Sues Pepsi and Coca-Cola Over Their Role in the Plastic Pollution Crisis Los Angeles Times
Heavy rains in Barcelona disrupt rail service as troops search for more flood victims in Valencia 9 News (Kevin W)
China?
China and Europe’s EV fight just stepped up a notch Business Insider
Swiss university’s not-so-neutral policy to restrict applications from Chinese students South China Morning Post (Anthony L)
Africa
Botswana’s stunning election upset puts elites on notice Responsible Statecraft
South of the Border
Mexico Decided to Take Out the Heads of Drug Cartels. It Proved to Be a Dangerous Strategy
Haaretz (Robin K)Ecuador lives through a week of blackouts, protests and long holiday Prensa Latina
Cuba Could Face A Complete Collapse Of Its Power Grid as Financial Crisis Continues to Spiral Latin Times
European Disunion
BALKAN BLOG: What went wrong for the EU in Georgia’s and Moldova’s elections? BNE
Old Blighty
Britain’s car finance fiasco risks crashing the economy Telegraph
Thousands of blue-clad protesters join London march for clean water Guardian
Israel v. The Resistance
Entire northern Gaza population ‘at imminent risk’ of death, UNICEF head says Washington Post
LIVE: Israel bombs Syria, attacks Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital again Aljazeera
Fake document scandal reveals Israeli efforts to undermine ceasefire talks Mondoweiss
"The thought that we could end the bloodshed without doing justice to the (Palestinians) is not only malicious, but a dangerous illusion. The "peace process" is trying to do precisely that… That is why I’m against it."
In late 1994 a young Israeli anarchist named Yossi Wolfson… pic.twitter.com/CT0bbO3f4X
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) November 4, 2024
Entire Palestinian families, no survivors, are being wiped out in northern Gaza and erased from the civil registry. The “Generals Plan” of depopulation through extermination. https://t.co/ObIQH1hA3r
— Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) November 5, 2024
* * * Israel issues 7,000 draft notices for ultra-Orthodox Jews Anadolu Agency
* * * From a few days ago, still germane:
Al Akhbar:
○ Washington and the US Embassy in Lebanon did not allow Iraqi Airways to land at Beirut airport and establish an air bridge to provide aid for the displaced, insisting that the aid must pass through Jordan for inspection first.
○ Washington also threatened to… pic.twitter.com/CNWHcvCNV5
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) November 2, 2024
The Ditch is going to court The Ditch (John B). The cause of action: “FedEx continues to bring munitions to Israel through Irish sovereign airspace illegally.”
B-52s in Qatar — What is the Pentagon Thinking? Larry Johnson
* * * Turkey moves to close Palestine loophole to end trade with Israel Middle East Eye. But we still have the elephant in the room of oil transit.
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine faces toughest winter yet as energy shortages loom Politico
Will NATO’s robot weapons fend off Russia? Baltic leaders hope so The Times
People’s Liberation Army [of China] brass in Russia a day after Chinese Premier Li Qiang met Vladimir Putin at Kremlin South China Morning Post
NATO intends to fight ‘defensive battles’ thousands of miles from its territory — Lavrov TASS
Hat tip Alex Christoforu. But no confirmation via an internet search:
Rules based order at its finest. Sanctions don't apply to the US:
US Treasury Department is now authorising financial transactions with multiple Russian banks.
This is to permit the purchase of renewables, oil, petroleum products, natural gas, coal, timber and Uranium.
— The Sirius Report (@thesiriusreport) November 4, 2024
Syraqistan
The story we’re publishing today is one you really have to read to believe. It’s about the U.S. role in fomenting authoritarianism in Pakistan, but more broadly about the way institutions like the New York Times treat the scourge of antisemitism only as a weapon to wield against…
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) November 3, 2024
Imperial Collapse Watch
“Anwar: I rejected US call not to be friendly with Russia”.
“I replied, ‘That’s your issue; don’t instruct us. We are an independent, sovereign country; we make decisions for our people and our nation’,” he said to Anthony Blinken. https://t.co/NnBT2ofEQZ
— Warwick Powell | 鲍韶山 (@baoshaoshan) November 5, 2024
Trump
GOP primed to back Trump if he contests election The Hill
The potential coup coordination planning group here is called State Democracy Defenders Action. State AGs should keep a close eye on this group over the next 2 months, as they are doing what Bidenworld State AGs went after Trumpworld for allegedly doing in 2020 but 100x worse. https://t.co/ErXW05Bl8g pic.twitter.com/hQbLYZMLy8
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) November 3, 2024
⛔️No RFK Jr—The CDC lists water fluoridation as one of 10 great public health achievements of 20th century, recommended by nearly all public health, medical organizations, including Am Dental Association, Am Academy of Pediatrics, U.S. Public Health Service, and the WHO. pic.twitter.com/kI02FPuUVS
— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) November 4, 2024
2024
Where it will rain on Election Day Politico
Florida polls will open at 7am tomorrow.
Luckily for everybody – we are gonna get to watch the GOP surge in realtime AND if there is any Democrat “surge.”
Will be the first test as to whether this belief that GOP used up its ammo before Election Day is true.
FL isn’t…
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 4, 2024
America’s reckoning: will gender decide the US election? Financial Times
Top Democratic strategist Jim Messina calling early voting numbers “scary” on MSNBC “is the biggest indication we’ve seen that the early vote is a problem for” Kamala Harris, says @MarkHalperin. Messina’s comments are “brutal honesty. Look at every major urban center in the swing… pic.twitter.com/iXEa027m17
— 2WAY (@2waytvapp) November 4, 2024
But Trump is flagging in the close: Mark Halperin Declares ‘Tired’ Trump Lost Momentum, Calls Rally In Pennsylvania ‘One of the Worst Events I’ve Ever Seen Him Hold’ Mediate
Washington Braces for Potential Unrest With New Fences Encircling White House and Harris Residence Sputnik (Kevin W)
The Americans Prepping for a Second Civil War New Yorker (Kevin W)
Pennsylvania election officials weigh in on challenges to 4,300 mail ballot applications Associated Press (furzy)
Trump or Harris? Whoever wins will face a shift in power in the global economy Guardian
With Oil Prices Weak, OPEC+ Postpones Increases Again New York Times
Mr. Market Should Be More Nervous
From Britain to France to the US, we may be headed for a new financial crisis Telegraph
Office CMBS Delinquency Rate Spikes to 9.4%, Highest Since Worst Months after the Financial Crisis Wolf Richter
AI
AI will kill writing – scientist RT (Robin K)
The Bezzle
Intel might be too big to fail — Washington policymakers are already discussing potential solutions if the chipmaker cannot recover Tom’s Hardware
As I understand it, production of the cheaper Vision Pro has been delayed beyond 2027 for a while now. This means Apple's only new head-mounted display device in 2025 will be the Vision Pro with an upgraded M5 processor.
I think what really drove Apple to delay the cheaper…
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) November 3, 2024
Class Warfare
Insurers on high alert for strikes, riots and civil commotion risks InsuranceERM
Boeing Machinists approve new contract, ending strike Seattle Times
Unemployed Gen Zers are having to turn down work because they can’t afford the commute and uniform, report shows Fortune (Kevin W)
Antidote du jour (Mike K):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
I'll save you, my friend..🐘🥺😊❤️ pic.twitter.com/6PYleEovD0
— 𝕐o̴g̴ (@Yoda4ever) November 3, 2024
A second bonus (katiebird):
Cow artpic.twitter.com/ZdEMrkEzUa
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) October 19, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
194 comments
Comments are closed.
The Day After
(melody borrowed from Heard It Through The Grapevine by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong as performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival)
(Ooooh) the kids are askin’ what we’ll do
All the grownups are cryin’ too
Darkness floods the sky from atomic war
This means the end of blue skies that’s the final score
Our world was built on lies told each day
That we could find a better way
(Ooooh)
This is sunshine for the last time
All those mushroom clouds will now climb
Watch the sun shine for the last time
It’s the sorry end of all mankind
We’re such dummies, yeah
Got to figure a billion or few have died
The rest will seek suicide
We’re so screwed—now our lives will be
Scramblin’ for food and security
We’ll have a huge decline in health
Everything we touch is poisoned filth
I said
It’s sunshine for the last time
All those mushroom clouds will now climb
(Ooooh) watch the sun shine for the last time
It’s the sorry end of all mankind
We’re such dummies, yeah
Don’t you know what we’ve done didn’t have to be
Sun is gone and we’re still here
Missiles were launched, we can’t know who’s
Skies were blue, now we’ll freeze this year
Find some courage you can show
Our kids will slowly die, you gotta know
(Ooooh)
It’s sunshine for the last time
All those mushroom clouds will now climb
(Ooooh) watch the sun shine for the last time
It’s the sorry end of all mankind
We’re such dummies, yeah
“B-52s in Qatar — What is the Pentagon Thinking?”
Been wondering the same myself. Sure they can shoot off cruise missiles but doing so labels them an enemy aircraft. But here is the thing. Those Russian radars will see them coming and launching those cruise missiles. So will they use their S-400s to shoot them down? You might say that they will never dare but look how many times the US has attacked Russia the past two and a half years and pretending that it was the Ukrainians doing this. Russia might do the same and claim that they were Iranian missiles which did it. Even if some of those B-52s were recovered and found to have Russian missiles parts still in them, the Russians could put their hand on their heart and claim that they sold those missiles to Iran.
