By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, I’m traveling again, I feel a WiFi dead zone coming up, and I want to take a nap. I should be back in form tomorrow. –lamnert
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Anza-Borrego Desert SP–Mesquite Oasis San Diego, California, United States. “Part of a longer recording.” Longer than three minutes!
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Biden Administration
“Why Biden’s Pardon of His Son Is So Controversial” [Bloomberg]. “A Republican-controlled committee in the House of Representatives seized on the business dealings of Hunter Biden, and Republican Kevin McCarthy, then the House speaker, launched an impeachment probe into Joe Biden for what he called a ‘culture of corruption.’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer gathered evidence that from 2014 to 2019, Hunter Biden and associates received some $24 million from individuals or companies based in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan. But the impeachment inquiry ultimately failed.” • If somebody had a theory of that failure, I missed it. Unlike the farcical Benghazi hearings, Comer had a clear timeline. And the checks.
Trump Transition
“Congress faces shutdown dilemma that could mess with Trump’s first 100 days” [NBC]. “As Congress returns this week for one last burst of activity before it wraps up the session, it faces a key deadline of Dec. 20 to avert a government shutdown. Democrats and Republicans appear resigned to passing a continuing resolution, or CR, that would temporarily fund the government into early 2025 — most likely March — as they run out of time to strike a full funding deal this year. The two parties haven’t even agreed on an overall spending level for the new fiscal year, let alone how to allocate the money across parts of the government. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., alluded to the inevitability of a short-term bill Monday, saying, “We need to keep divisive and unnecessary provisions out of any government funding extension, or else it will get harder to pass a CR in time.” For Republicans, that is a double-edged sword. The upside for Republicans in punting the deadline is that they would have more leverage to shape government funding in the new year, with President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House and the GOP taking control of the Senate and maintaining a narrow House majority. The big downside is it would create a critical deadline early in the Trump presidency, potentially taking valuable time away from confirming his nominees through the Senate and from the big party-line bill that Republicans are looking at to extend his tax cuts and advance his immigration and border security agenda.”
“Single House race stands between Republicans and 1-seat majority” [FOX]. “House Republicans could begin the new year grappling with a one-seat majority, a perilously slim margin for the 119th Congress as President-elect Donald Trump guns for an active first 100 days. Last-minute GOP losses and exits in favor of the new administration mean Republicans could begin that period with precious little room for dissent, and one congressional race could decide the difference between a likely one- or two-seat majority…. In California’s 13th Congressional District, Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., is fighting for his political life against Democrat Adam Gray. As of Monday afternoon, Gray leads Duarte by a few hundred votes – a margin of roughly 0.1%. California state law mandates that counties certify their election results by Dec. 5. If Democrats flip the seat, the House would have 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats heading into the New Year. However, three Republican lawmakers’ departures are expected to whittle that down further. Now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., resigned from the 118th and 119th Congresses amid consideration to be Trump’s attorney general.”
Campaign Finance
If fraud can be committed, it will already have been committed:
BREAKING: Wisconsin Judge Brad Schimel has approved a subpoena against ActBlue, saying, "Something is NOT right" after hearing evidence that ActBlue is using the names of unsuspecting people to launder dark money to Democrat campaigns.
“There may be an element of fraud, or maybe… pic.twitter.com/X9xxf6UurA
— George (@BehizyTweets) December 2, 2024
“‘We’re still in this fight’: the resistance to Trump considers its options after bruising election defeat” [Guardian]. “The sense of malaise around “Resistance 2.0″ may in part be because, whereas Trump’s first victory felt like shocking accident of history, his second was delivered by an electorate that knows exactly what it is getting. Whereas he lost the national popular vote to Hillary Clinton in 2016, he gained more votes nationwide than Harris and claims a mandate. For many liberals, that result was a gut punch that seemed to undermine the work of three election cycles.” And: “Speaking from the Hudson valley of New York, [organizer LA] Kauffman added: ‘What I’m seeing is that people are looking to find a way to meet those needs for community connection in quieter, more intimate ways. There’s a lot of gatherings that are happening in people’s homes and community centres and neighbourhoods. It’s not a mass coming together that gave us a feeling of enormous collective togetherness. It’s happening in smaller, tighter, face-to-face communities.'” • “Enormous collective togethernes.” Let’s to the WInter Palace quickly!
