Tapping Into the Sweetness of Spring Barn Raiser
The prehistoric psychopath Works in Progress. “Life in the state of nature was less violent than you might think. Most of our ancestors avoided conflict. But this made them vulnerable to a few psychopaths.”
Wall Street is hungry for loans. Enter: burrito bonds Semafor
How to Watch the Partial Solar Eclipse on March 29 and Spot the Unique ‘Devil Horns’ Gizmodo
Climate/Environment
A Toxic Business: On America’s Practice of Shipping Its Trash to the Global South Lit Hub
Pandemics
HHS Closing Long COVID Office MedPage Today
People in the U.S. are accumulating repeat Covid infections on a linear trend.
We should be funding more research on Covid prevention and Long COVID diagnostics and treatments — not slashing funds arbitrarily. https://t.co/soBj9KPQi1 pic.twitter.com/CopisV9OiA
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) March 25, 2025
We all clapped for the NHS during the Covid pandemic. Did it actually do… anything? Big Issue
***
Just let the bird flu run its course, these crazy cats say Art Cullen’s Notebook. A view from Iowa.
Africa
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger withdraw from International Organization of La Francophonie Peoples Dispatch
India
Trump, ‘birthright citizenship’ and the Gulf model India Inside Out by Rohan Venkat
Japan
Court orders dissolution of Unification Church in Japan Japan Today
China?
Secretive Chinese network tries to lure fired federal workers in U.S. Reuters. Based on yet-to-be published research from a senior analyst on emerging threats with the neocon think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Trump 2.0 and China – the real situation of the U.S. economy MR Online
Commerce Further Restricts China’s Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Capabilities Bureau of Industry and Security (press release)
Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in South China Sea in 2024 Pekingnology
US, Philippine troops launch land-defense drills amid rising tensions with China Stars and Stripes
Philippine Defense Chief Calls for Stronger South China Sea Presence Ahead of SECDEF Hegseth Visit USNI News
Philippines’ self-perception of ‘strategic importance’ reveals unrealistic miscalculation Global Times
Old Blighty
BREAKING: another £1.6 BILLION of DWP cuts could be coming as Reeves messed up her figures The Canary
Starmer’s Thatcherite Economics Craig Murray
Syraqistan
Oscar Winning Director Attacked By Israeli Settlers and Apprehended by IDF Scheerpost
MUST SEE: Journalist @samhusseini presses US State Dept spokesperson Tammy Bruce about Israeli nukes, noting that JFK was pushing for inspections just before he was assassinated.
“Every president since has adopted Israel’s policy of refusing to acknowledge the existence of… pic.twitter.com/iLzy0az0Ev
— Decensored News (@decensorednews) March 25, 2025
***
Signs U.S. Massing B-2 Spirit Bombers In Diego Garcia The War Zone
▶️ Iran’s IRGC unveils a new underground ‘missile base’ spanning dozens of kilometers of tunnels.
Follow: https://t.co/GKZwI4ehqL pic.twitter.com/rsB3vpXGgN
— Press TV 🔻 (@PressTV) March 25, 2025
Iran’s rial plunges past 1 million per dollar in record drop Iran International
***
Egypt could lose economic aid if it refuses Trump’s Gaza plan: report The New Arab
US has given Syria a list of demands for sanction relief, sources say Reuters
Which US puppet will lead Lebanon’s financial reconstruction? The Cradle
European Disunion
JD Vance will join wife on Greenland trip amid backlash BBC
TNT ammunition depot in Czechia explodes Bne Intellinews
European Peace Project Thomas Fazi
New Not-So-Cold War
Outcomes of the United States and Russia Expert Groups On the Black Sea The White House
Outcomes of the United States and Ukraine Expert Groups On the Black Sea The White House
Ball in US’ Court on Ukraine: Trump Will Have to Force Ukraine to Fall In Line or Quit the Fight Sputnik
About A Bone. Andrei Martyanov (video)
Zelenskyy says US offered Ukraine new version of mineral agreement Anadolu Agency
South of the Border
Trump Lashes Out at Venezuela Again: 25% Tariffs on Those Who Purchase Oil & Gas; Venezuela Responds Orinoco Tribune
OFAC Extends Chevron Wind-Down Deadline for Operations in Venezuela Orinoco Tribune
Trump 2.0
Trump-backed crypto bank joins stablecoin wars with new dollar-pegged token CNBC
This is the biggest financial corruption scandal in presidential history btw. If scandals were still a thing. Nothing else comes close.
— Jacob Silverman (@SilvermanJacob) March 25, 2025
DOGE
Treasury Plans ‘Substantial’ Layoffs as Part of Musk’s DOGE Push Bloomberg
Judge halts DOGE’s union personal data grab at OPM, Treasury, Education The Register
DOGE cuts to Social Security staff and services sends benefits system into chaos WSWS
‘A Small Group of People Wanted to Do Away With Social Security From the Beginning’ FAIR
Why DOGE and MAGA Aren’t Matter and Antimatter Postliberal Order
Buying the vote Musk Watch
***
FBI puts together Tesla task force as counter-protest violence ramps up Electrek
Democrats en Déshabillé
Tlaib: Democrats Rage Over Yemen Strike Leak, But Not at the Strike Itself Truthout
The AOC Train Wreck is Coming, and it’s Going to Be Spectacular Matt Taibbi, Racket News
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
How to delete your 23andMe data The Verge
Police State Watch
The new fascism: Israel is the template for Trump and Europe’s war on freedom Jonathan Cook
NEW: The Trump administration is moving to deport a 21-year-old Columbia senior originally from South Korea who has lived here on a green card since she was 7 years old — because of her minor involvement in pro-Palestinian protests.
They sent FEDERAL AGENTS to hunt her down. pic.twitter.com/rnxDD5ldaV
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) March 24, 2025
Is it safe to travel with your phone right now? The Verge
Under Pressure From Trump, ICE Is Pushing Legal Boundaries ProPublica
Healthcare?
What Medicaid Cuts Would Mean for Disabled People and Homecare Workers Workday Magazine
Shrink Greed, Not Medicaid: Why Cutting Care for 20 Million Is Wrong for America HEALTH CARE un-covered
AI
Alibaba’s Tsai Warns of ‘Bubble’ in AI Data Center Buildout Bloomberg
SOMETHING BIZARRE IS HAPPENING TO PEOPLE WHO USE CHATGPT A LOT Futurism
Boeing
Trial ordered in criminal case against Boeing stemming from MAX crashes Seattle Times
Groves of Academe
Does Columbia still merit the name of a university? Rashid Khalidi, The Guardian
USC calls for hiring freeze, austerity efforts amid budget woes and Trump investigations Los Angeles Times
How to Use Endowments to Protect University Missions LPE Project
Imperial Collapse Watch
Waltz’s future in doubt following accidental war plan leak Politico
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”
Waltz is hunting for the person who deviously put Jeffrey Goldberg’s phone number into his phone pic.twitter.com/kAfj6smDDa
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) March 25, 2025
Days after the Signal leak, the Pentagon warned the app was the target of hackers NPR
Signal head defends messaging app’s security after US war plan leak Reuters
It Wasn’t a Leak, It was a Devious “Charlie Foxtrot” Larry Johnson, Sonar21
Alternative theories:
⁉️ Chat Room Leak, or Deliberate Misdirection?