What if the intended goal is to give someone a tempting target so the US can fabricate/recreate another Pearl Harbor moment?
With US playing Japan?
Torah, Torah, Torah!
I was thinking the other way around, inviting an attack on the bombers to manufacture outrage in the US, give a pretext for more direct involvement in the ME. But, actually, US bombing someone’s Pearl Harbor is plausible too.
B-52s are used for two things, attacking those that can’t shoot back and saber rattling. I would chalk this to number two.
My first thought was , ” I bet they sent over the oldest, least reliable and most expendable to park in broad daylight, conspicuous.”
Sort of like all the bellicose belligerent Trumpeters trolling our library parking lot, main street, the courthouse and college campus in their lifted rolling coal diesel one-ton pickups sporting Trump Flags, American Flags, and Don’t Tread on Me flags over the last few days. Intimidation. The American Way.
Yes, but regardless, it will be a young pilot. Sigh……
I would be careful about squandering B-52’s at this point. There’s no sign that the US will ever be able to build another heavy lift bomber that’s anywhere close to this one. The fact that they have been flying for 60 years is a sign of fundamental usefulness and quality. Not bad for a plane that was designed by half a dozen people over a weekend in a hotel room!
Send the F-35s if they need aircraft that no one will miss.
Sigh. The whole ME situation is a “Number-Two-Show”.
Yesterday or the day before I saw a tweet to the effect that Iran has informed Qatar that if matters come to fisticuffs those B-52s must remain on the ground if the country plans to continue exporting liquefied natural gas. However I have seen nothing to confirm that message since.
Qatars big gas reserves are shared with Iran (they lie directly over the shared territorial waters). The general assumption is that there are very detailed private agreements between Qatar and Iran over who gets what gas, and how much of a cut Iran quietly gets from Qatari production. No matter what has happened between Qatar and Iran, the gas keeps flowing, it is in both their interests. If Iran has an issue with those B-52’s (which I doubt they have, their presence makes zero military sense), then the message would be delivered quietly.
The B-52’s have been mostly flying with transponders on and have been tracked and identified by enthusiasts. This usually means that they are intended just as a visible show of force (probably more to ‘reassure’ allies than threaten anyone else. So I think its most likely that this is an election influenced gimmick intended to send some sort of message, not a serious military move. As the article notes, if you are going to use B-52’s, you stand them well outside missile range.
So B-52s are the equivalent of the 19th century gunboats for the 21st century. And they were built in the 20th century. Did a bit of playing with numbers and found that the first B-52 was built 70 years ago. But 70 years before that was 1884 when Navies had each a fleet of gunboats-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunboat_diplomacy
But as the article also notes, what happens when the missiles start flying? If they stay on the ground, then the show of force turns into show of weakness, so there will be pressure to do something with them. I guess if you are from US State department and so imagine yourself as the biggest mafia boss on the planet who can browbeat others just by few suggestive gestures, you don’t ever think or plan for the possibility you may be required to produce the second half of the phrase “show of force”.
B-52 loses in Vietnam were significant, shooting cruise missiles, B-52 likely won’t get over any hostile territory. The entry of B-52 is a negative for the US Navy. The new battleship diplomacy!
US air reinforcements in Qatar is speculation. I think more likely Diego Garcia. DG is a bit long distance for F-15’s. F-15’s (they won’t go “downtown”) in some base closer to Israel.
Stand off air force.
Since the tech savvy Israelis cannot operate THAAD, who do you think been operating all the NATO tech in Ukraine? Patriot missions are complex.
Reminder that the US supplied one THAAD launcher, which can launch 12 missiles.
Hard to think of something that’s more useless militarily. People who think this was just a way to put US troops deliberately in harm’s way seem more likely to be right.
…. and it takes 100 troops to work the Thaad to get the 12 missiles going?
Boots on the Ground! ™
Mission Accomplished(tm). Bibi’s or DC’s Mission? Same mission, different goals?
In 1941 the US moved its battleship fleet from San Diego to Pearl Harbour to “deter Japanese aggression.” To the Japanese they were simply put within reach. So much for “deterrence.”
Deterrence wasn’t the intention. Incitement was. In October of 1940 Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum, the Head of the Far East desk of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), wrote a memo to the ONI Director that summarized the world situation, identified dangers to the United States of passively reacting to events initiated by adversaries, and proposed an eight action plan intended to entice Japan into attacking United States’ military and/or possessions. The memo reached President Roosevelt who, after consulting with McCollum and other officers, implemented the plan.
From Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor by Robert Stinnett:
Stinnett writes in condemnation of Roosevelt. But from his actions, if not his words, it appears that Roosevelt regarded fascism and a lethal threat to government of by and for the people in the United States. The directions our duopoly parties are taking us in the 21st century suggest he was right.
Maybe not Qatar but Claire?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjAzI5zALo
That was wonderful! Thank you. Not so much for the music (interesting but not one of their best songs – I went on a German exchange, our teenage soundtrack including Loveshack, in 1990, three years later).
If anybody else watches, that video is recorded is at the symbolic heart of Plymouth, the biggest shipyard and naval base in Europe. They are standing on the UK’s bowsprit figuratively and literally on the flat roof of the little folly-cum-staircase that links the big parade ground beside the Citadel with the waterfront and huge Art Deco lido of Plymouth Hoe below. Behind the band, Plymouth Sound, Drake’s Island and in the distance the great breakwater where the warships and nuclear submarines tie up – and beyond it, the Atlantic!
What is remarkable us how green and idyllic the hills and coast are, despite the megatons of destruction they cradle. It is not much different in 2024 than 1987.
Thank You Revenant! So more appropriate than I had imagined. I lived in Athens when the B-52s were a thing, before their fame, and yes Love Shack, Rock Lobster, and Roam are great songs too. I like Claire because of the emergency siren sound of Kate Pierson’s vocals.
Is she really singing those notes?! They sound unreal, so pure and sinusoidal I assumed she was mining and it was the synth she was playing. I like it more now that’s a human.
Also, a short family anecdote I told once before but this video demands I retell it.
My great-uncle (strictly first cousin twice removed) “had a very good war” and finished up lieutenant colonel i/c of the British Sector in Berlin. He returned to Plynouth, badly bombed by the Germans, and worked for a major department store, building a new shop as an anchor part of the Brutalist reconstruction of the town centre. He had three boys, two of whom went on to run Harrods before Alfayed took it over.
One day he takes the boys out of school, in the late 40’s or early 50’s and they go to the harbour, standing looking at that same view in the video. And he says to them, look, look all you can, we will never see the like again: for there was the Royal Navy, with all its carriers and Ships of the Line, steaming out of Plymouth and away (presumably after an extraordinary Review of the Fleet). And, with Suez and the end of Empire, he was right, they never really came back. Just some lone matt black cigar tubes of Armageddon, slinking into harbour now and then.
There can be nostalgia even for the privilege of Empire but what really makes me well up is wondering what it is of the world and Britain today that I will show my sons but theirs will never see. Tempus fugit….
I’d prefer they say it was three drunken North Korean officers and a female doctor on a rented sailing boat in the Gulf of Persia shooting their BB guns recklessly in the air…
Alternative link for Britain’s car finance fiasco risks crashing the economy Telegraph: https://archive.ph/cdyc9
The Telegraph is taking dictation from its bank masters. As the article notes in passing, lending has resumed.
The call for government to take over the bad loans is hilarious: these should be left with the shareholders and the government rescue the good book, if the lending is threatened!
I think the banks see something nasty in the consumer credit woodpile and are hoping to get a preemptive bailout.
The answer to the problem is to allow cheap Chinese cars in. No more loans required!
I like to dream, yes, yes
Right between the Donkey Show sound machine
On a cloud of sound missiles drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near
To the battlefields away from here
Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me, little girl
On a magic carpet bombing ride
Well, you don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes, girl
Look inside, girl
Let the MIC take you away
Last night I held Aladdin’s lamp
And so I wished that I could have my say
Before the thing could answer me
Well, someone came and took the lamp away
I looked around, a lousy candidate is all I found
Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me, little girl
On a magic carpet bombing ride
Well, you don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes, girl
Look inside, girl
Let the MIC take you away
Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me, little girl
On a magic carpet bombing ride
Well, you don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Magic Carpet Ride, by Steppenwolf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGkGNCUQtWY
An Election Day special, thanks!
Karpet bomb-Kammy has a nice ring.
The sound of symbols crashing?
…a tuba for alongside the head?
I listened yesterday to Geopolitical economy hour where Radhika Desai and Ben Norton had invited “former central banker Kathleen Tyson, author of the book Multicurrency Mercantilism: The New International Monetary Order”” to quote from the presentation. It got really interesting when Desai’s more theoretical framework met Tyson’s practical experience.
After listening, my sum up of likely direction is de-dollarisation of trade, with gold and mutual real investments handling trade imbalances, and financial “investments” either regulated out through financial repression or left in the dollar sphere. Really interesting about the very real problems with setting up new clearing systems et cetera.
Can be listened to on youtube or read here: https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/11/03/brics-dedollarize-financial-system/
Thanks! Very interesting!
