Links 3/18/2025

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1. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 7:19 am

   “Trump says he and Putin will discuss land and power plants in Ukraine ceasefire talks”

   That is going to be a neat trick with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant if that is what Trump is talking about. Alex Christoforou pointed out in his latest video that this power plant is actually in Zaporizhzhia Oblast which voted and did join the Russian Federation. The Russian Constitution will not allow Putin to sell it off or give it away to Trump as it is Russian territory. I could see Putin offering to sell electricity generated there to the Ukraine as much as their electrical grid is ash right now however. So either Trump is just spouting his latest bs lines or he thinks constitutions are just like contracts – always up for renegotiation – and expects Putin to get in line.

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   1. ilsm March 18, 2025 at 9:29 am

      High hopes.

      Trump will give Russia Crimea because Tennyson! \sarc\

      Trump will get back Donbass, while giving them the last Kursk “pocket”. \sarc\

      Russia will offer to negotiate the shape of the table in Paris starting next December. \sarc\

      Ukraine has nearly gone through all 500 gifted ATACMS; got no advantage from them and wants 500 more to get no advantage.

      Russia has a great career keeping this debacle ruining the US.

      While Trump and Bibi pound sand and kill children from Sana’a to Gaza.

      BTW observed somewhere USAF defeated most of the Houthi drones shot toward USS Truman. Go Navy! Under USAF fighter cover.

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      1. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 9:35 am

         You only need one drone to get through and hit a Navy ship to change the game.

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2. ChrisFromGA March 18, 2025 at 7:35 am

   Israel broke the joke of a Gaza ceasefire. Israel attacked Gaza, killing hundreds:

   https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/gaza-israel-hamas-strikes-03-18-25/index.html

   Never forget how they lied for months and months. By the way, I suspect this is the template for the Russia-Ukraine war – they’ll lie about a ceasefire being “on the 10 yard line” for about a year, then when it finally happens, it will implode after fewer than 60 days.

   The lying liars just love to lie, lie, lie! They are non-agreement capable, the whole rotten lot:

   Blinken, Biden, Trump, Witkoff, Rubio

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   1. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 7:40 am

      When an Israeli spokesman appears on TV these days, I just switch myself off. Nearly everything that they say is a lie so what is the point of listening to what they have to say? Their word means nothing.

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      1. ChrisFromGA March 18, 2025 at 9:20 am

         Please apply the same filter to Trump and Witkoff. They are nothing but liars.

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3. Zagonostra March 18, 2025 at 7:48 am

   Rapid Onset Political Enlightenment Tablet. A must read.

   …the newly minted digital variant of “public opinion” was rooted in the algorithms that determine how fads spread on social media, in which mass multiplied by speed equals momentum—speed being the key variable. The result was a fast-moving mirror world that necessarily privileges the opinions and beliefs of the self-appointed vanguard who control the machinery, and could therefore generate the velocity required to change the appearance of “what people believe” overnight…

   Every form of totalitarianism is unique….Soviet cynicism was a natural product of how the Soviets decided to rule, which was to demand absolute external compliance to party dictates in word and deed while at the same time allowing its subjects a separate space to think their own thoughts—provided that they never acted on those thoughts. The natural outcome of the Soviet system was compliance without belief…

   Musk, meanwhile, was entirely and sincerely his own man—a privilege that came in part from being the richest man in America, and in part from the nature of his businesses, which the Obama cadres appear to have misunderstood. Musk may have paid twice as much as the next-highest bidder for Twitter, if such a bidder actually ever existed.

   Netanyahu’s decision to invade Rafah on May 6, 2024, was the culmination of two long and otherwise separate chains of events whose consequences will continue to reverberate throughout the Middle East, and also at home. Netanyahu had been promising to invade Rafah since February. The fact that he had not done so by May had become both a symbol of Israeli weakness and indecision in the face of a global onslaught of Jew-hatred, as well as the continuing solidity of the regional power structure established by Obama’s Iran deal.

   Too much to unpack without a re-reading and careful deconstruction. But, some items stand out.