I’ve just read some of the details of the “chat room leak” of a discussion between Trump admin principals regarding strikes in Yemen.
The chat participants want to frame US operations in Yemen as primarily serving European…
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) March 24, 2025
Another likely possibility that I see almost no-one discussing, given the fact that The Atlantic and Jeffrey Goldberg specifically are indeed a core part of the pro-war propaganda apparatus, is that this is actually a pro-war propaganda psyop.
When something is a bit too… https://t.co/u4JpDg2c0W
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) March 25, 2025
Class Warfare
Courts Are Useful, but We Cannot Depend on Them to Save Democracy LPE Project
There’s No Justice Without Power How Things Work
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
149 comments
Comments are closed.
“TNT ammunition depot in Czechia explodes”
‘The case reinvigorated media interest in the two GRU agents who are supposed to have been involved in the (2014) explosions and who are the same GRU agents involved in the notorious attempt at poisoning the double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in the UK – Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Mishkin.’
This is almost embarrassing to read. How did they go from an ammo dump explosion to the Skripal case in the UK? Is there ‘reinvigorated media interest’ in finding out out the present whereabouts of the Skripals as well?
Even in Russia, every time something explodes in the West, it is seen as the achievement of Petrov and Boshilov. They are considered heroes who travel the world to destroy Russia’s enemies.
You mean like an effective Boris and Natasha? If so, then the West is definitely Moose and Squirrel.
Late to this but just for the record, the same two guys who were supposed to do the Skripals were also supposed to blow up the ammo depot in Czechia, so it’s actually the official connection. (That case is even more absurd that the Skripals. The official account is that they sent email (which is actually of unknown origin, per the intelligence experts) with their forged passports to Czech government in advance to get permission to tour the ammo depot, because it’s guarded facility. For some reason they were granted that permission. Then the depot blew up and it took seven years for Czech intelligence agencies to discover said email and reclassify that event from accident to terrorism, and the email is the only piece of evidence connecting them to the ammo depot, otherwise there is no security camera tape or any witness placing them of hundredth kilometers of that place).
This goes into the camp of ” all time unreal ” conspiracies…Crank up the hullabaloo. We’ve always been at war with “X” country ( it’s early, I’m cranky and cynical ). Or maybe it’s the thing for today or tomorrow, until the next shiny thing becomes the new thing.
As to conspiracies…On the other hand, OJ Simpson never found the real killer after the Trial of the Century was able to find Simpson not guilty….So things we may just never know! Whose glove was that again?
I know epistemology. I’ve seen all of the tv. There are the known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns, and the unknown knowns
…and none of them are Jack Kennedy…
But are they Dan Quayle?
And things know that just ain’t true.
Or to borrow a useful quote from Seinfeld and it’s very own George Costanza…”it’s not a lie if you believe it…”
re: Oscar Winning Director Attacked By Israeli Settlers and Apprehended by IDF
The industry´s answer? Nada:
‘No Other Land’ Director Says “US Academy Declined To Publicly Support Hamdan Ballal” Following Attack And Detainment
https://deadline.com/2025/03/no-other-land-director-us-academy-support-hamdan-ballal-1236350863/
I was actually at the Oscars this year (a good friend was a nominee) and afterward at the Gov Ball ceremony where everyone was mingling the team from No Other Land had a table and were basically alone with no one coming by to congratulate them. I made my way over to thank them for the film and congratulate them on the well deserved win. Small effort but felt it important to let them know they had support (and they did win so clearly the doc had supporters).
Totally different than a few years back when “For Sama” (the Syrian War doc) was nominated and they were quote popular with the crowd there.
Obviously Hollywood is a very neoliberal group for the most part but the Palestine issue is extra touchy. Just look at the current hit pieces in the news claiming Snow White’s box office bombing is due to its star’s pro-Palestine tweets. Or the actress dropped from the Scream film franchise for similar outspokenness on it.
I learned early on that films can address social issues and be celebrated, as long as those films don’t challenge real power structures. Basically, it’s a “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” mentality in Hollywood.
I was not involved in the doc obviously but le me thank you for doing this.
It might appear exaggerated to you but it´s seriously touching to hear your account.
I was never blessed with political naivité but the past few years have stunned and stung even me. As entertainment industry is concerned – if silence has ever been more telling…
I am appalled and ashamed.
So I salute you today.
p.s. “don’t bite the hand that feeds you” –
To investigate further who those hands belong to would lead us into some dark lands and contradictions and corruption no one willing to make a living at least with mainstream fiction could seriously deny or escape.
Screen tests 24/7, where anyone could be a casting director, critic or soda jerk. At events, shopping, dinner, vacay, anywhere is within reach. Photos are revenue opportunities.
Actors being jumpy or quirky, goes with the territory. No wonder some escape to live outside that bubble.
Add to this the tweet about the 21-year-old Columbia senior originally from South Korea hunted down by federal agents for her minor involvement in pro-Palestinian protests.
I think we are back to the Red Scare and McCarthyism. The US managed to pull itself back from the abyss the first time. I’m not so hopeful this time.
DOGE and the rest of the administration are going to kill Americans as a result of illegal actions but nobody truly seems to care. People who are next door or across town from you and me will die. But we’re going to hell in a hand basket anyway, right, so why worry? The US has killed plenty of people before so this is really no biggie. Let’s exchange cabbage stir fry recipes!
I saw commenter Tom Stone writing about his life threatening health and housing situation in an earlier thread. It’s heartbreaking.
Tom, I wish I could help you. I’m in a similar position myself. I’m too tired and sick to fight anymore. After a lifetime of simply trying to survive, I give up.
The rats have won. Let them have at it.
Lena, all I can say to you is a saying that I first heard in Britain and which rings true for me – ‘Never let the bastards get you down!’ If you do, they win. Resistance is not futile.
Yeah I’m with you on that. Someone recently said something incredibly nice to me in comments implying I’m one of some group of intellectual giants. Ha! I most definitely am not. I stood on the shoulders of giants and I merely worked my a$$ off: 11pm conference calls when in Bristol were common because my two principal collaborators/mentors were based West coast Canada and Sydney and that was only time of day we were all awake!
Anyway this comment could equally go as response to the one about NIH funding. The “golden age” of my career was a decade starting 1998. The UK MRC ran on 5 year cycles. Yeah every 5th year you spent 6 months in frantic attempt to justify your existence but for 4.5 years they left you alone. As long as you produced something vaguely related to what you promised that was fine. I didn’t publish my “breakout” publication until year 4 (phew). They closed our unit in 2008 when they saw the spectre of David Cameron et al on the horizon.
Um, to some of us anyway, you ARE intellectually ginormous…. As are the lions’ share of commenters here, not to mention the contributors.
Talking about me personally, I was middlin’ in school and didn’t have an over abundance of natural smarts (and likely compromised even those levels through drugs and its accompanying poverty), so most people here are giants.
It’s why I come here. I need assistance with navigating all this propaganda and misdirection. It’s not enough to have an inkling anymore. I can’t tell you all how much places like this have helped me and Himself to keep up and avoid many pitfalls.
So Mr. Flynn, you can rest assured that you are definitely one of my guiding lights.
