Will the bond market rein in Donald Trump? FT
Why Asian central banks are starting to decouple from the Fed South China Morning Post
Climate
Community estimate of global glacier mass changes from 2000 to 2023 Nature
Massive methane leaks detected in Antarctica, posing potential risks for global warming El Pais
* * * Earth’s Oceans Were Green a Billion Years Ago. They Could Soon Be Green Again Popular Mechanics
* * * 20 years on, biodiversity struggles to take root in restored wetlands across Denmark Phys.org
Scientists Untangle Interactions Between Earth’s Early Life Forms, Environment Over 500M Years (press release) Syracuse University
* * * Texas courts blocking jury trials for 30,000 victims of 2021 winter storm Dallas Morning News
Eastern KY activists bought land where feds wanted to build a prison Louisville Public Media
Paradise lost: How phosphate mining devastated island Nauru Interesting Engineering
Water
Syndemics
USDA Adds A New Species (Black Rats) to Their Mammalian Wildlife With HPAI H5 List Avian Flu Diary
The Koreas
Yoon appears in 2 different South Korean courts while defending his martial law decree AP
Why Japan Succeeds Despite Stagnation Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories
China?
Jack Ma Is Back, but Beijing Is in Control Foreign Policy
India
Former Staffers Say India’s Biggest IT Firm Was Gaming the US Visa System Bloomberg
Syraqistan
Arab States Called Upon to Shape Gaza’s ‘Day After’ – to Their Dismay Haaretz
The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters The Intercept
What anti-Palestinian legislation to look out for in the new Congress Mondoweiss
As Israel uses US-made AI models in war, concerns arise about tech’s role in who lives and who dies AP
European Disunion
It’s Time for Europe to Do the Unthinkable Foreign Policy. Commentary:
This is an absolute must-read by Singaporean diplomat @mahbubani_k who proposes a path forward for Europe: https://t.co/H3gaIQwpU9
First of all, he argues that "Brussels has slavishly followed Washington for too long" and that European leaders have become so pathetic that "they…
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) February 19, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia reports advances in Kursk region, Ukraine’s Kharkiv region Anadolu Agency
As the Ukraine war reaches its 3-year mark, Russia seems to have time on its side as talks start AP
The Mood on the Front Line, Three Years On Foreign Policy
* * * Rift Grows into Chasm as Trump Lays Final Nail in Zelensky’s Casket Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker
Trump says ‘it’s time for elections in Ukraine’ amid ongoing row with Zelenskyy Anadolu Agency
Trump warns Zelenskyy to quickly negotiate war’s end with Russia or risk not having a nation to lead AP
Trump tells BBC that Russia has ‘the cards’ in peace negotiations BBC
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s statement and answers to media questions following talks with US administration officials, Riyadh, February 18, 2025 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Kremlin unwilling to hold fair negotiations and end war – ISW Ukrainska Pravda
* * * Gonzalo Lira Tarik Cyril Amar, The Ninth Wave
* * * President Trump’s Masterclass: Blundering A Ukraine Peace Deal The National InterestS
It is not Trump that betrayed Ukraine Al Jazeera
Putin rates US talks ‘highly’, says Russia ready to negotiate over Ukraine Al Jazeera
Trump Administration
Commerce Secretary Lutnick: Trump’s goal is to abolish the IRS Axios
IRS to begin laying off 6,000 employees Thursday: Report Anadolu Agency
Federal court declines to reinstate Trump’s order restricting birthright citizenship Anadolu Agency
Hegseth could soon fire or remove generals and senior officers, US officials say ABC
Why annexing Canada would destroy the United States The Conversation
DOGE
New Social Security chief contradicts claims that millions of dead people are getting payouts AP
Records show how DOGE planned Trump’s DEI purge — and who gets fired next WaPo
Digital Watch
Datacenter energy demand in bitbarn ‘capital of the world’ Virginia nearly doubled in second half of 2024 The Register
A big AI build has ‘stalled’ and won’t happen this year as funds and GPUs prove elusive The Register
Building a chipmaking fab in the US costs twice as much, takes twice as long as in Taiwan Tom’s Hardware
‘Can’t turn it off’: Google faces backlash over Gmail AI Information Age
Business school professors trained an AI to judge workers’ personalities based on their face Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
The Bezzle
Memecoin Craze Is ‘Unquestionably Over’ as Crypto Heads Towards Maturation, Nic Carter Says CoinDesk
The Final Frontier
SASA looking for ways to destroy asteroid that could strike Earth, kill city FOX
Defense executives demand clarity on space agencies’ missions Space News
Scientists Think Visitors From Another Star System May Have Infiltrated Our Galactic Neighborhood Popular Mechanics
Supply Chain
Series of tanker explosions around the Med add to European shipping security concerns Splash 247
Hardware
Microsoft claims quantum-computing breakthrough — but some physicists are sceptical Nature
Zeitgeist Watch
Stealth tracksuit shields you from infrared cameras and electromagnetic signals FOX
Cultural taboos arise from a basic feature of the human mind Psyche
Antidote du jour (Bernard DUPONT):
Bonus antidote (AM):
AM writes: “Last time I was in Rhode Island, a little bunny huddled outside our dining room window all day. He finally left after it got dark. Survival instinct perhaps, keeping out of the snow. He left behind a melted spot. Darn cute.”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Gonzalo Lira”
And in a stroke of synchronicity, Elon Musk just blasted Zelensky on his X platform saying that ‘Zelensky killed an American journalist!’
https://www.rt.com/news/613039-musk-zelensky-gonzalo-lira/
If Zelensky gets through this war alive, this could be the basis of charging him in an American court. One hopes.