   True enough there is a “new machinery” in place from when the days of Lipmann, and that each “form of totalitarianisms is unique,” but to say that “Musk is his own man” I think is false, just ask Bibi and those who control his military contracts, which may be the same group. As for “global onslaught of Jew-hatred,” it’s very wide, too wide a paint brush that the author uses. The images I saw this morning of 300 dead Palestinians make me hate the state of Israel, Christians, atheist, Buddhist, Taoist, Maoist, gays, lesbians, straights or any other designation you wish to make including Jews, that supports this indiscriminate bombing of women and children.

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   1. eg March 18, 2025 at 8:48 am

      Too bad Samuels’ derangement on Iran derails an otherwise interesting examination of “the blob” and its use of 21st Century communications technology to “manufacture consent.”

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   2. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 8:48 am

      Going to grab a cup and read.
      I hope it mentions that he Soviets were also telling the people that computer programs were making the govt and businesses more efficient by figuring out what needed to be manufactured, etc !

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   3. Safety First March 18, 2025 at 9:15 am

      I personally was struck by the language around the COVID lockdowns. Being a “bad” thing, that is, foisted upon us by Obama’s “permission structure machine” or suchlike.

      Without going into a long and detailed breakdown, because it is far, far too early in the morning, and because there are other subjects I would much, much rather write an essay on at the moment. My OVERALL reaction to the piece is that the author a) tries too much to pretend that the media and propaganda environment of the 2010s and early 2020s was COMPLETELY AND RADICALLY DIFFERENT from the past, and b) asserts, more or less out of thin air, that it is now done, finished, kaputski.

      I’ve done a lot of reading, and watching, of Cold War-era propaganda, for my own edification – because I feel that you cannot study the Cold War era as a whole without so doing. What may be different, to some extent, between today and, say, the 1950s, is the structure of the media landscape through which propaganda is applied, as well as the attendant terminology. But the basic idea of constructing a cage around one’s public actions and statements, of enforcing endless re-pledging of fealty – dare I say, of allegiance – through both positive and negative reinforcement, of flooding the voters’ brains with easy to remember slogans that catch on like fads and have no rational basis in reality? I mean, been there, done that, many times?

      And I won’t even touch the whole “where, oh where has objective journalism disappeared off to with Russiagate” thing with a ten foot pole. Instead, I recommend a book – “Selling the Korean War”, by Steven Casey, and another one, “Second Front – Censorship and Propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War”, by John Macarthur. Snapshots in time of exactly how that sort of “objective journalism” was managed by the Powers That Be long, long before Axelrod and Obama were doing their tango.

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4. ciroc March 18, 2025 at 8:05 am

   >Minnesota Republicans seek to codify ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ as mental illness

   It’s funnier than The Babylon Bee.

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   1. mrsyk March 18, 2025 at 9:20 am

      Funny like “this meat smells funny”, or “we have a funny kind of democracy”. I guess if one is critical of Trump one can be committed to the “funny farm”. Good times.

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      1. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 9:52 am

         I suppose that there are two types of “funny.” There is funny funny and there is funny strange. Two different meanings. It’s all about context.

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         1. Saffa March 18, 2025 at 10:16 am

            I believe the saying goes “as in funny ha-ha or funny strange”

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            1. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 10:18 am

               I’ve heard both.

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         2. Sub-Boreal March 18, 2025 at 10:22 am

            “It’s a funny old world.”

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            1. mrsyk March 18, 2025 at 10:50 am

               Yes. Not that I was a fan of “Thatcherism”, but it sure looks manageable from today’s perspective.

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   2. Christopher Smith March 18, 2025 at 10:39 am

      I don’t know. One of my friends has a bad case of TDS. Throughout Biden’s term the guy was always mocking election deniers. When we were hanging out this weekend, he was telling me all about how Trump rigged the 2024 election. When I pointed out that I was not interested in his election denialism, a position he formerly mocked, he replied that this was different because there was evidence. I asked him about his “evidence.” Needless to say, it was a screed about how Elon has hackers and Trump said we “would never have to vote again” but drawn out into a five minute rant.

