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I am very sorry. These Links launched prematurely with just a few offerings and I had to relaunch them at the regular time. I don’t know how this happened.
Can We Talk to Whales? New Yorker (furzy). We probably don’t want to hear what they have to say. If I were a whale, I am sure I would give humans an earful.
Conservationist group African Parks to free 2,000 rhinos from South Africa farm BBC
The story of 'Doodlebug', an orphaned baby kangaroo who was found on the side of the road, a little baby about two months old.
Tim Beshara and his mum Gillian Abbott who is a wildlife caretaker took care of him, and gave him a teddy bear for comfort, and he wouldn't stop hugging… pic.twitter.com/dfE1JczKNb
— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) September 5, 2023
Rise of the Goths Quillette (Anthony L)
For Some Gen Xers, Skateboarding Is for Life Wall Street Journal (David L)
Back to New Jersey, Where the Universe Began New York Times (Kevin W)
Our Earth, shaped by life aeon (Anthony L)
My late father hated Carl Jung. Should I shun him for ever too? Guardian (furzy). This person appears to have missed the bit in Jung where he argues that people don’t truly individuate until both parents have died.
The Aftermath of a ‘Miracle Cure’ for a Rare Cancer Wired (Dr. Kevin)
Medical-evidence giant Cochrane battles funding cuts and closures Nature (Dr. Kevin)
Longevity: Weight loss may lower odds of reaching 90 by 51% MedicalNewsToday (furzy). Bad headline and probable false causality. It’s UNINTENDED weight loss that is bad. And that often is the result of cancer or a hospital stay.
Why all the Burning Man schadenfreude? Where do I start … Guardian (furzy)
Biden Approves $40 Billion Worth Of Drugs To Be Airdropped To Burning Man Babylon Bee
Thomas Nagel · Leader of the Martians: J.L. Austin’s War London Review of Books (Anthony L)
Climate/Environment
Fires could lock vast parts of the Amazon into ‘treeless state’ Carbon Brief (guurst)
Six bn tonnes of sand extracted from world’s oceans each year: UN PhysOrg
China?
Evergrande soars 70% leading Chinese property stocks higher after Country Garden avoids default CNBC
This is why Keynes wanted the bancor…it had teeth re this sort of thing:
Excellent piece from the FT's @RobinBHarding https://t.co/r5PcsqElWx
— Brad Setser (@Brad_Setser) September 5, 2023
Stage set for a disagreeable ASEAN summit in Jakarta Asia Times (Kevin W)
India
India to Bharat: Changing the name of a country comes at a cost Economic Times
A bit of a change from our regular programming (Chuck L):
Africa
Niger’s crisis began in Libya Responsible Statecraft
No respite for France as a ‘New Africa’ rises The Cradle (Chuck L)
Old Bligthy
UK government looks to roll back sickness benefits Financial Times (Kevin W)
Hundreds more UK school buildings could be crumbling: Minister PressTV (Anthony L)
New Not-So-Cold War
Surprise! Russia has given advanced ICBM to North Korea. White House flummoxed; not yet able to craft Memo to Media as to how to handle. I just briefed the judge on this https://t.co/zo4cYrIF0V
based largely on work of Ted Postol, Prof Emeritus, MIT.https://t.co/MauXDlXK6O— Ray McGovern (@raymcgovern) September 5, 2023
NOKO Kim Jong Un may meet Putin – Changing the World’s Stage? w/Ray McGovern Judge Napolitano, YouTube. Important. Seems like quite the message….
North Korea Finds New Leverage in the Ukraine War New York Times. No mention of the new Russian-supplied ICBM, which (by implication per McGovern, he annoyingly links to a doc that is not open to the public) has a much longer range than North Korea’s current crop, which I understood could hit only the US West Coast.
* * * Russia-Ukraine war live news: US’s Blinken visits Kyiv in unannounced trip AlJazeera
Ukraine Counteroffensive GETS WORSE as Russian Reinforcements Arrive History Legends, YouTube. Lively and good use of maps and videos. Notice comment at the very end, about how Ukraine air force suddenly active in Zaporzhizhia.