Lavrov: “Everyone must answer for their actions!”
There is no path to de-nazification without a war crimes tribunal. That could serve the interests of the current US administration. Especially since the President may think it could shed light on the assassination attempts.
Too messy; Zelensky would sing like a bird and take down Biden, Nuland, Clinton, Sullivan, etc. If they knew or participated they’re accessories to murder or after the fact.
Easier to give him the Gaddafi treatment.
Yeah, a bayonet up the Khyber can shut you down real fast.
But wouldn’t Trump love for him to take them down?
Except Trump was a president previously as well.
His hands aren’t clean, no matter what is current stance is now.
Russia could extract him and then set up recording equiptment. It could be the Yudina-recording for all peace-lovers out there.
https://www.classicalmusicguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=18153
MOA on the Trump/Zelensky falling out has some interesting detail.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/02/a-left-behind-europe-and-ukraine-will-fall-into-chaos.html
“The station pumps oil, owned by U.S. companies, from Kazakhstan to the Black Sea. Additionally a French drone, likely sent from Ukraine, was found on Kazakh territory! President Putin has invited the oil companies, which include Chevron, to send the necessary material to repair the station.
Following the attack President Trump went berserk on Zelinski. By calling for elections in Ukraine he clearly wants to remove the sad clown from office”
Moon is relying heavily on the latest Gordon Hahn.
https://gordonhahn.com/2025/02/19/sad-clown-with-the-circus-closed-down-update/
Having some severe issues with this site loading (in France).
That’s a plump looking bunny in today’s antidote. He/she must have fattened up before winter!
It really is. 20 years ago there were no rabbits in our central Boston neighborhood that we could see. Now it’s lousy with them and the adults usually look pretty well fed. I guess they eat the plants in the parks and gardens. They have become almost as cocky as Boston squirrels. They have learned about leashes and in nice weather sit out in the open taunting dogs with obscene gesticulations.
I have a soft spot in my heart for bunnies like that, and we started seeing them in urban Texas not too long ago, mainly rummaging around the middle school’s garden program at night and behind a chainlink fence. But at some point somebody or the elements opened a hole in it and our Dobie with a high prey drive has figured out that she just needs to pretend to need to pee just right there and SNATCH. A rabbit in her jaws. I’m not super strong and the jaws are so I’m at a loss as to whether to risk a major injury or just let the killing be finished with a few quick shakes. Believe it or not it’s happened more than once. How can I deny my doggie’s natural instincts? And don’t those cute bunnies destroy the tuber/root veggies the kids are trying to grow? Dilemmas….
there is a rabbit that has been spending the winter behind a bush right next to the dryer vent. kinda wonder how much clothing fibers he breathed in so far
And maybe taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque
/jk
What a maroon!
That’s “wrong toin at albuh-koiky”
Was Bugs from Nawlins, we wonders….
When we lived there, some “in the know” types would remark on the similarities between the N’Awleens accent and the Brooklyn accent.
I’ve also heard it remarked that Cajun French is similar in that sphere to Hillbilly English in ours.
New growth industry idea: Train AI in plastic surgery to keep up with the personality recognition software. Imagine the possibilities! /s
p.s., I fear for the children growing up in the AI world.
Why us WaPo citing the Daily Wire a media outlet, instead of a couple of failed theater kids spamming the world with rage bait and misinformation with funding from a couple of crank oil industry billionaires?
And should we also say Elon Musk, the world’s worst livestream gamer, has “an interest in politics”as a “concerned quasi citizen”?
BBC
“Donald Trump says he believes Russia has “the cards” in any peace talks to end the war in Ukraine because Russia has “taken a lot of territory”.”
Trump is a quick learner compared to Biden. At least he deals with reality sometimes, unlike Biden.
“The US president told the BBC he trusted that Moscow wants to see an end to the war, which Russia started when it waged a full-scale invasion almost three years ago.”
The BBC just can’t help itself when it comes to the Russia Bad department.
Same here in Oz where the TV station I watched assured viewers that Zelensky has a 57% approval rating.
Thank you, Rev.
I’m glad that you have piped up as I wanted to ask if there’s some soul searching in public going on about the wisdom of allying so closely with the US as Trump dumps Ukraine? Thank you.
I am aware of Paul Keating, Gareth Evans and some retired officials last year, but Ukraine did not feature then.
If there are any doubts, they are not being aired in public even though this is an election year. The media is still behind Project Ukraine and keeps reporting how wicked the Russians are. Lots of hopium going on that Trump’s tariffs won’t be aimed at us too as Trump is obviously our buddy.
My husband’s company is in the middle of a protracted negotiation or best & final offer on a proposal to build a massive $500million airbase expansion at Darwin RAAFB in Australia. Even the Pentagon cost cut stories have made a point to highlight that the so-called Indo-China and “containment” initiatives in the DoD will be untouched by the supposed 8% rolling annual cuts to the “defense” budget. He is having concalls with Aussies in NSW at very odd hours and it sounds like they’re all-in too. Something about how nobody else can bond the project and that it will guarantee a foothold there for the next 10 years — presuming we don’t all die in a nuclear war first?
As an American I wonder why the Aussies don’t have more power over their government officials considering the massively smaller population size. But it seems like you all – y’all in TX Speak – are as much vassals as the Europeans.
In Canada, the CBC is saying he has a 58% approval rating. Why the 1% discrepancy? Rounding error?
