Lambert here: I apologize for the excessive links, which are especially difficult to gather lately because the Trump Wars are drowning out everything else (including what the administration is actually doing). At some point Yves and I may have to remind you that while we always try to be interesting, Links makes no pretense to be comprehensive. –lambert.
This 600-Pound Preserved Blue Whale Heart Will Last 1,000 Years Vice (Re Silc).
The Malta Files: How the smallest EU country became a haven for global tax avoidance The Black Sea and BREAKING ACROSS EUROPE/MALTA FILES: the tidal wave has hit the “Panama of Europe” (Richard Smith). Of the latter, Smith comments: “Nice bit of coordinated international pressage sampled in the screen shots here.”
Walmart and Banking: It’s Time to Reconsider Money and Banking
BankThink Flashback: When sales quotas seemed like a good idea The American Banker
Economic Forecasting Is Still Broken Narayana Kocherlakota, Bloomberg
Bond traders stopped fighting the Fed because they won FT
Omega’s Leon Cooperman Settles Insider Trading Case WSJ (J-LS).
Cor Development’s ties to tainted lobbyist Todd Howe go back 6 years, records show Post-Standard (Bob). Bob writes:
That parcel is question is a hot commodity. It was owned by SUNY Upstate, who’s then prez was fired (no jail, he was paying himself as a cutout staffing agency).
It was also the location proposed for a sports stadium for Syracuse Uiversity. Cuomo was ready to throw $500 million at SU for it.
Interesting how SU never, ever gets mentioned in the story. Good to have a friend in the fake news business (Advance, aka Newhouse).
SU: the Newhouse School of Public Communications, formerly known as a journalism school.
PR by the pros.
Social Capital has hired Marc Mezvinsky as the investment firm morphs its business Recode. Ka-ching.
Americans Are Paying $38 to Collect $1 of Student Debt Bloomberg
ETP Spills Two Million Gallons of Drilling Material in Ohio Indian Country
The shadow arms bazaar that fuels global cyber crime FT
Syraqistan
Trump’s first foreign trip: The deals he’ll try to make and the things that could go wrong Quartz
Trump’s spiritual tour to begin with Saudi desert tryst Asia Times (Re Silc).
U.S. Bombs Syrian Regime Forces For First Time Foreign Policy
U.S. Attacks Syrian Government Forces – It Now Has To Make Its Choice Moon of Alabama
Syria Has Effectively Ceased to Exist Foreign Policy. Mission accomplished!
Slavery Now: Migrant Labor in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia Counterpunch
A day in the life of Juba’s bicycle water vendors Al Jazeera (Re Silc). Obama, Hillary? Take a bow!
India
Drought in the Western Ghats Part 8: Water wars erupt as sources dry up in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana First Post (J-LS).
Amid Panic Over Worthless Cash, Some In India See Opportunity NPR
Brexit
Exclusive: MI5 opened file on Jeremy Corbyn amid concerns over his IRA links The Telegraph. “[A] source close to the investigation.” This play seems remarkably familiar…
Jeremy Corbyn far more likely to be attacked by media than Theresa May, election reporting audit reveals Independent. This too….
China?
China’s building a mega city from scratch – it’s going to suck in lots of steel, copper Mining.com
Imperial Collapse Watch
A Very High Degree of Certainty in Future Military Operations n+1. “For all his supposed intellectual independence, McMaster clearly and unquestioningly embraces the premises that have supported the American empire since 1945. The fact that such a perspicacious officer could endorse such an outdated vision of the world suggests that not only the Trump Administration, but also the entire culture of the American national security establishment, is broken.” No duh! (It’s worth noting, at this point, that fly-over country provides the “Good Citizen Scholars” (hat tip local to oakland) for that same establishment to maim and slaughter.)
The Pentagon’s New Algorithmic Warfare Cell Gets Its First Mission: Hunt ISIS Defense One (Re Silc). Will Lieutenant General Van Riper please pick up the nearest white courtesy phone?
Seth Rich, Craig Murray and the Sinister Stewards of the National Security State Mike Whitney, Counterpunch (OregonCharles).
New Cold War
Don’t Fear President Pence, Liberals. Welcome Him. TNR
Comey, called ‘nut job’ by Trump, to testify in open session before Senate USA Today
Russia probe reaches current White House official, people familiar with the case say WaPo
The Kushner-Comey Connection emptywheel. There’s a copy editing issue in the headline: “Connection” should read “Putative Connection.” Fixed it for ya.
What Donald Trump Needs to Know About Bob Mueller and Jim Comey Politico
Trump Team Planning Possible Retaliation for Classified Leak Allegations Foreign Policy. From the heart of The Blob…
Trump Is a Cornered Megalomaniac—and That’s a Grave Danger to the Country The Nation
‘I’m Not There at This Point’: Sanders Isn’t Ready to Jump on the Trump Impeachment Wagon Yet Mediaite
Inside Russia’s Social Media War on America Time
* * * Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia Vox (!).Democracy Is Not Your Plaything Peggy Noonan, RealClearPolitics (with clickthrough to WSJ). “Get a grip.”
Trump supporters find White House allegations hard to believe FT
Trump diehards dismiss Russia scandal: ‘Show me the proof – or get off his case’ Guardian
Would You Let Trump Run Your Company? Bloomberg
Washington Post, Breaking News, Is Also Breaking New Ground NYT. Guys, get a room.
Trump Transition
Trump administration to move all federal IT into the cloud: Is it realistic?Tech Republic
The Trump effect on your job Federal News Radio
Meet the Pastor Running as a Progressive Republican to Get Big Money Out of Politics The Intercept
‘I Have A Sickness:’ Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner Pleads Guilty To Sexting Teen Girl CBS New York (J-LS).
By sabotaging the 2020 census, Republicans make it harder to fight gerrymandering Boing Boing. One of the advantages of being, well, older is that one comes to see causalities that take decades to play out. If the Democrats had responded to the (mild, in retrospect) legitimacy crisis in 2000 — Bush v. Gore, Jebbie’s attempt to steal Florida for his little brother, Gore winning the popular vote but not the Electoral College — with a concerted effort to expand the franchise by making voter registration and GOTV a core party function, the Republicans wouldn’t control all three branches of the Federal government, most state legislatures, and most governorships. Of course, that didn’t happen, the simplest explanation being that neither the Democrat donor class nor the Democrat nomenklatura wanted the franchise expanded. And here we are!
Health Care
Will New York Beat California in the Race to Enact a Single-Payer Health Care System? Truthout (Re Silc). Hopefully, Cuomo wouldn’t pollute single payer the way he polluted free college.
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
The FBI Has a New Plan to Spy on High School Students Across the Country Alternet (PDF from the FBI’s Office of Partner Engagement). I don’t understand this. I thought the FBI, collectively, was a Hero of The Republic? Did I not get the memo?
Judge: Marijuana ‘sniff test’ enough for vehicle search VTDigger. What could go wrong?
Class Warfare
AT&T’s union workers walk off the job to launch three-day strike amid contract dispute New York Daily News
America is becoming weird. Here are some recent examples. Fabius Maximus
The Off Ramps Never Used Ian Welsh (MR). Reminds me of this from Gibson’s The Peripheral. A survivor from the future speaks, in the past: “This… is still ostensibly a democracy. A majority of empowered survivors, considering the jackpot [see here], and no doubt their own positions, wanted none of that. Blamed it, in fact.”
The Return of the Repressed New Left Review. Today’s must-read.
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
261 comments
Comments are closed.
Seth Rich died from two gunshots to the back. Nothing was stolen from him, yet it is officially called a robbery.
His watch, jewelry and cash were worth >$1K. He was treated w/o complications and admitted a few blocks away at Howard but he was dead by dawn. The lawyer who served Debbie W-S died of unknown causes within a few weeks later. DNC is now Murder, Inc.
Sorry, if he was taken to Howard it’s no surprise he didn’t make it… there was a very long and comprehensive exposé of this very troubled hospital published in the Post recently.
> The lawyer who served Debbie W-S
Link, please.
Oh, I did some searching, and I don’t think this person was a lawyer. He was a process server. Here’s a link:
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/08/sanders-supporters-stunned-by-sudden-death-of-38-year-shawn-lucas-who-served-the-lawsuit-on-the-dnc-and-wasserman-shultz/
Thanks. This is Snopes on Shawn Lucas, FWIW.
I have to say that whacking a process server seems a little over the top, even for Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Sh*t happens.
It probably is too far. Although I have to admit I’d include it on lists of mysterious deaths if Lucas didn’t have a history of drug use. And I include legal drugs in this, as we know overuse of painkillers has led more than a few people to drugs laced with fentanyl. Certainly the kratom could indicate attempts to get off opioids.
His other specialty is archiving emails.
Which reminds me.
“Trump administration to move all federal IT into the cloud: Is it realistic?Tech Republic”
Dunno why they have to ask now?. NSA virus vault out there, Stutnext and Wanna Cry.
But evry clusterf*ck is an opportunity. Make the “Wanna Suck Federal Bucks Virus?”. Switch it on whenever we want austerity, or permanently when we hit the debt ceiling! Modern Austerity Theory, or DoorMat for short. Good for the .01% economy. Then cut their taxes. Supply Side! Laffer will, again.
P.S. My buddies new $1700 HP Win 10 computer was just crippled by Wanna Cry. He is. MSFT claimed Win 10 with the March update is immune and all fixed up. He had it, plus Win Defender and a fancy firewall on his router. It’s all marketing BS. Pure crap. All of it.