Cuba exposes Russian human trafficking ring for military recruitment Politico (Bob K)
Eastern European NATO Countries Fear Peace Talks Between Ukraine and Russia Antiwar (Kevin W)
I think the West was serious but Yellen and all the other spreadsheet thinkers were unwilling to bother mapping out what would be required for this to make a dent:
The oil price cap was the fakest of all the sanctions. It was imposed as global prices were falling due to sluggish growth. Now that global prices are rising the G7 are just looking the other way. Brent-Urals spread, meanwhile, has fallen ~50% since cap was imposed. 🛢️ pic.twitter.com/133hbZEkxi
— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) September 6, 2023
Imperial Collapse Watch
G20 summit: US urges China not to ‘play spoiler’ at leader’s meet BBC. The US demands, erm, wants China to play nicely with us after the Biden Administration has been astonishingly hostile, including unheard-of rudeness at the 2021 Alaska summit, escalation, and Biden calling Xi a dictator?
Biden
Running for president would be racist, Biden allies tell Democrats RT (Kevin W)
Biden reveals conspiracy with UAW bureaucracy to block auto strike WSWS
2024
Impersonators or Legal Canvassers? NY Citizens Audit Answers NYSBOE UncoverDC (furzy). Getting ugly early…
Federal Court Again Strikes Down Alabama’s Congressional Map New York Times (Kevin W)
GOP Clown Car
McCarthy faces political minefield on Biden impeachment The Hill. Weirdly does not discuss that the bar for hardliners to reopen his status as Speaker is low.
McConnell does not have seizure disorder, did not suffer stroke, says Capitol physician The Hill. So Lewy-body syndrome? Covid brain?
Vivek Ramaswamy Is Just Another Disgusting Warmonger Caitlin Johnstone (Kevin W)
Supremes
Senator Files Ethics Complaint Accusing Alito of Scheme to Thwart Congressional Action Common Dreams (furzy)
Our No Longer Free Press
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Bad Faith & Blank Checks ConsortiumNews (Chuck L)
Woke Watch
Jordan Peterson being professionally canceled for trans stance New York Post (furzy). Notice URL for original headline.
The Bezzle
Criminals reveal: This is how money is laundered on Spotify Expressen (Micael T, via Google Translate)
Sam Bankman-Fried’s Laptop Has a New Battery Now, DOJ Says Coindesk
Class Warfare
A top reason people go to jail is a technicality. Here’s how to fix it. Big Think (Micael T)
Virgil has been reporting all those statistics for a while. American workers are being replaced by cheaper foreigners.https://t.co/0uqDijvq6w
— Lurch Addams (@MooreGovernor) September 4, 2023
Beware the new leviathans Unherd (Anthony L)
Antidote du jour (Chet G):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
Lions enjoying the seapic.twitter.com/b1qGCcZQyM
— Enezator (@Enezator) September 5, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
178 comments
Comments are closed.
Yves, I think tomorrow’s Links posted early.
Thank you for your comment. I was sure I’d read this morning’s Links and was quite confused!
I also thought I was going crazy for a sec…the days keep slipping away.
This is a bit overwrought, but yes, the more I live, the more my life does indeed feel like that Simon and Garfunkel song:
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away
I know a man
He came from my home town
He wore his passion for his woman
Like a thorny crown
He said Delores
I live in fear
My love for you’s so overpowering
I’m afraid that I will disappear
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away
I know a woman
Became a wife
These are the very words she uses
To describe her life
She said a good day
Ain’t got no rain
She said a bad day’s when I lie in bed
And think of things that might have been
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away
And I know a father
Who had a son
He longed to tell him all the reasons
For the things he’d done
He came a long way
Just to explain
He kissed his boy as he lay sleeping
Then he turned around and headed home again
He’s slip slidin’
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away
God only knows
God makes his plan
The information’s unavailable
To the mortal man
We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we’re gliding down the highway
When in fact we’re slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
Slip slidin’ away
You know the nearer your destination
The more you’re slip slidin’ away
Mmm
It’s Wednesday in her corner of the world… very early Wednesday.