Democrats en déshabillé
“Democrats won’t win elections by labeling all white men as oppressors, either” [USA Today]. “Old white working-class males have become pariahs in many Democratic party circles. Increasingly, much of the rhetoric coming from Democratic candidates, who do not fall into the category with which I identify, openly vilify people such as myself simply because they are lumping us into a group that they have labeled oppressors. Much hard work and sacrifices have gone into fighting prejudice based in group identities, yet my own Democratic Party has condoned or permitted such prejudice when it comes to old working-class white guys. Am I claiming to be oppressed? Absolutely not! I recognize that I have benefitted from privilege afforded me by my gender and ethnicity. I support equity in all areas of life for all individuals. I work to support equity for marginalized groups daily and I recognize the battle isn’t over. But I’m losing support for a party that permits me to be vilified by its many of its members, based upon the combination of my age, race, gender, and working-class roots. Recent electoral results tend to show that I’m not the only one feeling slighted.” • However, I don’t think the mishegoss of “slights” produced by identity politics can ever be netted out. Best to heave the entire enterprise over the side and center the working class as such.
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
“Influenza A(H5N1) shedding in air corresponds to transmissibility in mammals” [Nature]. “An increase in spillover events of highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N1) viruses to mammals suggests selection of viruses that transmit well in mammals.” • Oh. Elite Maleficence “After Action Review of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Lessons Learned and a Path Forward” (PDF) [Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Committee On Oversight and Accountability]. Comer, the Committee chair, is not a nutter, which is good. I have skimmed it. However, I though I would search on “airborne”; it appears exactly once. Here it is in context: And “aerosol”: I’m concerned by the fact that an enormous struggle waged by outsiders against CDC and WHO, to force them to acknowledge a science-based paradign for Covid transmission goes unmentioned in the report. especially since this effort would seem to be exactly the citizen-driven approach that MAGA appears to want in other fields. Even more disappointing is that Democrats, by their own silence, played along. One might almost think that bipartisan agenda-setting was at play. “Jay Bhattacharya and the Vindication of the ‘Fringe’ Scientists” [WSJ]. “Francis Collins, the NIH chief between 2009-21, derided Dr. Bhattacharya as a “fringe” scientist for urging the government to focus on protecting the vulnerable while letting others go about their lives.” • “Fringe” is truly stupid framing (although not every victim of the Semmelweis Effect is, in fact, a Semmelweis). It would have been better to have framed “Dr.” Bhattacharya as a eugenicist, which has the merit of being true.
Lambert here: Even though the Covid numbers seem low, please remember that the data is not nearly as good as it once was, that it lags, and that the downside risks of catching Covid are considerable. For those who have developed their own personal protocols, I wouldn’t relax them. Maybe next year.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC November 25 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC November 23 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 23 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| New York[5] New York State, data November 29: | National [6] CDC November 28: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens December 2: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 23: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC November 4: | Variants[10] CDC November 4: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Good news!
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) Down.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.
[7] (Walgreens) Down.
[8] (Cleveland) Down.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
There are no official statistics of interest today.
The Bezzle: “How a California pot company went from $575 million in cash to a ‘debt death spiral'” [SFGATE]. “Jay-Z’s cannabis brand looked timeless as soon as it launched in 2020. The billionaire rapper, legal name Shawn Carter, rolled out his Monogram line of luxury joints and cannabis flower with a photo shoot at the famous Frank Sinatra house in Palm Springs. Models elegantly smoked joints in front of mid-century pool furniture, as if the brand had been around for decades. Glowing profiles in GQ, Vogue and Vanity Fair soon followed…. The parent company behind Monogram, confusingly called The Parent Company, hasn’t fared any better. The conglomerate originally hit California’s market with $575 million in cash and plans to take over the entire industry, but after burning through half a billion dollars, it has merged into another company, which itself appears to be in financial trouble… it appears the brand is the latest hyped-up celebrity pot brand to wither away in California’s punishing legal weed market.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 67 Greed (previous close: 66 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 64 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 2 at 1:53:27 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 183. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Do these people know something we don’t?
