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Links 2/26/2025

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Readers, the fundraiser for Lambert’s very nearly gold retirement watch + all Lambert’s Water Cooler work done in 2024 is ongoing. The goal is 400 donors; so far, we have 132, or 33% of goal (I am very grateful). Any amount helps! If you can give a little, give a little. If you can give a lot, give a lot! Thank you all so much! –lambert

* * *

Top finance ministers snub G20 as global co-operation comes under strain FT

The Big Picture Project Syndicate. URL: there-goes-america.

The Path to American Authoritarianism Foreign Affairs

Climate

Mechanisms behind a steep rise in temperature Arctic News

Renowned physicist warns of unseen dangers in farming technique: ‘Single biggest destructive force on the planet today’ The Cooldown

Syndemics

Steps to prevent and respond to an H5N1 epidemic in the USA Nature

As Texas measles outbreak grows, parents are choosing to vaccinate kids NBC

China?

China gets taste of victory in US tech war thanks to talent, supply chains, organisation South China Morning Post

China could take peacekeeping role in post-war Ukraine – but at what cost? South China Morning Post

Chinese foodies pose as mourners to try funeral home’s noodles BBC

Japanese “goods” | Chinese “guzi” Language Log

The Koreas

Only 31% of South Koreans think unification with North ‘beneficial’ to them Anadolu Agency

Syraqistan

Trump promotes bold vision for Gaza in video that hints at how ‘Riviera of the Middle East’ could look Daily Mail. Holy moley:

AI slop de slop.

Desperation grows in northern Gaza as Palestinians struggle to rebuild their homes AP

Israel’s West Bank offensive: Prelude to annexation? Anadolu Agency

* * *

Bibas family threatens to sue Israeli govt as official propaganda on hostage killings unravels The Grayzone. Commentary:

* * *

Israel and Hamas strike hostage exchange deal, keeping ceasefire intact EuroNews

‘We are still at war’: Syria’s Kurds battle Turkey months after Assad’s fall BBC

Syria’s New Rulers Are Working To Unify Military Power New Lines Magazine

* * *

More than 160 Gazan medics held in Israeli prisons amid reports of torture Guardian

A brief history of Israel’s theft and trafficking of Palestinian organs Mondoweiss

European Disunion

How Germany’s enduring East-West divide is pushing voters to the fringes France24

Dear Old Blighty

Celotex – A Century of Deaths 3 Quarks Daily. The insulation used in Grenfell Tower. See here and here.

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine agrees minerals deal with US FT. Commentary:

And:

‘An Extraordinary Act of Extortion’ Foreign Policy

* * *

WSJ: Ukraine could maintain current pace of war until summer without US aid Ukrainska Pravda

* * *

Kiev Regime Not Just Zelensky Must Go; Trump Outsmarts Macron, US-Russia UN Win, EU/UK Shock (video) Alexander Mercouris, YouTube

Kremlin denies Donald Trump’s claim it agreed to plans for British and international peacekeepers in Ukraine Daily Mail

Lifting sanctions against Russia is off the table for now – Trump Ukrainska Pravda

Poland on opening Cluster 6 in negotiations with Ukraine: it will be tough discussion Ukrainska Pravda. “Cluster” indeed!

South of the Border

After trade dispute, Mexico officially bans the planting of GM corn Reuters

Chile declares emergency as power outage plunges country into darkness Al Jazeera

O Canada!

White House official pushes to axe Canada from Five Eyes intelligence group FT

Liberal party leadership candidates in Canada debate who is best to deal with Trump AP. Tag team, including a Ukromnazi and a central banker.

Trump Administration

US House passes budget resolution to cut taxes and spending by trillions FT. Commentary:

Trump allies circulate mass deportation plan calling for ‘processing camps’ and a private citizen ‘army’ Politico

Fox News White House correspondent blasts new pool policy The Hill

More gusanos, please:

The popularity of the ‘Mar-a-Lago face’ soars in Trump’s inner circle El Pais

DOGE

How Can We Know if Government Payments Stop? An Exploratory analysis of Banking System Warning Signs Nathan Tankus, Notes on the Crises. Important!

Does Amy Gleason Know She’s DOGE Administrator? New York Magazine

Fired cybersecurity chief for Veterans Affairs site warns that health and financial data is at risk AP

Spook Country

Gabbard to fire more than 100 intelligence officers over “explicit” chats Axios. Smooth move!

FBI Also Wants to Break iCloud Advanced Data Protection Michael Tsai

The Bezzle

Crypto trader’s last post before suicide live goes viral, ‘ask yourself if it matters…’ Live Mint. Commentary:

How to buy your way out of a federal lawsuit Popular Information. Coinbase.

Digital Watch

Satya Nadella says AI is yet to find a killer app that matches the combined impact of email and Excel The Register

Delivering Malware Through Abandoned Amazon S3 Buckets Schneier on Security

Hackers Are Using Fake GitHub Code to Steal Your Bitcoin: Kaspersky CoinDesk

The Final Frontier

Asteroid 2024 YR4 is no longer a threat to Earth, scientists say AP. More here.

Mars once had oceans, ‘vacation-style’ beaches, study suggests Anadalu Agency

Zeitgeist Watch

How people think about being alone shapes their experience of loneliness Nature

Groves of Academe

An Accurate Organizational Chart of Your University McSweeney’s Internet Tendency. Can confirm.

Class Warfare

How an obscure advisory board lets utilities steal $50b/year from ratepayers Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic

The Long Nights and Drug Addiction That Drove a Banker to Insider Trading WSJ

What Felt Impossible Became Possible Dan SInker

Antidote du jour (Martin Falbisoner):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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139 comments

  1. gerald

    Re: Liberal Party Leaders in Canada
    Remember that the central bankster is the godfather to the Ukronazi’s son. small world, eh.

    1. Colonel Smithers

      Thank you, Gerald.

      That is interesting as the nazi often bigged up the bankster when writing, often the FT and Economist, not the Washington Post so much, and on air, usually the BBC and CNN. Both went to Oxford as Rhodes scholars.

      Further to the small world, the bankster came to the attention of Cameron and Osborne at a gathering at the Cornbury, Oxfordshire, estate of the bankster’s brother in law, Lord Rotherwick*. They are married to sisters. Cameron and Osborne lived nearby, a deracinated elite cluster called the Chipping Norton set. Cameron was MP for the area. *Bankster, too, and colonial business heir and aristo landowner.

      Carney’s allegiance is to his former employer, Goldman Sachs. At the Ministry of Finance, in tandem with minister Ralph Goodale, and, later, at the Bank of Canada, he put pressure on Canadian regulator Julie Dickson to relax rules on banks and align with the US. It was Dickson, not, Carnage, who saved Canada(‘s) banks. I have heard first hand accounts from four different former government officials.

      1. Ann

        Thank you very much, Colonel. I watched both “debates.” Do you know anything about Chrystia Freeland? She negotiated trade agreements with the EU and ASEAN. Trump hates her. She said she would go immediately to Mexico and meet with Sheinbaum so we could work together to avoid Trump “picking us off one by one.”

      2. CanCyn

        Thanks Colonel. I dunno who I fear more, Carney or Freeland or Polievre. If I were a member of the Liberal party I’d be supporting Karina Gould who actually has some socialist leanings but I don’t guess she’ll win. We will soon be in a similar ‘lesser of two evils’ choice that the US faced recently.