Which reminds me. Read a Cory Doctorow novel. He’s also a programmer and activist. His novels are usually future dystopian street talk, but they use whole English words, usually. Everything is market oriented and market speak pervades all. These were short stories, but a recurring theme is there are the Bugout Space Aliens running the planet, in a nice way.
However, there is a theme park for humans run by the Bugouts. Kids go there for adventure and moderately dangerous encounters. The Bugout carnival barkers direct the action. After many visits, the kids grow long ears, a long face, big teeth and nose, four legs and hooves, and slowly turn into donkeys. Then they are captured and herded off to some secret, probably unsafe space. No one knows where.
I think CD probably runs his own very successful Thomas L. Friedman Twisty Metaphor Contest. The donkey is an obvious metaphor for a Democrat. The next neural jump leads to “Ass”. QED.
Bonus! Trump = “Carnival Barker?” It must.
Or a takeoff from the episode in Pinocchio, where he plays hooky from school and narrowly misses being turned into a donkey like the other boys he hangs out with?
Love you Craazyboy. Thanks for the book review.
Here’s one;
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/breaking-lead-attorney-dnc-fraud-case-found-dead-1-week-serving-dnc-papers/
You don’t specifically say it, but the point is that these items were not taken. Seth Rich was not robbed of anything (except his life).
I second Lambert’s request for a link about the DWS lawyer. Thanks in advance.
Here’s Snopes.com on Seth Rich:
“Hacked” as opposed to “Leaked”
Almost two weeks later, on 22 July 2016, WikiLeaks dumped a load of hacked e-mails that would embarrass the DNC and create a media frenzy in the months before the election. The timing of the incidents, as well as Rich’s employment at the DNC, led to conspiracy theories tying his death to the leak. Adding to the confusion, WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of Rich’s killer. Since his death, Rich’s family has consistently denied rumors linking him to WikiLeaks.
Isn’t Snopes the site run by lady strippers?
I haven’t heard that one. Maybe you could look it up on snopes.com!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fact-checker-arbitrate-fake-news-accused-defrauding-website-pay-prostitutes-staff-includes-escort-porn-star-Vice-Vixen-domme.html
That didn’t take long.
A competent dom can make four hours feel like an eternity.
Wow! That’s dialing the Crazy all the way up to eleven!
I used Google, not Snopes. The Daily Mail story may have been linked here at some point.
It would be hilarious if one could find this information at snopes.com!
Everything about america is exceptional, including, or maybe especially, the bullshit.
I have heard it referred to as a botched robbery.
Yeah, ‘botched’ … wink, wink ….
Let’s be precise here. The knowledge of how to carry out a murder so that it looks like an accident, or so that it looks like it was done by someone other than the murderer, is not esoteric. In fact it is a standard consideration in any premeditated killing.
In the case of Seth Rich, the murder could easily have been disguised as the armed robbery it was supposed to be, simply by carrying out the robbery along with the killing.
Why wasn’t this done?
The reason is that the murder was not just revenge, but a warning to others. For those being warned, the bogus cover story had to be just good enough to fool the general public, but not so good that those being warned might fail to get the message. So the ambiguity is deliberate. The cover story–that the killing was a botched armed robbery–is both very dubious, and yet never disproved as the crime investigation that would disprove it never happens.
That the crime investigation never happens is an extra piece, and part of the warning: The political power being claimed is real, and sufficient to shut down a murder investigation.
–Gaianne
It seems pedantic to have to spell this out, but with regard to the Trump Russia allegations, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. The same holds true with regard to the Seth Rich claims.
Then again, we’ve been running on JFK assassination fumes for half a decade now, so why stop now…
“half a decade ”
I think you mean century, but who’s counting?
Here, Judge Guido didn’t think it important.
So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black!
And what makes the Seth Rich claims extraordinary? In your opinion?
The establishment in the US is quite accustomed to controlling internal matters by “manufacturing consent” instead of resorting to more overt methods. There are clearly exceptions (Fred Hampton comes immediately to mind), but those exceptions are just that– exceptional.
No I would not put it outside the realm of possibility that the DNC might have offed someone, just as I wouldn’t put it outside the realm of possibility that Trump could in some crazy outlying circumstance have colluded with the Russians. But both situations would be extremely out of character and would thus require extraordinary proof.
I’ll give you an E for effort in your attempt at trying to muddy the waters, but it makes no sense to throw Trump/Russian collusion in the same basket as Seth Rich murder.
In the former there is no evidence, in the latter there is indisputable evidence—they guy was killed with two gunshots to the back.
Apparently the status of the Seth Rich case is: “it’s an unsolved murder, and we’re in no rush to solve it. In fact we expect it to remain unsolved forever. So just accept that fact and don’t hassle us—we got donuts to eat.”
except … RG wasn’t suggesting that no-one knows whether or not Rich as shot twice in the back. Nor, at least as I read the comment, did it dispute that the case is under-reported and apparently under-investigated. Nor was the comment even making a case against suspecting murky institutional involvement in that under-reporting/under-investigation, and nor did it say anything one way or the other about the likelihood of Rich’s involvement in the leaks. And finally, nor did it say that a direct linear connection with all those things, leading to a DNC &/or “intelligence”-ordered hit, was outright impossible. All RG did was point out that taking seriously any or all of those first few things doesn’t automatically mandate treating the last one as obvious, given how much is not known at this stage (keeping things unknown being the traditional point of a cover-up, whether it works or not.) Or to put it another way — as RG also took trouble to emphasise — of course US state and para-state agencies engage in retail killing sometimes, but they prefer to do their killing wholesale.
The guy was trying to muddy the waters by throwing “Trump/Russian collusion” in with a known murder. The two things are totally unalike and unrelated, but he is in effect EQUATING them.
Also, it was not necessarily the DNC per se that ordered the hit. More likely it was Hill herself.
Thanks CW. What separates us from the Hillbots at Kos or NYT is not their misguided fealty to the DNC or their loyalty to Team Blue, but rather that we prioritise hard facts over belief in whatever suits our preconceived understanding of the facts. A scientist always looks for data to contradict her thesis, in contrast to Hillbots who are looking for any excuse to justify the failings of their model. We must hold ourselves to an even higher standard than the one we rightly accuse them of transgressing.
Different clue makes one point; I would make another.
It seems pedantic to spell this out, but what you know, because you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, is vastly less than what you know because a preponderance of the evidence shows it is both likely, and indeed, most likely.
Notice: No one has proved–beyond a reasonable doubt–that it was not an armed robbery. And you can not prove a negative, at least not directly, although you can prove a negative if you can prove something that excludes it–such as finding the murderers and then discovering they were not committing a robbery.
This is where suppression of the investigation comes in: It leaves the matter permanently in limbo.
Remember: Politics is war by other means. Sometimes the boundary between politics and war blurs a bit.
One key to understanding the forces driving politics is noticing when important crime investigations are dropped.
–Gaianne
As I noted above, I do not disagree with the facts you mentioned. Where I differ is with regard to method. Before accepting something as fact, I must apply at least the same standard as I apply to those who disagree with me (eg the MSM).
Thus for example, the MSM narrative says that I must reject evidence that Seth Rich was murdered and blindly accept that Putin hacked 2016 elections. But I want to see solid proof for believing either of them.
You have hit the nail on the head. The body left on the street is a warning/example for others to keep their mouths shut. The Mafia, when I was a kid in Brooklyn, called it omerta. His laptop with all those emails will never be found and Howard hospital staff know better.
When, precisely, does the body politic tip over into utter terror at what our Dear Leaders seem to be capable of?
I agree with Steven Cohen (just the senior academic in the country on Russia), the “clear and present danger” is not the hapless Orange Man, but the unprecedented Russia-gate witch hunt and coup attempt. And the possible murder and coverup of a top executive who released information about potential rampant lawbreaking by one of our political parties should most definitely not be just swept under the rug.
So I say, yes, let’s have a special counsel, their job will be to investigate all lawbreaking by members of our so-called government. Start with Saudi and Israeli influence peddling, take a side trip into 9/11, a roundup of the NSA world hack-a-thon, deep dives into things like campaigns and “charitable” trusts, revisit Congressional insider trading, then finish with TARP and everything banky after 2009.
We’re on a precipice. We can decide we’re a nation of laws, not men. There’s still time.
We’re a nation of men (and women) who are lawyers. The important thing is to know all the angles.
“We can decide we’re a nation of laws….”
At this point, we are a nation of nothing but laws. Sadly, those laws no longer reflect any of the values of the actual population they are used against. There are so many laws at this point that “people of power” have an embarrassment of choices with which to crush opposition and extort wealth legally. See the DRM discussion above.
What we need, as a nation, is many fewer laws. See “Too Much Justice.”
Rod Wheeler, the Rich family’s PI, was the source for Fox’s story that Seth was talking to Wikileaks before he died and that the police dept was told to stand down on the murder case.
I wonder why he backed off his story 2 days later?
http://www.fox5dc.com/news/255305734-story
And why he just got a cease and desist letter from Seth’s family?
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/05/19/seth-richs-family-sends-cease-and-desist-fox-news-contributor-behind-evidence-free-smears/216576
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4524384/Murdered-DNC-staffer-s-family-send-PI-legal-letter.html
Actually, it looks like it only took 1 day according to Buzzfeed.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/claudiakoerner/the-private-detective-who-ignited-a-clinton-conspiracy?utm_term=.waEmJwwYr#.nvxMQwwND
I’m not impressed with crusading private investigators working for free. Sorry.
So far as I’m concerned, the story hasn’t advanced since day one, though it ought to have been advanced, because of the oddities in the circumstances.
I mean, generally when partisan IT people involved with voting technology die, it’s because they go up in small planes. So right there, we sense the oddness.