Thank you.
Kathleen and I have worked together on operational resilience. She and I belong to the same City guild.
> Britain’s car finance fiasco risks crashing the economy Telegraph
I’m confused by the car finance fiasco in the UK. As I read it the acute problem was triggered by court decisions saying that dealers receiving kickbacks from loan providers must disclose that to buyers. The biggest loan provider has a contract with dealers stipulating that the kickbacks can’t be disclosed and has withdrawn from the market.
I don’t see how this is difficult to resolve. Why can’t another loan provider step in issuing loans without kickbacks or permitting disclosure?
I think the part that’s not being said is that these kickbacks are very large.
Disclosing them will make most loan customers realise what a terrible deal they are getting – if lenders are prepared to pay a car dealer so much simply for “arranging” the finance, how much must the lenders themselves be making out of it?
But of course, Mister Market, and folks exercising some virtuous entrepreneurial initiative cannot possibly be inflationary?!
Going back at least a decade a number of financial commentators have been highlighting car debt as the big ticking timebomb in the UK economy. Every time I visit Britain I’m always surprised at the sheer number of upmarket cars I see on the road. Car lease deals are almost ridiculously easy to obtain and the details of these schemes are notoriously opaque.
Taking this with what Jeff V mentioned above, it sounds like banks and dealers operating a cartel to do predatory lending. The withdraw by the banks is presumably a political play to get the legal judgements quickly reversed.
It will be interesting to see how this goes.
Thank you, PK.
I have observed, too, and, talking to colleagues over the years, wondered, too.
It is staggering compared to when I was growing up. Some cars or collections appear to be worth more than the dwelling where they are parked.
Lending has resumed. Many loans come from the car OEMS and are fairly priced.
The problem is the (cough) high yield market, of people like Motonovo and Close Bros. Close was a proper merchant bank: when I was working in a games start-up we had two investor directors, one a director of Close (they were quite go-ahead in corporate finance for the IT sector) and one from the Cayzer family, which had a significant interest / history in Close. These days, sadly, Close is known for providing high interest business savings accounts (4%) paid for with even higher interest car loans (14%).
The car market is two legal scandals in one. The other penny waiting to drop is hire purchase. Our lovely builder has bought a car on HP that has died of engine failure. It turns out the dealer sold it with a replacement engine but did not update the official vehicle registration (a crime and potentially a fraud). But it also turns out that the courts recently clarified that the vendor in a hire purchase contract is not the dealer but the finance company (the dealer markets the car but sells it to the HP company which then sells it to the customer, subject to.the payments being made). So the finance company committed the crime and the fraud from their nice office, all without touching the car or the dealer.
This liability for the tortuous and criminal actions of car dealers, those paragons of virtue and definitely not horse dealers, is going to be the next liability to blow up their business model. And unlike the dealers these lenders and regulated by the FCA and have duties and general counsel….
Thank you.
Oh, yes, Close and the Cayzers.
The firm struggled to recruit and retain compliance staff for years.
Bit odd how the firm has become such a niche player and unstuck.
You have explained. Thank you.
‘The Cradle
@TheCradleMedia
Al Akhbar:
○ Washington and the US Embassy in Lebanon did not allow Iraqi Airways to land at Beirut airport and establish an air bridge to provide aid for the displaced, insisting that the aid must pass through Jordan for inspection first.
○ Washington also threatened to sanction Middle East Airlines (MEA) if it transported wounded patients from the Israeli pager attacks, on 16 and 17 September, on its flights to receive treatment abroad.’
Just when you think that the reputation of the US cannot get any worse in the Middle East, something like this comes along. It is not enough to supply the bombs, artillery and intelligence of the US military, they are now using their power to deny aid and medical treatment to those in need. The US has completely trashed their position in the Middle East in order to help Netanyahu. I hope that it will be worth it for them.
The last time I looked, the Lebanon was still a sovereign nation. So, how does America manage to dictate internal air traffic policy to that nation?
When the lineaments of a hegemony become visible, it is a sign that said hegemony is in decline. Smart Hegemonies hide their “enforcement” mechanisms. Stupid Hegemonies have short life expectancies.
Well, Al-Akhbar is usually described (delicately) as being “close to Hezbollah,” and so what you have is the equivalent of a New York Times story based on US government briefing saying the Iranians are trying to control flights from the airport. Except in a way they do, or at least Hezbollah does, because it controls the Transport Ministry, which gives it effective control over both the airport and the port. That control is not undisputed, since nothing in Lebanon is, but it’s pretty effective. Hezbollah can also close the airport any time it likes because the single access road passes through the southern suburbs which are its power base.
The Americans Prepping for a Second Civil War New Yorker
~~~~~~~~~~~
Couldn’t break the mighty paywall of one of the 2 magazines (the other being MAD, of course) I cut my teeth on, but aside from acquiring uniforms in red & blue hue, aren’t all the would be adversaries locked and loaded with small arms and weak constitution?
In nearly a month on the road in Arizona & Utah, never saw a Presidential election sign that even hinted of disunion, and then we had to swing through LA to pick something up and saw a pickup truck that had a small flagpole up on the ball hitch with a good sized Trump flag flowing backwards as the truck was moving forwards, with the bottom legend of the standard reading:
‘Family-Blog Your Feelings’
We are a 50/50 bar here politically, Obama prevailed by 1 vote in Tiny Town tabulations in 2012, Trump by 6 votes in 2016, to give you an idea.
Wonder where our Mason/Dixon line would lie?
Maybe it would be more like the Clinton Archipelago-
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Election-data-from-the-2016-Presidential-election-is-turned-it-into-a-topographical-map_fig1_343974998
In that case, we can look forward to some WWII style “Island Hopping”
(Apologies to Dima)
March 3, 2028
Hello my dear friends! And welcome to today’s Military Summary Channel update, where I discuss the latest developments in the US second civil war.
Today we have a lot of interesting map changes, so let’s get started!
The rebel forces of the Trump insurgents launched a drone attack on the territory of Atlanta, currently held by the Harris-AIPAC federation. Drone attacks on the downtown area were recorded in this geolocated video …
‘…there’s a Sig-Sauer alert on Interstate 15, expect delays, some of them terminally short’
‘…Tomorrow’s weather will be fine and mild in the morning topping out at 75 degrees Fahrenheit with a chance of heavy shelling in the afternoon.’
Dima is the handle of a YouTube mapper from Belarus who does video updates on the war in Ukraine.
At least he’ll be safer in Belarus than I will be driving downtown.
So, there is a reason why Weeb Union uses Red and Blue arrows to outline tactical and grand tactical movements on the situation maps he presents.
Traffic snarls are to be known in future as Glock Blocks? The things one learns on the Internet.
Locally there’s a pickup truck that flies four Trump flags from the bed. It’s hard to miss.
You’d think the PMC would want to retaliate with Kamala flags on their Range Rovers but seems the tony brand lacks a flagpole socket. When it comes to yard signs however the Harris folk are much more upfront than the Trump people who tend to place their signs off in a corner as though embarrassed. This is a mostly PMC neighborhood so they are on enemy territory.
Should a post election Civil War break out here we’ll be eschewing Toyota tacticals for pea shooters on our golf carts. Nerf guns may be in use if that’s still a thing.
Locally there’s a pickup truck that flies four Trump flags from the bed.
Must do wonders for his gas mileage. :)
Here’s the archive link to the New Yorker article: https://archive.is/2dqww, in case you really want to read about more preppers…
I need a tutorial article on how to use archive to bypass pay walls? LMGTFM
To bypass a paywall using an archive, you can try the following methods123:
Use an archive website: Copy the URL of the paywalled article and paste it into an archive site like archive.is or archive.ph to find an archived version without the paywall.
Look for the article elsewhere: Search for the article on other websites.
Use the ‘Unpaywall’ Chrome Extension: Install the Unpaywall extension to access free versions of paywalled articles.
Reset your browser cookies: Clear your cookies to reset the paywall.
Delete the paywall manually: Zoom in on the page to read the content.
Dig through archive sites: Search for the article in recent snapshots.
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Civil wars are always caused by, and fought between, either a) a split in the existing stakeholders slash elites; or b) the emergence of a new set of stakeholders slash elites seeking to replace the old. To use the Roman Republic as an example, pretty much all of its civil wars were either between groups or factions of senators, who were explicitly the socio-economic elite, or between “citizen” and “non-citizen” parts of Italy, with the latter seeking to acquire the status and privileges of the former, again, mainly for the benefit of their own regional elites.
Show me, someone, anyone, any evidence of either (a) or (b) in America’s current stakeholders?
The billionaires, all 700 and change of them? True, they are not exactly united in every conceivable respect, there are simply too many. But it isn’t like either Harris or Trump will disadvantage a group of them enough to prompt civil conflict. In fact, quite the contrary, I suspect that for the wealthy, either candidate will work out very much similarly.
The security apparatus and the military-industrial complex? I mean, they stand to make a lot of money and continue their “victorious little wars” no matter who takes office. Especially since Trump is now very much a known quantity to the “Deep State”. And in any case, I doubt anyone can credibly point to a split within the “Deep State”.
Individual politicians certainly stand to win or lose based on who becomes president, as do political consultants, but these hardly constitute “stakeholders” with any degree of power, at least insofar as unleashing a civil war goes.