Even I have noticed that the “official” description of the SMO has changed from “unprovoked attack” to “full-scale” invasion . . . which wasn’t full-scale when it started at all, and from what I understand, still isn’t.
What is this new description supposed to be saying? I can’t tell because to me it’s cr*p, but to a true believer…..?
I’ve noticed that too. Been that way for a few weeks if not longer now on anything affiliated with or on NPR and sone of the MSM.
Its “Putin launched his full scale invasion “. Repeated every time like it’s from a script and now just said habitually.
You forgot the modifier “unprovoked”, which I also read and hear often.
Yes, quite correct.
I saw speculation that the phrase “full-scale invasion” comes from the propaganda theory that militias defending Donbass were not local, and instead were made up of Russian infiltrators (sometimes referred to as “little green men”). Therefore Russia began invading in 2014, but did not do an official full-scale invasion until 2022.
This is never explained, so the phrase does not seem to accomplish much from a propaganda standpoint.
I thought it was because of the Crimea takeover, which IIRC really was mostly done by the “little green men”, in contrast to the Donbass. Though I do remember Western media pretending the Donbass militias weren’t real.
Anyway, they do need to differentiate pre-2022 and post-2022 stages of the conflict somehow.
https://x.com/RWApodcast/status/1892305712283320404
https://xcancel.com/RWApodcast/status/1892305712283320404
It’s supposed to imply that the Maidan junta’s aggression against the people of the Donbass was a legitimate reaction to a “partial invasion”. Pro-Ukrainian narratives hinge entirely on the insane lie that the Russian Spring was all active duty Russian special forces pretending to be locals, and the partial vs full scale invasion dichotomy exists rhetorically to cement this. In their historiography, there was zero opposition to the violent Euromaidan coup, only Russian soldiers disguised as protestors.
There’s a helpful EU-financed explainer on why it’s important to speak the propaganda correctly :
https://euneighbourseast.eu/young-european-ambassadors/blog/blog-language-matters-a-guide-to-talking-about-ukraine/
If you don’t say “full-scale” then you’re implying that it just might be a Special Military Operation. The “unprovoked” part was dropped only recently. I can’t figure out why that part of the narrative was suppressed.
“Unprovoked” makes it sound worse than just “full-scale”, which may imply reckless ambition but does not directly assert immorality (unless “invasion” does that by itself, but I don’t think it does in the minds of interventionists). If indeed it is being systematically suppressed (I haven’t seen it lately, but then I haven’t been watching the language that closely), then I can think of an obvious reason: to make the most likely outcome more palatable on a subliminal level. It’s one thing if the powers that be in Western nations are seen as acquiescing to the results of “full-scale” invasion that may nevertheless have been somehow “provoked”; it’s that much worse if it’s “unprovoked” and they let evil (a madman who attacks nearby countries for no reason whatsoever) triumph.
It may have something to do with the former NATO Sec.Gen. Stoltenberg testifying to one of the EU gatherings that when Putin asked NATO not to [or else], NATO did.
LOL! I’m sure I’ve read the same lines recently but just never picked up on it. I’ve gotten to the point where when I read stuff like that my eyes see it but my brain processes it as “garbage propaganda” and mentally circular files it.
That said, now that you ask how would a true believer read it… a (garbage) meme that’s been going around for some time is that Russia wants all of western Europe, Ukraine is the only thing standing in its way. It would seem Full Invasion would be a pre-requisite for a “real” invasion of western Europe.
Interesting! Thanks all! I can’t tell you all how much I missed the back-and-forth (with Lindy goodness!) that one can get here, to help someone like me who needs a bit of help with critical thinking.
My goodness gracious, is it great to have this again.
Linky goodness, not Lindy (although it is good enough to make me dance).
Lindt goodness 🍫 is enough to make me dance.
Are you referring to the Lindy Hop? Named after Charles Lindbergh of America First fame? Not the kind of dance I want to see on the proverbial dance floor.
Let us not forget the first America First.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_First_Committee
Or as Woody Guthrie sang of Lindbergh’s aspirations for America in relation to Nazi expansionism:
So I’m going to tell you people if Hitler’s going to be beat,
Common working people has got to take the seat
In Washington,
In Washington.
And I’m going to tell you workers, before you cash in your cheques,
They say America First but they mean America Next
In Washington,
In Washington.
I hear that line in my head every time I come across the term America First. It’s an awesome song with awesome historical context we would do well to remember.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzLOTHciIKI
btw, the Conservative Party leader in Canada has pivoted to the phrase Canada First, even putting it on his podium. It’s supposed to be a reference to a Laurier speech, but that’s a stretch. I mean, Laurier was Liberal.
I don’t want to BE Lindy. . . Just the dance please, and thanks.
Although Lindt IS better.
Just a typo, not trying to be the Fourth Reich Bank of Hamburg:
https://youtu.be/C1IRqqp8vHw?si=6Qfc_0elHGglxx_z
I understand. I just think it’s interesting how things can persist in our culture long after we’ve forgotten what they mean.
I’m all for chocolate too.
How about “war of aggression”? It’s even “used” here on NC.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/us-history-of-duplicity-means-impossibility-of-negotiated-settlements-including-ukraine-might-zelensky.html#comment-4176311
“Cultural taboos arise from a basic feature of the human mind”
Cultural taboos arise for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they are silly and sometimes they are vital. For example. If you are in the Arctic regions and shoot a Polar bear, for god’s sake listen to the Eskimos and do not break the taboo about eating the liver of a Polar bear. Of course the early Polar explorers laughed that one off and proceeded to cook the bear meat and tossed in chunks of the liver for taste. Yeah, Polar bear liver is absolutely saturated in Vitamin A and you will not believe the number that it will do on you as it sounds like something out of a horror/scifi story-
https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/disappearing-pod/death-by-nutrition/
An abudance of Vitamin A actually acceleates cell growth of certain types of cancer too…according to some fairly robust studies
any links to those studies? – i try to stay abreast of supplement news and those links would help – suppose i could search myself but since you brought it up they may be handy for you – thx
Wonderful, Rev.