Even the ex-con Jim Rockford had a minimum of $200/day plus expenses. And that was back in the 70’s.
Ah, the 70’s!
I wish they’d rerun that show more often here. I can’t even find it on cable. Maybe there’s a load of wrangling over residuals or that sort of dispute. When I see some of the dross we’re subjected to (The Streets of San Francisco, for goodness sake) and they can’t spare some airtime for Rockford? I blame Rupert Murdoch. No proof. Just because…
Remember that time Putin cancelled Rockford?
The replacement show, “Dancing with the Tsars” was too old fashioned for today’s “hip” audiences I’ve read. I mean, what’s up with that “Perestroika Polka?” And the poor losers. Being sent to Siberia to star in “Tsars on Ice?” I’d rather essay the Tesla Two Step on Mars.
Methinks Lambert is udderly trolling this in an attempt to extract, witty, cogent, insightful prose outta da commietariet.
The Police Blotter jokes write themselves. Scorsese would be proud. DeNiro and Pesci too.
I am reminded of the National Lampoon’s “fake news satire” headline about the death of Allende.
” Salvador Allende shoots self in head 47 times, pausing only twice to reload.”
The above linked Fox story says he was paid by a third party, not working for free. I’ve seen that elsewhere.
And the “backing off”–once again according to Fox–is from the claim that his information came from the FBI, not the allegation itself.
As for Buzzfeed, aren’t they the ones calling NC fake news?
Maybe they didn’t kill Roth, and he really did fall over backwards on his unregistered gun while robbing himself, as does happen sometimes in the Police Blotters.
But the trail of the Podesta emails goes straight to Assange and there was an intermediary as witness too. That should be enough to quench the email BS. The rest of it has been all fluff for 2 years now! Jeebus.
Otherwise Trump may push himself out a mirrored plate glass window, way up high in Trump Tower.
Or drown while bobbing for fresh oysters in the Mara Lago Capo Aquarium and Library Room. That happens a lot in the Miami Area too!
Since you brought it up;speaking broadly of Florida, as a catharsis, you should imbibe in the Floridian based literature of Tim Dorsey, particularly Cadillac Beach. (My father in law, knowing we loved Russo’s, “Nobody’s Fool”, gave us this hilarious book along with one, quite fittingly, by Thomas Merton. ) I am sure it will only enhance your already superior lyrical style and more importantly, maybe it will be a partial repayment of the laughs you’ve given me.
Sounds cool. I’ll check it out. Laughs all around. hahaha.
Sean Hannity has lined up an interview with Kim Dotcom, a possible intermediary between Rich and Assange, who says he will be making a statement Tuesday after consulting with his lawyers.
This could be about to break wide open. Or it could just be more BS and innuendo.
/pol/ has found fascinating connections on the Rich story.
According to them Rich was in position to have direct knowledge of serious DNC vote fraud for Hills. The DNC analytics team was figuring out who their no show voters were and voting for them with absentee ballots, among other things.
Bernie knows what happened.
Assange has also admitted, to the extent he can, that Rich was the leaker.
Maybe Seth was afraid to fly in those as I am.
His family wants to stay alive.
Maybe his family wants some privacy. Their son was murdered, and having him thrown around in the news like this has to be painful for them.
JB–
Sure looks like it.
Sudden about-faces always have SOME explanation.
“Maybe the family just wants some privacy.”
Well, yeah. You can’t just say you changed your mind because some crime boss is going to kill you. That does not work at all.
–Gaianne
Seth rich story should be left alone…his parents don’t much want it to be a hit…they are going along with the acela vanity press version of the official narrative…seth was on the phone dealing with how he and his girlfriend were going to try to deal with a commuter relationship since he had gotten a job with the $hillary campaign and was moving to brooklyn…which is confusing since there seems to be a two hour gap of where he had been…the inference from quoted roommates is they “figured” he was with girlfriend…but some versions of narrative suggest she was out of town and if not, then why leave at 4 am and walk home ??
If he was the direct source or if he just left a door open for someone else to step into the void and hoover the data, he was taking a huuuuge risk going into the mouth of the lion and working in Brooklyn directly for the black widow warmonger…
Either way…the family, either from fear or just wanting to imagine it was random and thus they can not feel powerless to avenge their loss…they have zero interest in probing beyond a botched robbery/hit…
I say botched and question more so how exactly he died at the hospital…he came in conscious, breathing and it seems also talking…but was gone 90 minutes later…that to me is more confusing than the robbery/hit…
Not to say people dont die from gun shots today…but one of the reasons the official “murder rates” fell over the past decades was not so much less shootings, but less people dying from shootings…
Either way…he is gone…can’t bring him back…and as any honest law enforcement person will tell you…most murders are not figured out by hard work but usually more luck as the obvious parties (someone near to victim) are questioned and someone gives some body language or linguistic signal that leads to their further questioning…
“Random” shootings are hardly ever solved unless the killers use the same weapon again or some party they blabbed to gives them up in return for some other case being dropped or reduced…
N.Korea says U.S. has to roll back ‘hostile policy’ before talks
North Korea’s deputy U.N. envoy said on Friday that the United States needed to roll back its “hostile policy” toward the country before there could be talks between the pair.
“As everybody knows, the Americans have gestured (toward) dialogue,” North Korea’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong told reporters on Friday. “But what is important is not words, but actions.”
“The rolling back of the hostile policy towards DPRK is the prerequisite for solving all the problems in the Korean Peninsula,” he said. “Therefore, the urgent issue to be settled on Korean Peninsula is to put a definite end to the U.S. hostile policy towards DPRK, the root cause of all problems.”
Unsurprisingly, this is getting no coverage in US media.
Does everyone know?
The last I heard, a 2nd carrier group was headed that way.
Do the North Koreans know more than us?
This past week Southfront showed two US carrier groups in the area–one in port and one at sea.
–Gaianne
Oh wow, what’s going on with North Korea these days? I’d almost forgotten about them in the flood of stories of how much of an embarrassment Trump is. Funny how the attention of the MSM just completely shifts from one topic to another.
Because nothing is better than crack-of-dawn masochism on a chilly Saturday morning, I hazarded a dive into the IQ-sinkhole that is the Grauniad comments section, particularly in the article cited in today’s links (“Trump diehards dismiss Russia scandal”). Amongst the bilge therein, however, there were the occasional points of sanity amidst the usual rot:
This meek deviation was, naturally, remorselessly rebuffed by the Wurlitzer’s cacophonous bellow, eg:
Clearly “the same coastal elites who ignored them” have decided to continue ignoring them– ‘republican suburbanites’ and all that rot. It makes me actually admire the Acela Bubble in a perverse Don Giovanni sort of way: they are heading full throttle to perdition with everyone around them exhorting them to repentance, but they stick to their principles nonetheless.*
*nb: grabbing one’s ankles for billionaire bucks is a principle too.
I haven’t gone below the line on political articles in the Guardian in a while – I think the tone of whats written depends a lot on the article and writer. Last year the comments BTL on HRC were withering and there was clearly a huge pro-Sanders number of readers, many very articulate. One problem is that the sane left wing anti social warrior commentators are becoming overwhelmed by all the right wingers who can’t afford a Murdoch newspaper subscription and so amuse themselves on the Guardian instead.
I often wonder what goes on within the Guardian. There is clearly a party ‘line’ of standard liberalism, but with a few really good writers like John Harris holding the line on the left, a fair few good articles slip in – even Thomas Frank gets regular articles, but I can’t help noticing that they are never top of the page.
George Monbiot is always a worthwhile read.
Except on matters nuclear, where he suddenly starts believing we can build YUGE high technological institutions that last, corruption free, for millenia (and besides, radiation isn’t all that harmful, so suck it up for nature).
Yeah this is a good point as this was the first time in years that I summoned the wherewithal to venture beyond the line at The Guardian. YMMV.
Our Don Quixote there mistook windmills for giants, though anyone’s faith is his/her business, and one is free to worship in secret or convert any time, before or after the White House.
No offense to the cousins but British media seem to have even less insight into American affairs than our own native birdcage liners. Whenever I watch BBC they are just aping American television so why bother? Our PBS even uses Brit stringers for their reports from places like Ukraine. The party line never seems to be disturbed.
I remember once years ago hearing a BBC correspondent refer to ” Chuck Hagel, the Senator from New York”. I never heard a correction.
The baby lynx is too damn cute. Have to admit if I were mama lynx, baby would probably get away with everything.
The wildflowers aren’t bad either.
The red ones are colloquially known as Indian Paintbrush, my personal favorite wildflower.
This is one of the best wildlife photos I have seen on NC or anywhere else.
stunning!
AA lynx for the links. :-)
U.S. Bombs Syrian Regime Forces For First Time Foreign Policy
The headline and first par make the absurd claim that this is a first. There was also the attack on Deir Ezzor last year, which led to the Danes pulling out of the coalition.
AFAICT the latter development went completely unreported by US and UK MSM. What’s less well known is that Denmark sent in special forces in January, after pressure from the white house.
Concerning the latest strike, we are told.
The U.S. forces on the ground were in no danger, but the strikes were deemed to be in self defense because the Syrian regime forces were within about 20 miles of the U.S. position, one military official said.
Self defense, mistakes, unintentional, any excuse is good enough.
I think the argument would be that this is the first intentional aerial bombing, the Deir Ezzor strike officially having been a mistake. Which is a complete lie, of course.
Anyway, claiming self-defense when you’re illegally occupying the area you’re defending is quite absurd. Of course, we’ve let Israel get away with a similarly ridiculous claim for decades.
There were two US strikes against the Syrian army in Deir Ez-Zor: on 2016-09-17 and an earlier one on 2015-12-06.