The one semi-viable scenario I see is if, say, Candidate A decides to stage themselves a little coup, somehow subverting the Electoral College process or the subsequent congressional certification, and Candidate B rallies enough of the stakeholders (oligarchs, intel agencies, the military) to try and stop them by force. Ok, then we basically have a classic two Roman senators duke it out type of thing, likely with one being declared a traitor to the Republic before the fur starts to fly. But does anyone really believe that if any of this were to happen, the Democrats wouldn’t simply wilt when given the chance to act forcefully, as they seem to always do? Or that Trump and the Republican Party would have the guts to actually do a “real” color revolution – Jan 6 was basically a farce as these things go – and the “Deep State” would let them?
I am not saying it’s a complete impossibility, but it isn’t exactly high on my list of things to worry about, to put it mildly. Or on the list at all, for that matter.
I agree with everything here, but I don’t think it’s most useful to interpret the “civil war” framing as a serious attempt a sociopolitical analysis. This framing serves several purposes.
1) It obscures the sources of conflict, anxiety, rage, and social atomization.
2) It reduces the complexity of USian beliefs and values to something more resembling sports fandom.
3) It helps New Yorker readers feel smart, historically informed, and most importantly, superior. The acts of reading about and then talking about such an article consequently reinforces their sense of community as an intellectual elite.
4) It provides a justification for the lawless and violent exercise of elite power. After all, Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and Grant razed the South to free the slaves.
5) It is an easy tool to deligitimize those in PMC social circles who might have ideas about introducing a meaningful historical, democratic analysis of current sources of conflict.
6) It effectively deligitimizes everyone outside of PMC circles. You can’t reason with “those” people, after all, clearly.
7) It legitimizes all manner of intervention in the social interactions of “those” people. After all, look what they’ve done with the “limitless” information and communication opportunities of the information age: brought “us” to the brink of a civil war to destroy our beloved institutions.
There are probably more that I’ll add if I think of them..
>Pennsylvania election officials weigh in on challenges to 4,300 mail ballot applications Associated Press (furzy)
Pennsylvania is a critical swing state that could be a deciding factor in the contest between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump, a very close race on the eve of Election Day.
I just returned from my assigned polling place in a small town in Central PA. Lines moved swiftly, paper ballot had section for write-in for the top of the ticket ( I wrote in Thomas Massie at the last second). Also on the ballot there was several candidates running under the “Constitution Party.” I don’t know anything about this political party, but since it was neither Repub, or Dem, I selected.
After I scanned my ballot I asked the nice old lady sitting next to the scanner, observing voters as they inserted their ballot, if I could get print-out. She said that wasn’t an option, but not to worry, my vote would be counted. I know she wouldn’t lie to me…but I sure would have liked a print-out.
Not sure what practical reason a print out would serve except to possibly ID link the voter to the ballot. If the scanner had the capabilities of printing why not also a camera, perhaps a link to a drone flying over the parking lot. Or maybe when the militia comes knocking on your door to see what side you are on you can show them your copy ballot. In California they send out a booklet or dummy ballot that can be premarked that old people can take to the poll to remind them what they want to vote for.
Pretty soon, that “Test Ballot” will be pre-marked for you. Just drop it in the ballot box and your “service to the State” is done for another year.
What are the rules concerning cell phone use inside of polling places there? A cell phone ‘picture’ of one’s ballot could be done.
I’m sure I read yesterday that taking a selfie vote is illegal in some States and can invalidate your vote. Don’t know if taking an image of your vote would be a problem or not.
A few years back in the polling place in the midst of the Newsom recall election, I found my candidate almost immediately in the crowded field of would-be replacement Governors for the Golden State, as one Denver Stoner was in the running-a policeman no less. I’ll admit to almost shouting his name with glee in exiting my small but useful booth to disapproving looks from the poll workers, as if i’d broken all the rules, my bad.
https://ballotpedia.org/Denver_Stoner
I snapped a pic with my phone…what good would a print-out be, not sure if any, but I’d still like one.
In NYC photos anywhere in the polling place are not permitted, and there are numerous poll workers overseeing the process. Given how the voting booth is built, you might be able to sneak a photo, but it’s unclear that it could ever be accurately validated that it’s yours (unless maybe you also included your fingerprint?). The stated point of having no print out or photo is to reduce the likelihood of vote buying: “show me that you voted for X and I’ll give you $10.” That said, a printout that at least said “your vote sheet was scanned and recorded as #yyy at Z location might be useful, although a ‘scan successful’ message is displayed at the time of scanning.
Vote absentee or by mail.
Photograph ballott before turning it in.
Unless EVERY voter does this, it matters not— ballots are anonymous, would need a full complete one-to-one set of copies to match/ audit The Count, right?
The “secret ballot” was introduced in the 1890s as a way to prevent vote-buyers from verifying the purchased vote. The theory that then there would be no incentive for the purchase. So taking a snap of a ballot could defeat the purpose of secret balloting. Of course today with wide spread mailed-out ballots, a no-photo rule would have little impact on vote buying.
From Britain to France to the US, we may be headed for a new financial crisis – Telegraph
Wall Street and financial sector associates must be needing another bail out soon – one that can’t be stealth. Can’t have money going other places when they need their bets in the casino covered.
The article contains this pearl:
Driven by Left-leaning bodies such as the IMF, many political leaders fell for the line that the markets automatically supported bigger government.
Words no longer have a meaning.
Re; Mexico Decided to Take Out the Heads of Drug Cartels. It Turned Out to Be a Dangerous Strategy
“The government had a strategy: to eliminate the head of the organization. That strategy turned out to be not only ineffective, but also genuinely dangerous.”
“It prompted the organizations to divide, and the internal and external struggles increased and became more ferocious. You eliminate the head of an organization, and in his place you get four small organizations that are competing with one another. The violence against both the establishment and the citizenry escalated.”
The exact thing happened in Chicago in the 2000s when the feds went after the heads of the major street gangs. What was known as “gang discipline” kept many a street quiet and relatively safe; good for business– the drug business. And the heads of these organizations loved their cash. Anyone who drew police attention to their storefronts were dealt with, often in an extreme manor in order to ensure the message got through.
After the feds got their heads, gang discipline was disrupted as large organizations broke into various competing/waring cliques and sects– peace be damned. The body-count rose as many neighborhood that were at least marginally safe became open war-zones, unsafe for residents threatened by now-unsupervised shorties who are stupid and eager for fame.
You just summarized much of the plot line for The Mayor of Kingstown, the most violent crime show I’ve ever seen. You have to wonder whether the writers have a chart on the wall correlating body count with show popularity.
The 1994 article by Jossi Wolfson translated in the tweet from B.M. is very, very good. Obe year after the deal it explains the political move that allowed liberals to believe that, as there was a peace process and a Palestinian Authority, whatever goes bad for the Palestinians is their own fault.
Was just going to say the same, very incisive indeed. And one of the commenters on the Tweet asked what became of Jossi, which I wondered as well, and from google it looks like he moved on to animal rights after writing a single piece for Electronic Intifada. I imagine he was probably immensely frustrated with nobody listening. Until now, perhaps.
“BALKAN BLOG: What went wrong for the EU in Georgia’s and Moldova’s elections?”
I got an idea. Sanu consistently loses the popular vote in Moldova and it is only the shenanigans of the Moldovan Diaspora that lets her “win.” So maybe instead of being the President she could be Prime Minister of the Moldovan Diaspora instead. Moldova would be rid of her and she could see to the needs of the diaspora.
As for Georgia, I see that serial pest Greta Thunberg has joined the protest outside Georgian Parliament because the Georgians voted the wrong way and she wants the results overturned. She is not accusing the Russians of being responsible for the result but, well, she is accusing the Russians of being responsible-
https://www.rt.com/russia/607012-greta-thunberg-protest-election-georgia/
Say, as she is into the environment ‘n’ stuff, where was she when the NS2 pipelines were blown up?
From the article:
“This outcome raises questions about the resilience of Moldova’s pro-EU trajectory, as incumbent President Maia Sandu — the main driving force behind Moldova’s EU accession progress in recent years — could struggle to hold onto her post in the second round of the presidential election on November 3 against moderate pro-Russian opponent Alexandr Stoianoglo.”
I didn’t know much about Sandu, so I checked out her Wikipedia bio:
“In 2010, she graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. From 2010 to 2012, Sandu worked as an Adviser to the Executive Director at the World Bank…”
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!
Entire northern Gaza population ‘at imminent risk’ of death, UNICEF head says – Washington Post
How’s that waiting for Israel to implode working out?
State Department spokesman Matt Miller made a joke about the situation when questioned about the Gazans being starved and the Israelis stopping all food going in-
‘When asked about the aid levels, Miller acknowledged Israel has “failed” to meet US requests so far but said there was still time until the 30-day deadline and that the US wouldn’t give a “grade” to Israel just yet. “It’s not the end of the semester. You don’t give out – you don’t hand out grades in the middle,” he said while laughing.’
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/11/04/state-department-spokesman-cracks-joke-about-israels-starvation-blockade-on-gaza/
The banality of evil indeed, and you don’t get much more banal than Matt Miller.