I thought the move might change her schedule/routine, but once again she proves that she is nocturnal– a creature of the night.
Time and date, the eternal enemy of the internet era.
If letting out the links a day early is the worst crime that any of us commits….
Two perhaps obvious questions: Can anybody please explain:
1. Why Ukrainians who are being pressed into service against their will are not actively fighting back in groups? I hear about the occasional assault, but not swarms of people–certainly the press gangs don’t seem to be worried about their own safety in the videos I am seeting.
2. When it comes to using a new weapon in war (say, a new type of hypersonic missile, just for example), who makes the ultimate decision to use it? Is it the president? General? Head of the army in theatre? Etc.
These may be obvious–I jsut don’t know the answer. Thanks!
Not a lawyer or sociologist, and I’ve never been to Ukraine, but from the reporting both for and against the war, the population available for recruitment still in the country are mostly: poor, have few options outside of Ukraine, injured, have family in the country, have been beaten down by months of suffering. This is not the ideal population to draw from if you’re looking for rebels to rise up against the state. They are living with a very real dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t situation. My heart goes out to them. I wish I could do more than advocate for ending the war. Because I’m sure most of these latest will be dead before the neocons in the US give up on Project Ukraine.
As for your second question, which country are you asking about? US, Russia,…? Pretty sure the president in the US would be asked about big things like should we nuke Russia. Pretty sure he would not be asked about what new tech the soldiers should use in theater if it didn’t contradict any existing treaties or policies.
I can only say pretty sure because the last few years in the US have made me uncertain as to what extent anyone in the assumed chain of command is ultimately responsible for anything.
Case in point, two different commanders in chief asked for armed forces to withdraw from Afghanistan. Two different CIC required plans be made to support that request. The US military and chiefs of staff then lied to congress and others about the feasibility of any plans and the capability of the Afghan army. And no one suffered any penalties for that. No one even tried to move up the time period for leaving so that the withdrawal could have occurred during the winter months when things may very well have been less active. The only thing we saw as an example of retribution for such an awful job was the US media excoriating Biden for the withdrawal. So who would make a decision about weapons, tactics, strategy, means, methods? I have no idea. I don’t think there’s a unified front making decisions now.
Didn’t some declassified documents recently reveal that nukes stationed in Greece and Turkey had launch codes set to all zeros, because the Pentagon generals feared that the commander in chief would chicken out should the moment come?
Oddly though, Pentagon was the entity that poured cold water on the idea of a no fly zone over Ukraine. Perhaps because they know it would be an air war against peers, not dropping bombs from up high on sandal wearing locals waving around old AKs.
It’s not odd. The initial commander of a no fly zone will simply be embarrassed with 400 generals/admirals clamoring to take their place. Destroyed airbases and drowned sailors will the mind of thing that keeps corporate board jobs from materializing. That is assuming items like Russia cutting off gas and knocking out ports aren’t an issue too.
A no fly zone in the Ukraine would require emptying out the planet (every deployed officer in command of a base loses) and then hoping the Russians don’t blow up the airbases we would need to build to operate in the theatre. It’s not even so much a case of that we would be figthing Russia but hoping a Gulf War sized operation could the achieved with limited international support and a useless surface fleet.
The more excitable members of the brass might have been eager out of the gate, but they had to face the guys in charge of logistics at some point.
A new mission capability is developed in a complex process which starts with a need that is some mission we cannot do or should do better.
Then decide a new missile. Then develop and deploy. That puts the new weapon in the “order of battle”.
From order of battle combatant commanders can use it….
Nuclear weapon in “order of battle” need president approval to fire.
I am not so sure nuclear weapons in “order of battle” require president approval to fire if someone like GEN Ripper exceeds their authority. What latest information do you know that changes what Ellsberg reported in his book the Doomsday Machine?
I have no idea how tac nukes are controlled
They are controlled by a combination of administrative and technical measures intended to provide NC2 from the NCA. Of course these days very few units/personnel are qualified outside of the strategic triad and there was the upheaval in the USAF a few years ago over procedural control.