Book Nook
Good idea:
My sister's holiday tradition: a tree of books made out of trees. 😂 pic.twitter.com/PW6y91f17w
— Phuket Sammy (@Phuket_Sammy) December 3, 2024
Though I’d be turn. Would I want my favorite books in the tree, or just any books?
Gallery
Lowry?!?!?
Portrait of the Artist's Father https://t.co/cl6lYcwCjn pic.twitter.com/HL4FsegkK4
— L. S. Lowry (@lowryartist) December 3, 2024
How’s that 2028 general strike coming?
BREAKING: UAW Staff United (USU), the union representing many United Auto Workers (UAW) International and local staff organizers in the Northeast United States, is on strike! pic.twitter.com/1rfzQSjmM6
— UAW Staff United (@UAWStaffUnited) December 2, 2024
I am not feeling wired today.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From lcm:
lcm writes: “This fall-blooming camellia usually loses most of its flowers and buds to a hard freeze in mid-October here in central Virginia, but no freezes this year!”
Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. Material here is Lambert’s, and does not express the views of the Naked Capitalism site. If you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:
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That’s a lovely plant, now I’m certain by now however the deep freezing has commenced. Living in South Carolina I really can’t complain or gripe about the cold snap. Oh well, darn it all it’s just damned cold for early December.
It did get hit by a freeze this past weekend, but had buds opening until then. Glad you liked the photo!
The Bezzle: “How a California pot company went from $575 million in cash to a ‘debt death spiral’” [SFGATE]. “Jay-Z’s cannabis brand looked timeless as soon as it launched in 2020. The billionaire rapper, legal name Shawn Carter, rolled out his Monogram line of luxury joints and cannabis flower with a photo shoot at the famous Frank Sinatra house in Palm Springs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are some mad parallels with commercial real estate, an ounce of 420 was $300 in Cali with feverish demand around the turn of the century, and now ounces can be had for $45 locally at the pot shoppe~
When I was a young teenager, older indulgers would regale me with tales of the $25 4-finger-lid, and now its less than double the circa 1970 price.
On the other deflation hand, TV’s are dirt cheap too, saw a 50 inch HD model @ Wal*Mart for $198
Wuk, I think we’re around the same Pacific Stereo age. I had a guy and got 28g of the most egregious Panama Red for $40 in 1977. Never had anything better, even today. I’ve never been to Panama because it’s not really on my list, but I’d like to know if that variety is still out there somewhere. Never seen a cannabis conversation on here.
You never see those old school varieties such as Thai Stick, Colombian Gold, etc. The pot shoppe kind of resembles Baskin & Robbins now though, with at least 31 flavors on hand.
There have been a couple of converstaions here about weed. You can still buy seeds for Panama Red – https://www.pacificseedbank.com/shop-all-marijuana-seeds/feminized-marijuana-seeds/panama-red-feminized-marijuana-seeds/
“When I was a young teenager, older indulgers would regale me with tales of the $25 4-finger-lid”
I could have been that older indulger, regaling you with tales, as I was my high school’s drug dealer. $20 for a 2-finger lid, since our school was out in the sticks and my connection was in Chicago, 50 miles away – I had expenses!
My favorite tale was that I had friends in all the cliques, including the jocks, who I turned onto weed one summer. The year before, our basketball team won the conference. The next year they lost every game – playing stoned. My best friend was the point guard and once went to the line for 2 free throws, threw up the first as an airball and started laughing uncontrollably. Called a time out to get it together, to the chagrin of the coach. None of the adults had a clue what was up.
In the 80s, due west of Chicago, they brought in anti-drug crusader David Toma to our high school to speak to all the district’s students in a mandatory assembly.
I was an escape artist and managed to duck-out, but I had friends who were stoners and who had to listen to Toma while totally baked. After Toma’s visit, I think that all of the kids now wanted to try drugs, and those who were already using them were eager for more and harder ones.