Banal and inaccurate. I can only assume that Miller has forgotten midterms.
And how hard it is to come back after failing your midterms.
But I guess it gets tiring meeting the only goal which is to avoid saying that Israel doesn’t give a family blog about saving America’s face, and America doesn’t give a family blog about those starving and dying when every day makes it more obvious.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2024/USspendingIsrael
October, 2024
United States Spending on Israel’s Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region, October 7, 2023-September 30, 2024
U.S. spending on Israel’s military operations and related U.S operations in the region total at least $22.76 billion and counting. This estimate is conservative; while it includes approved security assistance funding since October 7, 2023, supplemental funding for regional operations, and an estimated additional cost of operations, it does not include any other economic costs.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/styles/standardimage/public/imce/papers/2023/2024/Screenshot%202024-10-05%20at%203.10.17%E2%80%AFPM.png?itok=Y64eGVqe
I’ve stopped listening to Danny Haiphong, even though he has a good line-up of guest, those that you’d find on Judge Napolitano’s site, because all his Ledes are about Israel imploding. Same with “Dialogue Works” where Scott Ritter is scheduled today with the title “Israel Faces Unstoppable Defeat…” I’ve been listening since Oct 7th how Israel is losing and I’ve been watching innocent children, women, men, get slaughtered and Gaza laid to ruin with remaining population being starved, and now Lebanon too… I’m sick of hearing how Israel is losing.
It’s sort like the Ukraine. You know that it is going to happen but you just don’t know when-
https://thecradle.co/articles/huge-shortage-plagues-israeli-army-as-losses-mount-in-lebanon-gaza
The war could stop tomorrow and Israel is still screwed.
But death rate is almost certainly increasing rapidly. Sure would be nice if Israeli planes stopped flying.
If necessary Israel will be bailed out financially by US taxpayers, so there is little risk of an economic collapse. The Jewish diaspora can provide headcount replacements for military losses, while armaments will continue to be provided by the US. There is little chance of Israel being “defeated” (whatever that means). The US will be sure to keep the monster alive and kicking and killing. Ritter should know better.
Unfortunately, you can be losing and still be able to run the gas chambers at full speed right to the end, as demonstrated by the last major attempt at this sort of thing.
I don’t think there is any doubt that the Israeli economy is under enormous strain (as is civil society), but I think predictions of an impending implosion were always wide of the mark. War economies can usually keep going for a lot longer than people predict, and they can rely on the ever obliging US taxpayer for some time at least, no matter who is Potus.
One indication is that they seem to be digging in for a long war on the Lebanon border. This may be out of necessity (there is no other real alternative strategy if they want to militarily win there), but it does seem they are preparing for at least another year of combat. Going by ‘History Legends’ recent analysis of the Lebanon War it would seem the Israelis have learned quite a lot from observing Ukraine. Their assaults in southern Lebanon bear a striking resemblance to Russian tactics.
Israel today reminds me of White South Africa in the decades leading up to its collapse–SA went crazy getting involved in/escalating conflicts they couldn’t possibly win. In retrospect the country was flailing, though they managed to cause a lot of harm on the way out. Angola today, for example, still wrestles with the after effects of South African aggression.
Sometimes I play little ‘what if’ scenarios in my head, like ‘what if’ the world had the internet and twitter and facebook and tiktok in the 1930’s and early 1940’s, and we all had a front row seat, so to speak, at the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and at Kristallnacht, and saw daily reports and photos of Jews and gypsies being herded into freight cars.
And maybe some principled whistleblower, working at a factory that manufactured the gas chambers and people-ovens, smuggled out the documents showing the written orders and encomiums extolling their efficiency in gassing masses of humans and then burning their bodies, and an early version of Julien Assange blasted them all over the internet.
Would the US and Allied governments have bombed the tracks to Auschwitz and declared the owners of those factories to be war criminals and terrorists, and blown up their cell phones as they called their wives to say they would be late for dinner? And maybe allowed shiploads of Jews fleeing death to find refuge in the United States … give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore ……the shore where you are being stripped naked and gassed to death?
Nah.
But the leaders of the ‘free world’ must have known. As they know today what is happening in Gaza and Lebanon and the West Bank. (Not to ignore other parts of the world.) And they do nothing. Nothing.
And we wonder why there are skyrocketing levels of anxiety and anger? Because …. “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” And, because of the niggling feeling that next week, we may be the group targeted for ‘elimination.’
We are all being ‘diminished’ daily. Worn down by the drip drip drip of the certain knowledge that governments can exterminate at will.
Our bombers were limited in range, but wishful thinking octane gaslighting would’ve allowed them to bomb Auschwitz and be back in merry olde for a tankard or 2.
There was a movie, called Amen, that was about such a group of whistleblowers (religiously motivated, thus the title) loosely based on a real story, I think. It ends pretty tragically, IIRC, like the real life. The main protagonist, who joined SS under false pretenses to expose its crimes to the world, is put on trial as a war criminal (he was SS, donchaknow?) and commits suicide. His colleagues, who tried to show the info he smuggled out to the important people outside, are killed in concentration camps. The main antagonist, a major Nazi official running a death camp, gets away to Argentina where he lives out his life away from justice.
You don’t need to imagine. There is for example the story of Rudolf Vrba, who escaped from Auschwitz and produced reports about what was happening there. These reports were quietly discarded. And not even by the Western antisemites, but by Jewish Zionist. So these people always existed, it’s just that they have a bit harder work now that today’s Vrbas can post their findings on twitter/tiktok/facebook. But apparently not by much.
In fact, there were several other reports about the extermination camps by whistleblowers and, quite literally, insiders:
1) Eduard Schulte, a German industrialist who informed his business contacts in Switzerland about the plans for the “final solution” in 1942. He had to flee to Switzerland when the SS learnt about his activities.
2) Witold Pilecki, a Polish officer and resistant, who arranged to get imprisoned in Auschwitz to learn about what was going on there. After a daring escape in 1943, he wrote a detailed report about the camp.
3) Jan Karski, the secret courier of the Polish resistance, who gathered and compiled information about what was going in ghettoes and extermination camps from his meetings with resistance fighters and Jewish escapees in Poland, from 1940 to 1944. One of his reports was the basis for an extensive diplomatic note about the genocide of the Jews, with explicit mention of the extermination camps of Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, sent by the Polish government in exile to the Allies in 1942.
And as you mention, there was Rudolf Vrba, who with Alfréd Wetzler wrote yet another detailed report on extermination camps in 1944.
All for naught.
And
4) Victor Martin, a Belgian academic who visited Germany and Poland under the pretense of a sociological study trip in 1943, got entry into a ghetto, and gathered testimonies from various witnesses describing the fate of the Jews. He was arrested and put in a camp, managed to escape, and wrote his report which was communicated to the Allies.
I said early on its economy would not get in dire enough straits to save Palestinian lives.
It gives a whole new meaning to “‘autofellatio”. I wonder if this worm has a letter in the LGBT+ alphabet.
Personally I think that they should change the scientific name of that worm from Macrostomum hystrix to Richardius craniumus. That article said that-
‘The team of biologists said the findings indicated that when deprived of a mate, the worm self-injects sperm.’
But have they considered the possibility that some of the worms told these worms what they could do and that those worms took them literally? Just sayin’.
Were I a worm, (no snide remarks) I think I would prefer the old fashion standby of reproducing and simply cut myself in half.
(looking sideways) But what if the worm became attracted to its former half?
For a bitchin’ sci-fi movie involving a worm, you can’t do much better than 1987’s The Hidden.
Yet, this, which is called “selfing” is anything but rare. Very common in hermaphroditic plants and animals and with apparently varied rates of “selfing”. Funguses are a different story. Many different sexes there rather than male/female.
re: Unemployed Gen Zers are having to turn down work because they can’t afford the commute and uniform, report shows Fortune (Kevin W)
At first this gave me hope – things do need to be resorted so young people don’t have to migrate to big (and unaffordable, housing short, population dense) cities to live in hovels. But I think where this will likely lead is company towns, company owned housing, employers taking a chunk of earnings for rent and food.
>>>Top Democratic strategist Jim Messina calling early voting numbers “scary” on MSNBC
When door-knocking goes rhetorically wrong….as those swing state people are constantly getting canvassed.
Swing-state voter shares his unscientific anecdote about being lectured by Dem. canvassers: (wonder how many stories like this are playing out…rare? often? constant?)
https://www.tiktok.com/@m16_boxing2/video/7427584102288723246
Transformers. This is a very real national security issue, unlike Biden’s claim that solar panels are.
I read articles about this 10 yrs ago based on what many experts foresaw about the new electric needs in the us.
The other part of the article that was left out isn’t the manufacturing issue but the supply chain. The metals used are grain oriented and amorphous steel. As best I can tell neither are made in the US of any quantity and mostly come from China.
The lack of coherent policies is extremely worrying
Why some two hundred billion for CHIPS when ten billion would probably suffice to build transformers that would improve efficiency, employ tens of thousands for years building and replacing old ones. And maybe some spares lying around?
>>>Transformers
add the humble magnet (industrial-grade), too
There is a draft US document on now on identifying the issues with transformer, including the need to change from grain oriented to amorphous steel (the latter is usually easier to source). The other materials needed (aluminium, copper, etc) are more standard.