And recall who performed the 9/17 Deir Ez-Zor attack: it was the Pentagon, not the Executive Branch pulling the trigger. Obama had nudged toward peacefulness and cooperation with Vlad in Syria, can’t have that. Wouldn’t want any of that Peace stuff breaking out now would they.
I like Kucinich’s idea that we need a Department of Peace, whose fulltime job is to see if there are peaceful means to solve problems. We used to have the State Department handling that through something called “diplomacy” but for the last decade or so they are just the ground prep committee for the military and the goon squad to enforce what American multinationals want.
Interesting that it was also not mentioned that the U.S. position was inside the territory of a sovereign nation called Syria. It’s almost like watching a skilled magician to realize that the word “Syria” has come to mean a region of the Middle East, and not a nation, to many. This is Propaganda of a high order.
We have no business attacking Syrian forces at all. So there must be a reason. We don’t want to be dislodged from holding the land that will allow us to promote a Kurdish revolution that will take all of eastern Syria, Northern Iraq, and even demand ancestral land in eastern Turkey; and all the way to the shores of the Caspian. But that’s just my opinion. The Kurds are the tell. And another interesting bit was in one of the links about Iran now protecting its access to Syria via a northern road, which would force US forces southward. This is Chess.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Giap defeat the west in Indochina using “Go” strategy?
My problem with the Kurds is that everyone who lives next to them in the region somehow seems to dislike them, to the extent of suppressing and killing them.
My telling indicator would be if and when the Russians send ground troops in numbers to support Damascus.
The Kurds were “there first” and the others may dislike them because the others haven’t been able to wage and win a Final Solution Indian War against them so far.
Afaict the Armenians were there for many centuries until 1915 when the Kurds as vassals for the Turks systematically cleansed them from both Turkey and Syria. The kurds vulgar brutality in this Holocaust was noted by many, remembered by many and relevant to all today. Kurds are practiced at being killers and territorial expansionist, that’s why they are backed by the USA!
The Kurds were once called the Medes, as in the Medes and the Persians. They’ve been there for a long, long time.
The genocide against the Armenians is a blot on both them and the Turks.
Tell that to the Turks. I believe the have a different opinion.
I believe THE OBJECTIVE is Chaos. After all these years Chaos is not incompetance or a mistake.
I do understand the phrase “Never attribute to mail that which can be attributed to incompetence,” but nearly 20 year so of incompetence, spanning three very different administrations?
Chaos in the Arab World is in the US’ interest. It prevents unity of Arab purpose, and maintains a running sore for Russia and China to consider.
Nah, I think it’s the old Sunni vs. Shi’a playbook, Saudi plus the Gulf states, these are Muzzies we can deal with, hookers and blow on the Cote d’Azur. Note where The Orange Man went first. Toss in Israel of course. On the other side are Vlad and Iran. Erdogan went off the reservation and the Kurds are a way to poke him in the eye, we tried to topple him with Gulen but Vlad tipped them off. All good fun.
> This is Propaganda of a high order.
Well, this is Foreign Policy magazine.
Ouch!
Where is “Ramparts” magazine when we need it?
At this point, Al Goldstein and “Screw” magazine would qualify as high journalism.
I know. But the nice thing about propaganda is that it always betrays itself. If you know just a little about a subject and you read propaganda about it you instantly suffer a confusion. And then the question to ask is why. Such a fun game, all this second-guessing.
:D
Nice touch!
–Gaianne
As for Cuomo and single payer, every liberal/lefty/DFH thing that has gotten through in NY has been crapified or turned into a total front by Cuomo. We have the biggie of free tuition, but look at the increase in minimum wage, medical marijuana, manipulations of mass transit, etc.
If NY is to get single payer, I can only pray that Cuomo is kept as far away from it as possible either by not being in office or being too busy trying to get another office. That is the only way it will survive not being turned into a neoliberal disaster.
Cuomo is now trying to disown the MTA after a string of subway breakdowns and major systemwide failures in recent weeks.
http://secondavenuesagas.com/2017/05/19/mta-andrew-cuomos-problem-whether-wants-not/
The California dems are a bunch of turds. I expect nothing from their single payer bill but optics and sculduggery.
According to this article in Buffalo Rising
(I’ve read elsewhere that “behavioral health”—which I assume are psychiatric and psychological services—are also included.)
That sounds pretty good (surprisingly good) to me. (I wonder how they’ll deal with people who are not state residents.)
I would not put it past Gov. Cuomo to try to crapify it but the proponents of single payer are pretty clear on what they want so it might be more difficult to do in this case.
Why not a postal bank if the goal is to making competitive banking services to the underserved? We really don’t need to suggest a conglomerate which has eaten small businesses like a whale shark devours krill, to serve this role
but we don’t want to support a failing institution like the post office, where the workers are union and there is actual service to all areas of the country without profit for our betters. /s
Remove the /s tag and you have a succinct exposition of the Feinstein Doctrine.
Yeah, let’s name that for the Democrat who has benefitted the most from the continued attempts to destroy the Post Office.
I’m sure I’m wrong, but this is one of those things that I haven’t seen a lot of Dems joining in on the destruction, unlike the Grand Bargain. So letting it be killed while never raising a hand to help is SOP anymore. Mind you, if they see the benefits as from Diane or it really becomes a fund raiser to some outraged billionaire somewhere, they’ll be wielding the knives as well, see the growth of the support for the mentioned above Grand Bargain.
Diane and her minions can rest happy in the knowledge that they are continuing the “Good Work” (TM) of Dick Nixon who split the package delivery profit centre off from the less renumerative first class letter class. Hence, FedEx, DHL, etc.
I’m beginning to think that the old Anarchists had a point with their “direct action” programs.
Every person who switched from paying bills by landmail to paying bills by electronic transfer has added their little bit of funds-deprivation to the extermattrition conspiracy against the Postal Service.
Millions of little people who want to support the survival of the Postal Service and its okay-payed Unionized Workforce could cancel their electronic payments arrangements and go back to receiving bills in the mail and sending checks in the mail, with the Postal Service getting a tiny bit more survival money with each stamp sold. The greater “waste of paper” encouraged thereby is worth it in terms of preserving a service which the Feinstein Elites are working to destroy in order to profitise the wreckage for themselves.
Is everyone aware that the post office is now hiring non-union workers and paying them minimum wage to deliver the mail? Everyone in my walkable suburban neighborhood of 800 households has had problems with mis-delivered, never-delivered mail for several years. The long-time postal worker responsible for our area, who until a couple of years ago actually delivered the mail herself, now drives around in a truck “supervising” young people who are not in uniform and who frequently deliver mail addressed to different streets and different house numbers to the same address. I have even received mail addressed to another city!
I love the USPS, but I’m afraid it has already been crapified beyond most people’s comprehension. It hardly seems the right time for a postal bank. The rot is deep.
In response to the congressional mandate that USPS prefund retirement benefits, they’ve started hiring non career employees to save money (currently called city carrier assistants- or CCA’s). However, they’re just expected to deliver mail, and accuracy isn’t their concern. I guarantee they are getting yelled at by the regular carrier every day because it bothers them that the CCA’s do a bad job- or it bothers my letter carrier husband, at least.
That said, its a really hard job. And the new contract pays these non career employees a lot more than some people with college degrees, so maybe you’ll see an improvement.
Call the post office and complain. Maybe it’ll do some good, but it sounds like your letter carrier is the trainer for new employees.
Perhaps we should work on getting Congress to reverse that unprecedented and never-followed-elsewhere pre-funded retirement mandate in order to remove that drainage-of-funds pressure on the Postal Service. That might allow the Postal Service to stop hiring no-retirement-prefunding-needed CCAs.
This retirement prefunding requirement has two goals from what I read. One is exterminating the Postal Service by depriving it of money needed to modernize and introduce new things, or even keep up with changes and pressures around it. The other goal is to take that money, once the Postal Service has been exterminated, and Wall Streetify it.
So cancelling that retirement prefunding requirement might be a worthy goal.
You can’t loot what don’t exist.
Carla: Yes. Here in the Edgewater neighborhood of Chicago, my stalwart regular mail carrier mentioned the subcontractor business to me a while back. The subs are not civil service. Some are competent. Some are clueless.
And my mail carrier tells me that the Amazon package deal means that work has picked up considerably: No one knows, though, just how much Amazon screwed over the USPS financially.
Same in my town for the last couple years. I also get flyers occasionally offering mail-carrier jobs. I knew something was up because those jobs used to be highly prized and highly paid years ago. Getting one usually required a long wait and veterans service.
Not so new demodog king maker. OMD JKM
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article151631182.html
Unfortunately there are still a lot of people who foolishly still think that the Democrats and their helpers like Markos represent them and their interests. No one who is really represented by the Democrats wants or needs to use Daily Kos as a conduit for their funds. But it is good PR for the increasingly irrelevant Daily Kos.
I do have to wonder if they will want an audit of how their money was flushed down the toilet
whenif Ossoff loses.Apparently, I am not the only one who ditched Kos in the last couple of years.
Ten years ago, I read it several times a day and commented. Now, I look at it every other month or so, mostly out of curiosity. The Obama worship was too much.
Got the boot from Kos during the O’care fracas and have never been back. Once fooled, no clicks from here! The level of venom from the self-appointed thought police there is astounding.
Like a lot of things DailyKos was fine in the beginning; however, over time it became too tribal.
I left it years ago–I don’t think I’ve been on DailyKos since early in Obama’s first term.
Is Netroots Nation still an annual blogger’s confab .. or have the prior attendees decided to push for a more rational venue ??