As I recall, one issue that troubled Ellsberg was that authority to act was not tied to measures to assure that authority act was not exceeded. That was a point made in the film “Dr. Strangelove”. Your statement that a “combination of administrative and technical measures” exists to provide “NC2” [I assume this means? Nuclear Command and Control?] offers no insight into those measures or how reliable they might be at preventing the execution of unauthorized attacks, and assuring the execution of authorized attacks. I am also less than confident in the NCA [Nuclear Control Authority?] after reading a very little about some of the generals at USAF.
I’ve heard, but can in no way verify, that Ukraine is using the strategy of stationing units composed of ideologically-minded people along the lines of Azov, etc., behind the units of press-ganged and otherwise reluctant/forced recruits to basically shoot them if they try to run or surrender. It seems like the Soviet army is often accused of having done the same sort of thing in WWII, so I could see this being kind of repurposed as an accusation against the Ukrainian govt/military command, but I could also see it being true.
Also I’ve seen (and I think it might’ve been discussed here on NC recently, but I might be misremembering) that Ukrainian soldiers are allegedly using various drugs before going into an engagement, which helps them basically overcome the fear of death..
Sort of related to your second question, I’ve been wondering what sort of observable indicators there might be that could clue in an average citizen to the US being in the process of developing a new game-changing weapon, along the lines of when it was developing the atom bomb (although I also have to wonder if the US has the overall wherewithal to be able to do that these days).
«I’ve heard, but can in no way verify, that Ukraine is using the strategy of stationing units composed of ideologically-minded people along the lines of Azov, etc., behind the units of press-ganged and otherwise reluctant/forced recruits to basically shoot them if they try to run or surrender.»
IOW, exactly what the US and NATO are doing to Ukraine. It’s Notsies all the way down.
We are promising to send nearly 50 year old planes. It’s kind of a game changing weapon. I think the cargo cult phenomenon is at play. The promise of being rebuilt like Germany and Japan is part of the allure if they just give thanks to America enough. Zelensky, an entertainer by trade, has made promises of being super Israel (and a mega silicon valley.
I think question 1 and 2 above go hand in hand when it comes to Ukraine.
There are numerous reported cases of so-called “blocking units” being employed by the Ukrainian military and paramilitaries.
Not to mention secret police to subdue any dissent.
What if the entire membership of press-ganged front-line units all had a big simultaneous Vulcan Mind Meld such that they could all turn around and all begin shooting at the Azov etc. “blocking battalions” together? Could they exterminate their particular “Azov blockers” and then move on to attack the next group of Azov etc. “blockers” blocking the next press-ganged unit? If they did that, would the next press-ganged unit have the freedom of shared mind to be able to join that first unit in exterminating its own Azov etc. blockers? And so on along the entire front, each domino recruiting the next into a Total Uprising aimed at exterminating every single Azov etc. person from physical existence?
2. Officers in the US serve at the pleasure of the President. Any authority they might have is delegated from the President’s power. Congress might pay them, but if you aren’t an officer, you aren’t paid. The scale of the office changes things, but I remember one day Trump started yammering about the arsenal of the US. He was simply briefed on what was in the works or available.
There are some laws, but in effect, the organization of the US military is entirely up to the president.
I guess depends on what you mean by “organization”, but no, Congress has authority to raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, and make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces. It does via USC Title 10.
And of course officers are appointed with the advice and consent of the Senate, or Sen Tuberville as the case may be.
If my stats are right, during the Vietnam war only 0.7% of the eligible US male population were convicted “draft offenders”. Of course, only about 8% were actually drafted, but then again, Vietnam was not invading USA in any way or form.
I gather ever since the introduction of general mobilization in revolutionary France, people have more or less submitted to the “duty” of defending their country.
It must be said, though, that there have been videos of recruiters getting their asses handed to them. And at least one has been shot.
#NC literally giving us forward time-travel as a special treat during fundraising week … 😅
… check will be in the mail this week!
Careful on those immigration sources, they sound very biased in their framing: foreign born does not mean foreigner and “lost jobs” includes voluntary retirements from baby boomers. Those are trends 20 – 60 years in the making.