A lot depends on the size of the transformer required – so far as I understand the very largest ones are only now made in Korea, but there are a range of manufacturers worldwide on smaller transformers. There is considerable scope for extending the life of existing transformers by refurbing rather than replacing them. There are also locational issues as renewable energy providers and big industrial users are now focusing on utilizing existing capacity rather than building new transformers where possible.
From what I’m aware of the market, there are no big difficulties at the moment in getting transformers so long as you order 1-2 years in advance (and electrical upgrades usually go on much longer construction cycles), but it will almost certainly be an issue worldwide in the next few years.
An unspoken element of ‘good’ news on supplies is the property crunch in China, which has dramatically reduced demand for many electrical components, in addition to key materials (e.g. copper used in plumbing). This is one reason the supply crunches predicted immediately post Covid didn’t come about.
I listened to a podcast which had on the head of hitachi transformers for the US which has their largest plants.
Some of the smaller ones are 1-2 yrs out. Most if not all of the larger ones are 4+ years out, due to limited manufacturing and testing equipment. And this is taking into account all of their world wide manufacturing.
They are ramping up as fast as they can. But they are also very cautious about building up too much and having stranded assets.
And the new amphorus metal are even slower due to limited supply of metal.
They have always tried to rebuild equipment, but things do wear out.
those that peddle industrial policy instead of protectionism coupled with a new deal, have no idea what it takes to manufacture, and have robust supply chains.
>>>>Top Democratic strategist Jim Messina calling early voting numbers “scary” on MSNBC
Sean Spicer: “young college kids [“Bro Vote”] not showing up in the data” (for Trump)
(practically) No one under-30 is going to respond to a cold-call poll
an aside: yesterday, the final day for electioneering before election day, the canvassers, get-out-the-voters, the phone bank cold call pollsters and local issue gotv callers were everywhere and calling non-stop, at least to my phone. (I turned it off finally.)
Today I went to vote. Lots of voters, everyone looked calm and happy. Were they smiling because they’re sure their candidate/issue choices will win, or, were they simply relieved the incessant calls have stopped? / ;)
flora, I hung up on 4 cold calls and “STOP”ped several cold texts yesterday.
A good day’s work!
Not a poll. They are discussing early voting. They know who voted and their demographics.
ConsortiumNews – via DropSite
“Trump Plans UK-Style Attack on Israel Criticism”
Joe Lauria says the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther,” as covered by Drop Site News, replicates the U.K.’s use of a terrorism law to criminalize pro-Palestine speech and activism.
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/04/report-trump-plans-uk-style-attack-on-israel-criticism/
“A second Trump administration could criminalize criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza as support for terrorism, along the lines of the British Terrorism Act, according to a report in Drop Site News.
The report says the plan is to “break the pro-Palestinian movement in the U.S.”
p.s. “Project Esther” was also mentioned by JACOBIN I believe in a link I posted just recently.
Next question of course in how far would a Harris administration not commit to such policies. Just because those media which are more supportive of her do not report on such ideas doesn´t mean there is nothing in the planning.
This is spitballing based on the ginormous and sometimes internally inconsistent Project 2025 document, which is NOT a Trump policy document but a radical conservative wish list. Yes, Trump could do so but using Project 2025 scary extracts is a very weak form of proof.
Agree. If this weren´t Lauria I would not have shared. And I WAS a bit suprised over this post today since as you say “2025” was pushed back already weeks/months ago by Team Trump.
But it´s CN. So I gave it a try. And the subject matter is too important to not dare dive into speculative territory.
p.s. Lauria should have pointed out what has already been introduced against Muslim and Muslim organisations by recent administrations and how in particular Palestine groups were targetted before Oct. 7th 2023, which Lauria knows about more than I do.
p.p.s. may be this IS politics by CN too. There was one article couple of months ago on CN, being very pro Harris and which caused quite an uproar by readers. So much so that Lauria wrote a statement to the readers of CN to justify the article´s POV.
I say bring it on. It’s about time that the Supreme Court got a good First Amendment case that they couldn’t shirk due to “standing” or “jurisdictional issues” … gutless weasels.
We’ll see if we still have any institutional memory of why we split from the Brits in the first palce. Sotomayor will step up to the plate I’ll predict. She gets the Bill of Rights. Not so sure about Alito, Thomas, Roberts, and the rest of ’em. I can see Amy Coney-Barrett punting it “for national security reasons.”
Another reason to hit the bottle tonight.
Wouldn’t such an attack go against the sizeable first amendment free speech contingent, the Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr, libertarian, Cliven Bundy, Ruby Ridge, Don’t Tread On Me, anti-government sorts within the Republican party? It’s probably the key (only?) thing that distinguishes the Republicans from the Democrats?
But I agree with Yves, I’ve had so many people saying all sorts of things based on their subjective interpretation of Project 2025, “have you read Project 2025?!”, but when you actually go in and read the thing it doesn’t really support many claims being made.
Visited many outdoor art galleries in Utah, which has the best variety of Native American wall art in that it encompasses many eras from 5,000 to 500 years ago… sometimes on one panel, such as Newspaper Rock with 2,000 year old petroglyphs and ones with men on horse, definitely post-Columbian.
My favorite is in Calf Creek near Escalante, there up on a wall where you can see them a quarter of a mile away, are The Three Wise Men, each about 8 feet tall and 3 feet wide.
https://www.firefallphotography.com/utah-photography-expedition-day-5-devils-garden-and-lower-calf-creek-falls/
– ‘Israel issues 7,000 draft notices for ultra-Orthodox Jews’ – Anadolu Agency
I have a dream that the US re-institutes a partial draft but it only takes neocon think-tankers, war-mongering politicians, and the heads of major defense industries. They give Lindsey Graham a rifle, put him at the head of a neocon “special ops” unit, and send them all to the front. Samantha Power leads the “humanitarian intervention” platoon. Robert Kagan doesn’t make it over; he soils himself and is felled by a heart attack (or is it a panic attack?).
Then I wake up.
Liz Cheney didn’t make the list?
If shevdid, Whoopi Goldberg will call it a threat of violence…
Election Day Anthem
Backing Track
I’m travelin’ down the electoral road and I’m flirtin’ with disaster
I got the pedal to the floor and my life is runnin’ faster
I’m out of money, out of votes, it looks like self-destruction
Well, how much more can we take with all of this corruption
We’re flirtin’ with disaster, ya’ll know what I mean
And the way we run our lives it makes no sense to me
I don’t know about yourself or what you want to be, yeah
When we gamble with our time we choose our destiny
I’m travelin’ down that lonesome road
Feel like I’m draggin’ a heavy load
Yeah, I’ve tried to turn my head away
Feel ’bout the same most every day
(You know what I’m talkin’ about, baby)
Speedin’ down the war lane, honey we’re bombin’ from town to town
The Pirate Powell’s been printin’ it up, can’t seem to slow us down
We got the monetary pedal to the floor our lives are runnin’ faster
We got our sights set straight ahead, but I ain’t sure what we’re after
We’re flirtin’ with disaster, ya’ll damn sure know what I mean
You know the way we run our lives it makes no sense to me
I don’t know about yourself or what you plan to be, yeah
When we gamble with our time we choose our destiny
Yeah, we’re travelin’ down that lonesome road
Feel like I’m draggin’ a heavy load
Though I try to turn my head away
I’m flirtin’ with disaster every day
And you are too, baby
It ain’t for everybody
Ah, come on, man
[Long guitar solos]
Flirtin’ with disaster, babe, ya’ll know what I mean
You know the way we run our lives it makes no sense to me
I don’t know about yourself or what you plan to be
When we gamble with our time we choose our destiny
Yeah, we’re travelin’ down this lonesome road
Feel like I’m draggin’ a heavy load
Don’t try to turn my head away, bah, bop-bop, yeah
I’m flirtin’ with disaster every day
You know that the system is doomed when the best candidates that they could find out of 335 million Americans is Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. At this stage the people that are really running the country are just messing with people’s minds and making them frantic about the most important election evah.
Everything Will Change after the dust settles!
These characters emerged from careful production nothing like a choice of the ‘best’. Trump was brought on by the Clintons to sabotage the GOP with the ‘pied piper’ strategy, but the ornery electorate shocked Trump and Clinton by electing him. Harris was chosen by Biden for her inability to win votes, to protect his shot at a second term. He almost made it too.
That song pretty much sums up my feelings about life right now, both on a personal and national level.
Gotta love Southern rock. I’ll crank that sucker up to 11 and let ‘er rip while the election returns roll in. An extra bottle of Old Grandad will help.
Good job!
Today feels similar to the Rodney King verdict coming down, albeit in reverse in that if the Donald doesn’t win outright, there’ll be hell to pay in south central DC, which reminds me its never too early for a Xmas song…
It’ll still not be over Christmas
You can count on adversity
Please have lawyers on retainer
And presence for the usual fee
Christmas Eve will find us
Where the main event fight gleams
It’ll be over by Christmas
If only in my dreams
Ice T should be considered if Trump wins for a cabinet level gig. Maybe Secretary of Defense?
“Listen to my 9mm go bang-bang! Take you on a walk through Hell – South Central”
perhaps Rodney King should be considered as our next national monument?
“Can’t we all just get along?”