      I’m finding it less funny by the day.

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   3. earthmagic March 18, 2025 at 10:47 am

      Funny how?!

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   4. Bill B March 18, 2025 at 11:33 am

      MAGA folks or liberals? They each have their own type.

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5. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 8:24 am

   OpenAI Says It’s “Over” If It Can’t Steal All Your Copyrighted Work – Futurism

   Fair use isn’t claiming the work and thoughts of others is some computer program “thinking”.

   These f’ers from A to Z (Altman to Zelensky) are out of ideas except asset-stripoing and looting.

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   1. Terry Flynn March 18, 2025 at 8:49 am

      I refused Cambridge University Press permission to turn over my textbook to the AI things. They COULD very logically and easily conclude that the open access stuff by me is worth scraping instead.

      It would be a pity if I copied over all the main orthogonal main effects plans and balanced incomplete block designs to my public website with any “minor unintentional copy-paste mistakes” and these got scraped and thus shone like the beacons of Gondor in studies that used those ;-)

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   2. Doubt March 18, 2025 at 9:34 am

      I don’t find the framing of this very convincing. If training materials for AI are regarded as not being covered under fair use, the biggest beneficiaries would be publishers like Elsevier and Penguin as well as major IP holders like Disney. Artists and authors would benefit negligibly, if at all, regardless of whether the copyright for their works is held or managed by a corporation.

      At best, I could see a “Spotify model” being implemented, but, for the vast majority of artists, the earnings from streaming services are a pittance (for them), and it’s hard to imagine artists not associated with publishers benefiting much. More likely, many will still end up included in the training datasets while being given legal tools they can’t feasibly use.

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      1. Terry Flynn March 18, 2025 at 11:07 am

         If training materials for AI are regarded as not being covered under fair use, the biggest beneficiaries would be publishers like Elsevier and Penguin as well as major IP holders like Disney. Artists and authors would benefit negligibly, if at all, regardless of whether the copyright for their works is held or managed by a corporation.

         Yes and that’s the unfortunate price a lot of us paid to get our books published. Is it fair? No. I get on average GBP80 p.a. royalties for my textbook, all of which goes to my accountant since I am required to do a self-assessment for tax, for which my accountant charges around GBP80. But I never did this for the money. Flaw number one in your reasoning.

         At best, I could see a “Spotify model” being implemented, but, for the vast majority of artists, the earnings from streaming services are a pittance (for them), and it’s hard to imagine artists not associated with publishers benefiting much.

         Again, I didn’t do it for the money. I always knew I’d gain only a pittance. Let me give you some insights (which I’ve stated here before) as to the purpose of my textbook, which gives flaw number two. I, along with the two most esteemed academics in my field at the time (RIP both now) wrote this book not in the expectation that it’d become the “default textbook” in ANY course in ANY country in the world. Why would it not? Because it is absolutely antithetical to big companies who offer consultancy services in discrete choice modelling. If you’re an academic who wants the dosh, you’re probably going to want to stay sweet with such companies. Thus, do NOT recommend to students a book which “opens the black box” and tells them how to do all this stuff themselves.

         More likely, many will still end up included in the training datasets while being given legal tools they can’t feasibly use.

         See my point below. The whole point about discrete choice modelling is that you NEED statistical design matrices, which don’t stay up on the internet for long (for various reasons, but NOT for any copyright/legal infringements etc). If AI want to scrape my stuff they’re welcome. The stuff “owned” by CUP might not be scraped, and even if so, AI will struggle. Why? Because what I and colleagues did was NOT stuff on what economists call the “production possibilities frontier”. By definition it was work to move beyond this using well designed experiments that are NOT out there to “scrape”.

         As a final note, our book merely gives the reader all the statistical and survey method tools to do the types of discrete choice models we pioneered. I spent 5 years working hard in peace from funders before I got my “key paper” published. Then on EVERY single project since I have been employed I have tried to be humble in recognising that I have an equation with two unknowns and therefore potentially infinite solutions. The only way to hone in the likely correct one is to spend a LOT of time among a multi-disciplinary group including experts who “work at the coal face” to get an idea as to which is the REAL maximum in the maximum likelihood function. AI can’t give you that in any area beyond an incredibly narrow number of applications for which we already know the answer.