Or how can I forget the rarefied, twilight encounter of Kapuściński and his guide with one of the few tribes in Africa who consider sorcerers to be within their own villages. Their account and reflections on this “social anomaly” linger vividly in my memory.
Lots of photos, but none of them made with infrared camera. I say, make one in green and send it to Zelensky, so he could test it when he goes to visit Pokrovsk.
Yes, a picture of people around a campfire would be good. And….. I don’t understand why “army men/women” in all the wars going on aren’t wearing suits like this. With drones everywhere, instead of a rifle, I’d prefer one of these suits – if in fact they work. Are they as light as a foil suit?
Things like this (cloaks) have been used in Ukraine–there are a few videos of it in use*. It seems to be of limited value since it’s not perfect and most of the killing is done by FPV drones in the visible spectrum. It’s very hard to fool a patient human operator who knows even vaguely where to look. I’ve seen video of sniper/special forces teams using it at night, but only to evade the most casual of observation with low quality night vision devices.
Sometimes it’s used in the hopes of throwing off a guidance system (like Javelin) so you’ll occasionally see “outfits” for vehicles. Fragile stuff like that doesn’t last very long in the rough and tumble of combat though.
* They are NSFW so I won’t link them, they’re out there if you are curious
This explains the article then… someone’s got lots invested and the anticipated market is now tapped out because it doesn’t deliver what was promised. Now lets go after the tin foil hat consumer and get some bucks from them while we can.
They are not wearing them because they don’t work, which is also a reason for the lack of infrared camera images (effectiveness of Faraday bags has been discussed on NC earlier). Stealth anti-infrared cloaks have been used/tested in the Russian steppes, with varying degree of success.
I thought the tracksuit would be used for driving through plutonium a la Annie Hall.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/f7879f4c-3ee1-4cf4-9ce2-47e36ba70f21
Only Adidas tracksuits are Chernobyl certified.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/us/politics/hegseth-military-cuts.html
Trump admin. proposes cutting the Pentagon budget by 8% per year for 5 years or 0.92^5 (34%).
Do you remember when liberals-progressives made it a plank to cut the Pentagon? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
“‘Can’t turn it off’: Google faces backlash over Gmail AI”
‘Google has pushed a line of new AI features into Gmail, leaving droves of users frustrated as they struggle to opt out.’
I suppose the idea of this was so that Google could report that AI had a tremendous uptake among it’s customers in it’s annual report. Just wait until AI starts serving those users ads in their email pages.
It’s the oligarchs who are intrusive.
It’s frustrating. We don’t use gmail but since most of our correspondents do so Google gets most of our emails too.
Yahoo mail already does try to ‘serve’ me ads on the email page. (I use “The App That Cannot Be Named” which so far covers that problem.)
Alas, as mentioned recently, the “New and Improved” Yahoo email ‘service’ is now quite like Google mail.
Since, as far as I know, most e-mail is automated, what if any ‘labour’ savings do the AIs provide to the e-mail systems? My best guess is that AIs provide much better “curation services” for those who “protect and serve” the Public at the State level.
Colour me Ultra Cynical. It is now a personal survival strategy.
Re: Water – fog harvesting.
utube, ~2+ minutes.
Warka Water towers harvest drinkable water from the air | Design | Dezeen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THJVuinPbc0
Through December 2024, defense spending had climbed to almost $1.108 trillion yearly. Defense spending increased by almost $194 billion yearly or by 21.2% during the Biden presidency, and is increasing still:
https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/?reqid=19&step=2&isuri=1&categories=survey#eyJhcHBpZCI6MTksInN0ZXBzIjpbMSwyLDNdLCJkYXRhIjpbWyJjYXRlZ29yaWVzIiwiU3VydmV5Il0sWyJOSVBBX1RhYmxlX0xpc3QiLCI1Il1dfQ==
January 30, 2025
Defense spending was 57.6% of federal government consumption and investment in October through December 2024 *
$1,107.8 / $1,922.0 = 57.6%
Defense spending was 21.7% of all government consumption and investment in October through December 2024
$1,107.8 / $5,096.6 = 21.7%
Defense spending was 3.7% of Gross Domestic Product in October through December 2024
$1,107.8 / $29,700.6 = 3.7%
* Billions of dollars
I’ll note that defense spending is mostly not MMT friendly as it doesn’t have much of a tail in terms of productivity futures. From an adjacent lane and the FT article at the top of the page, Will the bond market rein in Donald Trump?, (archived link)
“America’s fiscal watchdog, the Congressional Budget Office, has forecast that government spending will exceed revenue by $1.9tn, or 6.2 per cent of US GDP, for the year to September 30.”
and,
“The size of the US treasury market has doubled over the last decade”
This all supports the theory that Trump is looking to settle US debt on the cheap, make of that what you will, sounds like an adventure to me.
“I’ll note that defense spending…doesn’t have much of a tail in terms of productivity futures…”
This is an important observation. There is reason to think American military spending has been a significant factor is poor manufacturing productivity results these last 14 years.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=m2mB
January 30, 2018
Manufacturing Productivity, * 1988-2024
* Output per hour of all persons
(Indexed to 1988)
Your using the wrong statistic for this. It should be Net Dollars received by multi-millionaires and billionaires per unit of military equipment output. I’m sure that one has a positive slope over time even in real dollars.