Yes, it’s very inflammatory framing. The 43.7% of new jobs number is not supported by the evidence (we have no way of knowing which of the jobs are new jobs, or who took them).
They also haven’t given the baseline population percentages for foreign born and native born. If US demographics were skewing to foreign born to an even greater degree than in the table, for example, then the conclusion would be the exact opposite of what they give (since native born would be employed at a higher rate in relative terms).
Compare/correlate with H1-B visas.
>>18.4% of the workforce (foreign born) are getting 43.74% of all jobs created since 2007.
Some spitballing of the actual mechanisms of this (of course our leaders want us all to be competing to the bottom, that has been the story since the start of the Industrial Revolution):
1. Economy is disproportionately creating low-wage or at least low-credential jobs.
2. Tons of immigrants with university degrees and years of white collar job experience can’t get similar jobs in the US because of immigration status, language barrier, xenophobic PMC licensing requirements, etc.
3. New immigrants have more flexibility to move wherever jobs happen to be (no lease to break much less house to sell).
4. More existing workers have disabilities, injuries, addictions and even criminal records that limit the jobs they can take.
5. Existing workers are just much older on average which also limits the jobs they can or will take.
6. As certain workplaces fill up with workers from certain regions of the world, it become a de facto requirement to speak that language and effectively be of that ethnic group.
7. And yeah, the obvious: a large minority of them are sweating it out in the hopes of saving up enough to leave the US and live well in some small town in their home countries where a mansion can be had for the cost of a Detroit studio. If they were granted permanent residence and somehow forced to live here forever there would be more interest in labor organizing.
8. And also the obvious: some low-wage employers prefer exploitable undocumented immigrants and an amnesty that granted them all permanent residence would do wonders to level the playing field.
Anyone know what the source is for the numbers? And, as Tim pointed out above, “Foreign born” is sketchy.
Here’s a chart from the BLS including their definition of foreign-born and statistics since 2006, trend since 1996.
https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2023/foreign-born-workers-were-a-record-high-18-1-percent-of-the-u-s-civilian-labor-force-in-2022.htm
My evil multinational recently replaced 5% of its 700k permanent salaried employees from “high cost geographies” with cheaper foreign labor and AI. One data point, fwiw.
This is a good way to crush wage growth, then general economy, immiserate and enrage Americans, which will make the American political economy get interesting in all sorts of unpleasant ways. Well, Naked Capitalism has been showing that Western Elites, which includes the Americans, has been increasingly incompetent and delusional, but it is just too bad that 90% of the population is being taken for an unasked for ride to Hell.
RFK Jr. says the drug cartels are capitalizing on easier border security, charging immigrants–mostly from non-South-Central-America sources–tens of thousands to import them.
Meanwhile in employing handy people:
Renovators: Ukrainian
Cabinet Makers: Ukrainian
Plumbers: Ukrainian
Electricians: Ukrainian
…in California’s Central Valley, where a reported 300,000 Ukrainian refugees + more Afghans (electrician) + Hmong reside
What worries me is the possibility of lethal pushback from Americans if the economy craters as it seems likely to do. I have not read anything directly about the same phenomenon during the Great Depression being more focused on how American against American conflict as with the Oakies. There was still some real unpleasantness against what were perceived as unwelcomed non-natives. That many were natives of the American Southwest for four or more centuries as well as citizens didn’t make much difference. Some people were deported to Mexico even though they had never been there.
There are a few books on subject, which I intend to read. Someday.
What happens when there really is non citizens trapped here with many specifically and illegally brought here to bust unions and drive down wages? If the government, federal, state, or municipal, even at the small town, level was at all competent, I could see ways that it would dealt with peacefully. Most of the migrants are not here because they wanted to move here and steal jobs. Most Americans, even actual racists, do not get their jollies attacking families, and they still have honest problems with the situation. Talking and working on fixing the worst of the problems would probably fix the tension.
But I do not see any competent leadership unless it is some jackass neoliberal IdPol or Neo-nazi politicians or activists stirring it up for the violence and photo ops.