         I do not fear AI. Because what I did was based on 20 years’ of experience “thinking outside the box”. Furthermore I never did it for the cash, I did it (stupid and naive those this makes me sound) to enable followers to know the general “path” towards a solution. To GET a solution, they still must do a lot of HUMAN work. Since I’m the last remaining expert in my my field, with h-indices, and an Erdős number better than any health economist I’ve ever known (who didn’t get it purely by being someone I taught), I’m fairly sure my work will get scraped. This won’t help people, however and I’m relaxed.

         As a final note, if you want proof as to the shenanigans that go on in “academics versus business”, look up the edit history on wikipedia of the maxdiff model. When it stopped being an advert for a company and instead started being the definition of a long-standard mathematical model, that’s when I, under tutelage of one of my colleagues, began to put things right. Our “back and forth” with certain people ended when we got our book published and a certain wiki sub-editor who knew their stuff put a stop to editing by certain people for a while.

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         1. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 12:26 pm

            “Because what I did was based on 20 years’ of experience “thinking outside the box”.

            The LLMs have provided a literal meaning to “thinking outside the box”.

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6. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 8:32 am

   As AI nurses reshape hospital care, human nurses are pushing back – Associated Press

   “The group raised new alarms in January when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the incoming health secretary, suggested AI nurses “as good as any doctor” could help deliver care in rural areas.”

   I want to see all the Kennedys and their ilk using AI nurses and doctors – without questioning the BS.
   Let it be tested on them. They eant it so badly. Be the guinea pig.

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   1. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 8:40 am

      I’m sure that before you used one of those AI nurses, that they would make you sign a waiver absolving them of any resulting bad incident up to and including death. And if you refused, then you can’t see that AI nurse. Can’t see a real doctor or nurse either though as that AI nurse replaced them and they no longer work their. Real doctors and nurses are for those who can afford them.

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      1. t March 18, 2025 at 9:46 am

         Sounds about right

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7. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 8:33 am

   “Up to 90% of arms, munitions destroyed in Kursk Region belong to NATO — Russian diplomat”

   To be expected. For months now Zelensky has thrown his best formations into Kursk to try to get a breakthrough but they have all been stopped cold. In addition, Zelensky was sending the last of his best equipment to Kursk as well up to and including Abram tanks. As this pocket started to shrink, I would have expected NATO to pump in any and all weaponry that they could scrounge to try to stop Kursk from collapsing altogether. Now that it is mostly over, I am not surprised to see huge stocks of NATO weaponry being picked up by the Russians. Makes you wonder though. Like with Afghanistan, will Trump demand that Russia hand back all that NATO weaponry or face sanctions? But I think that his teeth will grind when he sees all those tanks and weapons – especially American ones – on display in military museums in Moscow.

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   1. ChrisFromGA March 18, 2025 at 8:46 am

      I’m curious how much of that weaponry can be re-furbished and re-purposed by Russia for the battlefield.

      It would be hilarious to see an Abrams tank with a Russian flag rolling into Kharkov. Or an Aussie Bushmaster vehicle with the SMO markings used to storm Kherson.

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      1. ilsm March 18, 2025 at 9:36 am

         Kiev will sell parts and ammunition.

         Finding spare parts is a problem the western stuff breaks so often. The black market will work.

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      2. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 9:42 am

         Would be more hilarious to copy what the UK/EU countries do and take a tank or vehicle from one of those countries that was donated to the Ukraine & captured and park it outside their Embassy in Moscow. After all, turnaround is fair play.

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8. Louis Fyne March 18, 2025 at 8:55 am

   >>>Ultra-processed babies: are toddler snacks one of the great food scandals of our time?

   of course. I don’t need the Guardian to tell me that.