Thank you, Lambert.
Further to the Simplicius post and the reference to boys leaving before they reach 18, my government official and soon to retire mum can attest. There were several waves last year.
Mums would accompany their sons and stay for a few weeks and then return home and look after other family members. The boys would be placed with other Ukrainian families or British hosts, usually in the wealthier south of England.
Please note the distinction between Ukrainians. From 2022, they are classified as refugees and have a settlement scheme just for them. This includes government subsidies for schooling and tertiary education fees and extras and pocket money. About 200k fall in that category. There are another 100k, families who came pre-war, as early as 2014, and, in return for husbands enlisting and being trained to fight by the British army, can settle and be subsidised.
Readers may be surprised to read that, when translators are hired to help, many, if not most, Ukrainian refugees choose Russian as the medium of communication.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1xK15
January 30, 2020
Total population of Ukraine and Georgia, 2000-2023
(Indexed to 2000)
Re Mondoweiss on potential anti-Palestinian legislation in Congress–it’s somewhat ironic that one of these laws uses acting at the behest of a foreign power (Europe) as a proposed crime since these laws threaten to take away our freedom at the behest of that foreign power known as Israel. Perhaps Congress should jail and fine itself.
The danger in overreach is that you may fall off your perch. The article says some of these proposed laws have been rattling around for a long time and that some Republicans and conservatives–again ironically–have blocked them.
Elsewhere in Mondoweiss–the MSM are suddenly all aghast at genocide now that they think Trump is for it.
https://mondoweiss.net/2025/02/the-liberal-establishment-is-finally-criticizing-ethnic-cleansing-in-gaza-now-that-they-can-blame-trump/
I rarely visit Mondoweiss now that Phil Weiss has apparently left.
If you have friends and family, coworkers, whoever rattling of the nonsense about the CFPB being useless because “we have the courts,” the Dallas story about the people who were very much harmed having, effectively, no hope in the courts might be educational.
And what does it cost the cities, counties, and the state to manage these cases that aren’t going to court????
The notion that an average citizen of modest means can just bring a suit in Federal Court is ridiculous.
You’re going to have to hire a law firm, and unless there are heavy punitive damages as a potential payday, they will of course want to get paid directly for their work.
Small claims court might be better, if all you’re looking to get back is a modest amount of money, however, even that takes time and local knowledge that is hard to gain.
If this is true, that is truly a staggering amount of money. It is especially disturbing when one looks at just one example – the total expenditure on school lunches for kids in this country.
That one transaction alone is more than spent by the Kamala Harris campaign.
I am a physician, I am not a forensic accountant. I could not tell a swindle if it was headed right for me. If I am bewildered by all this, I guarantee 90% of the country is as well. If it is all lies, WHERE ARE THE DEMOCRATS? They are saying/doing nothing but making it worse.
My first patient, someone who would know about how government works, had this non-cryptic message when I asked if this could be real —- “You have no idea how bad this is going to get. Be prepared to have your world rocked.”
They are either making stuff up at a rate that is for the ages, following Goebbels dictum to just keep lying bigger, OR this has all really been happening —- the biggest swindle/Ponzi/looting scheme in history.
In a way, I would feel much more comfortable about all of this if we started to see handcuffs. I think allegations like this truly need the open air of a courtroom.
DOGE has made so many false claims that my reflex is to believe nothing they say, and I suggest you exercise a similar level of skepticism. They are wildly exaggerating or even fabricating instances of “waste” and even more so, of “fraud”. Fraud often = a bond fide, Congressionally approved expenditure that the Trump Administration opposed ideologically, such as funding HIV treatments in Africa. Remember the $8 billion they claimed to have saved by cancelling a contract….that was only $8 million? https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/19/politics/doge-canceled-contracts-8-billion-invs/index.html. How about the current bogus “Social Security is paying dead people benefits!” when all they did was find a bunch of SSNs for people clearly long dead….with no evidence any were getting payments, and zero good faith consideration as to why those numbers were left in the system (for starters, how about turning off payment is cheaper than deleting the record?)
The other part that does not pass the smell test is the claim that the funds were somehow parked at Citigroup. The Biden Admin was trying to push as much money that had been authorized by Congress out the door before Trump came in. We see that with Project Ukraine. There would be no reason for money supposedly allocated to a climate group not to have gone to them before January 20, 2025, ex having to meet performance requirements before the money was distributed.
True, both of you. But, considering the lies, propaganda etc. of the past 15+ years (on steroids), we have to remain skeptical of the Dem. party and especially because of their funding of propaganda via USAID et al. Can’t believe DODGE either, so we need to see receipts. And we have to go on a case by case evaluation.
A link regarding past (Obama era) lies and deceits. 2o min video with “receipts” from the 2018 financial crisis phase of lies: Presenting America’s Real Coup d’Etat
USAID was a strictly overseas operation. And the $ was authorized. You might not like what it was used for, but this was another Trump policy change, and not fraud.
And as I keep saying, I have yet to see them take ANY interest in going after the biggest source of waste, the Pentagon. All of this stuff is small beer by comparison and the priorities set on a clearly ideological basis.
I’d suggest to start interpreting things las if we’ve reached the late stage Soviet Union or late Roman Empire stage. When a new clique has gained power you have to clean out the imperial/soviet bureaucracy to make space to install your own kickback clientele, there’s only so much to go around by now with our Potemkin growth, simply enlarging and layering on top of the existing bureaucracy is not an option any longer.