          1. CanCyn

            Yeah, I hear ya ….when asked about it in an interview she said sometimes you gotta do what the boss asks whether you agree or not. But unfortunately she wouldn’t commit to fixing it if she were elected leader. There are no good choices. I have flipped back and forth between NDP and Green for many elections now – Provincial and Federal

        2. eg

          Karina is my MP — nice person, but hasn’t a ghost of a chance in the piranha pool that is the Canadian Federal Liberal Party.

      3. Ann

        Me, too, CanCyn, but she could never beat Poilieve. I expect Trump to pull a Bibi and announce annexation of Canada to the media and say, “All that land in Canada is now free, just go and take it.” Then we will see a repeat of the Oklahoma land rush but with trucks instead of wagons, massed at the border, overwhelming the border guards, foaming in, guns blazing, driving into Banff and setting up warlord shanty towns, killing all the mountain goats and setting fire to the trees. Until the first winter.

        1. Wukchumni

          I see more of a rush to get health care that wont cost you an arm and a house as ‘whetbacks’ line up behind Canadians who have been waiting so long for elective care that premature rigor mortis has set in.

          1. Ann

            Settlers. We’ll call them settlers.

            During the debate last night, when Freeland called herself “a ferocious mother” all I could think of was Sara Palin.

            Yeah, a ferocious motherfuucker.

        2. jrkrideau

          You do not even need to wait for the first winter. We will kill Americans if one hostile US soldier steps over the border.

          By the way, Canadians tend to be “nice” which means we do not understand the restraints that, let’s say, a mafia don understands about violence. Once set off we really have no constraints.

        1. Laura in So Cal

          Yup. I’ve known several guys over the past 20 years get fired for having inappropriate sexusl stuff on their computer. One guy had a poster of a female model in a barely there bikini as wall paper on his screen. He was given 24 hours to take it down, he didn’t and was walked out the door.

          Firing people for using company platforms for personal stuff seems like a slam dunk. I don’t even use my work computer to do innocuous personal things like load digital coupons on my grocery store account or shop Amazon on my lunch break.

    2. Di Modica's Dumb Steer

      To be fair, I’m not bothered by who’s part of what polycule and how the different groups of people pruriently intermingle (as unhygienic as I may personally find it all). That’s their business.

      But you’d find me dead before I would type anything like that on a work chat; I’d be extremely reticent to leave written evidence AT ALL, regardless of the medium. Even if, like is probable with these people, that they cannot access a personal device during normal work hours.

      It feels less a woke thing than a rebuke of poor impulse control. And with how it seems every single country’s politicians are beholden to someone else’s professional honeypot operation, it’s not the dumbest move.

      1. ChrisPacific

        Re: the honeypots, I do wonder if some of them might have been writing sexually explicit messages for legitimate reasons as part of their job. Although I suppose they probably wouldn’t have been using agency systems if that were the case.

        1. Lefty Godot

          Maybe all the sex stuff was just code words for some super-secret intelligence operation on which the safety of the free world depends?

  3. The Rev Kev

    “Only 31% of South Koreans think unification with North ‘beneficial’ to them”

    ‘92.4% of respondents believe unification would benefit people of North Korea, according to poll by Korea Institute for National Unification’

    Of course you have to ask yourself what percentage of North Koreans think that unifying with the South would be beneficial for them. The North may be autocratic, but it is a lot more stable than the South where recently the President tried to impose martial law and create a dictatorship for himself.

      1. The Rev Kev

        For Biden, setting fire to eastern Europe was not enough. The old fool tried to get another war going in the Korean peninsular and ignoring the fact that they have nukes now. Or maybe this was one of Sullivan’s bright ideas. Trump may be causing all sorts of chaos & damage both at home and abroad right now but at least he isn’t sitting in his chair juggling the nuclear football.

    3. Jeremy Grimm

      Instead of North-South unification, suppose North and South Korea were able to agree to allowing Russia to extend the Trans-Siberian Railroad down to Seoul? I still think that might be beneficial to all parties and would avoid the disruptions of a full unification. I know that does not play well with u.s. anti-Russia policies but I do not believe those policies benefit the Koreas.

      I believe much of the assessments of a North-South Korea unification draw lessons from the costs and difficulties of unifying East and West Germany.

  4. AG

    re: Germany

    One reason for the unexpected success of THE LEFT is seldomly spoken about – it´s their optimism.

    And that leads me to the odd parallels between Wagenknecht´s realistic but bleak message and her partner Oskar Lafontaine´s role 1990 and his defeat in the national elections.

    The older ones might remember that Lafontaine was always close to becoming chancellor but was disliked too much by the establishment to let him. And as such he additionally didn´t sell dreams like THE LEFT did now, and as chancellor Kohl and the CDU did in 1990 – but realism – like Wagenknecht and BSW do now.

    Incidentally both elections 1990 and 2025 ignited over the relationship between East and West Germany.

    While Kohl was in favour of expanding German D-Mark to all of the former GDR and set an exchange rate of 1:1 between both currencies Lafontaine correctly pointed at the longterm risks and opposed Kohl´s move.

    East German voters did not want to hear Lafontaine´s message.
    And German mass media of course abused that and amplified it. Instead of offering a solution.

    And now it is Lafontaine´s partner Wagenknecht who sold the bitter thruth. Unlike THE LEFT. It´s so much easier to agitate against non-existent Nazis and be part of the good guys than fighting the rich in your own quater and admitting ugly truths.

    Is it coincidence that both Lafontaine and Wagenknecht are a couple and closely working together?

    1. Schopenhauer

      Thanks AG for your important remarks.
      I would like to add to this picture the full-front campaign against Lafontaine when he became German Finance Minister under chancellor Schröder. Lafontaine and his deputy, the economist Heiner Flassbeck, were determined “to close the casino” called european financial market. from the start of his term he had to deal with heavy pressure from the “usual suspects”, he was even declared “Europe’s most dangerous man” (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-saturday-profile-oskar-lafontaine-europe-s-most-dangerous-man-1187707.html ). Shortly after that he quit the job and left the SPD.
      Needless to say, but he was completely correct with his idea, 2007 and the following years showed that.

    2. jobs

      Thanks for that background information, AG. Didn’t know that about Lafontaine.

      Against all odds, I still harbor some hope for SW and her upstart gang. Germany needs people like them more than ever, because they have ideas that actually have a chance of working long-term.

      1. AG

        Hope dies last. And I share your sentiment re: SW.
        But I have no more uplifting thing to say about the FRG.
        The place is gone.

  5. The Rev Kev

    ‘JUST IN: President Trump shares a video of an AI vision for the Gaza Strip, ends with Trump having drinks at a pool with Benjamin Netanyahu.’

    For some weird reason, I have noticed a whole bunch of videos popping up on YouTube the past day or two mocking Trump or his son Barron using AI. Here is one example-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwIzl9fF1U8 (2:46 mins)

    If this is the resistance, it’s not going to do anything.

    1. YuShan

      That Gaza video is insane. At first I didn’t believe he actually posted that. I thought it was some kind of fake to make it look like he posted it, but apparently this is real?!