Reality is for people who can’t deal with drugs.
Wasn’t he the turf (grass) guy from the KC Chiefs? Ironic.
Between weed and LSD in the late 60s and early 70s, there is little wonder why political awareness devolved into Rambo and Top Gun during Morning in America. “Tune in, turn on and drop out”. Indeed. Drugs and the end of conscription caused brain rot.
Yeah let’s bring back the draft and outlaw getting high!
Popular discontent and politcal organization ended the draft. Wide spread drug use concurrently mushroomed, particularly in the inner cities. Now we have big tech along with drug gangs as pushers. Popular disorganization, pseudo-contentment, despair and ambivalence rules the day. I can’t see how smoking 25% THC weed daily is a mechanism for meaningful change; quite the contrary. Nobody is suggesting that potheads get locked up; like alcoholics they deserve sympathy.
I wonder how much the price crash could be attributable to people deciding to grow their own. The last time I checked for a friend, one could buy good quality cloned starter plants for $25 a piece just down the street from my house. In our jurisdiction each adult is allowed to grow up to six plants per year.
I can buy an ounce of pot marjoram for a buck, Mary Jane still seems overvalued @ $45 an ounce, the previous high value seems to have been based on the illegality of it once upon a time.
To the bold; me too. I do have to wonder though, could it be due to the fact Ukraine was a giant money laundering pit for so many in DC? We know about Biden, but there were also other names that had connections. Mitt Romney’s aid I think was one, John Kerry’s and Nancy Pelosi’s relation were also mentioned at times. There were also articles that a large part of the money never got to Ukraine, it was used here. Probably made war toy makers rich too.
TL:DR – discovery might not make too many happy if all this gets out. Let’s not open this Pandora’s Box.
Let the chips fall where they may.
But a), do you honestly, seriously think that zero Republicans in the Trump sycophant circus weren’t on the Ukraine money train? Do you honestly, seriously expect the Trump Vengeance Tour to expose any of them?
And b), lest we forget: this whole fiasco began because Trump was mad that Biden was pressuring Ukraine to fire Victor Shokin, its fabulously corrupt prosecutor. Shokin was not investigating Burisma, or anyone else who he did not deem a personal enemy. Biden’s push to get rid of him was explicitly intended to try and clean up the Ukraine swamp.
From US News, hardly a Deep State propaganda organ:
“As European and American diplomats pressed Ukraine to clean up its corruption, they focused on Shokin’s leadership of the Prosecutor General’s Office, which he took over in February 2015.
…
Daria Kaleniuk, the co-founder and executive director of the Anti Corruption Action Centre in Kyiv, Ukraine, credited Biden, the International Monetary Fund — which threatened to delay $40 billion in aid for similar reasons — and others with the prosecutor’s removal.
‘Civil society organizations in Ukraine were pressing for his resignation,’ Kalenuik said, “but no one would have cared if there had not been voices from outside this country calling on him to go.”
After Shokin left the Prosecutor General’s Office, Jan Tombinski, the ambassador from the European Union to Ukraine, called it ‘an opportunity to make a fresh start.’
…
Burisma Holdings was not under scrutiny at the time Joe Biden called for Shokin to be removed, per the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, an independent agency that has worked closely with the FBI.
In 2014, Shokin had investigated Burisma for money laundering and tax irregularities, per USA TODAY.
The probe focused on 2010-12, according to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Hunter Biden — who joined the board in 2014 and served on it until early 2019 — was not the subject of the investigation.“
Perhaps USA Today isn’t a Deep State propaganda organ, but the organization they are quoting might be. From the Anti Corruption Action Center’s own website, their #1 funder is ….the plucky Ukrainian people making donations of 27 hryvnia each. Kidding! – it’s really the US government: https://antac.org.ua/en/about-us/ Also, do note the USian on their Advisory Board.