(I’d link to the lyrics for “Midnight” but definitely NSFW.)
Not a huge fan of Molly Hatchet, but that’s a splendid effort. I was looking over comments yesterday and was on a drive from south of Mobile, going through Atlanta late Monday afternoon ( ultimately en route to home base in SC ). I wish to repeat the mantra of not ever, never ever wanting to live and work in that city. Traffic on I 85, I 75, or I 285 just raises the anxiety, and a level of dreading what may stop or impede our progress, and I wasn’t the driver…
As to our choices on hand….we’ll bring out the vat of brown paint , and color the “winning turd” in soon enough time I believe….
“Unemployed Gen Zers are having to turn down work because they can’t afford the commute and uniform”
In other words there are employers who don’t pay enough to cover employee expenses, as part of their faulty business models.
Then after talking about high levels of despair related to financial troubles among the young, the AI program writing this article says employers can help by giving “advice on how to write a CV”.
I feel like billing Fortune magazine for the 2 minutes I spent reading this.
In other words there are employers who don’t pay enough to cover employee expenses, as part of their faulty business models.
What I think is meant is that the prospective new employee needs an initial, pre-employment investment that they cannot handle. In US terms, think of it as needing to buy one or two business outfits, and a car to get to work because you can not get to work without the car.
It has nothing to do with the remuneration once you are on the job.
I can’t get a girl, cuz I ain’t got a car.
I can’t get a car, cuz I ain’t got a job.
I can’t get a job, cuz I ain’t got a car.
So I’m looking for a girl with a job and a car.
Then: the Pepsi Challenge
Now: the Pepsi Challenge
L.A. County Sues Pepsi and Coca-Cola Over Their Role in the Plastic Pollution Crisis Los Angeles Times
‘Eric Feigl-Ding
@DrEricDing
⛔️No RFK Jr—The CDC lists water fluoridation as one of 10 great public health achievements of 20th century, recommended by nearly all public health, medical organizations, including Am Dental Association, Am Academy of Pediatrics, U.S. Public Health Service, and the WHO.’
If this happens, give a coupla years and you will be able to identify the elite by their good teeth and great smiles as they have the money to pay for it – or have the government pay for them. Everybody else will have “Mountain Dew Mouth.”
Go long fluoride rinse manufacturers.
Just use fluoridated toothpaste. Stop poisoning the water.
This. And don’t rinse after brushing.
Fluoride –
I think there is plenty of evidence to support the fact that it does to at least some degree help dental health. But here is the problem – and what is NEVER ever reported correctly when anyone dares question narratives.
There are all kinds of very well done studies – repeatedly and over the years – that demonstrate that flouride in the water may actually be responsible for all kinds of negative health effects – that have nothing whatsoever to do with teeth.
We may be helping the teeth – but the harms may be outweighing that benefit – and may be outweighing the benefit severely. There are other countries in the world coming to this same conclusion.
It is like almost everything else in our entire health establishment – all kinds of interventions being done without good studies to back up the risk and benefits.
And if an intervention like flouride actually is causing more problems than helping teeth – there may absolutely be a reason to stop it and do so now.
Our health establishment has been completely unwilling to look into this issue and so many others – they are actually scared of it – both financially – and probably more importantly made to look wrong after dogmatizing things for so long.
RFK is a breath of fresh air in this area – And the credentialed list of groups Dr Ding points to have done nothing the past generation but humiliate themselves. I truly no longer believe a word they say – unless full open raw data access is present to back up their statements – the fact they refuse to do so – should tell you everything you need to know. A Kamala win will be the death blow to my profession. The profession just does not realize that yet.
I follow Ding on Twitter. He also has stage 5 TDS FWIW.
Flourine seems to be a very dangerous chemical because of it’s propensity to form extremely strong bonds that last virtually forever. On first principles I would be leery of adding it to the water supply of an entire population.
In any case, just applying it directly to teeth a couple of times a year (as my dentist does) seems a lot more conservative.
Most of what I have heard from RFK on public health seems very plausible and worth having national discussions about at the very least.
Most household water is used to flush toilets, wash dishes and take showers. If fluoride is really a big no go for your drinking water then buy bottled spring water. My question is how many other bottled products contain fluoridated water.
Que Dr. Strangelove.
A lot of people can’t afford to buy bottled spring water. Others can afford the water itself, but can’t afford the combination of the water itself and delivery or other transport to their home. It is an item for the upper middle class and above.
Yes, and what to do about billions of additional plastic water bottles. Forcing fluoridation in our water supplies is more Nanny State nonsense. The good news is there has been some push back and reversal of water supply fluoridation. The ADA strongly supports fluoridation. They also vehemently oppose dental care being added to Medicare. In other words, they are not your friend.
Hawaii has never had fluoride in public water and I doubt we ever will. For whatever reason I don’t think there has ever been a campaign, (just commentary from typical anti-vaxxers).
2024 note – anecdotal experience from work colleague’s in Knoxville Tennessee….the kids (20’s, 30’s) I work with in medical manufacturing in Knoxville are mostly white but not all. A few are breifly vocal about support for Harris. One I expect is gay, another an older (my age) white female. By vocal I mean a few posters visible inside personal lockers, or quick reference to having voted early, and for example when mentioning I grew up in Minnesota I heard “oh your from my friend Tim Waltz”. Have not heard nor seen anyone in support of Trump at work, but a contractor doung work for me said “thats not necessarily a bad thing” after I mentioned my family were big Trump supporters. This might be due to social acceptability calculations by co-workers, and not reflective of a lack of Trump supporter but who knows? Harris signs dominate in my Knoxville City minority-ish neighborhood, Trump signs appear in suburbs.
The smart money is on keeping one’s own counsel in such divisive, ugly times?
I learned one long ago in my first ‘professional’ role: When in doubt, shut yer mout’.
Found this bit very interesting-
‘In an interview with The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Walz said that the contrast between Harris and her Republican rival Donald Trump could not be more obvious. “It disappoints me, I think, because I think that the choice is so stark, but it’s not surprising,” he said, suggesting that the US “is really divided.” ‘
So does he have a complete lack of understanding how people may feel different about who to choose or is he implying that the other half of voters are garbage?
Or, is he vocalizing his reaction to their most recent internal polling numbers?
I’ve been reading here and occasionally posting since the financial crisis. I’m not interested in raising the temperature of the conflict but stark seems accurate at least for some voters.
I have seen heated rhetoric on both sides. Trump rallies are not exactly places where the opposition is given the benefit of the doubt.
There are single issue abortion rights voters. There are single issue January 6 voters. There are people who are horrified by the idea of putting RFK in charge of health care. Stark difference? Yes, for partisans on both sides. I won’t put words in the mouth of Trump supporters.
“There are people who are horrified by the idea of putting RFK in charge of health care.”
On a more ironic note but similiar direction: Katie Halper and Aaron Maté yesterday on USEFUL IDIOTS Podcast.
Not American – but in Germany not entirely different. (France, GB same I think)
People are fed up with not being taken seriously.
You need a certain patience to break through that wall.
If the entire media which regards itself as the sole legitimate “4th estate” sees them Trump voters as aberration – in Germany AfD voters (sometimes BSW voters are being included due to their restrictive immigration rhetoric) – you find no other way to make yourself heard than being “aggressive”.
If there IS a division in substance as such – I am not sure. Surfaces of political rhetorics can be deceiving. But Walz – naturally – did not explain the reason behind the “starkness”.
If he had done so and Harris too, in a strong change of course in the summer, the election would have long been decided.
What about single issue genocide voters?
I find it odd these people are left out; you would think their concerns are just as important as those listed.
I feel this just re-enforces the two-party system without noting a third party is desperately needed in the US.
It is deeply troubling to me how many USians will vote for candidates supporting genocide.
It should be a red line and immediate disqualifier to every human being, in my opinion.
In my family two of my siblings married Jewish women. When I bring up the Biden/Harris administration’s support for genocide I get silence, dead silence. They all support Harris and simply refuse to consider the genocide component of her campaign. I see nothing. I hear nothing. I say nothing. Sickening.
Genocide is more American than apple pie.
Could be both!
Democrats are like vegans…..
… they too eat turkey for Thanksgiving – made entirely of tofu. (It LOOKS fabulous.)
Actually the rise of tofu turkey was the advent of the politics of looks and “joy”.
The rise of veganism gave new life to fake butter. For some reason I find this fascinating as well as a lovely metaphor.
This is a bit of a non-story. Switzerland has always had a very strict policy on foreign post-grads thanks to their paranoia about intellectual property. The current regulations go back at least to 2012. What seems to have provoked this story in Asia is that one university released a clarification document on the application of the rules, which went viral among Chinese students. It didn’t represent a new policy, just a restating of existing rules, although it would seem that more recently there may have been a tightening on Russian and Chinese post grads. But overall figures for Chinese students in Switzerland appear to have stayed fairly constant after a big increase around a decade ago. But there is a lot of flux – according to the post grads I talk to there is a big flow of the best students now to Sweden, as they offer permanent work visas for PhD’s.
I’m not sure if anyone else is experiencing this, but since I have publicly voiced my displeasure with the choices on offer today, I’m getting the full court press from the TDS-infected to vote for the Ding Dong.