   Reminds me of my, ostensibly “health-conscious,” cousin. She spends a fortune at Whole Foods….only to stock her pantry w/the Whole Foods-brand, organic versions of shelf-stable snacks, and plastic sippy pouches (high salt, high sugar, high industrial seed oils, low satiety). Of course, I’m never going to give her the “errr, aware you aware that….” lecture, lol.

   I’ve always wondered if those plastic applesauce-yogurt sippy-pouches are one of many sources of BPA, etc.

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   1. albrt March 18, 2025 at 12:10 pm

      I suppose you could make raw snacks out of babies, but public acceptance is probably improved by ultra-processing.

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9. mrsyk March 18, 2025 at 9:00 am

   Terrific antidotes today, thank you. Of course fox loves music!

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10. DJG, Reality Czar March 18, 2025 at 9:02 am

    David Samuels, Rapid Onset. Tablet.

    Important for its attempt to bury Obama rather than to praise him.

    This observation alone is worth the time you spend on the long essay: ‘The Obama Democratic Party (ODP) was a kind of balancing mechanism between the power and money of the Silicon Valley oligarchs and their New York bankers; the interests of bureaucratic and professional elites who shuttled between the banks and tech companies and the work of bureaucratic oversight; the ODP’s own sectarian constituencies, which were divided into racial and ethnic categories like “POC,” “MENA,” and “Latinx,” whose bizarre bureaucratic nomenclature signaled their inherent existence as top-down containers for the party’s new-age spoils system; and the world of billionaire-funded NGOs that provided foot-soldiers and enforcers for the party’s efforts at social transformation.’

    Also important for Samuels’s own hobbyhorses and his failure to break new ground. To wit:

    –Obama did all of this more or less on his own, somehow? I don’t believe in the Great Man excuse for history.
    –Obama is a product of the Democratic Party, rather than leading an incursion from outside. So the Clintons are involved in here somewhere, eh?
    –The author seems to be much too convinced that his rubric is “airtight.” Yet the current war (and genocide) in Ukraine is a proxy war based on Western lies and very much on the unwillingness of the Russians to publicize much. The West is spilling secret information constantly, announcing its addled plans, and screaming its soon-to-be-made mistakes. The Russians don’t say much. The Russian concession to the digital world is to send out the wildly intelligent and witty Maria Zakharova – but she was invented by Jay Ward way back when as Natasha Fatal
    –The author slips on the “genocide in Gaza,” which he offers as a meme. What happened here is very interesting: The Palestinians were finally able to get the world to see them on social media. The exception that tests the rule? Or is Samuels’s too-clean structure a hollow figure made from pipe cleaners? See below in which Netanyahu becomes a savior. Oh.
    –David Axelrod as evil genius?
    –Elon Musk as one of three saviors? “Musk, meanwhile, was entirely and sincerely his own man—a privilege that came in part from being the richest man in America, and in part from the nature of his businesses, which the Obama cadres appear to have misunderstood.”
    –And then the Holy Book of Netanyahu. Sheesh.
    –Obama may deserve revenge. This essay isn’t it.
    –And I’m Saint Joseph, the father of god (feastday tomorrow: Send adoration.)

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    1. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 9:46 am

       Yeah, it might have been a tad more palatable if the writer had used Obama Administration as the subject throughout the story instead of just Obama.
       Like Trump Administration should be used instead of Trump.

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11. mrsyk March 18, 2025 at 9:13 am

    The video of Katherine Franke (“police state watch”) explaining the extortion technique Trump uses when “negotiating” is a must watch. “Introduction of brownshirts” is now officially on my bingo card.

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    1. ambrit March 18, 2025 at 9:44 am

       I’m with you on the “Brownshirts” issue. It is the next logical step. We must also remember that the Brownshirts were part of a larger ecology of violent militias at the time. Who today remembers that the Communists also fought “in the streets” back then? It is also instructive to remember that most of the brawlers doing the fighting in the streets then were ex-military veterans of the Great War. All that is needed to make the analogy complete is for America to lose a decently sized war.

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12. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 9:19 am

    “Beware the Ides of March — Are Trump and Netanyahu, Acting in Tandem, Committing Political Suicide?”