Things got murderous in the wake of the Panic of 1873, capitalism’s first worldwide depression.
Well, I think some credit for 1873 goes to Napoleon III. But WRT the Northern Pacific, banker Jay Cooke had this dream/idea that Duluth would make an ideal port/railroad terminus so launched the NP project. To me Cooke knew how to raise money (railroads were the most capital-intense business) but the economics of yet another transcontinental RR don’t seem feasible to me. The lack of freight business caused Cooke to get into the immigration business trying to get northern Europeans to emigrate in the theory that the climate/land on the route was comparable. But I think what did Cooke in was he didn’t have the engineering moxie to build the route efficiently and when specie dried up due to war it did him in.
Contrast this with Hill’s Great Northern following almost an identical route but built with engineering know-how.
I fear the government is either in on it via the stock market, or downright bought to look the other way.
There are no statesmen left, only oligarchs.
I live in the central valley. Anyone with a possible future left as soon as they graduated high school. Could someone please send me contact info for these skilled Ukrainians. As far as I can tell they all speak Spanish.
Ha ha!
This comment is a microcosm of what corporations do – seek cheaper labor.
And just as JP – in posing this hopefully tongue-in-cheek comment – readily reveals, it’s a mindset. Nobody wants to reach into their pocket! and pay a skilled American if they can hire a cheaper skilled Ukrainian. It’s human nature!
So are the ‘evil’ corporations actually evil for wanting to do the very same?
Interesting what you can learn in the most innocent ways, eh?
Well, the evil ones are, yes. And the good ones would rather not, but they have to in order to avoid being outcompeted into extinction by the evil ones.
The answer is a law against underpayment by anyone to anyone, enforceable and enforced for real, and carrying a prison sentence of many years of hard time. If we amnestied all the “nonviolent drug offenders” from all state and federal prisons, the several thousand spaces thereby freed up might be enough to put all the outlaw-bosses who pay always the lowest wage, always.
Its not that a “carceral society” is necessarily bad in itself. What is bad is that America’s carceral society carceralizes all the wrong people and lets all the other wrong people stay free.
In my industry – insurance, replacement of the IT workers with foreigners began in the late 90’s and really accelerated in the early 2000’s. Needless to say devastating to my family as the rates for our work dropped 40 – 50% and the amount of work was reduced to part time. For example between 2002 and 2014 I was out of work 1/2 of that time for a total of 6 years. And it has not gotten much better in the last nine years.
It is to the point where ~ 95% of the people I work with are mix of offshore and immigrants, the majority of whom being offshore. Other areas in the industry are being affected as well like accounting and customer service. I suspect this is the case in other industries as well.
It just doesn’t seem to matter legal or otherwise.
I’m not American so i don’t know the details, but i have been reading about H1-B abuse claims for what seems like forever.
I witnessed the phenomenon directly at IBM’s campus in Austin. Over 2010-2020 it looked like the onsite developers designers and managers there were gradually replaced with foreign born workers. Early on it was on rotating assignments learning development skills that would eventually be sited in Bangalore etc. Entire development functions were offshored in this way including a major development lab cited in China where many high profile US engineers and managers were sent to live and work permanently. The facility involved the partnership of a major Chinese hardware manufacturer to pass the muster of the Chinese government. That joint venture was quietly shut down after only a few years and many of the US developers and managers moved back to Austin.
Outside that failed joint venture the overall pattern only accelerated. Many foreign workers managed to gain permanent residency status so the rotating teams were more likely to only be temporary guest workers who lost their ability to stay in the US if IBM fired them. By the time I got laid off in 2020 I think the Austin campus was probably at least 40-50% foreign born workers who had emigrated in the previous decade, including many senior managers and directors. Cheapie cheap.
If you were a US born IBM employee over 50 with more than a decade of experience it wasn’t hard to understand there was a target on your back. Older more experienced and expensive workers were rapidly replaced with cheap inexperienced foreign born ones, often at a real cost in technical depth and capacity. The blatant way they pursued this agenda has led to several high profile age discrimination lawsuits with mixed results.