      Best case he is just trolling. But then at the very minimum he demonstrates a level of sociopathy and lack of empathy that is just beyond belief. Sadly, at this point it’s impossible to know if this guy is actually serious or that he really think this is funny.

      Even if he doesn’t care about the people of Gaza, he does enormous reputational damage to his own country with this.

      2. .Tom

        Is it beyond belief? Yes, I admit to being really surprised. Otoh, now that I’ve seen it, it kinda fits. I refer you to DJG’s comment earlier today on the Neuberger post

        The genocide going on in Palestine, sponsored by the US of A, is testament to the vileness of the U.S. elites, bipartisan. It is also testament to the rottenness of U.S. culture, which has produced no peace movement, no pastors speaking against war (except the Pope), and no artists dissenting.

        here.

        1. S brown

          You are incorrect and unjust. There have been massive protests in the US against the genocide: on campuses and in the streets. A majority of Americans are against it and want to stop arming Israel. What is our government do? Taking away our rights to peacefully protest and speak out against this.

          1. .Tom

            In the first half of last year there were significant protests, especially on some campuses. They were stopped in a big theatrical show of brutality and intolerance. At some colleges students were not allowed to resume studies without signing a contract that they will keep quiet. There were also big theatrical firings of faculty bosses who were insufficiently intolerant of protest. That jack-boot stamping out free speech last year worked pretty effectively and led to the situation we have now, which has been fairly stable since the start of the fall semester.

            There are a lot of reasons why someone might not protest and one of them is fear of the consequences. The institutional, employment, and social punishments can be life changing. (Many Europeans also have criminal punishments to fear.)

            I am grateful that brave protestors made their stand and I don’t blame them for what happened next. Some of them did well and put up a good fight and thanks to that we know now where we stand, which is what I and I believe DJG were bemoaning. It is a sick society. Just how sick? The Trump Gaza video is one example.

          2. matt

            There are still protests happening on my college campus. I walked by one last week. Also I’ve been to multiple Gaza benefit concerts.
            Consequences for the protestors at my school were basically nonexistent. All the student protestors had their charges dropped. People who weren’t students did get a trespassing order so they can’t come on campus anymore. Tbh, a lot of the protestors acted like they were treated a lot worse than they actually were so they could act like the victims in the narrative. I get to say this. I was arrested. The conditions were fine. I was confident the charges were going to be dropped and then they were. The people who claim being held in police custody for 2-3 hours and having to ask to pee was “inhumane” and “traumatic” are whiny and annoying. imo. My college’s president send out a report about how he didn’t have all the information, acted in haste, and regretted it. I do go to school in a very crunchy state tho, which probably helped.
            Anyway. The reason I suspect campus protests stopped was because everybody went home for the summer, then it took time for them to get re-acclimated to campus, then it was cold. Also fall semester classes tend to be harder than spring semester classes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the protesting ramped up again towards the end of the spring semester.

        2. flora

          It’s not like people protesting here in the US are being threatened with expulsion from schools, deportation, losing their jobs, or being charged with hate crimes. right? And it’s even worse in UK and some countries in Europe.

          1. judy2shoes

            “We are not worth more. They are not worth less.” S. Brian Willson

            I have to wonder at what point the masses, who are protesting now and being sidelined by fear of repercussions, will come to the conclusion that their own self-interests (money, jobs, security, etc.) are less important than the interests of others who are dying by the thousands because of the imperialism of the u.s. and its gangsta allies. See Brian Willson above. I’m not trying to shame anyone; it’s takes massive amounts of courage to do what Brian did, and I don’t have that kind of courage. I also think that if the masses did have that kind of courage, then ultimately their own interests are being served, too, in other kinds of ways.

    2. Carolinian

      Apparently the only people who actually approve of Trump’s Riviera plan would be Bibi and Bibi’s family friend Jared Kushner who is seemingly the source of it all. Kushner has potential real estate development deals with various Arab government financiers

      https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/can-jared-kushners-investment-firm-connect-gulf-money-and-trump-gaza-plan

      Kushner is of course Trump’s son in law. His father was just named Trump’s ambassador to France.

      1. Neutrino

        Ex-con Big K, with his shiny pardon, can pay homage to various French felons, some of whom were even politicians!

        1. Emma

          Aaron Good of American Exception is currently trying a series called “the gray alliance”, which gets into the intertwine history of the American Jewish mob figures and Zionism starting even before 1948. Unfortunately it’s behind a paywall.

          Max Arvo’s recent series on Jack Ruby may be of interest, as there is definitely a Zionist mobster angle in addition to many many inexplicable deep state connections. https://www.kennedysandking.com/content/author/415-maxarvo

    3. Mikel

      The video of an AI vision for the Gaza Strip is just a different version of the Israeli air force’s flyover at the funeral in Lebanon.

      1. bertl

        I do not pretend to understand evil, but I understand when a society is surrounded and being destroyed by evil, and the West, its media and politicians, it’s cancellers and its apologists for the vilest of crimes, are complicit with the dark, vicious, inhuman – another time would say satanic – forces of evil. And the BBC doesn’t even bend like reed in the wind, it just snaps and disintegrates and is blown away like so much chaff in the gaseous, stench drenched wind of the guilty.

  6. flora

    An accounting.

    Empty Gestures
    How Performative Activism Enabled Mass Persecution

    https://stylman.substack.com/p/empty-gestures

    Reality engineering requires three components: institutional power to create the narrative, social pressure to enforce it, and the deliberate persecution of anyone who challenges either. The COVID era provided the perfect case study in how this machinery operates – and revealed how performative activism serves as its most potent enforcement mechanism.

  7. Ben Panga

    https://archive.ph/d1ryQ

    (The FT article: US House passes budget resolution to cut taxes and spending by trillion)

    “The bill instructs the House energy and commerce committee to slash $880bn in spending, a move widely seen as targeting the Medicaid health insurance programme for low-income Americans. Similarly, a call for the agriculture committee to reduce spending by $230bn is aimed at a food aid scheme called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.”

    1. The Rev Kev

      Maybe it’s part of a cunning plan. Most of the services right now are not meeting recruitment targets but through these two major cutbacks, it means that in Trump America the only way that poor people can eat and get medical services is by joining the military. In the Victorian era, the British Army use to say that their two biggest recruiters were Unemployment and Jack Frost. This would be more of the same. Of course the next generation of poorer Americans will be more malnourished and sicker so not fit for military service but that would be for the next admins to deal with.

      1. Ben Panga

        What if the cunning plan is replace the enlistees with drones, and just let/help the poors die?

        Elon can add a “Not economically productive” flag to whatever crappy system his incels install. Then just cut off the money. You know they’ve at least thought about this.

        1. Emma

          At the current pace, I expect suicide booths (along with a “voluntary” debt forgiveness for organs scheme) to be floated by June and come into operation by October.

          Our savings grace may be their unwillingness to obtain needed parts from China resulting in a multi-year delay on the implementation end.

            1. AG

              thanks!
              (I might have added the booth self-destruct after realizing it failed. But that would have been too anarchic for narrative purposes and more 1970s self-sabotaging style)

    2. Emma

      Notice that their undoubtedly inflated report of savings is still more than $2 trillion less per year than the tax cuts and increases to defense and border patrol budgets. I guess that offer to cut defense by 50 percent with Russia and China has been withdrawn.