    It’s amazing in its own way. Trump has this huge agenda in how he wants to reshape America into his idea of what America should look like. Probably something like 1890s America – but without all that industry. Now after only two months, he is ready to jump into the Ukrainian rasputitsa at the instigation of the UK and France instead of just walking away. This could very easily now become Trump’s war. And if that wasn’t enough, it looks like at the instigation of Israel that he wants to get involved in a shooting war in the Middle east. For now it it is Yemen but he is already threatening Iran. That aborted attack on Iran last year should have shown him that that may not be so easily done. Trump probably think that in any room, that he is the smartest one there but that ain’t necessarily so.

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    1. ambrit March 18, 2025 at 9:46 am

       That would have to be a pretty small room, or one with only a handful of people in it.

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    2. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 9:54 am

       Trump Administration. The reality TV star isn’t thinking of all of this himself.

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13. pjay March 18, 2025 at 9:41 am

    – ‘The European Parliament Confirmed Poland’s Centrality To The Bloc’s Eastern Security Strategy’ – Andrew Korybko

    There are many important issues embedded in this article, as well as the others by Korybko that he cites in the text. I note two here. First, his “New Iron Curtain” terminology emphasizes a key point that isn’t discussed often enough in the face of Russia’s impending “defeat” of Ukraine. This is that the NUMBER ONE priority of this long-planned proxy war was to *sever the ties between Russia and Europe* that had been developing since the end of the Soviet Union. Atlanticist-oriented neocons have been writing about this since the 1990s. Their fear was not just the re-emergence of a Russia that might challenge US military supremacy someday, but the economic challenge of a Europe – especially Germany – reintegrated with Russia. The Nordstream pipeline was the ultimate symbol of this danger. Far from a “defeat” for the US/NATO alliance, in terms of severing these ties and building a “new Iron Curtain,” the Ukraine war has been an unqualified success. Mission accomplished!

    So much for “keeping Russia out and Germany down.” How about the “keeping America in” part? This is another area in which a lot of people seem to be celebrating a bit prematurely (with Yves and a few others being significant exceptions). Many commentators, even those critical of the US/NATO project like Korybko, simply assume that Trumpian “populism” has won in the US and we are getting out of Europe, leaving our poor European “allies” high and dry. Now they’ll have to defend themselves, while the US withdraws, perhaps to concentrate on warmongering with China or finishing our destruction of the Middle East. But there is a very powerful and bipartisan Atlanticist Establishment in the US. There are some factional disagreements, but they all — neoliberals; neoconservatives; the huge arms industry, its lobbyists, and Congressional lackeys: the national security apparatus: the Europhile liberal media/academia complex – all of them, have a massive material and/or ideological investment in the Atlanticist project. They’ve managed to capture (almost) all of the European political class. They spent 8 years carrying out war against Trump for this reason. Do people really think they are going to give up now? Are the “populists” now in control? Really?

    Lots of other issues suggested in this piece (e.g. the centrality of Poland in the New Cold War). But these two are the most striking to me.

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14. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 9:59 am

    And all those in the Trump Administration talking about the “stock market doesn’t matter’….
    What are their short and put positions?

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15. duckies March 18, 2025 at 10:08 am

    “Vote crow next general election.”

    Never. Rook voter for life.

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16. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 10:08 am

    https://fortune.com/2025/03/14/elon-musk-tesla-cybertruck-delivery-halt-owners-complain-of-metal-sides-falling-off/
    Elon Musk’s Tesla reportedly halts Cybertruck deliveries as owners complain of metal sides falling off

    I’ll guess it’s 80% incompetence and 20% malice.
    (This is who programs are being cut for so that more govt money can go to his businesses?)

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-discovers-magic-money-computers-or-how-the-u-s-financial-system-actually-works-43a21350?mod=home_lead/
    “….Going back to Musk, what he’s said to have found is that the government doesn’t track terribly well the money it spends — for example, not coding each payment for precisely what it’s going toward.

    He told Cruz that he attributes 80% of that sloppiness to incompetence and the other 20% to malice.”