I think that the people who read Naked Capitalism’s Links at six am are going to be very surprised when they go to leave a comment tomorrow morning.
This an all-RSS crowd or did email notifications go out as well?
> did email notifications go out
Email notifications fire at set times.
Surprise! Russia has given advanced ICBM to North Korea
South Korea is reaping the rewards of it’s brilliant decision of following the Euro poodles who follow US orders to in this case send weapons to Ukraine. Still, I give both China and Russia several lashing on be soooooo slow in finally…FINALLY…doing something like this.
Let’s hope Russia/China fully normalize trade with North Korea, too.
If true, there are lots of ramifications here. It would give the North Koreans the ability to strike US bases that threaten it and, as you pointed out, would be payback for the South Koreans shipping ammo and weapons to the Ukraine. The US, Japan and South Korea can’t really counter this as realistically what are they going to do about it – sanction Russia? It also helps China by throwing a massive spanner in the plans to box in China and if asked, China could rightly say that it had nothing to do with them and they did not know it was going to happen (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). Perfect deniability on their part.
Deniability? You think too incrementally. My advice to China – deny nothing, proudly embrace it, even call it YOUR idea even it it wasn’t. Russia and China should be having a behind the scene girl-friend fight over which of them gets to cut some swagger on the international stage by claiming is was their idea all along.
The block heads in Washington understand nothing else but power.
Nah, Russia and China are trying to play the bigger man in this conflict. Again and again giving NATOstan ways to back out, only to see them double down on a bad bet repeated.
Putin played bigger man from 2014 to 2022 in Ukraine, Gorbachev played bigger man in eastern Europe from 1991 onward. How’d that work out?
IMO you are suggesting polices that have failed over and over again. Power and strength is the only thing Washington understands – bigger man does not exist in their universe, as it is seen as a prime opportunity to take advantage. Bigger man in Washington’s eyes = weak. Strength and superior power is the only thing Washington understands.
Yes, a small war was the result, but German factory orders just dropped at a rate similar to April 2020. BRICS+ has people clamoring to join, and a rumor is Turkey wants Iran to sponsor their membership. The President of the US is a complete buffoon with a vp who is already threatening challengers, all governors implying a weak royal court, with the r word.
Russia is much stronger relative to the US than in 2014.
Did you see that Biden is now threatening the UAE which has just joined BRICS? Not sure how that will play out but maybe the UAE will go all Soup Nazi on Biden and say ‘No oil for you!’
True. But what you listed didn’t happen because of what Gorbachev did post 1991 nor Putin 2014 – 2022. If happened in good measure from US over reach with sanctions and trying to bully the rest of the world. What Putin allowed to happen starting 2014 didn’t have to happen, and Russia and Donbas are much the worse off for it.
Might the Russian efforts since 2007 at developing the cutting-edge weapons deployed today, and Russian preparations for economic/financial autarky have something to do w/ said
‘US over-reach”?
Correct. Sociopaths see reasonableness and humanity as contemptible weakness.
Quote Bible verses to an armed robber, and he will laugh in your face, delighted at your impotence. Hold a loaded gun to his head and you will produce somewhat different results. The robber will be remarkably tractable, personable even, as long as he knows that you will pull that trigger without hesitation or compunction.
This is starting to feel like a rerun of the Cuban crisis, only that this time round the White House seem more hawkish than the Pentagon. And that is deeply worrying. I sure hope Moscow and Beijing has gamed this out properly.
Except this time, Russia and China are dealing in their own back yards instead of the Gulf of Mexico, and from a position of strength.
IMO this is not something to worry about. This is long overdue. Adding: North Korea must NOT be allowed to join the South, until the South is demilitarized and agrees to never join NATO or any other US imperialist organization (applying the lesson learned from the fall of Soviet Union regarding NATO expansion eastward)
We’d probably all be dead if Khruschev had told Kennedy to pound sand back in 62.
Not saying it’s likely or realistic, but curious what people think about the idea of North Korea joining BRICS, someday down the road?