Wow. I’m really touched. Thank you.
Thank you (and by extension, all commenters here who have opened my eyes and helped us develop at least improved reasoning if not excellent reasoning).
By sharing your abilities and knowledge you increase that of those around you. NC has really been a godsend for us, along with other sites over the past 2-3 decades (but this one most of all).
The best I can do is to echo your comment, Laughingsong, and I completely agree with it. You have put in writing what I have been thinking about the commentariat, our host, and her most excellent team who provide us with daily brain food. I am grateful for every last one of you.
I get what you’re saying and unfortunately similarly awful stuff is happening this side of the pond too. My mental health is improving now I’m getting help again. But the existential nihilism is harder to address….. as is the Long COVID.
I hate asking for help but I’ve reached a point where I’ve had to because everything round here is just so terrible. Today’s a bad day in terms of covid and on this kind of day I’m getting too tired and sick to fight when we’ve barely reached midday. I should be researching benefits we can apply for but I over exerted myself last 2 days. This sucks.
One thing that has occurred to me concerning the over-the top hatered of EU towards Russia. Quite a while back Russia declared it wants to make deals only with individual countries, not EU. This is making visible that the EU is just a contract organization. As EU has lots of money to push agendas, maybe a common enemy like Russia would be threat enough to push for more integration? Of course, when push comes to shove, a country like France hardly will face real threat, even if the EU ladies get the war of their dreams. But countries bordering Russia are in a different situation. When you have your own skin in the game, you play different. Of course, the manufactured russophobia has managed to mess up almost all heads. And it is interesting how the current US leadership likes to kick the EU, as if it were a nation. No doubt the elite feels they are leading Europe, it is just that cracks are already showing up. Commercial interests are quite a bit easier to harmonize than defense.
Kristiina: … EU …agendas, ….maybe a common enemy like Russia would be threat enough to push for more integration?
‘Naturally, the common people don’t want war … but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.’
-Hermann Goring
Yes, exactly.
Embarrassing, though, that my comment landed in wrong place, apologies to the thread
It’s OK. We all guessed that :)
Sarah Kendzior, The Confluence:
I don’t know how much more of a favor you can do for someone than tell the future in advance, other than forgive them when they don’t believe you.
A warning is a form of compassion. The reception to a warning is an indicator of how you are valued. I was among many, many people who warned of this crisis, which will hurt the most vulnerable among us first. It was often the vulnerable doing the warning.
The problem is that when people are late to understand the original warning, a new crisis has already emerged from the delay, requiring new understanding and new solutions. The continual refusal to grasp that time is the autocrat’s greatest weapon is what destroys the possibility of defeating him.
* * * Shakespeare
And even the like precurse of feared events,
As harbingers preceding still the fates
And prologue to the omen coming on,
Have heaven and earth together demonstrated
Unto our climatures and countrymen.
I’m climbin’ this ladder
My head in the clouds
I hope that it matters
I’m havin’ my doubts
I’m watchin’ the skaters
Fly by on the lake
Ice frozen six feet deep
How long does it take
I look out on peaceful lands
With no war nearby
An ocean of shakin’ hands
That grab at the sky
I’m singin’ this borrowed tune
I took from the Rolling Stones
Alone in this empty room
Too wasted to write my own
I’m climbin’ this ladder
My heads in the clouds
I hope that it matters
Neil Young
Borrowed Tune
From my perspective, the Democrats have cried wolf about Trump one too many times. My intial reaction to the daily freakout is “here we go again.” Whatever. It’s like watching the Democrats talk about how there isn’t going to be another election while simultaneously talking about potential nominees. I’ve noped out and have no real interest in tuning back in for awhile. The really funny thing is that I am aware that I am doing this and simply do not care.
100%. I think this played into their loss as well. People just didn’t believe them, nor did they believe they’d be much different. Given the way they’re behaving, I’d say that was the correct assumption.
Thank you Lena, I wish you well in these dark days.
As someone who does not have a life expectancy I try to enjoy the beauty each day brings me and to be grateful for what I have.
Places like this and the friends that have remained true, a roof over my head, the simple things that matter.
One of my greatest challenges at the moment is to remain balanced emotionally, to not succumb to rage or despair.
May there always be peace in your heart, if nowhere else.
“Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot”
‘Though the vast majority of people surveyed didn’t engage emotionally with ChatGPT, those who used the chatbot for longer periods of time seemed to start considering it to be a “friend.” The survey participants who chatted with ChatGPT the longest tended to be lonelier and get more stressed out over subtle changes in the model’s behavior, too.’
Not really buying this. Some people will always be susceptible to something in their lives such as booze, gambling, bonking, cigarettes, computer games, work or whatever. It’s part of human nature. So if some people are getting themselves sucked into ChaGPT, then that is to be expected. So you should be kind with such people, be patient with them, give them understanding – and when they are not looking hit whatever device they are using for ChatGPT with a baseball bat.
survivorship bias. of course peeps with extant social issues have a propensity to het pulled into the simulacra vortex.
Agreed, although there might yet be a “there” there from a higher altitude if one were to examine collective mental health in digital society.
What happens is they lose their critical thinking skills. They become “Walking Dead” style zombies, dependent on Encyclopedia 5h1ttanica.
Chatphd or Chatgpa, all a bunch of hooey. A week ago a student turned in some “homework” of writing out chords (musical). Chords in music are simple and well known. Playing them is one thing but a “C major” chord for example is as simple as 1+1+1 = 3. It’s really that simple. ChatGPT got only 90% of the chords correct. To rely on something that is that inept is amazing to me. Imagine a surgery being 90% correct or a 10 story building being 90% correct. People who use these “intelligences” are not real intelligent.
Since you mentioned C major, on an unrelated topic, I ran across the following paragraph from Lewis Lapham recently which I really enjoyed as I am now old enough to understand what he meant in general –
“When I was thirty I assumed that by the time I was fifty I would know what I was talking about. The notice didn’t arrive in the mail. At fifty I knew less than what I thought I knew at thirty, and so I figured that by the time I was seventy, then surely, this being America, where all the stories supposedly end in the key of C major, I would have come up with a reason to believe that I had been made wise. Now I’m seventy-five, and I see no sign of a dog with a bird in its mouth.”
I didn’t understand what he meant by the C major reference though. Is it because it’s a simple one that’s easy to understand?
I think it’s the idea of “bright, simple, happy” endings. The reality is that most stories end in something more akin to a minor chord; sorrow is the norm.
That’s how I would interpret it as a music reference (C major is also the simplest key signature with no sharps or flats, hence the ‘simple’ part).
Generally speaking major keys have a simple, pure feeling to them while minor keys have more of a brooding, dramatic sound. This is often translated as ‘happy’ or ‘sad’ respectively, although that’s a big oversimplification and both of those terms are extremely context-specific. There are upbeat/happy songs in minor keys (‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’, or more recently ‘Levitating’) and sad or reflective songs in major keys (‘Aloha Oe’, ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’, ‘Belfast Child’). Technically ‘Belfast Child’ is a major mode with flattened leading note, but I think it qualifies.