Kos made his bones in the mid-2000s when critiquing the Bush admin, which was low-hanging fruit. I knew when a dem, Obama, was elected it would begin unraveling.
Even before that I noticed it was bogus when there was absolutely zero criticism of the Lebanon war in 2007 and later when any links to mondoweiss would result in banning.
They moved right, due to the attraction of money, and left the left. They remain DNC loyalists, and mostly right.
Hoo boy.
Don’t you love how DCCC officials casually equate “left-leaning” (as if Kos could be said to be anything other than centrist) with stupid?
This blows my mind. How can a publication that strictly enforces compliance with ultraprivatised health care, forever wars, mass surveillance. .. all well to the right of consistent U.S. polling, be considered “centrist” in any rational sense of the term?
I’m almost convinced they brainwashed me to believe Americans have been brainwashed to believe that’s “centrist”. But not quite.
I think they are in for the Big Surprise when “they” succeed in pushing Healthcare funding down to state level [dries up], get the draft for wimensfolk [hotties too – ’bout time they did something besides apply makeup for 2 hours every morning!], and do away with the home mortgage deduction in lieu of tax cuts for the .01%. Oh, and private school vouchers.
330 million will have a serious conversation at that point and explain how Medieval serfs had it better, and that Monty Python was right wing propaganda.
The one member of Monty Python who was something of a medieval expert (Terry Jones) did a program on how medieval peasantry had it much better than we commonly assume. “Had it better” as an overall assessment is maybe misguided though. It’s something that is best approached point by point, IMO.
Link: Medieval Lives with Terry Jones, Episode 1: The Peasant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn6KioEogdM&list=PLcMNaTUIX_mbUTs2IIqXSgmhJd-SfXWME&index=1
Yeah, that’s really good! The parallels are really creepy, bullet point by bullet point. The next one is “Monks”. Some chuckles there.
Climate Change Is Turning Antarctica Green
Plant life on both poles is growing rapidly as the planet warms.
A new study has found a steady growth of moss in Antarctica over the last 50 years as temperatures increased as a result of climate change. The study, published yesterday in the journal Current Biology, shows that Antarctica will be much greener in the future, said lead author Matt Amesbury
At least plants are getting some benefit from our wilful stupidity.
It won’t be long before some tech billionaires are buying coastal properties there.
tech billionaires …..
‘When Whineosaurs roamed the Earth’
At the same time, we should be hearing news about equatorial nations becoming even less habitable for humans without air conditioning.
Well, it’s back to cave dwelling for us!
But only if you carry Neanderthal D N A ….. otherwise it’s out in the wilderness for you .. with all the other ‘mini’ fauna. ‘;(
The earth spins. This, one would expect sea level rise to be more at the equator than the poles, becuse of the inertia of the water has to be overcome by gravity.
Now to a specific local, where I have lived. Southern, Lagos and Appapa, Nigeria 5 to 10 deg N of the equator. There the land is, close to sea level, a lagoon, and Lagos has a few million inhabitants.
Where will this people go? North. What’s north? The Sahel, Sahara, N Africa and Europe.
Funny, Ms RG and I were just discussing moving to Ecuador.
Are plants in the spreading deserts losing more than the plants in greening Antarctica are gaining? Are phytoplankton losing more in the acidifying ocean than plants are gaining in Antarctica? On an overall net-net basis?
I guess grifting via the Clinton Foundation wasn’t sufficient for this young family’s lifestyle.
Social Capital has hired Marc Mezvinsky as the investment firm morphs its business
And as to his “qualifications”
If he wasn’t married to Chelsea, he would probably be working in some suburban bank branch.
Funnily enough, I don’t think even a suburban bank branch would hire him if they examined his resume with any kind of depth. His failure upwards is pretty obvious. As is Chelsea’s frankly. Both of them are deeply dependent on her mom and dad and their connections, not to mention the Foundation trust fund like salary.
Mezvinsky was hired because of his deep background in the financial arena???? Unless of course Social Capital thinks Eaglevale Partners losing 90% of its value is just the expertise they need….
Nah, his hiring has absolutely nothing to do with his marrying a Clinton……/s
I guess he learned from Daddy’s experience……
Irony runs deep in that family……
Re Lambert’s comment on the 2020 census, and the effect of the Dems’ lounging in their FL hammocks after the 2000 robbery: Dems, and in particular Obama, had another chance in 2010 — census, every 10 years, as you may recall.
Obama & the Dems couldn’t bestir themselves in 2010 either, with the result that Reps swept the governorships & state legislatures, both prime elements for gerrymandering.
Dems: Always Be Feeble
But “trying” and whining.
I also don’t see them working so hard to save the accuracy of the coming census. No, it is investigate RUSSIA’s influence on Trump. And frankly beyond the gerrymandering issue, there are lots of things that depend on that count being relatively accurate.
But these idiots are such fools they welcome their continuing rump to non-existent presence because they might have to pretend to do things for people otherwise.
Clearly, Putin is the reason the Democrats have lost the House, the Senate, most governorships, and most state legislatures.
We just haven’t “connected the dots” to find out exactly why yet, but I’m guessing it was bots on Facebook.
‘BotsDots’
sweet
Think of this behavior as chosen, and ask yourself why?
The avoid all blame from actually ruling. All the perks, with none of the responsibility?
Unfortunately, Return of the Repressed sees the “demolition of the Clinton machine” as having occurred in 2016.
As we can all attest, the machine, even if in a death rattle, still needs to be “killed with fire.”
Kokuanani: And yet.
Yes, it is a must-read, New Left Review and Streeck’s analysis, for the detail and connecting-the-dots.
I appreciate that Streeck invokes Gramsci and the idea of interregnum. At the end of winter, I was in Rome, and I kept running across Gramsci, which was heartening. I went to an exhibit at the Italian State Archives on Gramsci and World War I, when he was quite young and emerged as a major social critic. I scooped up the exhibit catalogue, which earned me a receipt from the Gramsci Foundation. Yes, there is a Gramsci Foundation. I also found a paperback of this letters from prison in the Luxemburg bookstore in central Turin.
The Italians have been lucky in their leftists. (Gramsci, Berlinguer, Rossanda, Pasolini, many others.) These sources of humanism—and Gramsci is deeply humanist—are available to us.
One of the most moving parts of the exhibits: The famous Prison Notebooks. They are the kinds of notebooks that high-school kids use, with cardboard covers and lined sheets. Humble and humbling.
More from Gramsci in these panic-stricken times:
Ogni collasso porta con sé disordine intellettuale e morale. Bisogna creare gente sobria, paziente, che non disperi dinanzi ai peggiori orrori e non si esalti a ogni sciocchezza. Pessimismo dell’intelligenza, ottimismo della volontà.
Every collapse brings intellectual and moral disorder in its wake. So we must foster the people who are sober, have patience, who do not despair when faced with the worst horrors yet who do not cheer at every stupid misstep. Intelligence makes us pessimists, our will makes us optimists.
Antonio Gramsci, first Prison Notebook, 1929-1930. Translation DJG.
The Clinton machine is a sciocchezza. It will collapse, too.
Streeck’s scope is a long, flat horizon. Reading him always feels like you are walking and walking and getting no closer. But he’s very good. I wondered about his equation of neoliberalism that it is global capitalism versus the state system. Because as we all know globalism is purely a protectionist, corporatocracy dependent on some state somewhere. But I’ll let him go figure. As far as birthing the new, it looks to me, before my very eyes, that this is happening with intent. Macron, Hillary the undead, Theresa the new goddess of victory, and Trump, a veritable sack of potatoes himself. Things are truly on the move.
Sorry — I have to disagree with you on some points. I thought the New Left Review piece was long and glib without being insightful or penetrating. Does Streck really believe Trump and Brexit presage the end of neoliberalism? The comment by the Tory politician campaigning to leave the EU:”People in this country have had enough of experts!” aptly describes the mood of what Streck terms “populists” in American politics. Neoliberalism has had a few setbacks but appears far from dead or defeated. And what is a “populist” exactly? As used in this link the term seems to fit anybody who didn’t play along with the neoliberal playbook — a broad relatively incoherent and too easily divided, demoralized and scattered category of political persuasian to credit with creating an interregnum. So our betters discovered a few problems with their political marketing and polling machinery. They can be fixed. In spite of his rhetoric Trump has proven anything but anti-neoliberal. He’s just not quite 100% with the program.
Streck’s equation of neoliberalism with capitalism is disturbing. Must the left interpret everything into a tattering 19th century framework? Neoliberalism is a very different beast than capitalism — whatever “capitalism” means at this point. Our world of Cartels and oligopoly little resembles the mythical capitalist world of “markets”, shopkeepers and pin factories. As a “consumer/customer” for medical care, education, government services … as a political “consumer/customer” to whom politicians market themselves like boxes of laundry soap — I believe neoliberalism is far more pervasive and far more destructive than capitalism ever hoped to be. Everything is become a Market. That’s not capitalism and it is not dead. [Ugh! I really really do not like neoliberalism!]
I suggest you take seriously the lines from the Manifesto about capitalism blasting down Chinese walls and all that is solid melting into the air. The market monetizes everything, regardless if the players are mom and pop hardware stores or cartels.
I confess I thought Streeck’s piece a little naïve. If he thinks Teresa May is going to deliver on promises to reduce inequality, improve education etc. I fear he will be disappointed, Her government have made it clear that they will continue with cuts to income support for the poor and the cuts to school funding are on their way. It is the old story – watch what they do, not what they say.