“…with no evidence any were getting payments…”
Maybe I’m a bit obtuse but I didn’t even understand the claim at first—obviously, there weren’t a lot of 150-year olds getting Social Security payments and there was no evidence, as you say, that anyone in that group was getting any payments at all. There were just data based on a date-of-birth field in a database. It was obviously half-baked.
I think it is worth making the point that incorrect claims made by the over-enthusiastic kiddies have been corrected very quickly largely because they have been made publicly, and it is worth taking that on board when evaluating the exercise.
There is business logic in the system that deals with survivor benefits. This could get pretty complicated if you start considering edge cases like divorces, re-marriages, adoptions and then overlay disability claims on top of this and I can only imagine what a mature system (multiple regulations clarified by the agency and litigation) looks like in code and data structure.
I wouldn’t trust these kids to understand what is happening and how the data structure supports what is happening in anything short of 6 months with daily help from the existing staff.
But then , this would require good faith.
It’s just anothet example of the lack of any common sense and independent consideration.
I have a recent ecample of my renewal of my electric service discount because my income is below the threshhold. I was denied renewal because my household size was not reported. Not only did I not have this problem last year, but my pointing out that my income is below the lowest threshhold, therefore, any increase in household size would automatically qualify.
Here Are Early Signs of Impact From Trump’s Cuts to Federal Workforce
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/here-are-early-signs-of-impact-from-trump-s-cuts-to-federal-workforce/ar-AA1zomWU?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds
In the spirit of not kicking folks who are down, I think we should empathize with the Federal workers, particularly those probationary workers who were cruelly kicked to the curb.
I don’t have any empathy for USAID as an org, but on an individual level, I do for the people. Going for a more popular agency like the EPA, what will be the effect of gutting the next generation of leaders? A 20-something who began a career in the civil service has to now pick up the pieces and go to plan B. And what of the spillover effects – the job market already stinks for new college grads. Now it is going to be a total nightmare, as displaced Feds flood the zone. Mom and Dad better hold off on those plans to remodel the basement.
The most odious argument I have heard is: “Suck it up buttercup because this is what we have to go through in the private sector.”
So a race to the bottom it is. Then throw in fraudulent, greased AI turning the job hunting process into a hellscape of automation, thousands of robo-submitted AI-based applicants, and automated screening of resumes with no human oversight, and retirement cannot come soon enough for me.
I did some simple searching to find the budgets of USAID and the US Peace Corps.
USAID is around 40 billion. US Peace Corps around 400 million or ONE percent of the size.
Maybe former USAID admin, and Responsible To Protect advocate (except Gaza) Samantha Power will be checking into a clinic for treatment of advanced hypocrisy.
One can hope.
Thanks John for the info. If you can, submit source docs or a link. So much blunder on both “sides” we need to cut through that. Again, thank you.
I simply did a Google search for “USAID budget” and “Peace Corps budget”.
USAID:
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10261
Peace Corps:
https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/2024-AugSept-Issue-Brief_-PC-Funding.docx
The USAID budget was apparently higher to push money into Ukraine. Gaza did not get similar treatment.
Interesting and helpful. Thank you.
I recall seeing USAID backstop Israeli bond issuance after October 7. So they were involved, on behalf of the Zionist Entity.
Peace Corp can also be a spooky conduit but it’s nothing compared to USAID, which evidently funded most of the “independent” media in many countries that Washington DC do not like or needs more control over(see Kit Klarenberg’s reporting). The bonus is that even if the USAID expenditure is limited to non-US organizations, once that “independent” media reports a nasty story on enemy country X, it can be laundered back into American media uncritically.
“Peace Corp can also be a spooky conduit…” Can you provide some evidence please?
I didn’t feel like linking because I thought this was well known and acknowledged that most Western funded NGOs and foreign aid agencies are uses from time to time as covers for spies. This is what I found with 15 seconds of googling:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/14/cia-fake-vaccination-medecins-frontieres
https://inthesetimes.com/article/recruiting-spies-in-the-peace-corps
https://prospect.org/article/peace-corps-spies./
I’m not saying that majority of Peace Corp volunteers are Western spies, just that the organization can be used as covers but I expect less penetration than USAID.
Those articles speak of recruiting efforts, i.e., the CIA tried to recruit volunteers. Yes, any foreign aid program can be used by the CIA. But I’d like to see some evidence that this has been the case for the Peace Corps. I don’t believe people join the Peace Corps to spy for the CIA.
I never said that they did. For that you should probably attend the Georgetown School of Foreign Service or Johns Hopkins SAIS. Your professor will recruit you if you display the right ideological characteristics and appropriate background.
What I said was that CIA inserted their people into these NGOs and organizations like Peace Corp for cover. That’s why people in the rest of the world treat Western NGO people like the spies and influencing operations that they likely may be.
I very much empathize with the federal workers – I have many in my practice – and some have been terminated.
These are mostly young people – but they have also let go some that are nearing retirement – the two that I have seen have recently transferred or changed career paths as they were approaching retirement – and I simply do not understand how that all works.
Who I do not empathize with are the people on my social media feed – the same people who were just downright mean and condescending to all the federal and private employees 4 years ago who were being terminated because of the vaccine mandates. Again – most of these patients of mine were young and healthy and not high-risk. There was zero indication for a universal forced vaccine that was already known to be non-sterilizing. They not only were shown no compassion – they were actively being belittled as traitors, etc. And FWIW – there were many more of them then there are people being laid off now.