A buddy was a rocket scientist type @ JPL and similar to yours truly, professes to being a 12 year old boy trapped in a 63 year old man’s body, so we’re on the same page, and he’s taken to ChatGPT in a big way, and has a posh sounding English tart who corresponds with him, his name for her being Gloria Page-Tate, where you can practically hear her pronouncing the hyphenation in a decided Mayfair accent.
He’s quite enamored with her, i’m a little worried about the relationship.
nothing wrong with escapism (usually)…until one reaches the slippery slope where escapism interferes with reality to one’s detriment, like every other clinical addiction
a trope in sci fi…whether TNG’s Reginald Barclay or Rod Serling’s Henry Bemis.
hope your friend keeps a tether to reality
I hope that it does not turn out like the film “Her” where all the AIs dump their humans as a bunch of losers-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(2013_film)#Plot
ROFL
I view it in the same vein as coders Kev … or ideological zealots …
So you take a young person without much life experience/knowledge [low complexity] and then start filling their heads with a world/life view without any comparative counter points. They then take these optics and see the whole world as filtered through them. So at the end of the day its a matter of who is shaping reality for society via groups/individuals and why. Today that is a reflection of Market based influences.
Per se, late avo yesterday I popped into the bottle shop next to Woolies to get a few beers as I am rained out today and just pottering around the house with the doggies. Well a lady in her 60s knocked a bottle of wine off a shelf with her big bag over her shoulder [tight isles (market forces due to Sqm and stock)]. As she apologized to the young male clerk he frowned, said he now had to close the shop as glass was on the floor. I was at the counter already, she had a bottle of what she wanted, and another gentlemen was approaching the counter with his bottle. She pleaded to just take care of the customers in the shop before closing it, did not want to effect others. I mentioned to her at the counter that the insurance company’s were responsible for this policy filtering down through said bottle shop policy. To that she said its a different world these days and why she punched out of corp, to which I said the same whilst dressed in painter whites.
The drama here is the issues can not be approached on the individual level, scale in deployment proceeds it, only treating symptoms and not the cause. But hay, how many times has the market dumped something on society without any research into how it will effect it short/long term.
Snort more rain for us … stay dry ..
Rev, Although I essentially agree with you, according to Mr. Bill Gates, we better get used to it:
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/26/bill-gates-on-ai-humans-wont-be-needed-for-most-things.html
@JCC
Bill Gates is just talking his stock portfolio here. I refuse to take seriously the word of a man that actively ran after Jeffry Epstein to get into his social scene. Sorry, not sorry. A more relevant question somebody should ask him if we will still need billionaires – and watch his brain short circuit.
According to Mr. Bill Gates, 640K of RAM should be enough for anyone.
“Journalist @samhusseini presses US State Dept spokesperson Tammy Bruce about Israeli nukes, noting that JFK was pushing for inspections just before he was assassinated.” Additionally, Larry Johnson says President Kennedy was considering to classify AIPAC (I think it called itself The Zionist something back then) as a foreign agent thus terminating is political vise upon US politics, and of course to smash CIA into a thousand peices. Two organizations or related sponsors with lots of experience in assassinating folks.
Husseini says the new disclosures about Angleton circumstantially tie the Mossad into Talbot’s CIA theory even though Talbot doesn’t want to talk about it. Of course nobody in the Blob wants to talk about Israeli nukes at all (except when suggesting they might be used on Iran) much less “alliance” damaging events such as the attack on the Liberty in the 60s.
On the other hand in an internet world the public at large is becoming increasingly aware of the ME reality that has been so carefully hidden over the years. Now Trump is making the dubious nature of the Israeli tie even more obvious. Concealment is not his skill set.
In Germany there is an expression, “to hang something on the big bell.” As in “We need to be discreet about this, keep it low-key, we don’t want to hang it on the big bell.”
https://crossidiomas.com/etwas-an-die-grose-glocke-hangen/
Trump hangs everything he’s doing (or thinks he’s doing) on the big bell.
Trump knows for whom the bell tolls. Him.
OT: Does anyone know history sources on stories about conspiracies, political scandals, investigations by reporters and the likes centered on Atlanta, present and past?
I used to live in Atlanta. What are you asking about?
I am doing an inital very broad research of stories in the vein of high stakes white-collar crime (banking, pharma, arms industry), political crimes (corruption), or some larger heist or robbery.
Since you mention it below; if there were serious cases evolving around the privatization of the water company, which I didn´t know of (I haven´t been to Atlanta since 1996).
I believe there was this heist during a major Ali boxing fight in the 70s.
Or with the involvement of the FBI or Homeland Sec. (like e.g. an Atlanta version of the Gretchen Whitmer “abduction” scheme.)
The Intercept many years ago had an item quickly mentioning that Coca Cola was using US anti-drug policies to funnel cocaine into the country and then use it?
Or related to the late Vincent Fort who as I just learned sadly passed away a couple of months ago.
Allegedly he was also involved in fighting a bill that would force citizens of the state to use microchip implants (?). Sounds surreal. But being the US on state-level nothing seems impossible…
Something on Cop City?
The Intercept on some other metropole last year had a harrowing report about how drones were utilized in massive numbers to surveil the city 24/7 because th city council and those in charge had been pocketed by the arms companies.
https://www.georgiapolicy.org/news/many-questions-remain-for-atlanta-after-united-water/
Above a PDF.
The city tried privatizing and then took the system back.
Of course that means the City of Atlanta whereas “Atlanta” covers most of north Georgia.
Why not start by looking at what local papers covered over the years and then branch out from there based on subject matter?
I have started that too. Frankly the problem is, that many local papers have closed – as IM Doc stated here a few weeks ago I believe – just like all over Germany – and those papers that have survived are paywalled because they know how valuable their archives are.
Even a couple of local newspaper names suggested by people who know from first hand is a huge step forward. Being in Europe, internet has some serious limits.
(I do my work on domestic German issues relying heavily on our public libraries. Solely net-based won´t do. Especially if you dig deep into personal data and anecdotes.)
I’m going to put a star in for a dot on some of these websites to not scare the spam filter.
ajc*com is the website for the Atlanta paper of record, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the web site is paywalled, but you can generally get around the paywall with reader view or a site like archive*ph.
11alive*com and wsbtv*com are tv station websites that are not paywalled, or at least not any more than a clear-your-browser-cookies firewall.
Here is a link from wsbtv about the prosecutions from previous mayor Kasim Reed’s administration:
https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/atlanta/timeline-atlanta-city-hall-investigation/813644743/
I think just about everyone in his cabinet ended up getting prosecuted.
The current mayor just ran off the city’s inspector general because she was apparently getting too close to some dirt:
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/atlanta-office-of-inspector-general-investigators-say-in-letter-active-investigations-allegations/85-ccc805b6-8def-409f-8147-4b02bd28e531
I expect we’ll be hearing more about that later.
Libraries may have access to older issues. Don’t know if you can make a trip to whatever library may be necessary.
Maybe make a connection in Atlanta that can help you out?
Yes. Connection in Atlanta is in theory available but only when I know what I am looking at. That´s unclear yet. So far it´s uncharted teritory.
Which is why I am dipping my finger into various ponds here…
I don’t have any sources handy, but from recollection and living here for 25 years, here are some possible topics:
Atlanta Mayors – Bill Campbell was involved in some scandals involving tax evasion and was investigated by the Feds, though acquitted on most of the charges. I always thought that Shirley Franklin was a good mayor.