      I haven’t dug into the details of the resolution but it sounds like they intend to make it up largely by imposing a high tariff on all imported goods. This would have a catastrophic impact on 80-90 percent of the American population who are already essentially living paycheck to paycheck, who will also contend with price impacts from restricting the ability of undocumented individuals from working in agricultural and meat packing sectors.

    3. converger

      It is bizarre to watch this budget cosplay unfold as the nation quietly sails towards a government shutdown next month.

      I think that is deliberate. Expect Trump to use the shutdown as an excuse to abruptly recess Congress indefinitely and effectively rule by decree, to the fawning admiration of his cult sycophants.

  8. AG

    Anatol Lieven has this short comment on the demise of the progressive Western order:
    The Mask of Imperialism
    https://harpers.org/archive/2025/03/the-mask-of-imperialism-anatol-lieven/

    “American liberal internationalism, with its innate (and intellectually unavoidable) belief in the goodness and moral superiority of Western democracy in general, and the United States in particular, makes this form of empathy far harder to achieve. The result is that liberal analysts prefer the sanctification of allies and the demonization of rivals to objective and informed analysis. If there is only one “right side of history,” and only one path for human progress, then there is no point in studying other countries in any depth.

    This feeds the Manichaean “you are with us or you are against us” strain in American culture; if America represents the only righteous path of human progress, its adversaries must be intrinsically evil. This can lead to the grotesque irony of self-described internationalists engaging in feral, chauvinist hatred of other peoples. Liberal internationalism of this kind also reinforces the dangerous ignorance that Daniel Ellsberg invoked when he remarked that at no point in American history, including when the Johnson Administration began to bomb Vietnam, could a senior official pass a freshman exam in a course on Vietnamese history or culture.”

    He ends with Eisenhower´s Iron Cross speech to then add:

    “Liberal internationalists would probably agree that, in certain respects, U.S. democracy has suffered a grievous decline since Ike was president.”

    One question – was US democracy under Ike really that much better?

    When those who questioned mainstream political views were threatened with prison or the destruction of their lives, when snitches were lurking everywhere. Are the 1950s when there was an omerta on Leftism seriously an example? When an era-defining anti-union picture like “On the Waterfront” got 8 Academy Awards? And the US was lying over the RU threat while it had 10 times as many nukes? Not to speak of Jim Crow realities. Or the lack women´s rights. Or Eisenhower´s Executive Order 10450 which banned lesbian and gay federal workers by 1953.

    I find it seriously odd to paint such a rosy picture of that era as has become so common nowadays.

    Had the 1950s been such a honeymoon where did the anger of the 1960s come from…

    1. Carolinian

      Yes Ike was a FP horror show and only sounded his warnings on the way out the door. JFK then ran as a cold warrior himself, made some peacenik noises once in office and was killed. It seems dubious that the cold warriors felt the need to do this for their sake but who knows? We are the United States of Deja Vu.

      1. Roland

        Eisenhower got a truce in Korea.

        Eisenhower put an end to the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956.

        Eisenhower didn’t start any open wars.

        There’s much to dislike in US foreign policy, but Ike was more dovish than most–far from a “horror show.”

        McCarthyism was mostly a Congress thing, not a President thing. That Red Scare started in earnest from 1949, when the Communists took over China, and the USSR got the Bomb. It didn’t happen because of Eisenhower. Rather, it was a domestic political reality that Eisenhower had to cope with.

        The anger of the 60’s came mostly on account of Vietnam. But it wasn’t Eisenhower who sent American conscripts over there to fight.

        1. Anne Twitty

          True, it wasn’t Eisenhower who sent in troops. However, here he is giving a interview in 1954, in which he talks about the domino theory and adds that Vietnam is simply too important to risk losing.
          (Office of the Historian
          Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Indochina, Volume XIII, Part 1). I also recall reading — in Janet Flanner’s Paris diaries, I think — that at the time of Dienbienphu, Eisenhower assured the French that the U.S would not allow Indochina to fall to the rebel forces.

          So he laid the groundwork for what came later

          1. anahuna

            Better known as “anahuna” — don’t know how the name on my long-ago birth certificate slipped through, but no harm done.

    2. David Gutknecht

      In addition, according to historian Alfred McCoy, in his eight years as President, Eisenhower approved 170 major covert operations in 45 countries: “In effect, clandestine manipulation became Washington’s preferred mode of exercising old-fashioned imperial hegemony in a new world of nominally sovereign nations.”

    3. schmoe

      Are things more corrupt now than before, or does the greater access to information via social media just open people’s eyes to what was always happening (for those who wish to look)?
      A few items are definitely worse:
      1) The MSM is essentially TASS for PMC and Neocons. Even in the 1980s there were actual debates on foreign policy on CNN on topics such as funding the Contras. Unthinkable at this time re: Russia. The MSM did a very poor job on Vietnam, including silence on bombing Laos to bits, but Walter Cronkite did note during the Tet offensive that the war was not going well.
      2) The total insanity in the Middle East increased after the Camp David peace accords as that gave Israel carte blanche for Lebanon massacres of the early 1980s, although massacres of Palestinians started in 1948.

      That said, reading about Churchill, our (to me) inexplicable entry into WW I, and various other events shows that questionable activity “behind the curtain” was prevalent. Huey Long stated “Corrupted by wealth and power, your government is like a restaurant with only one dish. They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side. But no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen”, so it was not all peaches and cream prior to the rise of PACs and systematic corruption of mind-blogging portions.

      1. Di Modica's Dumb Steer

        Regarding your WW1 comment, I was just recommended a book positing US entry was possibly to forestall the development of a planned rail line from Europe to the Persian oil fields, which would have changed the balance of world power entirely. Authors seemed knowledgeable on an interview I heard on the American Exception podcast.

        Follow the Pipelines: Uncovering the Mystery of a Lost Spy and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil
        by Charlotte and Daniel Dennett

        1. schmoe

          I had not heard that theory but will look at reviews of that book (update: from a quick summary of reviews it seems more focused on post-WW II).

          1. Di Modica's Dumb Steer

            As to the book, it’s very possible the host and interviewee started somewhere and ended up far afield…the conversations are usually sprawling. Though I could have sworn she mentioned this specific point. Might be part of a bigger thesis? My unread book pile is kinda nuts.

        2. Roland

          I think that the USA’s entry in the Great War was largely on account of the enormous short-term loans that US banks had made to the Entente powers during 1915-16. i.e. the USA had already, de facto, committed itself to the Entente.

          At the time those loans were made, many believed that once the Entente were able bring to bear their aggregate superiority in men and material, they were bound to prevail over the Central Powers. It seemed like a good bet, judging on the statistics.

          And American financiers bet very heavily. The lending was on such a scale that, if the Entente failed to win the war, the entire US financial sector would collapse.

          Note that Bryan, the Secretary of State, had warned Wilson repeatedly that if the US gov’t permitted large private war loans to be made, that US neutrality would become both farcical, and impossible to maintain. This was a big reason why Bryan resigned.

          Now look at the sequence of events. In 1916, the big Allied offensives failed to achieve victory. In March 1917, Russia had a revolution which rendered doubtful their continued effectiveness as a major combatant power. The sure bet on the Entente no longer looked too sure.