I do not like to see anyone being fired or laid off. What I dislike even more is how even grief and anger over firing is now partisan. I cannot even begin to tell you how many lives were disrupted back then – and they were not met with concern – they were met with applause.
Yeah, it’s pretty ugly on both sides. On https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/, which is probably the best aggregator of the current situation from the feds’ perspective, the rightfully aggrieved feds are still accusing Putin of puppeteering Trump and Musk, worshipping Kamala Harris (and down voting any one who dares to mention that she was a terrible candidate who tied herself to a demented zombie president promising that nothing will change), and proudly talking about going no-contact with MAGA family members. But what I seen from the MAGA side is at least as petty, ignorant, and obnoxious.
And that’s why we can’t have nice things…
Somewhat adjacent to the IRS layoff story, I am curious if anyone else in the commentariat received a phishing text today, ostensibly from the IRS, informing them that they are eligible for a $1400 economic impact payment. With my tinfoil cap firmly in place, I wonder if this has anything to do with the DOGEsqueaks rooting around in private data.
A person I know received one of these and showed it to me. Obviously, a scam – it used “Ur” instead of “You’re” – but I’ve come to understand that obvious mistakes like this are included by design to filter out the “smart ones”.
Only for myself but the texting and phishing efforts have been ongoing and steadily so for the past few years. I have noticed a more recent uptick in the level of attempted efforts but nonetheless, it isn’t new…I have to figure after all the reported hacks and cyber attacks, say from 2016 and onward, that this particularly brown cake of shite was previously in the oven at any rate….
Promptly deleting anything unknown, or equally for any unrecognizable activity with an institution I never use. I can’t imagine having to explain this to an elderly loved one on what to ignore and or discard with haste.
I’ve been getting calls from shady outfits asking me about Medicare. Usually from a spoofed caller ID, and there is always a pause between me picking up and when they start reading the script.
Nevermind that I have another 10 years or so to go before being eligible.
I was hoping they would go away as I read that a big call center in SE Asia got raided and shut down, but no luck. I sometimes play with them by answering “Billy Bob’s BBQ shack” and asking if they’d like to order a rib sandwich … that usually ends in a hangup fairly quickly.
Thanks for the responses. I, too, get more than my fair share of spam texts and spoofed phone calls. Considering the environment we are in now, I admit to being more than a little paranoid; however, I have to keep in mind the vulnerable people I know who won’t notice the obvious mistakes. That $1400 is pretty enticing..
Regarding Trump’s assessment of Zelensky’s popularity at 4%, Russian news was carrying this widely yesterday:
Rada Deputy Compared Zelensky to a Mop.
For comparison sake, how does Putin compare to a mop? Or VdL to a broom?
A couple of Tesla related questions:
Will trump urge his followers to trade in their F150’s for Cybertrucks?
Will a Hacker with moderate skills get angry enough to brick every Tesla?
Teslas are fully autonomous vehicles, and do not need a hacker to brick themselves.
Regarding President Trump’s Masterclass: Blundering A Ukraine Peace Deal in the National Interest, author Steven Pifer (Brookings) starts off by stating that it is a premature concession to admit that Ukraine is not going to regain all its territory or to join NATO. This is an excellent illustration of a fallacy committed by amateur deal-makers, where they believe that their chosen beliefs should be binding on the other party. The reality is that when negotiating, it is not a useful tactic to demand that the opposing side deflate your delusions. Once you know (or should know) that your position is unsustainable you must retreat to a stronger, more defensible position. Otherwise you are wasting your energy defending the indefensible, which inevitably leads to a worse outcome for you. Negotiations always come down to logic. If you are diligent and careful, the resulting logic will respect many of your objectives. If you refuse to be logical you will be eaten alive, or ignored and then consumed later.
The strategy of the Trump team is clearly to concede what they must and blame Zelenksy for failure to achieve the original goals. This avoids directly blaming the Biden administration, who deserves it as much or more than Zelensky, but that is the price of support in DC. Make no mistake, a deal will be done, and by the middle of the year. This is inevitable because completing the deal will improve things for both sides.
Fergit it Jake it’s Brookings. This very excellent discussion may deserve a relinking.
https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/18/trump-the-peacemaker/
Scheer says he doesn’t like Trump but we may be having a Nixon goes to China moment and as was true back then (he was there) the official liberals are missing the significance. Peace is more important than politics.
Ukraine is one of six tendentious objects that U.S. and Russia need to get fixed.
The result of the last 4 years of U.S. looking for war with Russia.
As during the Cold War US is lucky Russians are professionals with a moral compass.
Drop Dead, Feds
(Sung to the tune of, Drop Dead Legs by VH)
Ow!
Drop Dead, Feds, pretty sad
Hurts my head; Musk gone wild
Dig that ditch, jobs we don’t want
Makes me scream, I get nuh-nuh-nothing
But a $600 check overdue (drop dead!)
And nothing else could ever do
(You know Wall Street wants it)
Whoo!
It’s just what they need
(You know Elon flaunts it)
Baby
(When the D.O.G.E. is through, will Trump still be loving you?)
Whoo!
Dig those extralegal moves, vampire
Shake the constitution loose, law defier
Throw out dopes, coup-de-loop
Nice A.I., full of goop
RIFs are cool, real heavy
I ain’t fooled, gettin’ ready
Resume’, ah!
Baby
(You know Wall Street wants it)
Oh-oh-oh
It’s just what they need
(You know Elon flaunts it)
Baby
(When the D.O.G.E. is through, will Trump still be loving you?)