Shokin does also speak for himself and has a different account. Haven’t listened in full to either of these yet to tell if they are the same interview or not –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDE5TI3eCpc
https://x.com/mazemoore/status/1687253048995774464
More of interest –
https://english.nv.ua/nation/ukraine-s-state-bureau-of-investigation-opened-two-criminal-proceedings-against-vitaliy-shabunin-50399753.html
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435906-us-embassy-pressed-ukraine-to-drop-probe-of-george-soros-group-during-2016/
Dear god. That is all I got . Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries and we should truly believe that VP Joseph Biden was there to cast out the money changers…
I must confess…that is much a hill of utter bullcrap. Hunter appointed to the board of Burisma just reeks to the heavens….and getting paid nearly $1 million per year for it.
Joe Biden is not above my contempt but neither is Trump, Obama or Bush or Clinton…FFS
Your credulousness is duly noted.
” If somebody had a theory of that failure, I missed it.”
Me too, but given that any investigations likely involved the spooks in some capacity, Chucky’s theory might be the right one.
I wouldn’t discount the idea that the Bidens have names and receipts as well. While Joe was in the position to exponentially increase his ability to sell his influence once he became VP, there is no chance he hadn’t been doing it on a smaller scale prior to that. And I sure as hell don’t believe he was alone in Congress.
There is no way Joe doesn’t tear down the Capitol if they try to take him out. Besides the spooks paying a visit, Comer and McCarthy probably had a very enlightening tea with colleagues from the Senate, former elected officials, even a few House members all of whom had recently discovered what other records Joe had in his garage.
I don’t know what to imagine anymore…..
(1) Joe/Jill play 4-D chess and always one step ahead of their fren-emies like a Bond villain; or
(2) Joe/Jill are just opportunistic grifters too busy gorging themselves on the DC teat.
One thing’s for sure…..it looks like the Daily Mail was right again, the Bidens have an usual habit of refinancing their home. (allegation being that someone pays the mortgage note, then Bidens withdraw the equity)
something to think about….how this can happen in the US where if you go to deposit $15,000 in cash one day, you trigger a government filing by your bank.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13547165/Joe-Jill-Biden-Wilmington-Delaware-home-refinance-mortgage.html
As to that smaller scale grifting prior to becoming VP, I mentioned earlier today an article I read years ago where Biden was referenced as a fixer. I found the piece I’d written about it back in 2009, but the links I’d used are mostly now dead, so I’ll include a couple excerpts instead. The original article was from the London Times at some point in 2008, and then Harper’s referenced it in their Sep 2008 issue.
The background: a couple undercover reporters posed as representatives of the Kyrgyzstan government and approached lobbyist Stephen Payne during the Bush 2 administration, ostensibly looking for some good PR in the US for their client. After Payne spilled the beans, they got the interview published in the Times. Here’s the excerpt that was in that Harper’s issue:
“Payne: Sure, that can be worked out. I can’t promise that we can get to the president, but the situation in Kyrgyzstan is worse now than it was before. That’s a given. I think some things could be done. The family, children, whatever, should probably look at making a contribution to the Bush Library. How big, I don’t know yet. Not a huge amount but enough to show they’re serious. Maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars. That would get the attention of the people raising the money. The main thing is that he comes and he’s well received, he meets with high-level people in the administration, and, most important, the administration makes positive statements, like, This guy wasn’t so bad; many people have done worse. Those kinds of statements from people in the administration, maybe Senator Biden on the Democratic side. Is he interested in going back and running for president? Anything like that?”
Here’s some research I did at the time:
“Stephen Payne also worked with the foreign policy advisor for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, Randy Scheunemann. At this link you’ll see a picture of the two of them together with one of the guys who was very helpful in getting us into the latest Iraq war, Ahmad Chalabi. Now Scheunemann is a very busy fellow and his firm Orion strategies was being paid by the government of Georgia at about the time all hell broke loose there last year.”
Yes, we’re talking about Georgia the country, which is currently being provoked into a color revolution by the current Biden administration. Some of the same neocons have infested both the Bush 2 and Biden administrations – Nuland is the first that comes to mind.