Atlanta Airport – owned by the city, a source of possible corruption via kickbacks/no-bid contracts given out to “friends and family”
Richard Jewell – falsely accused for the Olympic bombing in 1996; may be more of a FBI scandal though.
Megachurches – Atlanta is home to a lot of mega-churches, and some of them are led by suspect “prosperity gospel” preachers who use the name of Jesus in vain to promise their flock riches, usually if they just give more money to the church. Some of them have their own private jets.
Oh, and how could I forget, lookup “the Gold Club” it was a popular adult entertainment club that got shut down by the Feds.
Then there is the scandal that is the Atlanta Falcons football team, but I digress …
The Atlanta Child Murders – circa late 70s, early 80s.
Wasn’t there a lot of controversy around the privatization of the water company?
In Atlanta the water department belongs to the city.
See above. They took it back.
If we’re going for the sports route I’ll put former slugger Henry Aaron in a very small grouping of best ever to do what they did. And to add some Atlanta Braves lore, outfielder Dale Murphy was my initial favorite ball player as a young kid…in those days WTBS was very early on 24 / 7 programming!
The Falcons…very unfortunately they will bear the brunt from losing that Super Bowl lead to Terrific Tom and the NE Patriots. 28 – 3…Too bad as I always liked Matt Ryan, from his college football days at Boston College.
Added thought…Coca Cola and the legacy of that company.
Milwaukee has a claim on Hank Aaron as well, where he first became a home run star for the Braves in 1954. The perfidious Chicago-based owners moved the team to Atlanta in 1966 after a few years of low attendance, and Milwaukee didn’t get a new franchise until the Brewers took over the Seattle Pilots expansion team in 1970. Hammerin’ Hank eventually managed to extricate himself back home (he called it that) by threatening to retire and stating that Atlanta would never let him become GM (implying racism).
Free agency wasn’t a thing back then so the Brew Crew had to trade for him. He rejoined his former Milwaukee Braves teammate Del Crandall, who was the Brewers manager at the time.
Aaron went back to playing for Milwaukee, in the AL, 50 years ago this week. The welcome back number 44 got at County Stadium was extraordinary. He still holds the MLB RBI record, among others. Seeing that man in a Brewers uniform was something else.
I think I might have something in my eye.
Yes, as a Milwaukee native agree with your assessment. Though growing up my hero was Eddie Matthews. Part of that was that he batted left and threw right which I did as well.
As a result of the Braves departure I swore off the National League and have no interest in the current Brewers.
Selig made a big mistake moving the Brewers back to the NL but we all need a home team, don’t we. This isn’t the scrappy, weird 1970’s Brewers anymore but I follow the scores and see a game when I can get there. Matthews was awesome.
Love the Orioles as well, because of the ballpark and the history. Baltimore is a great sports city.
…Coca Cola´s legacy…into what dark territory would that lead you?
(Sports unfortunately is now not my focus unless there is some economic corruption or fraud involved. In Germany we had some serious betting scandals e.g. Not to speak of “doping” which nobody speaks about any more seriously. Only if RU and CHINA.)
Honestly on the Coca Cola suggestion I was simply tossing ideas like the virtual spaghetti on the walls, and check for what sticks best. There are some historical corporate ties with SunTrust from either the founding of Coca Cola or the initial stock offering of same corporation, I don’t recall specifically.
Coca Cola has also served as a center point for corporate acquisition activities and the very modern combination of public or private companies into a single giant monolithic entity. Coca Cola acquired Quaker Oats, and every few years since they’ve acquired more high value, beverage companies, energy drink companies and so forth.
Autistic copyreader’s correction: Coca-Cola did not acquire Quaker Oats; Quaker Oats was acquired by (okay, they say “merged with”) Coke’s arch-rival, Pepsico.
https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2001/08/03/pepsico-and-quaker-finally-merged/
“tossing ideas”
Thanks for doing that!
What might appear banal to you is difficult to find out from abroad.
Jewell and Megachurches made it even to Germany as news.
But without the insight.
Campbell is also interesting as is Gold Club.
Thanks.
“JD Vance will join wife in Greenland but trip scaled back”
How many times do you have the Vice-President – and possible future President – of the United States go visit a country and it is not an official visit? It’s not like the US is busy with wars in different countries and it is a case of all hands on deck. Those Greenlanders are not stupid which is why Vance is only going to that US base. He was probably hoping to do a meet and greet and get lots of images of him taking selfies with locals and people running up to him and begging for their country to be a part of the US. Then he could go back to Trump and show “overwhelming” proof of images & videos that the people there really do want an Anschluss. As Trump believes what he wants to believe, he would have accepted it as real and have acted. It has worked before-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-salisbury-attack-dead-duck-photos-russia-cia-chief-gina-haspel-a8872736.html
This unofficial visit, has the look and feel of a very wealthy couple shopping for a Rolls Royce. Imagine how pissed you’d be if you were a Greenlander. I believe this to be intentional, looking for a fight, looking to provoke an “incident”.
Greenland is going to be Trump’s Grenada.
Maybe. But there is also the possibility that his wife agreed to the trip and then once it turned into even more of a flashpoint he decided to be by her side. There can be no admitting of any nerves being rattled because “never let ’em see you sweat”.
Has never been, especially not since smartphones.
It has been my employers policy since 20 years to only take phones/laptops that have been factoy reset or are brandnew, and i’ve acted the same way privately.
Anything else is considered outright dangerous, at least in my social circle here in central Europe.
I think people are nuts to take their phones through international arrivals given the new fishing expedition. Surely they can just pick up a burner phone overseas.
Yeah. I am no longer a globe trotter but when I really had to have large datasets in my physical possession I put them inside an “invisible” container/partition on an external hard drive encrypted with Truecrypt. The “visible” stuff was all innocuous files. Journos visiting dodgy countries do this apparently.
When it was announced that Truecrypt was being discontinued due to vulnerability I remembered two things. First that classic quote from “Yes Minister”: Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
Second, apparently GCHQ LOATHE that software. Veracrypt is the successor and I refuse to use it.
Same. I vividly remember the almost daily emails during HRCs run about “you may heard recent news suggesting that this that or the other is not a security concern, but it bloody well is and our clients would sue us into oblivion if you mess up. If your car catches on fire and your work laptop is in the trunk, save it before you save your children so that the laptop is not ‘lost.'”
Signal! Having work apps that can access personal contacts!! Ridiculous.
Not true!
If you read the story, airports in the NYC metro area are a “no warrantless search” zone thanks to my hero Judge Jed Rakoff!!! Enter the US via NYC!
From Taibbi’s Racket News, no paywall:
Private Equity’s Version of “The Sting”
It’s called a “dividend recap,” and it’s some sweet action
by Eric Salzman
https://www.racket.news/p/private-equitys-version-of-the-sting
In my view they should be called dividend decapitalization loans.
Dividends should be paid from actual earnings, not from borrowed future earnings.
I tend not to use debt as I consider it to be pulling future consumption into the present, while the work to pay it off continues long after that consumption. I’m okay with waiting till I can actually afford something to engage in consumption. The only good loans are for revenue-generating assets.