          A major power looked about to drop out. How to make good the strength of the Entente–and save the skins of all those influential profiteers and speculators?

          In April 1917, the USA seized on a long-available pretext to declare war. Immediately the US gov’t guaranteed all war loans. There was, in effect, a bank bailout, which I once calculated to be, relative to the size of the US economy, about twice the size of the 2009 bailout. And, of course, suspension of the gold standard and wartime inflation rapidly diminished the real value of prior debts.

          I’m not saying the USA really wanted to be involved in the war. Indeed, they had made little effort to prepare their army prior to their declaring. But the bourgeoisie of the USA had been, however, fully intent on profiting from the war and, in doing so, committed themselves to the Entente.

          The role of private finance in bringing the whole nation to war forms the background to the postwar Neutrality Acts, which expressly sought to limit that kind of activity. One sad chapter follows another.

          1. schmoe

            Thanks for the in-depth response.

            I have never seen reliable figures regarding Wall Street’s exposure to the Entente powers, and bankers are notorious for screaming that the world will end unless they get a bailout, so while I do not dismiss that, I am still a bit skeptical. It is safe to say an aggregation of issues were involved, but the sudden war fever after the German submarine blockade (the Entente blocked German ports as well) and Zimmerman telegram still seems “off” to me. BTW “The Illusion of Victory” is a great book on this topic.

          2. Di Modica's Dumb Steer

            This is truly excellent. Do you know of any decent books that cover this? I’ve never read an account of the first world war re US involvement that makes any real sense, and it’s an obvious blind spot for me.

            As to the book, it’s very possible the host and interviewee started somewhere and ended up far afield…the conversations are usually sprawling. Though I could have sworn…

          3. eg

            “The role of private finance in bringing the whole nation to war”

            As per Smedley Butler’s War is a Racket

            And so with the rest of the dirty tricks, coups, sanctions and wars of choice ever since — same as it ever was …

    4. amfortas the hippie

      Anatol seems to be suggesting that “Our Betters” embark on something like a 12 Step Program for problem imperialists.
      …ive been advocating the same dern thing for going on 30 years.

  9. Lieaibolmmai

    Really appreciated “What Felt Impossible Became Possible , because it is something I see it happening, probably even more quickly than in the 20’s.

    The Klan—like this new batch of fascists currently occupying the White House—were massively corrupt and power hungry and that corruption and internal struggles for power lead to their undoing.

    The will eat their own faces off faster than they can botox them back together. To me this is all linked to the bitcoin rug pull suicide and Trumps deranged Gaza video. People in the 1920’s were seeing wealth inequality but nothing like it is today. So everything is quicker, and more fragile in my mind. My only fear is that what follows will be a Greater Depression”.

    This is why poor Jesus is out of favor and rich Jesus is the ideal now, it is all about wealth inequality. Everyone is scared of losing what they have, preferring Mammon over God (I use those terms metaphorically).

  10. caucus99percenter

    The front page of Michael Tsai’s website (source of the link about the FBI demanding a backdoor that breaks encryption) bears a link to an excerpt from a commencement address by the noted physicist Richard P. Feynman warning against “cargo cult science”:

    https://www.atmos.albany.edu/facstaff/rfovell/NWP/Feynman_cargo_cult_science_excerpt.txt

    Are those who claim to be the voice of “Science” in public discourse (and other figures who urge us to “trust” It = them) living up to Feynman’s criterion of scientific integrity? I’ll try to remember always to ask myself that question from now on.

    1. Mikel

      You left out the real hook in this story.
      “from the Caltech commencement address given in 1974.”

      51 years down the rabbit hole.

  12. mrsyk

    Chinese foodies pose as mourners to try funeral home’s noodles,

    “”I heard the noodles here were very good,” they wrote. “I thought about how short life was, and got another bowl.”

      1. AG

        “Wedding Crashers”
        4 min.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4D5zScOFKU
        (the meat loaf scream)

        I was never sure what to think of “Crashers”, never found it that convincing, it´s fame a bit out of proportion?
        anyhow
        Ferrell used the same idea here in “The Other Guys” (dir. Adam McKay) – average dude has hot wife/girl-friend and is in fact a womanizer which makes no sense to his hot male pal, Mark Wahlberg:
        9 min.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hdD_Xel6yo

        p.s. it is interesting how Wahlberg made a career over combining clichés of conventional male hotness and dumbness with a twist (ballet-dancing cop e.g.).

        Owen Wilson from “Wedding Crashers” worked in a similar direction along a more traditional, refined Cary Grant line. Handsome but inept for life, either for being too intellectual or too childish.

      1. mrsyk

        a spaghetti western, one scene I particularly enjoyed was the etiquette class at the restaurant. Plus there’s a tutorial near the beginning on how to properly enjoy a bowl of ramen. One of my favorite movies.
        So it must be that the sound of slurping is not offensive to one in mourning?

      3. Don

        Don’t know if any of you have a sharp enough ear for languages to have noticed, but the language spoken in the spied-upon rival noodle shops in the film is Mandarin, not Japanese, which represents reality in Japan; noodle soup in Japan is historically Chinese food, and many ramen shops are Chinese run.

        I love everything about this film, and also recommend other work by the director, which are nothing like Tampopo, and instead are grim Japanese noir gangsta/police procedurals.

  13. DJG, Reality Czar

    The way I read the links and twiXts, and they way I am trying to digest the technical details, the deal on rare earth minerals is indeed a way for the U.S. of A. to continue the war by other means. The U.S. gets to loot Ukraine overtly and actively.

    The tell was Boris Johnson, I have to admit. Anything Boris Johnson is for, I likely oppose.

    This post with analysis by Yves Smith, Brian Berletic, and John Helmer is worth a reading or another reading:

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/minority-reports-how-endowment-effect-would-make-ukraine-mineral-deal-as-a-tar-baby-brian-berletic-on-us-preserving-usaid-regime-change-capabilities-john-helmer-on-shambolic-us-conduct-of-ukraine-n.html

    The plan for Gaza Vegas and for Ukraine as Turnip with Blood Sucked from It are simply Trump’s more meretricious takes on imperialism. Pecunia non olet.

    In the case of Biden and family, the difference was that they were determined to be respectable (the old cliché of “lace-curtain Irish”) so that the money grubbing had to be done in the shadows.

    And in both cases, Ukraine and Palestine, the U S of A is sponsoring genocides (just a gentle reminder, as your utility company writes you these days… of what goes around comes around).

      1. Carolinian

        Several commentators have said that Trump throwing in with the Russians at the UN shows that he really is washing his hands of Ukraine. If so the talk about the minerals–which had already be signed away to others–could be mere PR to make it look like we somehow came out even. Since events seem to be moving fast no need to speculate as we will soon know the situation. It will either be Trump gives Putin all of Putin’s demands or the war continues for a few months with the weapons already sent.

        1. converger

          This is simply Trump inviting Putin to make a counter-offer. Putin will be all too happy to oblige in exchange for a free hand snapping up the Baltics, re-assembling a colonial empire, and snuggling up to his kleptocratic US and Euro buddies.

          1. bertl

            It may be a outline economic deal has already been cut which will be ultimately beneficial to both the US and Russia.