Make of all that what you will. I tried finding some direct evidence tying Biden to the events at that time, but what I came up with was that everybody in DC was linked to everybody else, and they were all on the take together. I couldn’t find any specific details other than Payne’s insinuations about Biden. Now we call all that “the Swamp”. But do note that Payne suggested that to get good PR from Bush, donations to Bush would be in order. I’m assuming the same went for the Bidens too.
If Joe was higher up in the pecking order, he would be less obviously grifting and more of a genius stock picker or commodities trader, like Hillary and Nancy. He seems more like a front man who will say anything he’s told to say. Ukraine was probably the family’s big grifting opportunity and they were just picking up nickels and dimes.
It was all part of Biden Economics, don’tcha know-
https://xcancel.com/ILA_NewsX/status/1863586196393435410#m
The one constant throughout the Congressional investigation was that they couldn’t prove any of the stuff they knew because the FBI was flat out obstructing justice. Biden’s administration illegally refused to comply with basic demands for records. Biden’s team stonewalled investigators at every turn.
Every NC reader knows about the gallows, it’s obvious it wasn’t set up by protesters but despite video no one can advance that investigation because of stonewalling. Ditto the pipebombs. Ditto the murder of Ashli Babbitt.
Five minutes after Kash Patel is sworn in, the Congressional investigation(s) will be back in business.
Also good to remember that the US Senate investigation into Watergate began in February 1973. Nixon didn’t resign until August 1974. Done properly, Congress could set free facts that would inflame public opinion (i.e., the truth) and set the GOP up for big midterm gains after which it is theoretically possible that the Democrats will ungate themselves and pretend to bring in “new” leadership. Way too far out to say but the more I think thru the coming years the better President Vance sounds.
For once, the term ‘circular firing squad’ seems to have a real life example : )
No one dares to be the first to pull a trigger. It would appear they’re all compromised.
But old white rich donor class males remain bosom chums.
>>>But old white rich donor class males remain bosom chums.
Money changes everything.
Wow, S.Korean coup is over already. That’s got to be a speed record for failure.
Lasted just long enough for state dept spokesperson to tie himself in knots while steadfastly failing to condemn it.
(Funny to me) headline that I saw during the height of the “coup”: Education Ministry says that schools will open as normal tomorrow.
Sorry kids, even a constitutional crisis isn’t an excuse to miss school.
This is what happens when you are given plainly impossible tasks by your CIA handler. He was probably told to clear the obstructions to arms exports by whatever it takes and miscalculated badly. Undoubtedly going to jail after the parliament is finished with him in his country,
South Korea’s Troubling History of Jailing Ex-presidents American Enterprise Institute
This locking up of one’s political opponents is generally derided as banana republic type behavior. I’m rethinking this view. Maybe the South Koreans are on to something and could teach the U.S. a thing or two on how to do lawfare right.
re: Covid. With 23 for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, 12 have come down with Covid starting Saturday afternoon thru today. Still waiting for 9 to report. Chicago area. In four years in our family it has never happened that we have had a super spreader event nor so many come down so fast and with such an intense
severe reaction.
This is not fun.
I had my first bout of Covid in mid-November. I hadn’t had a vaccine since January 2022, but decided to get one in October because I had a family wedding to go to. I was so upset to catch it. A student came to class sick, coughed all over, didn’t miss a single day of school, and got me and half of my class sick. I mean, is also not his fault. Maybe I was lucky that I was just vaccinated because mostly I just had a few days of body aches. It wasn’t any worse (outwardly) than my September cold.
I fear this is the new norm. Truly nobody cares about Covid anymore and it spreads so quickly.
I hope everybody is okay and gets as little lasting damage as is possible.
I’m sorry to hear this. Thank you for the heads up. It is strange because the wastewater levels are so low in so many parts of the country right now.
Re; Campaign Finance
If fraud can be committed, it will already have been committed
Yes, people who are surprised to find that they were listed as donors to a political campaign when the hadn’t given a cent… how common is this?
We came across this same thing in Indiana back in 2015, when we asked an open, well-known, and very liberal lesbian couple about their donation to a staunchly conservative, Bible-thumping hard-right candidate– they were horrified! So too were a number of other unlikely donors when asked.