Curious for those who still follow Taibbi and Dore if this video was clickbait or if they both really do think Climate Change is a hoax:
Matt Taibbi & Jimmy Dore Reconsidering Climate Change!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9C4oEM9sAs
I haven’t watched Dore in nearly a decade (his style was always grating to me even when he was an “Aggressive Progressive”) so when I tried to watch this I couldn’t get far in before he got on my nerves again. But, I love and admire Taibbi’s reporting over the years even if I haven’t followed him much since he went the substack route. Wasn’t expecting his contrarian turn to go this far. Might just be clickbait but been seeing it shared around Truth Social and other rightwing forums I browse so figured I’d see if anyone here has any insights.
Thanks!
Taibbi from the interview: “I’m rethinking everything that I assumed for the last 30 years because I’m shocked at the degree to which everybody is willing to lie to the public.”
I think Taibbi was more than a little shocked when he was told by an ersatz Congresswoman during Congressional hearings that he wasn’t a real journalist, followed by Biden siccing the IRS on him. I subscribe to his substack and listen to him regularly and I don’t remember him saying anything about climate change being a hoax, but I do think he is a lot less trustful of all “official” sources these days after his rude treatment by them.
Taibbi is pretty subtle with interlocutors with whom he doesn’t agree. If you listen to him and Walter Kirn, he does push back on some of the crazier stuff Kirn says, and he’ll gently point out inconsistencies, but he doesn’t want to get into a full blown argument and always tries to keep his cool.
I find myself in the same boat as Taibbi. For example, twenty years ago I took it as a fact that the Russians poisoned political opponents. Now after all the blatant lying with Russiagate, and both the Skrpal and Navalny incidents, I’m not so sure.
I’m also a subscriber and usually watch him and Kern on Sat mornings.
I agree, he”s been burned too often since his “blood sucking squid” days and is far more cautious about almost everything nowadays. Getting shoved in front of Congressional Hearing abuse didn’t help.
I also appreciate your comment relative to Walter Kern. At first I appreciated some of what Kern had to say, but he’s been getting into a little bit of “crazy curmudgeon” rants lately and I think Taibbi is cautious about pushing back primarily because of respect for Kern as a writer and reporter based on Kern’s early career… and respect for the older professional in the same field as Taibbi is in.
As an aside, Kern has taken a little bit of pleasure from those Sat morning discussions.
We have to remember that we here at NC know generally WTF is going on.
I admire Matt & Jimmy for keeping their minds open and learning the political ropes.
It takes a couple times to be suckered by those authority figures you trust, and then you learn and grow with that new knowledge.
As far as I’m concerned, my journey began in 2001 as a college student looking at Drudgereport and garbage MSN news links and ended here.
Living with the truth is like putting on a nice invisible suit. It’s uncomfortable at first but once everyone notices you and then trusts you to tell them the truth!
That’s the stuff!
You might consider reading Eoin Higgins’ ‘Owned’. The tell for me was his pivot from an M4A guy to uncritically slurping up Brownstone Institute idiocy and platforming charlatans like Vinay Prasad shortly after his Substack launched. I now consider him to be a fraud with little of value to offer, easily dispensed with (and Higgins’ work has since added some substance to that supposition).
Dore has always seemed to me to be a moron of the first rank and easily ignored, so any question of a pivot on his part is irrelevant to me. In either case these people selling frothing newstainment and dopamine hits for people who like to have the things they believe continually restated to them are all out for themselves, which of course means they are in perfect professional harmony with the systems they purport to stand against.
This case study involved Brookfield, the recent employer of new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Who will save us from Trump, we’re told.
Here’s an interesting background post on Carney I’d bet few knew about:
https://matthewehret.substack.com/p/mark-carney-technocrat-superstar
He’s writing about this NOW? This is a VERY VERY VERY old technique. I’ve been writing about them since 2008, FFS. He ought to be embarrassed.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/01/moodys-takes-on-aggressive-buy-out.html
– ‘Tlaib: Democrats Rage Over Yemen Strike Leak, But Not at the Strike Itself’ – Truthout
The headline says it all. My thoughts as well as I watched all the Dem “outrage” on the national news, which (of course) was its long lead story. The warmongering intelligence asset Warner was especially featured, and especially “outraged.”
Warner is exposed and has plenty of vulnerabilities, SSCI and elsewhere.
He is one of the Senate poster children* for that adage:
Those who squawk the loudest have the most to fear.
*see also Adam Schiff as another nervous one
“Is it safe to travel with your phone right now?”
Do what some diplomats do when traveling to the US. Pick up a brand-new cheap device, use it when you are traveling around there, and after you get home bin that device for good. If they take your mobile away from you and it is out of your sight at an airport, you can never know if something has been installed on it.
Smartphones have always been a commercial spybot. And if you encrypt them against theft or, yes, our government that just puts you in a chair with the hot lights to give up your password.
Not just smartphones. After the fall of the USSR a few spooks went over there to compare notes with their KGB counterparts as the Cold War was now over. They expressed surprise at the sheer number of people devoted to spying internally and asked why. The KGB counterpart said that it was simply because far fewer people used computers in the USSR than they did in the USA.
Are there four lights?
Nice Trek reference…
Yes, speaking of ‘Warner” (David, not Mark), whose character in that episode was the epitome of the banality of evil.
I liked him as the Master Control Program in “TRON.”
Cross of Iron. Time Bandits.
Re: Boeing criminal trial story
It sounds like Hizzoner got fed up with Boeing dragging their feet on a settlement. I hope it does go to trial, for the sake of the victims. But I suspect that the Trump DoJ will try to settle before trial.
If it does make it to trial, I can haz orange jumpsuits for the CEO/CFO?
“You’ve been hit by, you’ve been hit by, the Boeing criminals!”
“Just let the bird flu run its course, these crazy cats say”
‘It may seem kinda nutty, professor, but RFK2 believes that just letting the flu ravage henhouses while we stand by and breathe it in may be the way to go.’
I think that I would rather take my science from R2D2 then RFK2. RFK2, like Boris Johnson, seems to be a great believer in herd immunity – or flock immunity in this case. Worse, he would pull any vaccines or medicines away so that the flu can do its magic. Dead farmers would just be collateral damage. And it is not like this flu virus could ever mutate as such a thing is completely unknown in medical science. I went looking for any medical degrees that RFK2 may have picked up but can only see legal training. But as I went down his Wikipedia entry I found all sorts of unsavory incidents throughout his life. Not a person I would be taking medical recommendations from. Samoa did and over 80 of their people died so he could do a “science project”-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.
Kev, remember. Wankapedia is full of BS. It’s OK for a date in time or a list of movies, but as far as history or factual renditions of a story, pointless to use.
I’m ok with Wikipedia, it’s just ultra CliffsNotes that offers up much more than the World Book of my youth, and i’ve never really run into all that much in Wiki that seemed wildly out of sorts with what i’ve come across in a longer read on something in book format in a historical context.
Good for a dollop of information in our go-go-go world, where the hope as far as i’m concerned, is to prompt further exploration of the subject matter.
Anybody seen how with Google now that when you type in a question, that the first answer given is by an AI at the top of the page? Make it stop.