            Russia’s victory in Ukraine will most likely result in the collapse of NATO, the EU post-Maastricht institutions and the erosion of the euro and the return to national currencies.

            The Baltic states do not appear capable of fitting into any European institution without seeking to disrupt it and attempt to turn it into an anti-Russian platform will probably be left to drown in their own juice as a new framework for European security evolves.

            The process may mean career death for many politicians, NGO employees and Deep State operatives, but I hardly see that as a bad thing. With any luck – and a lot of careful politics – many states may choose – or be forced – to re-design their constitutional orders to better reflect the interests of the majority of the citizens whilst providing adequate safeguards for minority opinions and reflect the demands of the real world more accurately than they seem capable of at the present time.

        2. Kouros

          I take it as lip service. Every government meeting in Canada starts with acknowledging the unceeded (therefore stolen) territories of such and such First Nation. But land is not ceeded back, evah.

          The performane at UN is just that. If the US has the stomach to support Israeli genocide at UN, why not this. For the price of nothing the US thinks they might get something…

  14. Bugs

    The Long Nights and Drug Addiction That Drove a Banker to Insider Trading WSJ

    Spoiler alert – not only is this whiney, entitled perp blaming his obviously immoral and illegal acts on Adderall (for which he admits to lying about symptoms to get a script), he ratted out his accomplices!

    And check out the Ralph Laurenesque photo shoot. Omg what a maroon.

    1. Wukchumni

      The 3rd Reich had ‘Panzerschokolade’ to keep the troops alert & awake, while our Unabankers rely on Adderall to alert them to arbitrage possibilities and/or being woke.

  15. timbers

    Michael Tracey

    “Trump is framing the continuation of US support as a great deal for US taxpayers because now we’re supposedly going to make a lot of money from rare earth minerals in the Donbas.” All USA has to do is send in troops to protect it’s “investment.” That’s only right and good, because those minerals will belong to America.

    Trump says a lot of things. Who knows what he says is real and what is not.

    But, just like in Syria, will US troops be sent to Ukraine to secure oil…err…minerals?

    That’s “smart” because you…err the oligarchs…are getting something in return, something Biden never did. Oil from Syria, minerals from Ukraine. Smart. So Trump is smarter for America than Biden was.

    Of course Russia does have a hammer if she will use it – allowing it’s military take out the electric grid. That might speed up things in Russia’s favor.

    1. MicaT

      It’s going to take many years before they even break ground on the rare earth mines or is it lithium? Surveying it, moving equipment, building materials handling equipment, power lines, roads, water lines.
      And that’s without a major war moving in that direction.
      And then after you’ve done all that where do you refine if? Sure could build refineries in Ukraine, and that’s a whole other big project to fund and construct
      Hard to see it as anything other than a sales pitch

    2. ChrisFromGA

      US security guarantees are specifically excluded. So Tracey is making shit up. Or just extrapolating past Trump behavior (Syria) to current circumstances, which are very different.

      1. timbers

        Since when did US need a Security Agreement to intervene anywhere? See my comment in Yevs next post. Tracey making stuff up does not = this not being a pretext to justify American intervention in Ukraine “to protect American interests”.

  16. pjay

    – ‘The Path to American Authoritarianism’ – Foreign Affairs

    Once again, against my better judgment, curiosity got the better of me. I had to know how this Foreign Affairs article was going to to depict our “path” to “authoritarianism.” Fortunately I didn’t have to wait long; here’s the first sentence:

    “Donald Trump’s first election to the presidency in 2016 triggered an energetic defense of democracy from the American establishment.”

    I thought that was an interesting opening statement given the authors’ primary fear:

    “But authoritarianism does not require the destruction of the constitutional order. What lies ahead is not fascist or single-party dictatorship but competitive authoritarianism—a system in which parties compete in elections but the incumbent’s abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition. Most autocracies that have emerged since the end of the Cold War fall into this category… Under competitive authoritarianism, the formal architecture of democracy, including multiparty elections, remains intact. Opposition forces are legal and aboveground, and they contest seriously for power. Elections are often fiercely contested battles in which incumbents have to sweat it out. And once in a while, incumbents lose… But the system is not democratic, because incumbents rig the game by deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics. Competition is real but unfair.”

    So “competitive authoritarianism” involves “deploying the machinery of government to attack opponents and co-opt critics.” But what the Establishment did during the Russiagate era and the lawfare offensive that followed was energetically defending “democracy”. It’s Trump that’s going to “weaponize” the state!

    As always, the article’s long, long list of potential Trumpian dangers is not without some truth value. But Trump is simply the culmination of decades of bipartisan rot that has concentrated wealth and power and turned our “democratic” institutions into mere rubber stamps for the oligarchs. The authors have no interest in providing the real history of this process, however. How could they, in the Establishment’s flagship journal?

    2. AG

      Thanks for doing the labour. I lack the time (and willingness I guess.)
      Funny thing about these FA texts: If taken literally one could more often than not apply them to countries the authors never have in mind, like say Germany or all of Europe. Just the longer description you quote sums up very well the fake nature of it all:

      “Under competitive authoritarianism, the formal architecture of democracy, including multiparty elections, remains intact. Opposition forces are legal and aboveground, and they contest seriously for power. Elections are often fiercely contested battles in which incumbents have to sweat it out. And once in a while, incumbents lose”

      This is modern-day parliamentary democracy!

      p.s. it´s so beautiful when empire delivers the core truths and proof (without wanting to) of its rotten nature.

      Apocalypse Now (1979) – Kurtz (Marlon Brando) is reading a “Time” article about Vietnam War
      3 min.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBUv7eMTjw

  17. AG

    re: Germany and conscientious objectors

    Hardly reported in the mass media was a landmark decision by the Federal Court of Justice from Jan. 16th. 2025.
    (It is different from the Constitutional Court – as former is subject to German DoJ.)

    It stated that Ukrainian refugees who are conscientious objecters have no right to demand asylum as Ukraine has been subject to an attack under violation of Art. 51, a war of aggression.

    Today NACHDENKSEITEN have reminded of this decision stressing the threat to German conscientious objectors in case of war via a door that has been left open by the court.

    LEGAL TRIBUNE ONLINE reported on the decision here 12/2/25
    German-language (use google it´s free access site)

    “Conscientious objection does not protect against extradition”
    https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/4ars1124-bgh-kriegsdienstverweigerung-russischer-angriffskrieg-ukraine-auslieferung

    NACHDENKSEITEN with an interview with lawyer Rene Boyke 26/2/25
    here too use google – currently archive.is won´t archive machine-translated sites:

    “In the event of war, there will be no right to conscientious objection in Germany”
    https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=129326

    4 years ago I would have ignored this. But now acknowlegding that we are in fact ruled by mad man and women anything has become plausible and must be reckoned with – (which would make for a fine essay over the term fascism and its political-aesthetic origins in the 1920s and Mussolini and how it applies to the present protesters to alleged Nazism in this country.)