I’ll decide if I’m voting on the way home from work when I drive by the polls and I swear if one more person tells me today that a vote for Stein or not voting is the same as a vote for Trump, I may have to vote for Trump just to prove to them how correct they are.
LAB, that kind of happened with me. I went from not going to vote, then slowly deciding eh maybe, then got abused in very ugly fashion and lectured a few times by the TDS-infected and that cemented my decision. The “deplorables” and “garbage” mindset from them is real and they’re not afraid to let you know what they honestly think of you. Just got back from secretly giving them the middle finger. The polling place was as busy as I’ve ever seen it. Packed. A lot of Dartmouth students, though, which I don’t agree with, but nothing I can do about it. Best of luck with your decision!
I was genuinely surprised the other day when a generally apolitical friend opined that Trump supporters are in fact garbage. Also, the first assassination attempt was staged by Trump to rally his troops. I tried to push back but was met with stone hard resistance.
Very common IMO. One guy told me the garbage thing was good, and they should keep calling them garbage because that’s exactly what they are.
When you are that invested in hating someone (Trump), and that someone runs your miserable life, it is the fault of the garbage people for doing this to you. They should be punished, tortured, or even killed. Yes, some wish others dead. I have read and heard it.
I wonder how much the TDS is a result of heavy Dem estab efforts to raise peoples’ anxiety level to such a fever pitch that unthinking hostile outbursts are an involuntary stress relief response. Reason will not work in that instance. (Backseat psychology. heh)
I think it has a lot to do with it. As I have said before, I’ve watched the TDS up close and personal when my ex girlfriend was stricken. Trump took over her life. It became 24/7/365 of Trump hate. She watched MSNBC, The View, The Talk, CNN constantly. If not those, it was social media. And of course she believed everything the democrats told her.
We lost so many friends over her being so unhinged and freaking out on people. I got to the point I was afraid to go to any function with a bunch of people. One time we went to a local club to see a live band. A guy across the bar had a MAGA hat on. She watched him all night. Wanted to go over and knock it off his head. That’s all she could focus on. Nuts.
The was once the most wonderful sweetest women on earth. She turned into a hateful vindictive bi*ch.
I don’t care who wins. Wait maybe I care. Oh, f**kum all.
Soooo tempting. I just voted on the Green’s platform alone but the ugly nature of TDS helped me stay away from voting for any D on any level of government. It’s kind-of sad. I wanted to vote for a few locals D’s but it’s important to crush them at the local level along with the national level.
I voted at 8AM. At the polling place a woman I have seen at city ward meetings spotted me and asked “could you help me fill out my ballot?” Due to a tremor, she couldn’t cleanly fill in the ovals of the scan document. Once the pollworkers filled out the paperwork, I sat down at a booth while she looked over my shoulder and told me which blacks to select.
At one point, going through the list of state representatives she said “when in doubt, vote Democrat”. Yet for the top line, the presidential line, she said “I don’t want to vote for any of those.”
I thought that was interesting and perhaps revealing that a older white woman and a generally solid Democrat refused to vote at all on the presidential line.
oh dear…proofreading is my friend, but not today. That should have been “blanks”, not “blacks”.
I thought you were talking about blacking in the white ovals with the pen.
I really like that.
Not an option here, partner would be unhappy, but imo stein is anyway best protest vote I can make.
I got the full court press the other night from my Brother, SIL, and niece about voting third party. They were really pushing the abortion issue as the reason to vote Harris. I held my ground and said I could not morally vote for either of the genocide supporting candidates. I came close to voting for Trump but figured I needed to support a 3rd party option for the future. I know I’m just p**sing into the wind but, feels good to poke a figurative finger into the eye of the Democrats.
I think what basically no PMC realizes about the abortion argument is that most Americans are precisely one minor medical crisis away from poverty, and if they don’t have a community to support them, homelessness, most-likely followed by mental illness, addiction, and a slow (but not really that slow), painful death. They rightly view the medical establishment as evil, predatory, and to be avoided at all costs, up to and including the cost of one’s own life in the situation of a person with some financial assets, limited income, and dependents.
What exactly does “access” to abortion mean in this context? And how deluded do you need to be to think this is a compelling argument to people who avoid annual checkups because they don’t want to risk not being able to pay rent or for their kids school supplies.
I experienced the same thing yesterday, tried to tell a family member that voting D or R was voting for genocide and got an explosion of TDS, all because he read a book which I found out later to be written by a Council on Foreign Relations stooge.
Its really depressing when people get so invested in a fictitious narrative, and why censorship is possibly the most important issue right now.
I really feel this. I truly thought I couldn’t be shocked or surprised by Democrat behavior prior to Oct. 2023, but the wholesale shrugging/endorsement of genocide utterly floored me and sent me back to the bottle. Like yeah, no, under no circumstances, will I vote for a genocide, not for a million dollars. Guess that makes me a terrible person.
Re: Messina/Halperin early voting (the other ‘EV’ problem!) comments:
They’re still treating – and thinking?- of “Blacks and Latinos” as a single “bloc”?? STILL? Slow learners. Wilfully slow, maybe?
Re: Insurers on high alert for strikes, riots and civil commotion risks
Not entirely sure why they’d be on high alert given that these basically fall under the standard exclusions you’d find on any P&C policy.
The article is hidden behind a registration but rubbing my temples I’d gather the real issue is whether they have the nerve to deny claims revolving around those perils and stand by the assertion that the cause of loss can be described as such
Otherwise if you’ve been endorsed to remove those as an exclusion, you’re already paying a leg and arm for the pleasure.
“There once was a worm from Nantucket…”
The only one left in the bucket…
The worm, it was said…
Now for something completely different: The New Yorker magazine’s 2022 essay about Wendell Berry.
Wendell Berry’s Advice for a Cataclysmic Age
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/28/wendell-berrys-advice-for-a-cataclysmic-age
From the essay:
Berry wants readers to hate Lee’s sins but love the sinner, or at least understand his motives. War, he suggests, begins in a failure of acceptance. He writes of exchanging friendly talk with Trump voters at Port Royal’s farm-supply store, a kind of tolerance that is necessary in a small town: “If two neighbors know that they may seriously disagree, but that either of them, given even a small change of circumstances, may desperately need the other, should they not keep between them a sort of pre-paid forgiveness? They ought to keep it ready to hand, like a fire extinguisher.” Without this, we risk conflagration: “A society with an absurdly attenuated sense of sin starts talking then of civil war or holy war.”
I had my first opportunity to reassure someone I know with TDS last evening.
I pointed out that Trump has promised to continue shipping arms to Israel and that as soon as he does he could be impeached for violating the Leahy Amendment, the Foreign Assistance Act and ITAR as well as the Genocide Convention.
Three Felonies ( Not Misdemeanors) and Genocide is indisputably a “High Crime”.
The statutes are clear and the evidence is indisputable,open and shut.
Orange Hitler would be out on his ear in a Month.
Oddly enough my suggestion was not accepted with enthusiasm.
I’m at the Corner Cafe in Visalia, or more currently a front in the War On Cash, in that their credit card terminal went on the fritz and are a Cash Only enterprise and pressure is sinking a $15 Denver omelet with only $4 in your wallet.
A bit of Helene news
https://www.wspa.com/news/fema-to-begin-winding-down-operations-in-spartanburg-co/
Some FEMA people knocked on my brother’s door and asked if he had any damage. He said no. Large trucks–some of them from a company in West Virginia–are still roaming the town picking up downed wood. Because the damage is so widespread this will go on for awhile. There are houses here that had severe damage from falling trees but the poor trees seem to have taken the brunt. And it’s a very uneven brunt–much worse in some spots than others.
A friend I spoke to this Morning was in Seligman AZ yesterday delivering a Tractor and mentioned that there were lines at the Polls at 7 AM.
I believe Trump would be much more entertaining than Harris and I feel much more favorable to Him than I have in the past.
I would almost certainly piss on Trump if he were afire, I can’t say the same for Harris.
Nearly spilled my tea.
I got the full court press the other night from my Brother, SIL, and niece about voting third party. They were really pushing the abortion issue as the reason to vote Harris. I held my ground and said I could not morally vote for either of the genocide supporting candidates. I came close to voting for Trump but figured I needed to support a 3rd party option for the future. I know I’m just p**sing into the wind but, feels good to poke a figurative finger into the eye of the Democrats.
Under cover of the night … Bibi pulls the trigger and sends Yoav Gallant packing:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/netanyahu-fires-gallant-says-no-trust-with-defense-minister-at-time-of-war/
Excellent timing … nobody will be paying attention to Israel for the next 72 hours.
I expect some more moves to get his ya-yas out while big brother to the west is distracted. That’s enough Rolling Stone references, for now.
I ran out to the library this morning and saw an ordinary SUV flying a huge “Trump 2024” banner.
This is Sonoma County and in the past two elections flying a banner like that would have resulted in at least a verbal confrontation.
In other Election news Prop J is ostensibly about banning CAFO operations in Sonoma County, however it is so badly written that I suspect large parts of it were written using Chat GPT.
I despise CAFO operations and I voted against this proposition which left me pissed off at those responsible for this legislation.
Has anyone reported Dixville Notch, NH mid night vote?
3 to 3 split!
2020 was 5 to 0 Biden.