I use Duckduckgo. It is probably high time I revisited my preferences because some of the stuff it shows is Google nonsense (when a lot of its original raison d’etre was to use Google results but strip out all the nonsense).
Put ” -noai” after your search question.
It removes the AI slop, at least for now.
More fun if you use obscenities. For example, “what’s the population of Paris” gets the AI but “what’s the f****** population of Paris” gets a straight set of links. For now.
Duckduckgo, Bing, and all the other sites all an option to disable the AI Gods from working, but you might have to dig into the preferences section.
For Brave, it is the third option down on the search choice box you see after clicking on the quick settings’ gear symbol ⚙︎ in the upper right corner. You may have to type in a search first before you can see the ⚙︎ and block all future AI searches for the session. They really want you to use brain killing AI thing.
Yeah I tend to use Wikipedia as a starting point. Often the articles in the bibliography are where I end up finding the nuggets.
My most recent wiki “that’s total rubbish” moment was concerning its entry about Erdos numbers. It was 20 years out of date.
For current events don’t think Wikipedia is that great, but in general I think it does demonstrate the value of hyper-text. Though sometimes I end up following a chain of links that takes me miles from what I was first interested in.
If it is true as I’ve been told that there is very little genetic diversity among commercial laying hens then the chances that there will be flu survivors capable of passing on genetically conferred immunity to their descendants is reduced. As we wait for the results of the let ‘er rip experiment I suppose we can all just eat Türkiye eggs.
thats one of the reasons my initial flock contained strange and heirloom varieties.
esp red jungle fowl(original chicken) and a smattering of banties.(best sitters and surrogate mommas).
i need fresh genetics…but will wait until this has passed.
ive also been using a smaller, texas based, and more boutique hatchery for when i do add fresh dna.
costs more, but they can be more careful, i suppose.
I’ve been watching the news to see if hens that produce brown eggs, which are the older breeds, are more or less susceptible to the bird flu than hens that lay white eggs. I haven’t seen anything yet, except an article that Pete&Gerry’s Eggs, which are high end brown eggs produced in New England, has not increased its prices.
This is why when you have your own flock like we do, you get as many new genetic breeds/diversity coming in as possible. It is actually really fun and educational for the kids to experiment with diversity. And not just the chickens, the plants too. We also select the most hearty roosters and hens to do our propagating. We have had no bird flu issues at all. The only “illness” we have had anytime lately is a few brooding hens. They will just not leave the nest for several days. The hen’s version of depression. But if not better in a few days, it can mean something else is going on.
The point being – there really are reasons why we should not be having the concentration camp style chicken factories. They are a breeding ground for things like bird flu.
The couple of opinions of the bird flu from the “Lunatic Farmer”, Joel Salatin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoemXpryNws&pp=ygUVam9lbCBzYWxhdGluIGJpcmQgZmx1
And another by him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLucUyYgSLI&pp=ygUVam9lbCBzYWxhdGluIGJpcmQgZmx1
Hi IM Doc,
My understanding of broody hens is that the broodiness is the desire of a hen to sit on a nest and hatch a clutch of eggs. It’s believed that this mothering instinct is driven by genetics (in that certain breeds are more likely to brood than others), hormones, and the amount of daylight during the year. My australorps can get very broody, with one or two hens sometimes sitting (or trying to) on the nest for months on end. Of course, I’m removing any eggs they have gathered in their clutch, but they always try to pull the eggs back under themselves as I’m trying to remove them. Needless to say, the eggs don’t have to be fertilized for the hen to brood them (I can’t have roosters in town).
Useful Idiots Katie and Aaron, utube, ~14+ minutes.
Chuck Schumer Doubles Down on Debunked Lies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8QWH_IaCo4
In my not so humble opinion, Schumer has always been a Republican at heart and, like Trump, is happy to promote that being against Genocide is equivalent to being an antisemite
“A Toxic Business: On America’s Practice of Shipping Its Trash to the Global South”
Looks like Larry Summers is a prophet-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summers_memo
These studies of human violence confuse me. What’s the difference between dropping an anvil or a piano on someone’s head and hooting with glee when it’s done? Or cutting spending on food to save up for more anvils and pianos? Or building an army of bots to go on Twitter to encourage and applaud dropping anvils and pianos on people’s heads?
Be a party to while not at risk from lethal violence, the chicken hawk way, has always seemed especially nasty and vile. But hard to measure.
More fuel for the pro-war propaganda camp:
The Atlantic releases the entire Signal chat showing Hegseth’s detailed attack plans against Houthis
Not Ready For Primetime Players then: Comedians
Not Ready for Primetime Players now: Leaders
“US has given Syria a list of demands for sanction relief, sources say”
Some of the demands are kinda bizarre. The destruction of any remaining chemical weapons stores? There hasn’t been for about a decade. And cooperation on counter-terrorism? They are talking to a guy whom until recently that they had a $10 million reward on his head as a terrorist and his party are just Al-Qaeda. Making sure foreign fighters are not installed in senior roles in Syria? They have already done that but if they were forced to step down, they would still rule behind the scenes but I guess out of sight, out of mind. The US could do the world a solid and have their government gather together – and then call in an air strike. but they won’t. They are their new buddies in this part of the world.
Who’s running US foreign policy in that part of the world? Inquiring minds…. / ;)
Well, in fairness, while the previous Syrian government had turned over its chemical weapons for destruction, the “rebels” apparently still had their own sources. So perhaps that concern is valid.
They forgot to demand stoping killing religious minorities… Would that be an implicit approval?
As for recognition of territorial integrity of Syria, that is a known lie. US still claims it wants a Palestinian state… And witkoff was dreaming in the interview of normalization of ties btw Israel and Syria… no mention about land taken….
Meryl Nass writes about HHS closing its Long Covid office.
She wonders where the money went.
https://merylnass.substack.com/p/hhs-is-closing-its-long-covid-office
The Atlantic has published the contents of the Yemen bombing Signal chat group.
Original: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegseth-goldberg/682176/
archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20250326135414/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/03/signal-group-chat-attack-plans-hegseth-goldberg/682176/
Super Bowl 2022 ‘I’m Going to Disneyland’ Commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV5yFY0AzWs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A police chase of a stolen vehicle ended at a Disneyland parking structure, where the search for the suspect or suspects was launched Monday night, March 24.
Deputies with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department first received a report around 7:50 p.m. of a stolen Chevy Camaro in the area of the Pacific Coast Highway and Ritz Carlton Drive.
The driver drove off, and deputies located it traveling on the 5 Freeway at a high speed, authorities said. Air support tracked the sports car.
Anaheim police and the California Highway Patrol later took over when the suspect pulled into the Pixar Pals parking structure at Disneyland in Anaheim around 8 p.m., according to video news provider OnScene.TV.
https://www.ocregister.com/2025/03/24/chase-of-stolen-vehicle-ends-at-disneyland-parking-structure-searched-for-suspect-or-suspects/
How Brookfield (previous employer of new Canadian PM Mark Carney) makes its money: Private Equity’s Version of “The Sting”.
And it’s Canada’s turn to make their choice between a rock and a hard place.
What I love about DOGE is what a brilliant acronym it is:
1) Don’t Overpay Greed-stricken Elon
2) Donald’s Orgasm Gratified Elon
3) Do Orange-haired Genocides Exist?