  18. Wukchumni

    Blighted city gonna set my soul
    Gonna set my soul on fire
    Got a whole lot of money that’s ready to burn
    So get those seaside highrises up higher

    There’s a couple million Palestinians out there
    And they’re all livin’ devil may care
    And I’m just the devil with a lot of dare
    So Viva Gaza Vegas, Viva Gaza Vegas

    How I wish that those Gazans
    Weren’t in the way
    And even if there were no more
    I wouldn’t miss a minute of sleep anyway

    Oh, there’s casinos, and casitas, and seaside ideal
    A fortune won on every Jared deal
    All you need is a mass exodus and a nerve of steel
    Viva Gaza Vegas, Viva Gaza Vegas

    Viva Gaza Vegas with your ersatz fascism
    And the local population crashin’
    All their hopes down the drain
    Viva Gaza Vegas turnin’ the rubble of a hubble
    And turnin’ consternation into condos
    If you seize it once, you’ll never have to seize it again

    I’m gonna keep on my campaign run, I’m gonna have me some fun
    If it costs me my constituents their very last Dime
    If they wind up broke up well
    I’ll always remember that I had a swingin’ time
    I’m gonna give it everything I’ve got
    Lady luck, please, let the dice stay hot
    And let me shoot a seven with every shot

    Viva Gaza Vegas, Viva Gaza Vegas
    Viva Gaza Vegas, Viva, Viva Gaza Vegas

    Viva Las Vegas, performed by Elvis Presley

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MO1KyNUOIs

  19. The Rev Kev

    “How people think about being alone shapes their experience of loneliness”

    The media seems to be the one shaping the idea that loneliness is always horrible. I have read accounts at how the kids of the present generation cannot stand being alone for any amount of time. But there is a need for balance. How can you appreciate being with people if you are never lonely? And of course being alone should not be mistaken for being lonely. Ask any husband or wife whose partner goes away for a few days and the freedom it brings (clothing now optional). So maybe it is a case of when you are lonely, to embrace it so that when you are with people again it means more to you.

    1. Michaelmas

      Rev Kev: I have read accounts at how the kids of the present generation cannot stand being alone for any amount of time.

      I’m just an old school traditionalist fuddy-duddy like Jean-Paul Sartre on this, I guess.

      Hell is other people.

    3. MarkT

      Balance is what we have lost in this age of crazy extremism.

      I found NC in response to the financialisation of everything around me.

  20. The Rev Kev

    “Top finance ministers snub G20 as global co-operation comes under strain”

    No real surprise here. Ever since the war began in the Ukraine – and for years previously – the western countries in the G20 have always tried to have an anti-Russia statement in the final communique. In addition they have tried to hijack the agenda for each G20 meeting and make it all about – you guessed it – the Ukraine. So I think a lot of countries have seen how the western countries are wrecking the G20 to the point that it is hard to get stuff done anymore and so are now looking at a more serious organization which is all about making deals – BRICS. The best part? There are no western countries to put up with. It is an organization where the adults can get to work without outside interference.

    1. MFB

      The only problem with this analysis is that the two biggest economies in BRICS, namely India and China, and the fourth biggest, Brazil, were no-shows at the meeting.

      Since Cape Town is a jolly place to spend a vacation, my guess is that all these finance ministers were busy at home trying to work out how to salvage their economies from the impending disaster caused by US economic policies.

      Our own finance minister, of course, was unable to get his crazy budget passed because the ruling party’s coalition partner insisted on cutting education, healthcare and security for black people rather than raising taxes — although the finance minister’s proposed tax was a massive increase in VAT which would really have hit poor people, that is mostly black people, hardest.

      And this is the guy who’s chairing the G20 finance meeting. I’m afraid that’s not my definition of an adult, let alone an adult without outside interference.

  21. t

    Loneliness and being alone – I suppose it makes sense that many in the media have a negative view of being alone and portray being alone as bad because they’re not properly mature people and rely on external validation.

    Or they have such lousy personalities that any kind of intimacy is an impossible goal. Being with others is lonely because others just won’t agree you, the lonely person, are the GOAT, the legend. Being alone is lonely and miserable because you, the lonely person, spending that time alternating between fantasies of being adored and fuming over imagined insults.

    At least that’s how it looks to me.

    1. eg

      Presumably all the people writing this sort of thing are extroverts? I spend a lot of every day quite contentedly.

      At the very least there must be a spectrum of tolerance for being alone.

  22. The Rev Kev

    They’ve done it again. Remember how Romania cancelled their election because the non-globalist candidate – Calin Georgescu – was going to have a decisive win? Well they have just arrested him-

    ‘Romanian police have arrested Calin Georgescu, the front-runner in last year’s annulled presidential election, and conducted dozens of raids on his supporters and people tied to his campaign, local media reported on Wednesday.

    The Romanian Prosecutor General’s Office is reportedly investigating Georgescu over allegations of involvement “in a fascist organization and the promotion of controversial ideologies and historical figures in the public space,” G4Media outlet reported, citing sources close to the investigation.’

    https://www.rt.com/news/613335-georgescu-presidential-romania-arrested/

    Even the Trump White House won’t be happy about this. I guess that this is more of those European values at work.

  23. johnnyme

    Senior District Judge William Alsup, presiding over the case regarding the mass firing of probationary government employees, will be holding a public Zoom meeting tomorrow afternoon:

    In the matter of American Federation Of Government Employees, AFL-CIO et al v. United States Office of Personnel Management et al, 3:25-cv-01780-WHA, the Motion For Temporary Restraining Order and Order to Show Cause is set to be heard on 2/27/2025 at 1:30 PM (PST). The Court’s Zoom Webinar set-up will allow for up to 1,000 listeners. The public may listen in to the proceedings using the following link:

    https://cand-uscourts.zoomgov.com/j/1605814655?pwd=ZGZOVGs1Q1RzVWoxZkUzUVliQm5Hdz09

    Webinar ID: 160 581 4655, Password: 791667

  24. thoughtfulperson

    https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/25/documents-military-contractors-mass-deportations-022

    ——————————–

    I read this yesterday after some friends commented. This story is based on a proposal by a bunch of former blackwater c suite types. As far as we know it has never proceeded further than the blackwater types sending in a propsal.

    Of course it’s not surprising as Reagan’s Contra operations were worse (as far as creating a private army), so there’s already precedent.

    For me the jury is still out on this one.

  25. ciroc

    >A brief history of Israel’s theft and trafficking of Palestinian organs

    In 1996, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, the influential leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch sect, posed an ostensibly rhetorical question: “If a Jew needs a liver,” he asked, “can you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. Jewish life has infinite value. There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than non-Jewish life.”

    To understand the nature of Zionism, this is a very helpful quote.

    1. Henry Moon Pie

      I’d like to hear Lubavitchers explain the recurring theme in the Torah that the “stranger” (Hebrew=גֵר) is to be treated with kindness and respect.

      Exodus 22:21-

      Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.

      Leviticus 19:33-34-

      And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. [But] the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I [am] the LORD your God.

      Deuteronomy 10:17-19-

      For the LORD your God [is] God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

  26. Wukchumni

    National Park Service prevailed on a law skirmish in the War On Cash, but is losing the battle for jobs…

    A federal judge dismissed the complaint aimed at the National Park Service’s policy of refusing cash from visitors at some parks. However, the ruling left the rest of the lawsuit intact, giving the plaintiffs a chance to submit an amended grievance.