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    1. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 10:17 am

       ‘Elon Musk’s Tesla reportedly halts Cybertruck deliveries as owners complain of metal sides falling off’

       Very much looking forward to the day that their fronts fall off – and the comments that will flow from that.

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       1. Sub-Boreal March 18, 2025 at 10:27 am

          Beat me to it!

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17. JMH March 18, 2025 at 10:09 am

    To state the obvious, if you were actually interested in cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse” … seems I have been hearing that phrase for the last 60 or 70 years … the logical place to start is the so-called defense budget. It is the largest slush fund. But no, we must go after Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare as there are the largest pools of money that might be put into private hands so the greedy bastards can suck out as much as they can get away with. Since we have a government of, by, and for the rich, the fat cats, the plutocrats, the oligarchs, the looters … I cannot decide the most descriptive word for them … they must be allowed to belly up, elbowing their way in. Is the appropriate emotion here disgust or rage? Both at the same time? I receive Social Security and Medicare. I paid whatever taxes were required. And now some ginned up department fronted by a really rich guy wants to blow up long established programs that work reasonably well in the name of what the profit driven call efficiency? The definition of efficiency that fuels private equity? The definition that has seen so many businesses sucked dry until the husk resembles what remains when a spider has finished a meal. Welcome to the American Nightmare.

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18. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 10:17 am

    Aljazeera repeating a lie by Marco Rubio, that the US “coordinated with Russia” on the Yemeni attacks. This sort of thing at the margin is not helpful to the US improving relations with Russia, let alone getting to any sort of big deal. From the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the call:

    During the conversation, Marco Rubio informed him of the US decision to launch a military operation against the Houthi forces in the Red Sea region.

    Sergey Lavrov, in response to the arguments by the American representative, stressed the need for all parties to immediate cease the use of force and the importance for all sides to engage in political dialogue so as to find a solution that would prevent further bloodshed.

    Does that really qualify as total denial of Rubio’s claim? “Stressing the need for” and “totally objecting to” are different…IMO.

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    1. Yves Smith Post authorMarch 18, 2025 at 10:37 am

       First, the text was from the official Russian readout. It is vanishingly unlikely that it was issued to rebut Rubio.

       Second, “coordinated with Russia” = Russia participated in the planning. In reality, Rubio presented the US plan to Russia.

       Third, Russia objected to the attack by calling for diplomacy instead.

       So yes, Rubio lied.

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       1. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 12:07 pm

          If the Russians leave any room for misinterpretation (or lies), it will be taken.

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19. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 10:34 am

    “The Kingdom of Judea vs. The State of Israel”

    Just through demographics alone, I could very easily see a situation where secularists in Israel will become an oppressed minority but am not sure how that would work out as they pay nearly all the taxes, man nearly all the military and fill all the civil service jobs. So maybe a tolerated minority? The position of women would sink as the religious right would demand that all women leave the Israeli military and go back home to be out of sight and out of mind. You think that I am joking but when Hillary was SecState and went to Israel, a major religious publication airbrushed her and any other women out of the official photos taken. It is that weird and now these same people want to run the country. I don’t see an eventual Israeli civil war – maybe – but I can see a collapse of the State as professional Israelis will just bail out of the country.

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20. The Rev Kev March 18, 2025 at 10:55 am

    “Magnolias are so ancient they’re pollinated by beetles — because bees didn’t exist yet”

    This is an amazing story this and one that I would never have suspected. Magnolias were contemporary with the dinosaurs? And they are pollinated by beetles? Before bees I suppose that having beetles pollinate flowers was common but it looks like magnolias surviving all those time shows us the proof of this being so.

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    1. marcyincny March 18, 2025 at 12:27 pm

       So years ago we lived in Kentucky and often visited The Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill (https://shakervillageky.org/) outside of Lexington where I fell in love with Southern Magnolias, the big evergreens. I have been trying to grow a couple of supposedly cold-tolerant varieties here in central NY and two years ago (thanks to global warming?) I finally had a few big, waxy, lightly fragrant blossoms.

       And yes I noticed tiny black beetles in the flowers. I too am delighted to know more about their phylogeny.