I would give a lot to have anything that resembles a “market” any more, what we have are super-entrenched socialist mega-lopolies that are politically protected from anything like capitalist creative destruction. Nah, the destruction part is for you and me, for Mom and Pop stores, for chumps holding bank mortgages, for wage earners, whereas the “Complexes” get endless socialism (Military Industrial Complex, Surveillance Industrial Complex, Prison Industrial Complex, not to mention pharma, insurance, banking et al.)
Lemon Sociaism
I’ve read the Manifesto — though long ago. There is Truth in it … but the analysis it provides is sadly dated in our world and I fear it’s inadequate to deal with a force like Neoliberalism. I haven’t read Das Kapital though I have read some Marx and Lennin. I believe Neoliberalism is a new beast, a dragon that makes Capitalism seem as a puppy. Neoliberal dogmas of the Market as super information processor — as epistemological tool for finding Truth — that is NOT capitalism. Perhaps it grows from capitalism — but does that matter? An old analysis dealing with an older monster provides ineffectual weapons for slaying a new and much more horrible monster. [I am a student of Mirowski — and much less so of Marx. Mirowski identifies and characterizes the monster. I’m still waiting for the hero who might tell how to slay it.]
I should add how Chomsky’s recent lectures about language, human knowledge and what it means to be human — available on youtube — material presented in his Dewey Lectures at Columbia — show the value of not ignoring the philosophy of earlier times. Even so, I believe Neoliberalism is threat of a new kind.
In other news the Pope who I kind of like is doomed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/callista-gingrich-vatican-ambassador_us_591fab98e4b03b485cb1c8c1?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
Huh? I am as familiar with US interventionism as anyone here, but I fail to see how nominating one spectacularly unqualified ambassador can “doom” the Pope of Rome.
Sounds more like HuffPo handwaving to exaggerate another insignificant Trump move.
Well, as a famous earlier politico mentioned, in reference to the Vatican; “How many divisions does the Pope have?”
Plus, I would be very surprised to see the present campaign against “patronage” continue after Trump is gone.
Re the FBI as good and bad, isn’t cognitive dissonance actually very comfortable? After all, they are on Our Side — going back to the days of Efrem Zymbalist, Jr…
Watching the Return of Martin Guerre the other night, it struck me that the press pressure on Trump is similar to a peasant charivari. And so we have a mob-like, raucous enforcement of community norms in which rumor and aspersions are freely shouted out one after the other without concern for truth because what the charivari is basically about is to make the norm-breaker afraid of an unreasoning mob.
That’s a great movie. I have to re-watch it again.
“He is my husband. Yes.”
Another good film is Valkyrie. It shows the importance of seizing the propaganda ministry.
When a nation’s media is intentionally not doing its job, that’s a successful coup.
I saw this on one of the “offbrand” sites I view and could not stop from thinking; “What could go wrong?”
Google set to put its’ TPU processors in all new Google associated cell phones, even cheap ones.
See: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/05/google-will-put-mini-tpus-into-upcoming-cellphones.html
And: https://madeby.google.com/phone/?utm_source=ads-en-offnet-na-sem&utm
As the “offbrand” commenter mentioned, who really wants their phone to know so much about them that it starts trying to run their life?
The IoT is now in the process of redefining people as “Things” to be manipulated and exploited. Brave New World indeed!
Re: Democracy Is Not Your Plaything
The link is broken. It currently links to Naked Capitalism.
Thanks for the tip – it should be fixed now.
Thanks, and thanks!
With or without intent?
Fake news without intent is just fake news. Perhaps incompetence.
Fake news with intent is propaganda. “Find a purpose in life, son.”
Fake news without intent means that the scribbler is a graduate of the “Maya School of Journalism.”
Curious about your comment.
What or which Maya do you mean? Sorry if I’m clueless — but sometimes [less — I HOPE — rather than more often] I’m clueless. My first guesses were Maya the poet, Maya the ancient people and Maya the animation program and none of those quite fit any guesses I could make.
Maya, ( Sanskrit: “magic” or “illusion”) a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy, notably in the Advaita (Nondualist) school of Vedanta. Maya originally denoted the magic power with which a god can make human beings believe in what turns out to be an illusion.
Yes to it all. Maya does describe “news” as it’s being “practiced” today. That and an idea for a joke on “Glamour,” the older semi mystical definition, crossed my mind. But, “Fake news without intent is now “Glamourous”” didn’t quite jell in my mind.
Magic disguises are called glamours in some of the fantasy stories I’ve read. Same/similar idea?
Yes.
For the word: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/glamour
As Lambert shows below, the word has a close connection to the religious and mystical side of human nature. Thus, glamour as practiced by our “Famously Free Press” smacks of thaumaturgy. Indeed, the entire “Modern World” can be classified as the rise and domination of the “Cult of Science.” Maya, being a word representing the field of illusion, perfectly describes modern “news” reporting.
Catholic renewal of baptismal vows.
Do you reject the glamour of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin?
I do.
I think that the big controversy surrounding pledges such as this is in how the word “evil” is defined.
I also reject Satan, whether The Great One, or the Orange One, and its’ ways.
(I’d love to see SNLs Church Lady interview Trump.)
Thanks! I appreciate the help.
The Maya handle our famously free press.
The Aztecs handle our fiscal policy:
So, who handles our security details, the Conquistadors?
Can the Conquistadors build houses that have only back doors?
–Gaianne
I wouldn’t parse it like that.
The author of the story is a Newhouse grad. He’s been at the paper since 1984. There’s no way he didn’t know about the Dome replacement.
I’d bet that if he did include it in the story, that the editors may have axed it.
That paper also FOIA’d some of the documents that the uni, as well as the state were calling “privileged” in connection with the half billion dollar public/private Dome scheme. This happened right around the time that Cuomo’s bagmen started getting arrested. The dome replacement idea died a slow death, in the meantime.
Yemen facing unprecedented cholera outbreak as Trump brokers weapons deals in Saudi Arabia
US arms contractor Raytheon announces Saudi deal to launch Arab operation
Hopefully, the senate will not link that to Russia.
Wanna bet Melania and Ivanka have the keys to the kingdom by mid-week?
Walk before you run.
Or, crawl before you walk.
Before wrecking people’s lives with forecasting, they should at least fix their broken economic measuring, so as to be more precise in wrecking people’s lives with economic measurements.
“Too much collateral damage.”
I’m channeling Lord of the Rings here..that model was broken !
It has been remade.
No forecast is ever wrong ( it’s just a tad off ) and the forecasting pundit is not to be called a dunderhead – it was you that was wrong to believe them…
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
John Kenneth Galbraith
+10 great quote.
Kocherlakota is too politic to come right out and say it. Economic Forecasting is the Wizard of Oz. But that very brief statement from Kocherlakota left me wanting him to elaborate. I know he’s got his opinions and I’d like to hear more.
How are you supposed to forecast and model when your input data is completely corrupted?
“What’s the inflation rate? Gee I don’t like that answer, let’s monkey with it so the plebes can’t measure how badly they’re getting screwed…”
Agree totally! Economists are the experts first on the list of experts people have had enough off — repeating the Tory politician’s explanation for supporting Brexit.
Do you need a college degree to become a student debt collector?
Should we fear a Virtues Induced Depression due to the GDP shrinking when we remove vanity based consumption from the economy or become more productive or spend less collecting student debt?
“I’ve stopped watching TV.”
“I’ve quit social media.”
“I don’t use underarm deodorant anymore.”
“No more ear rings for this person.”
“I am not getting more tattoos.”
“I am reducing your hours collecting student debt.”
Etc.
Sometimes, it’s good to shrink the GDP…
First, you imagine the possibility of accepting such an event.
Perhaps the GDP will increase later, once the shock of men stopping wearing after shave cologne passes, as that vanity money will go to something more productive and the GDP will grow again.
“Hey, you smell like a Neanderthal. You’re a real man.”
Please substitute ‘troglodyte’ for ‘Neanderthal’. After the Denisovan bracelet reported in links from earlier this week I would be hesitant to malign Neanderthals.
Interesting and insightful–if somewhat knotty–New Left Review. Just to pick out one bit
To some of us this is the reason for defending the Trump phenomenon even if the vessel himself seems more than frivolous. The old order needed to be killed–even now we see it grotesquely struggling to come back out of its coffin–while the new is not yet ready to take form. That being true it’s perhaps unfair to suggest the current chaos is just about Trump. As the article says it’s a period of uncertainty and danger but the “expert lies” could not go on forever. The so-called lefties who so desperately want to put populism back in its box are the true reactionaries.
+100 I did like the reference to Napoleon – seems apt.
The NLR Streeck piece does offer many interesting observations. For example:
Yet, I would argue that a better term than “traditionalist” would be “humanist.” People don’t need a strong attachment to any particular ethnic or religious tradition to care broadly about the survival of humanity.
The accelerationists, who are so eager to see disruption, even if it results in something more dystopic than a William Gibson novel, are anti-humanist, not just anti-traditionalist.
People who prefer decision-making by opaque algorithms to open democratic processes are a threat to all of us non-squillionaire humans.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in
It’s hard to see how it is the old order being killed in terms of any substance, the policies as mostly straight out of the old playbook (right down to school privatization, public land privatization, prison privatization). But I guess it’s just another “the worse the better” argument, but actually no things getting worse probably mostly just makes things worse, rarely I guess it might make things better but I think that requires both movements and awareness that aren’t there now. This does not mean a deep state coup against Trump isn’t even worse in many ways.
I guess one could hope that the current insanity will get the rest of the world to move away from the American empire in any way possible. I hope America loses standing in the world! That would likely be an overall global good but not one even most Trump voters consciously voted for! As it’s unlikely to help Americans any. And on the domestic policy front things are only getting worse for us here in the abusive homeland (“homeland” haha, yea if this was a home it would be the home where dad comes home drunk every night and beats you, while mom spends all her time with her new lover and doesn’t even notice you are covered with bruises).