    The lawsuit came about after the Park Service realized that processing cash was more expensive than the actual money collected. In 2023, the NPS introduced cashless policies at several parks and monuments. That same year, a trio of individuals filed a lawsuit against the Park Service, challenging its expanding cashless policy at several national parks, including Death Valley.

    Esther van der Werf from Ojai, California, Toby Stover from High Falls, New York, and Elizabeth Dasburg from Darien, Georgia, took legal action after being refused the option to pay with cash at various park entrances, including Death Valley National Park. The plaintiffs argued that this restriction violated federal law, pointing to a U.S. code that asserts U.S. currency must be accepted for all public charges.

    US District Judge Timothy J. Kelly found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the lawsuit, mainly because the plaintiffs were never actually denied entry to a national park, and because they couldn’t make a plausible argument that a park requiring payment via a credit card in the future would cause irrevocable harm to the plaintiifs.

    https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/02/national-park-service-wins-court-battle-over-cashless-policy

  27. AG

    re: West vs. Russia and scholarship

    from Ivan Katchanovski´s abstract:

    Academic Job Placement in Post-Communist Studies: Politics and Meritocracy
    By Ivan Katchanovski

    Publisher: Routledge
    Publication date: 2025
    Publication name: The Political Economy of Dissent: A Research Companion

    2025, The Political Economy of Dissent: A Research Companion.

    This chapter analyses factors that determine the academic placement of PhD graduates of US, British, and Canadian universities from East Central Europe and post-Soviet countries with specialisation in post-communist studies. The analysis shows that merit-related factors, such as the number of published refereed articles, increase significantly the odds of placement in permanent faculty position in Western universities. However, male Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian doctoral graduates are significantly less likely than those from the other countries studied to secure such faculty positions in Western universities. The findings are strongly suggestive of discrimination against, and the deliberate exclusion of, male job candidates from these countries, which can be interpreted as part of the wider manufacture of consent in the Western countries supporting the proxy war in Ukraine. The strongest indicator of this is the extant lack of male Ukrainian political scientists in tenured positions in Western universities, that is, during the Russia-Ukraine war when detailed knowledge about Ukraine presumably is at a premium. Such discrimination is also inconsistent with declarations regarding the importance of ‘Ukrainian voices’ and the ‘decolonization’ of post-communist studies in the West. The study raises questions about bias and the politization of the study of East Central Europe and post-Soviet countries in Western academia.

  28. tongorad

    An unvaccinated child has died in the Texas measles outbreak

    The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed this is the first measles death in the country since 2015.

    The outbreak is largely spreading in the Mennonite community in West Texas, where small towns are separated by vast stretches of oil rig-dotted open land but connected due to people traveling between towns for work, church, grocery shopping and other errands.

    1. .human

      $11.79/18 pack here in north central CT. Up from lrss than $5 just months ago.

      (Wow, you can’t use a left caret in comments!)

      1. MFB

        MEAA is never going to make a good baseball cap, but it does resemble the sound made by consumers when they see the supermarket prices.

      2. Wukchumni

        As predicted by yours truly, saw my first ever 6 packs of eggs for sale @ WinCo supermarket @ $4.97

        Dozens were $8.82 with a limit of 1 dozen per shopper.

        WinCo pre-made salads used to contain 1 boiled egg, down to a half now.

  30. Tom Stone

    There certainly isn’t any shortage of delusional thinking on the part of the powerful.
    The Zionists are riding high in their belief that Uncle Sugar will take over that little problem in Gaza.
    The Trump administration seems to believe that that the USA is still an industrial powerhouse with a Military superior in size and quality to what we had in 1945 and that no exogenous events ( Like a pandemic) could possibly derail their brilliant plans for World domination.
    So we have “It’s good to be the King” Trump and Elon Musk, Trump with what appears to be diminished capacity and Musk who has become increasingly erratic and egotistical, that performance at CPAC was a real “Oh Shit” moment for me .
    WHat could possibly go wrong?

  32. Bob Tetrault

    Utilities advisory – Doctorow
    Our local transmission line company, owned by a Canadian, Algonquin Energy, is arguing for a 40% increase, following a recently allowed 25% increase. Electricity heats our 35-38°F water. $700 a month at present.
    This article will aid everyone fighting the increase at the Cal Public Utilities Commission.
    Thanks for this. It’s important.

  33. nyleta

    About the Mar A Lago face…..Mr Trumps own face has shown major changes in skin tone and musculature since the leaked photo of him in his singlet was published. These changes are similar to people I know who have embarked on a GLP-1 regime, he is definitely losing weight, probably an acceptable risk at his age to do this even in the abscence of disease.

    There was another photo out yesterday ( possibly false ) showing what seemed to be badly made up IV infusion mark on his hand…..perhaps a magic youth elixir sourced by Mr Theil or Mr Musk ? Practically the whole of the new cabinet are personal health cranks it seems.

  34. Mikel

    I guess for the likes of Bezos, too many economists are questioning neoliberal economics. Some of us think it is too few, but even any that may be straddling the middle is too many for these types:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/26/business/media/washington-post-bezos-shipley.html

    “Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, announced a major shift to the newspaper’s opinion section on Wednesday, saying it would now advocate “personal liberties and free markets” and not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.

    Mr. Bezos said the section’s editor, David Shipley, was leaving the paper in response to the change.
    “I am of America and for America, and proud to be so,” Mr. Bezos said. “Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical; it drives creativity, invention and prosperity.”

    I heard a lot of that tripe already growing up as kid. It probably takes less long now to realize that reality doesn’t match the propaganda. So all they can do is dress up censorship and denial as “freedom”.

  35. TomW

    WSJ: Ukraine could maintain current pace of war until summer without US aid Ukrainska Pravda

    Neglects the fact that the 2023 FY budget for USAID included $17 B for Ukraine. They wont have a government without outside funding.

  37. Pyroclastic Flow

    When reality simply becomes an obscene and unoriginal grotesque copy of a cartoon world, the emergence of King Trump Almighty in the role of an authoritarian monomaniacal narcissist is simply a normal occurrence, apparently. Trump Devotion Syndrome notwithstanding:

    “President Trump has shared an AI-generated video depicting his resort-like vision for the future of Gaza — featuring a gigantic golden statue of the president as well as images of him lounging topless poolside with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsYDZuYhyVY

    In any case, the longing for a return to and the resurrection of an idyllic gilded age of robber barons and gangster colonies is both a nostalgic fever dream and a delusion that the American monied class, as the owners of capital, remains hypnotically fixated on. By turning Gaza into a 21st century “gambling colony, gangster state”, the Imperial Power would merely return to its roots in the arena of international relations. See for example:

    “Cuba’s debut as what Colhoun called a “neocolony” of the US took place at the end of the 19th century when the latter intervened in the Cuban war of independence from Spain, effectively nipping the whole “independence” option in the bud and appointing itself Cuba’s new master.”

    “The arrangement led to the US appropriation of Cuban territory for a naval base-cum-future-torture-centre at Guantanamo Bay, along with other goodies. By the mid-20th century, Colhoun wrote, Cuba had become “a virtual economic appendage” of the US, with Americans controlling many of its sugar mills, railways, and utilities, and inundating the island with US brands.”

    https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/20/the-us-in-cuba-a-history-of-organised-crime/

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