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21. user1234 March 18, 2025 at 10:55 am

    Trump hypes up tensions with Iran Indian Punchline. Important

    Trump had shorter peacemaker stint than Obama.

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22. pjay March 18, 2025 at 11:02 am

    – ‘Every Administration Since Obama Has Been Bombing Yemen, Yet…’ – Ian Welsh (Micael T)

    – “Scott Ritter Should Be A Nobel Prize Winner…”

    It probably won’t shake my fundamental pessimism, but I’ve been struck by the very harsh criticism of Trump over the Yemen bombing by anti-war conservatives like Judge Napolitano and Larry Johnson. I saw Johnson on Nima’s Dialogue Works yesterday, and he really lit into Trump and defended AnsarAllah in terms very similar to Ian Welsh, as the only entity with the guts to stand up against the Israeli genocide. It does make you wonder what effect, if any, Trump’s apparent doubling-down on the MIGA project will have on his support. I guess we are seeing whose support is most important to him. What a world.

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    1. Carolinian March 18, 2025 at 12:43 pm

       See my Patrick Lawrence link below.

       And Gilbert Doctorow–who says he knew someone in Trump’s real estate operation–continues to defend Donald as an underappreciated if not totally stable genius.

       https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2025/03/18/why-alternative-media-are-down-on-trump/

       If you ignore everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth and his all caps tweets then maybe that has weight, but personally I don’t believe a word of it. Lawrence says we may come to prefer Trump 1 to Trump 2.

       Trump is no genius but he is different from all the wonks. Fingers crossed that disaster doesn’t loom. Of course for Gazans it’s happening right now.

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23. Bill B March 18, 2025 at 11:34 am

    MAGA folks or liberals? They each have their own type.

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24. antidlc March 18, 2025 at 11:41 am

    My apologies if this has been posted. I did a search and couldn’t find it previously posted.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-10/musk-s-doge-team-sends-private-equity-veterans-to-social-security-agency
    Musk Taps Private Equity Veterans to Aid DOGE at Social Security

    Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has sent three individuals with experience in private equity and finance to the Social Security Administration, highlighting the focus that President Donald Trump is putting on rooting out waste and fraud in the nation’s social insurance programs.

    Among those tapped for the task are Antonio Gracias of Valor Equity Partners, who also served on the board of Tesla Inc. and was an early investor in SpaceX — two of Musk’s companies — as well as Scott Coulter, formerly of Lone Pine Capital, and Michael Russo, formerly of Shift4, according to people familiar with the moves who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss them.

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    1. Mikel March 18, 2025 at 11:59 am

       And the looting continues.

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25. Bill B March 18, 2025 at 12:04 pm

    ‘”Any American receiving Social Security benefits will continue to receive them. The sole mission of DOGE is to identify waste, fraud, and abuse only,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement emailed Monday.’ And I got a bridge… https://www.axios.com/2025/03/17/social-security-trump-doge

    Proposal would force millions to file Social Security claims in person
    The agency acknowledges the change could cause particular hardship for elderly and disabled Americans who have limited mobility. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/17/social-security-changes-phone-claims-doge/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F41a6931%2F67d94427c7d02e5122238ac4%2F596a5df2ade4e20ee37172da%2F18%2F61%2F67d94427c7d02e5122238ac4

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    1. Wukchumni March 18, 2025 at 12:11 pm

       in late 2023 I contacted Social Security and advised them that I wanted a crack at my forced annuity, and they duly set up a phone conversation with a SS agent, and I think there has been quite a bit of fraud because they asked me a whole bunch of questions that no ersatz Wukchumni could have answered, I was half surprised they didn’t ask who the catcher was on my 1974 little league team.

       A friend who decided to take his SS payments when he was 66 about 6 years ago, was told there must be a mistake-as he’d been getting payments since he hit 62, or I should say somebody else was, unbeknownst to him.

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26. Carolinian March 18, 2025 at 12:37 pm

    New Patrick Lawrence

    https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/17/patrick-lawrence-the-zionists-within/

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