[Eddie Van Halen Guitar Outro]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EwJ9PkcZk4
An excellent track from an excellent album! Nicely done on the lyrics. I might find time to adapt another VH tune ( albeit a different album, with DLR still ) into the DOGE theme…
This is DOGE…This is Mean Streets….One could equally surmise that Musk and friends are now “Unchained”…
The crew from “Fast Money” did a whole theme on Who songs tonight … I have to admit, it was pretty clever, they deserve to be called out for doing good work even if some of their colleagues are bubble mongers.
Maybe I’ll move on to Roger, Pete, John, and Keith to ruin their work … My Generation is pretty jaded when it comes to Musk, we won’t get fooled again.
Ha! The 2nd rule of neoliberalism rocks! That six hundred would come in handy these days, just saying in case our president reads NC.
Great job!
If you’d like a little musical moment, how aboot the Playing for Change folks and Steve Miller doing “Fly like an eagle” —such good stuff.
https://youtu.be/rsxHWOPHcxA?si=UQ6y5Z7yZjH7Mopi
Hope y’all have a great day.
>Why annexing Canada would destroy the United States
Canadians taking up arms to fight American aggression and defend the independence of their homeland would make an interesting scenario for a Hollywood movie, but is unlikely to happen in reality. They are far too rich to risk their lives as guerrillas.
We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in Canada, we shall fight on the seas and arctic, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing snow falling in the air, we shall defend our muskeg, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the permafrost and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this great white north or a large part of it were subjugated and starving for something to do, were Trump to cut off cable TV.
Every hockey rink a redoubt.
I grew up on the USA side of the Niagara River below the falls. I looked out my kitchen window across into Canada every day. My folks stand ready, shotgun in hand, to defend against the hordes sailing up river from Fort George.
As a kid we used to aim our cheap Estes Rockets out over the river at the Canadian “sandsucker” which would dredge the river bottom at the Lake Ontario junction and steam past our house on its way to the Queenston Docks. Just give us a few Javelins and we will do our part.
It will be a passive, administrative, working, legislative resistance and many other types.
But first, Canadians will not legally accept this.
What will then Congress do? How will this aquisition be explained to the US population. I can also imagine that all the Anglosphere media outside the US will bray like a mad donkey, in a language the reddest of red neck Americans can understand.
Will the US jingoism turn up as well? Are then Canadians to be relocated like Gazans?
Assume a can opener?
I suggest that Trump DO NOT bomb Canada into rubble. Toronto has a lot of gleaming newly built high rise condos that are “beautiful” and ready for the “world’s people” to buy. The weather, however, is not very good and most of the beaches are not very suitable for year around sunbathing.
Every physiognomist has an argument until they’re punched in the nose — then they change their mind. Hegel said it in the Phenomenology Of Spirit.
It is my impression that USAID funnels a lot of $ to both Egypt and Jordan through a variety of channels, these are ABSOLUTELY NOT bribes, merely financial support for those who love democracy in those countries.
I wonder how cutting off those funds affects their attitude toward the magnificence that is Trump?
I find the YIMBY argument in Tomas Pueyo’s Japan piece kind of unconvincing. Houses are considered a depreciating asset in Japan, like a car. I think they technically go to $0 in 30 years and are expected to be rebuilt so it’s not an asset class you can speculate on profitably. If you look at the price of land (high) vs the price of houses (low), I think the lack of speculation explains the affordability way more easily than zoning laws.
Yes, that’s a major weakness in an otherwise good article. Most economists don’t understand property pricing, because to understand it would undermine a lot of their ‘understanding’ of how economies actually work.
Japan actually has a very good social housing policy, it just isn’t widely known or understood outside the country, even among housing specialists, mostly I think because the information is only available in Japanese. Even during the extreme boom times in the ’70’s and 80’s, there was still housing for nearly everyone, albeit often of a very poor quality (tiny apartments, shoddy materials). Current ‘cheap’ housing in Japan is primarily due to a supply overhang from the boom days plus, probably more importantly, restrictions on lending. Contrast this to much of the rest of Asia – China, Taiwan, ROK, etc., where there are strong financial incentives for people to devote an excessive amount of their income into property.
Raw supply and demand is just one aspect of housing affordability, and maybe not even the most important in many markets. There are plenty of examples of where housing costs kept increasing long after notional supply and demand has been met (we saw this in China, Ireland and Spain, where the booms kept going well over a decade past the point there was essentially a unit per person) – likewise, countries where aggressive policies have kept homes available and affordable even when there has been a struggle to meet demand (Austria, Singapore).
Yep. Singapore always amazed me when I worked there until I began to understand land value taxation. Granted it’s a pretty small element in the grand scheme of things these days but its effects and public housing schemes etc still have carried over a lot. Plus a (rich) local friend would complain about his family’s inability to engage in the kind of property speculation etc done elsewhere(!)
As you say, Japan is interesting. My best friend is very senior at Tokyo Uni these days and he doesn’t get particularly phased by depopulation. He is more concerend about the world his (half-Japanese) son will have to navigate in terms of physical asset mismanagment. Japan has begun to quietly return to nuclear power now Fukushima is receding in people’s memories. My friend is deeply concerned. Practically all of Japan’s nuclear sites are at sea-level, reflecting water needs and the fact the weakest factions of the ruling LDP (generally low level agricultural areas) got the plants imposed on them years ago. NIMBYism at its “finest”.
It won’t take much climate change to really give Japan a major headache when it comes to nuclear power. Really, those plants should all be rebuilt on higher ground.