I was a “researcher,” one with a, umm, rather unique skill-set, and part of my job was to study the CFRs (Campaign Finance Reports) of the opposition candidate who was running for office. In this particular campaign, they really didn’t do much to hide the money-laundering: between the straw-donors and bizarre, inflated expenses, they gave us a lot to work with– I mean, they were clearly being smart-asses and loose with the book-keeping.
But then people began getting visits from FBI agents…
The opposition quickly (and quietly) filed amended CFRs, and I had a hay day comparing the old to the new– so many discrepancies!
This candidate did win the election by a razor-thin margin, less than 1%. The information that we uncovered was not used by “our” campaign, but rumor had it that somehow it managed to land in the hands of the feds. Dunno if it was used in his trial or affected his subsequent conviction in any way… don’t really care: that job was for a favor owed to a friend, and of passing interest.
I stay far, far away from politics these days– it is so, so horribly corrupt and revolting! So many lies, deceptions and falsehoods, naked greed and selfish ambitions, I want nothing to do with this aspect of our “democracy.” If the average voter had a true taste of that world, first they would vomit, and then they would likely erupt in rage.
However, as fate would have it, I’m currently in a situation that appears to possibly involve kickbacks, bribery, and corruption within a local county government, with my immediate family as victims of physical and other tangible harms… so what choice do I have? Dust off the spurs and ride, again, I guess.
I hate this crap, and I cannot find the words that can possibly express the disgust and disappointment that I am feeling. And if this is what I am feeling right now, there is no way that I can allow myself to experience a failure to accomplish what must be done.
“…California’s punishing legal weed market.”
I wonder how much the price crash could be attributable to people deciding to grow their own. The last time I checked for a friend, one could by good quality cloned starter plants for $25 a piece just down the street from my house. In our jurisdiction each adult is allowed to grow up to six plants per year.
re: “Old white working-class males have become pariahs in many Democratic party circles. Increasingly, much of the rhetoric coming from Democratic candidates, who do not fall into the category with which I identify, openly vilify people such as myself simply because they are lumping us into a group that they have labeled oppressors.”
followed by Lambert’s comment:
However, I don’t think the mishegoss of “slights” produced by identity politics can ever be netted out. Best to heave the entire enterprise over the side and center the working class as such.
Yeah, I think so. / ymmv
Who’s lamnert?
Lambert adjacent.
Since he’s napping, maybe a portmanteau of lambert and inert?
Chapeau!
Crackpot vs. the Machine: Will RFK Jr. Target America’s Health Care Scams? Rolling Stone
I haven’t read the article. Don’t know if I will. Posting this for the headline, which pretty much sums up the kind and quality of choices “our democracy” serves up to the electorate.
I did after all take a quick peek at the article. It seems to boil down to a question of which brand of enshitification one prefers.
“Democrats won’t win elections by labeling all white men as oppressors, either | Opinion”
As we speak, Democrats are meeting and working out why it all went wrong and how to do it differently in 2028-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1e_C5Szfss (5:40 mins)
Today my mother said she can’t understand why they lost because “the economy has been good and getting better”. I was good and didn’t take the bait and reply “not for those of us on the bottom” and tell her to pull her head out and get out of the cult. Got my blood boiling for a while.
This was in putatively the art world’s premier rag:
“…We have just reelected our very own hideous strongman who—in between throwing migrant children in cages and siccing the National Guard on protesters outside the White House…”
I can’t even.
https://www.artforum.com/features/year-in-review-2024-rachel-wetzler-new-historicism-1234721659/
I was a long time subscriber and cancelled it back when they went full-on pro Israel. It used to be a reference.
Anecdata here. I got COVID the beginning of November, and have been battling fatigue and increased body aches ever since. The end of last week I started having skin irritations. Yesterday the rash finally spread from my back to areas I could view clearly. The doctor’s visit confirmed shingles.
The interesting moment was when I said to the physicians assistant that I had only gotten over COVID a few weeks ago, he muttered “sounds about right.” I don’t know for sure if they have seen an increase of shingles along with COVID but it would not surprise me.