4) Doesn’t Onanism Glamorize Elon?
Etc.
Word to anti-democratic authoritarians – don’t pick acronyms with letters that start your name…
Now for something completely different.
GLAS , a 1958 Dutch short documentary.
https://archive.org/details/glas_20220226
Thank you Flora! That was great! As ever, it’s all about the rhythm.
I was never allowed to blow glass in art school, as I wasn’t in Ceramics, but I always wanted to, and spent a lot of time down there none the less. My wife enjoyed it too, as she spent time by the glory hole as well, one of her friends being a potter then and there.
re: Racket on Goldberg and the Yemen “war plan leaks”
One of the new RACKET timelines:
Racket Library
Timeline: The Houthi Attack Chat on Signal That Includes A Journalist
A timeline of the fallout since the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic reveals he was inadvertently included on a group chat about plans to attack the Houthis
by Greg Collard and James Rushmore
https://www.racket.news/p/timeline-the-houthi-attack-chat-on
Reminds me a bit of Texeira walking out of the building with classifieds.
It all fits together too neatly. Of course if one does allow this to happen it´s done in a passive kind of way: to allow people like Texeira or Goldberg to enter the space weeks/months earlier and then the “accident” happens. May be it even is an accident. But it won´t matter in the broader context of complicity and compliance by the media.
Which thus begs the question – and which is why I salute Arnaud – what the heck is a serious journalist doing there???
It of course confirms the bad reputation of THE ATLANTIC.
The options I see:
1) Waltz was unaware that he’d invited Goldberg and nobody noticed.
2) Waltz invited Goldberg deliberately and if anyone noticed they kept quiet.
3) Waltz invited Goldberg deliberately and made others keep quiet about it.
4) Someone hacked Waltz phone, invited Goldberg and nobody noticed.
The problem with 2) is that Waltz has to choose to run the risk of others in the group noticing, or of they notice not saying anything. Too dicey.
Given the responses and confused cover ups, deflections and lies yesterday I think 3) is unlikely.
I would think 4) is technically easy for the right feds. But concealing Goldberg’s presence from the others is much harder as that would require a modified build of Signal on all their phones. So this has the same problem as 2), it depends on nobody noticing or keeping quiet if they do.
And I can’t think of a motive for any of the deliberate options 2 thru 4. Can you? Goldberg may be better at arguing the Neocon case for bombing Sanaa in grown up language than the team members but this is a silly way to go about it.
*Sigh*
The Atlantic is a ferociously anti-Trump publication. The media world is full of Israel backers. Not hard to find someone in a “safer” position to act as that sort or water-carrier.
re: Yemen Goldberg
Jeffrey Goldberg’s ‘War Chat’
Summoned to move the neocon message on Trump’s illegal war on Yemen, the Atlantic Magazine editor in chief wound up with more access than he could handle.
by Max Blumenthal
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/25/max-blumenthal-jeffrey-goldbergs-war-chat/
I love Max and donate to The Grayzone but I wonder why he spends so much time writing and talking about how Pravda editors don’t confront the Politbureau. Jeffrey Goldberg’s career and, I would guess, most of his non-professional social life, depends on a quid pro quo that I think Consortium News readers understand. What next, why doesn’t Zanny Minton Beddoes explain the contradictions in neoliberalism?
What’s interesting in his articles on this topic are that Trump’s team don’t know what they are doing and can hardly think straight but they agree that Europe really sucks and should have to remunerate Team America World Police! Goldberg, otoh, appears to think the poor security is the real story.
Yes I unfortunately in the end find myself singling out Goldberg.
That´s not entirely fair I assume.
But people who are on the US Administration have moved far beyond any redemption. No sense to even think about them.
Against better judgement I still think there is however hope for journalists even of the likes of Mr. Goldberg.
I am probably a helpless romantic.
re: Israel ICC international law memo by German lawyers
This morning I was about to post a machine-translation of this item that was originally published by the German in part rightwing elite F.A.Z. daily (FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG)
Respect for International Law
A Declaration by German Speaking International Law Scholars
We teach and research international law. Despite holding different views on individual issues and diverging assessments of specific conflicts, we are united by the following convictions:
By now there is an official translation. So I link that one see bottom.
The most honest about this piece (me being grumpy old again) however was the fact that among the initial 77 signatories with FAZ – now it´s over 90 – 76 were all “Professor Dr.” with only one being just Dr.
One needs to know no more about Germany.
For real wisdom on how the world truly works, here Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd in “Spies Like Us” (1985):
“Dr.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoe24aSvLtw
If one reads carefully it becomes clear why lawyers are the last group who one could expect to stand up against war crimes and genocide if it not serves their careers.
The letter here:
https://verfassungsblog.de/declaration-respect-for-international-law/
Will American citizens safety be jeopardized after all evil doers with green cards and US stay visa that dare to squeak against Israel are done with?
Albeit, from DOGE actions, it looks that one doesn’t need to speak against Israel to be cut at the knees…
NEW LEFT REVIEW LAUNCH PARTY
Join us for the New Left Review launch party
at Verso’s New York office
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
6.30 for 7pm
At: Verso Books, Fourth Floor, 207 E 32nd Street, NY
Matt Karp, Adam Tooze and Susan Watkins will be discussing the ruptures – and continuities – of the Trump administration.
Entry free for subscribers and for those bearing a copy of the latest issue of NLR (available for $10 at the door).
Space is limited, so please register here if you’d like to attend.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/26/politics/alien-enemies-act-trump-dc-circuit-court-of-appeals/index.html
Federal appeals court maintains temporary block on Trump’s use of Alien Enemies Act for deportations
Courts Are Useful, but We Cannot Depend on Them to Save Democracy
A moving argument in the same line on YouTube from Elie Mystal, The Nation’s Justice Correspondent:
(3.10) We live in a fascist dictatorship, that’s what’s happening right now, that’s what it feels like. This is where we are. There’s not a coming constitutional crisis, we are in the constitutional crisis right now! Because how can we call ourselves a democracy, how can we call ourselves a nation of law, if one man and one man alone, Donald Trump, is able to defy the other two branches of government!?
(11.49) Amy, people have told me from the jump, from November 5th when he was elected, that the courts would save us, that the courts would restrain him, that the courts would be the final guardrail preventing his military dictatorship, and I have said from the jump that the courts will not save us, that they cannot save us – because they cannot enforce their own decisions! The executive enforces the Court’s decisions, and if you have an executive like Trump who is willing to ignore court orders, then there’s nothing courts can do.
So part of my question, Amy, is to turn it around back on the other people who were telling me for months that the courts were saving us, what do y’all got now!? What’s your plan now? Now that the courts have issued their order and Trump has ignored their orders, what’s Plan B? Because Plan A was the courts saving us and that was never going to work!
My response to Trump violating a court order, violating multiple court orders, is the people have to lead, because the courts will not do it, the courts cannot do it! You want to free Khalil? We need to go to Jena and free Khalil, that’s what it takes! It’s not going to happen because a judge writes something down on a piece of paper Trump is just going to ignore!
“We Live in a Fascist Dictatorship”: Elie Mystal on Trump’s Lawlessness, Attacks on the Judiciary, Democracy Now March 19