I’d say the significance of Trump is that he got elected at all. This is why the powers that be are so desperate to prove that what happened was somehow illegitimate. If appeals to populism could get Trump elected then they could also get a real populist–not just some celebrity thinking out loud–elected. TPTB do fear the public even if they ignore them as much as possible.
?”The so-called lefties who so desperately want to put populism back in its box are the true reactionaries.”?
Please elaborate on the left that wants to put “populism” back in its box. Do you mean the Clintonite “liberals”?
Though it sounds like the beginning of a sophomoric argument — “first we must define our terms” — what does “populism” mean in Streeck’s essay and what do you mean? In my opinion Streeck’s usage didn’t get past meaning more than — “opposed to” or “not with the program” — which are broad categories … so what do you mean by “populism”?
The intuition behind electing Trump was that it would deal a killing blow to both parties: the Republicans by a humiliation in the primary process, and the Democrats from a stunning defeat in the general.
Trump quickly learned it is impossible to govern without a party, and the Republicans quickly forgave everything and welcomed the prodigal son home. So the intuition came to nothing. So far.
Think what could have been achieved if Hillary had been upset by a stunning blow in the primaries, and the Republicans defeated in the general by Bernie! Well, maybe not so much. He would have quickly learned it is impossible to govern without a party, and the Democrats would quickly have forgiven everything and welcomed the prodigal son home. So the intuition would have come to nothing.
To me, the current error in political thinking is largely geographical. People think of Washington DC as being somehow an American city, rather than the center of power for a global empire. If one understands Washington DC as an imperial city, like Rome, without even the standing of an American state (WTF, seriously?), one sees the dynamic clearly: ambitious individuals struggle to seize control of the empire, briefly, out of pure ambition, without any regard for the objectives of governance.
The tools they use now are not armies, but communications: advertising, “media,” propaganda, manipulation, and all of these are managed by party structures.
This process will work itself out just as it did in Rome. The impeachment of Trump could give us Claudius, as did the death of Caligula; or it could give us the Year of the Four Emperors, if Pence is subsequently impeached; or it could give us a Trajan, if we are lucky enough to get a soldier in charge.
One thing that it will not do is give us democracy, or representation, or any significant change in the form of governance that will benefit the imperial subjects.
Visible from Pluto – this new mega city will be the only such man-made object.
Jeet Heer says a Pence presidency would plunge the Republicans into civil war. I think they would all fall in line behind him. Tim Kaine had a chance to kill him with fire. Instead it was Trump! Trump! Trump! That went well.
The stuff about Pence I find creepy, the televangelist smile, the phony pious gravity, the Republicans eat all up and lick the plate.
Tim “Hyde Ammendment/public private partnership, mountaintop removal/cut the estate tax” Kaine never had a chance.
Or desire.
I saw that article as just another “Resist” piece of propaganda. There is no doubt the neoliberals in both parties would prefer Pence, no matter what some Democrats say out loud…..
I know the Corbyn/IRA article is supposed to be a hit-piece, but it actually just made me like him even more. Apparently the “allegations” are that he:
-was a steadfast opponent of Britain’s militarized approach to the Northern Ireland situation
-condemned violence on “all sides” instead of mindlessly fixating on the IRA
-refused to let his colleagues in Parliament ignore an issue that many of them couldn’t have cared less about, despite having the power to actually do something about it
-knew people who were involved in Irish Republican politics (fancy that, being an MP and all); and
-agitated for humane prison conditions for IRA prisoners.
If more British politicians had been like him, the war might have ended a lot sooner than it did.
Agreed, Simon. One of the reasons the media hate him, he has no skeletons…
Ian Welsh piece great, as usual. A great quote:
38:1 debt collection.
I think the wasted is s realitive term in this context. In the context of investment and direct input, returns putting 38 in to get 1 out, certainly appear as waste.
But In terms of keeping an entire generation cowed and subservient, I don’t think Biden’s monster and the oligarchy it serves finds it wasteful at all.
Unless there is absolutely no other option I don’t know anyone who would dare default on student loans (myself included) we have all heard the horrible stories of student loan collection and few if any willing want to submit themselves to that. Finance certainly doesn’t want anyone to believe there is even the possibility of walking away, 38:1 makes that abundantly clear.
The second benefit is it keeps discourse far far away from any, elite dreaded debt jubilee. Now discourse is firmly (in most cases) in the let’s spend less on collection or let’s adjust terms categories. Not let’s end this and treat education as a basic human right instead of something to be extracted for returns.
I’m sure there are many other benefits I missed that the oligarchy derives from the outwardly wasteful 38:1 number. It really is all about the context.
Take the government’s rehabilitation program, which targets people who have defaulted on their debt—meaning they missed nine months of payments. If a borrower subsequently makes nine on-time monthly payments of as little as $5 during a 10-month period, their loans are returned to good standing and the default is supposed to be wiped from their credit reports.
—–
Even when borrowers don’t default, debt collection efforts often yield little. Close to 80 percent of borrowers who rehabilitate their debt make the minimum $5 monthly payment, according to a 2015 estimate by the National Council of Higher Education Resources, a lobbying group that represents student debt collectors and servicers. That means the Education Department is paying its debt collectors up to $1,710 per borrower to collect around $45, regardless of whether the borrower continues to make her payments.
When you think about it, and I’m certain many debt collectors have, they could pay the $45 themselves and make a tidy profit. Wells Fargo got away with opening bogus accounts with their customers’ information for years without much punishment, and these debt collectors probably know more about the borrowers than the borrowers know about themselves.
Why wait 10 months to get paid, when you can just pay the bill yourself and call it “overhead?”
Hey, it’s the Government! What was the cost to benefits ratio of blowing up that Syrian airfield? In that perspective, the 38 to 1 ratio is good!
I started reading the Fabius Maximus article but backed away slowly when he cited young women not shaving their pits as a herald of the apocalypse.
Ancient Egyptian priests had to shave everything.
They believed that was one of the key reasons why it lasted thousands of years. We underestimate the power of belief at our own peril.
This repressed wish to apparently turn women back into Stepford Wives (if they ever were) is a reason why I don’t read Fabius and James Kunstler regularly. Just not worth getting my blood pressure raised when there are so many other great commenters out there.
good for you. FM’s argument there is far more a symptom of the apocalypse, than women shaving or not shaving their armpits ever will be.
Since we’re talkin apocalypse, I suggest Fabius watch the film ‘A Boy and his Dog’ … as a kind of primer !
That might set him straight !
FM’s defense of the no-shaving criticism:
Consequences, I tell ya!
Consequences!
Makes me wonder if he’s ever seen Clueless: https://youtu.be/RmPO_nzJ18k
I though the very odd similarity between the Mad Magazine cover, and the subsequent Time cover, was apt.
Odd similarity, or outright plagiarism?
See: http://www.sfgate.com/national/article/Mad-magazine-says-Time-ripped-off-cover-idea-11159783.php
So good old Leon Cooperman finally got his turn in front of a judge. I heard him say “I always look for opportunities in the inefficient parts of the market”. Who knew that was so prescient a few decades ago! He was efficient in deferring the gratification, er, the reach of the laws that snared his fellow travelers at Goldman Sachs. Oh, wait.
Martha Stewart was just a woman ahead of her time….
The $4.9 million fine is about equal to the estimated illegal gain of $4million, after allowing for some interest since 2010.
It is difficult to see this as much of a deterrent to Cooperman or others in the future.
But this is how the SEC viewed it:
“Stephanie Avakian, acting enforcement director at the agency, said on Thursday that the “settlement protects against future violations while requiring Cooperman and Omega Advisors to pay significant fines for their misconduct.””
, Links makes no pretense to be comprehensive. –lambert
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upD6cB9Rzvk&app=desktop
Bizzarre media matters post where the headline is not consistent with the excerpted content
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/05/19/one-america-news-pushes-shameful-seth-rich-conspiracy-theory/216575
What is shameful?
Offering a reward for information that contributes to solving a murder/assassination?
How is the DNC supporting a bone fide investigation? Crickets
My understanding is The DC police want to close the case as a robbery and the FBI refuses to Investigate.
Skimming through comments section is pretty amazing, I dont expose myself to this kinda crap very often.
So Seth Rich was accosted near his home while on the phone w/ his girlfriend . She asked if there is a problem snd he said “don’t worry, its nothing” then he gets capped in the back twice and the alleged thieves left him with his phone, money , wallet and watch…
Yeah, that sounds like a robbery!
More
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/05/19/seth-rich-craig-murray-and-the-sinister-stewards-of-the-national-security-state/
This is actually in Links already.
Oops, I posted my reply about the PI recanting at the top of comments by mistake.
One reason the Streeck article is so well worth reading is that it says, bluntly, that the whole neoliberal edifice has been based on deliberate and comprehensive lying for the last thirty-odd years. Not only are the intellectual foundations rubbish, the actual performance, compared to the generation or so of the after the war has been crap. Yet so-called leftists seem remarkably coy about pointing this out. Every time an Obama or a Blair said something like “of course deregulation/free trade/privatisation /financial engineering has massively benefited the economy”, another factory closed somewhere in the western world.
Yes, thanks very much for the final ‘must read’ link, Lambert. For me it was a fresh look at the old conundrum in which for so long globalization did seem the answer to all our problems. I for one naively believed that if international affairs were conducted on a business to business relationship platform rather than nation to nation with all the attendant aggravations about borders and the acquisition of land, we would at last have world peace.