Final fyi, the PAs and doctors were all masked in the urgent care center. The clerical staff were not.
Very sorry to hear it. COVID attacks people in so many different vectors, it can be overwhelming. There is a general lowering of immunity to all kinds of things, & it seems to depend on your genetics which way it will go.
Not to give medical advice, but the only thing that has helped me personally with fatigue, energy & brain fog has been nicotine patches, which you can research online.
…my non-medical 2 cents and experience from work, would agree with the weakened immune system as playon says.
(Shingles being common in entertainment circles especially performing artists, stress-induced initially.)
You will already know this one I assume:
From 2 years ago
“Increased Risk of Herpes Zoster in Adults ≥50 Years Old Diagnosed With COVID-19 in the United States”
https://academic.oup.com/ofid/article/9/5/ofac118/6545460?searchresult=1
Chickenpox pre-vaccination makes it more difficult to get according to German Vaccination Committee.
In Germany they usually would wait until children get it. Otherwise inoculate at early age.
Did the doc suggest medical treatment or just lotions and powder?
All the best!
Please be aware of internal shingles as well which can have bad consequences. A simple saliva test is available for it here in Australia . Treatment is available.
I hope they gave you valcyclovir or another antiviral. Helps to avoid nerve damage and chronic neuralgia. Get well soon.
Something to pair with today’s censorship link.
https://scheerpost.com/2024/12/03/bosses-are-retaliating-against-workers-showing-solidarity-with-palestinians/
We’re up to 31 H5N1 in CA:
https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Bird-Flu.aspx
30 cattle, 1 unknown
Wow! Tucker Carlson announces interview with Lavrov-
‘Despite the growing risks of conflict, Americans are only provided the perspective allowed to them by “NBC News and The New York Times,” Carlson said in a three-minute video on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. With his upcoming interview, he could provide a glimpse of the Russian perspective, the journalist noted.’
https://www.rt.com/russia/608686-carlson-interview-lavrov-moscow/
Fortunately Lavrov is not inclined to give hour-long lectures on Russian history. :)
Side note on Taibbi but since he again mentioned the Moscow Times:
He should remind listeners that the Moscow Times is not your genuine Russian paper. I am not the expert. But as far as I know it wasn`t even published in Russian when he was working there. Made by non-Russians for non-Russian speakers.
Owned by Dutch entrepreneurs and the Dutch MoFA, I think.
His scaremongering over Russia and thuggish Putin still, puzzles me.
South Korean cinema has not without cause a serious tradition of political/spy thrillers about their governments and coups which also serve as a proof of high industry standard of SK film industry.
In broader context the perhaps even better known psychological flicks about twisted minds and tormented souls give as well testimony of the stratified nature of the country´s nomenklatura and rules of power brokerage.
While on the other side we have directors of the likes of Hong-Sang Soo whose works are to be regarded as antidotes of the most radical kind towards the country´s authoritarian traditions.
Keeping in mind that these artists are all themselves however members of a privileged class (almost no female directors btw). It´s complicated. But it´s the least to uphold that the geopolitically delicate position of a country will circle back into the high-end products of its popular culture. Either via neglect or exploitation.
EU wants to finance higher armament expenditure by greenwashing arms-manufacturing.
It´s so insane it´s almost funny.
EU wants to classify armaments as sustainable: “War should be greenwashed”
BSW politician Fabio De Masi wanted to know how the EU Commission justified its plans. The Berliner Zeitung now has the answer.
BERLINER ZEITUNG:
https://archive.is/PgLPX
What is so horrible: These women, vdL, Kallas and Co. are in an extremely good mood. Especially the giggly laughter of vdL is sickening. Sellers was nothing compared to her.
The Duran were making the point in their latest video that for years the EU was seen as, if anything, a sort of benign organization concerned with trade. But through their actions in places like the Ukraine and in Georgia the past few months, the EU is now been seen by the world as a militaristic, arrogant and even homicidal organization. That article slots in neatly showing how depraved that the EU has become.