That was putting far too much faith in the sensibilities of corporations to not morph themselves into oligarchs – I should have known better. Thanks to NC for keeping on reminding us that emperor also truly has no clothes.
It’s a Links! Two linkses, actually.
(Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)
I need to get a grip myself. That never occurred to me!
Understandable response to overwhelming cuteness.
Assange’s Swedish case dropped, now the only arrest warrant out for him is from the UK for failure to appear in court.
Balcony speech from yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkx9_jf3FXw
Lots of interesting links today on their twitter account, including links to their Saudi leaks: https://mobile.twitter.com/wikileaks
https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/buying-silence
https://newint.org/features/2016/03/01/what-the-saudi-leaks-tell-us/
https://rsf.org/en/news/how-saudi-arabia-manipulates-foreign-media-outlets
And here is his most recent interview, from yesterday, with Der Spiegel: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/julian-assange-wikileaks-will-always-be-the-bad-boy-a-1148553.html
> the only arrest warrant out for him
That we know of?
Well sure, of course if the UK arrests him then he will no doubt be extradited to the US, whose grand jury investigation that was secret under the Obama admin is not so secret now under Trump. It will be extremely interesting to see how this all develops. The Vault 7 leaks have been dripping consistently, although they are not making much noise due to MSM blackout and also the technical nature of them which makes them out of reach for laymen like myself (which I think is also why they seem to have disappeared from NC links page, which used to have a Vault 7 subheading, though I could be mistaken). Just yesterday they released a publication on CIA’s Athena, which targets Windows OS’s. Assange said yesterday the speed of publication will increase now.
For those that understand Spanish, he recently gave an interview for a Spanish network which is extensive. Unfortunately they dubbed him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOmGg72_Vds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5l_P8SM5Ak&t=769s
Someone made a summary for english speakers here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/6amzr0/julian_assange_interview_with_i%C3%B1aki_gabilondo/
https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiLeaks/comments/6an02y/julian_assange_interview_with_i%C3%B1aki_gabilondo/
From Common Dreams:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/05/19/global-study-shows-americans-dying-preventable-causes-shocking-rates
Another daily reminder of why healthcare sucks in the US.
DNC Convention Drama in California:
http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-protests-f-bombs-and-a-raucous-start-1495247278-htmlstory.html
Apparently Our Revolution is running someone for Chair there:
https://ourrevolution.com/press/our-revolution-ready-california-democratic-party-chairs-race/
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article151685007.html
nothing has changed for the demodogs flatform
The quote:
A class act.
To the Democrat Establishment, “fighting for” is just as good as winning. Better, because it doesn’t upset the donors.
“since before you were born.”
wasn’t that Pelosi’s line?
Right
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Burton
The only thing they did right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_National_Recreation_Area
“U.S. Bombs Syrian Regime Forces For First Time Foreign Policy”
Wrong; they also bombed Syrian Army forces to sabotage a cooperation agreement with the Russians.
Re: TNR – “Do Not Fear Pence”
The TNR article would have a point if the Dems were a true opposition to The Repubs on all levels. But they aren’t. The Repubs have had the divisions described for decades now and they still hold control of the majority of state houses, House of Reps, Senate, and now the WH.
I’m also sure the imagined honeymoon period with Pence would involve a return to another “grand bargain” and accelerated demolition of the ME and maybe their idiotic quest for a war with Russia.
Also, the very statement that an impeachment would deepen the divide amongst Repubs is another reason not to expect participation in impeachment. Would a Pence faction help force him out some other way? Possible. But there will be no impeachment.
Gridlock is your friend right now.
And one more thing:
The last time the Dems had a majority at the national level, their biggest legislation was found by rummaging through the GOP’s trash and dusting off a plan that became the ACA.
I wonder if the Democrats pushing impeachment have really thought this one out. With Trump gone, then what would they do? Fight Pence and the Republicans on policy?
The Dem Party has a wet dream of building a new coalition with disaffected Repubs. That’s why their focus is on Repubs’ divisions.
If an impeachment should ever get going — I hope it lasts at least four years. Right now, I think our best hope is for gridlock, inaction, recriminations, finger-pointing, bluster, and general inaction. That is the status quo but it beats the hell out of “improvements
or “evolution” or “advance” of the status quo.
NLR -n+1. McMaster and the tragedy of American empire. Daniel Bessner. I can’t find fault with anything he said about McMaster. I’m one of McM’s fans – but he’s really got himself tangled up in a crisis of change. It is ironic that he was against politicizing war and now he’s at least rationalizing the politics of it. I think I would like to agree that the military can be a force for good. But the good I’d like to see is a mobilization against environmental degradation and global warming. I’m sure that would require “boots on the ground” but they would be mud boots. If McMaster is envisioning a civilianized war, as the article says, then I hope he has an environmental vision. That would not be a quagmire. It would be civilization-changing,
The mission statements of the U.S. Services give what I think are one of the best indications of what kind actions our military forces might provide in actually helping the world. Past U.S. Army missions included “humanitarian actions” in response to natural disasters. The U.S. Army in particular, and probably the Marine Corps also, is very well-equipped and trained to help in the event of national disasters — here and abroad. I don’t know the present situation but humanitarian missions had been core missions for the U.S. Army South Command. An Army moves on its stomach and before food requires clean potable water. The U.S. Army is well-equipped with means to provide clean potable water, high-calorie food rations, and communications and to generate the power these provisions require. Proper application of these capabilities would indeed be civilization-changing. And adding one more thing — there is knowledge behind these capabilities which should be shared and spread.
… and grown.
Recent from Caitlin Johnstone, re Seth Rich:
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/someone-just-edited-seth-richs-reddit-posts-b5f185b0aab
Wow!
The link-name says it, but what the edits did was delete information connecting the reddit posts to Seth Rich himself. The posts are now disconnected from their author.
The original posts were, however, archived, which is how the tampering comes to be exposed.
The tampering tries to erase evidence that goes against the Russians-did-it narrative.
Would you let the propaganda ministry run your country, or the PR department your corporation?
Job guarantee getting more attention, from The Nation:
It’s Time for the Government to Give Everyone a Job
A new plan from CAP is a promising first step.
Of course CAP is a degraded version of the idea, but still.
also it is encouraging that Forbes feels it necessary to attack the ideal
The Terrible Idea Of A Government Job Guarantee
‘Shut the fuck up and go outside,’ #CADem17 chair John Burton tells protesters b4 @TomPerez speaks
https://twitter.com/davidsiders/status/865738858326917121
Isn’t the burton clan including their puppet nancy p. wonderful humans
dc I added a link just above for you to in enjoy.
Apparently Perez’s speech, which followed, did not go well.
o “U.S. Bombs Syrian Regime Forces For First Time | Foreign Policy” — Not the first time, unless they intended to append ‘this year’ and somehow elided that bit.
o “‘I Have A Sickness:’ Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner Pleads Guilty To Sexting Teen Girl | CBS New York (J-LS).” — Blurb on the local n00z (blurb was obviously from the parent corporate-news franchise) mentioned “Weiner’s wife is divorcing him,” while studiously avoiding saying who the wife is. Out of simple kindness to Huma, or the kind of strategic connections-omission the MSM are wont to engage in when it suits them?
o “Amid Panic Over Worthless Cash, Some In India See Opportunity (NPR)” — NPR celebrating the neoliberal sucess of forcing all transactees to pay rent to financial-intermediators (and privacy vampires) like the good little MSM shills they are. So a few hundred, or thousand, or however many, deplorables died in the cash-ban-shock queues, and rural areas with little Internet access are screwed. The price of progress! Disgusting.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/05/podemos-psoe-popular-party-iglesias-populism-spain
I saw this article on Jacobin about the protests in Spain today led by Podemos and searched Reuters and there was nothing about it. When I typed in ‘podemos’ on Google News, I only found one article on the first page, from the Sacramento Bee, that mentioned these protests. On the second page, there were some articles on the subject, but all in Spanish.
I never cease to be amazed by the blatant…shall we say bias? of the MSM. I’m not sure if ‘bias’ quite covers it.
A better word is “fear.” The MSM, as an arm of the “Ruling Elites,” doesn’t want honest, hard working rubes on Americas Main Street to get wind of how powerful they could be if they just copied what los rubes de Espana were doing.
If the dogs won’t eat the dog food, don’t let them see what’s on top of the Masters table.
Maybe the Svalbard Seed Vault should be plastinated:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/19/15664298/svalbard-global-seed-vault-norway-doomsday-climate-change
It is really funny that the designers of the Svalbard Seed Vault gave no thought to climate change.
What did they think was threatening all those plant varieties, anyway?
–Gaianne
I wonder if Trump is gonna bow (curtsy) to the Saudi Arabian Prince like Lord Obama did?
He did what he had to, acted as Amerikas salesman for the Death Merchants as did obomber and others before him. The really amazing thing and no I don’t have any links at this time, the Amerikan tax payer is paying for this just like it does for israel. Nope we in the new Amerika can’t have great public schools, safe roads and bridges. Then again free health care and education.
Trump did bow, although not quite in the same way that Obama did. See this picture:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/05/20/conservative_outlets_don_t_seem_bothered_by_trump_bowing_to_saudi_king.html
@NC & J-LN – Another recommendation for frank comment on India’s finance and econmoics industry, this guy called Hemindra Hazari (https://twitter.com/hemindrahazari). He’s been writing since the past few years about how there’s something very fishy about Indian bank’s practices and numbers such as here – https://thewire.in/2167/why-indias-private-banks-are-laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank/ and how the msm and analysts were simply ignoring these practices. It has now caught on with the NPA crisis coming out fo what it really is.
Thank you, Raj. Most interesting reading, case studies in the best way to rob a bank.