Also I keep seeing Charles Brown (nominee to succeed Milley) being portrayed as a China hawk, and would like to point out that some of his presumably formative, early career years were spent stationed in South Korea, so I wonder if this plays a role at all in all this.
Also I keep wondering what the story is with Travis King (US soldier who recently ran across the DMZ into North Korea).
I do not know about North Korea joining BRICS any time soon but the place does have amazing mineral wealth potential and is connected directly by rail with China and Russia. Also they have an industrious work force and the Russians have been giving them employment. Maybe it is a matter of where both China and Russia have decided to finally bring in that country out of the cold. Certainly they could remedy a lot of the food shortages in that country due to all the sanctions and the like and ship in vitally needed products. Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if Wagner turned up there to give the North Koreans training in modern warfare methods. Can you imagine?
I am tempted to speculate that the transfer of the ICBMs to North Korea is only a part of the full story. I wonder what else was in the deal. I am still fond of the idea that Russia would like to extend the Trans-Siberian railroad through North Korea to connect Siberia with Seoul.
Not just Russians. Some years back there was a bit of a bruhaha when NK workers were spotted at a Polish shipyard that happened to do maintenance work on a Danish coastguard ship.
The North Koreans have been able to devastate SK and Japan with conventional missiles for decades, as well as to reach US bases in Okinawa, so this isn’t really about changing balances of power in the region. In the past, that was judged an adequate deterrent to any silliness from United States. But the Topol-M has the range to reach the Continental United States, which does change things a bit, and is, I think, the first time an acknowledged nuclear power has transferred not just ICBM technology but actual hardware to another state.
On the other hand, there may be less to this than meets the eye. A missile is, of course, an essential component of an ICBM, but you also need a properly designed and constructed warhead able to withstand the enormous stresses of flight and re-entry and still go bang at the right time, and of course a reliable guidance system to allow you to hit the target, since a near miss with a nuclear weapon is of less and less use today, with warhead yields getting increasingly smaller. There’s also the question of targeting data The real test, I think, will be whether the Russians have transferred these technologies or components as well. That will be interesting.
It might be a matter of the Russians letting the North Koreans have the ability to confront the center of gravity as far as threats to them are concerned. And that means Washington. The US refuses to sign a document to end the Korean war after 70 years now, they reneged on a peace agreement about 20 years ago that would have settled things in the peninsular, the US does their military war games at the same time the North Koreans need every person that they can to bring in their harvest, several weeks ago they had a US nuke sub dock in South Korea, etc., etc., etc. Any plans the US has for North Korea are in doubt now because of the uncertainty involved. Washington now has to ask if the North Koreans will soon have the capability to nuke Guam if attacked for example. So it is like a mini-MAD situation.
While the individual warhead may be smaller in yield these days, my understanding is that each missile carries more of them. I think they call it MIRV.
digi-owl: While the individual warhead may be smaller in yield these days, my understanding is that each missile carries more of them …. they call it MIRV.
Three points: –
[1] It depends on the ICBM type, with the big dogs’ ICBMs typically carrying 8-10 MIRVs (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles).
The RT-2PM2 Topol-M, the Russian model for the Norkean ‘Hwasong 18,’ was designed to carry a single warhead with an 800 kiloton yield, but according to chief designer Yury Solomonov, was compatible with modifications to carry four to six warheads, alongside decoys releasing chaff.
The Topol-M was the first ICBM Russia developed after the USSR’s collapse and (as far as I know) has since been replaced in the Russian arsenal by its modernized version, the RS-24 Yars, which definitely does carry either 3-6 MIRVs with 300—500 kiloton warheads,or 6-10 150 kiloton warheads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-24_Yars
[2] The Ted Postol piece rightly stresses the solid fuel, which provides the capability to Launch On Warning in a few minutes, and the decoy canister, enabling chaff release. I don’t see the US fielding any really effective anti-missile defense, as Postol says.
Conversely, Postol claims that the Hwasong-18 must necessarily be MIRVed. I dunno about that.
Pro: I once briefly interviewed Postol, who’d had the testicular fortitude to go on record to the effect that the Patriot anti-missile missile was a massively expensive piece of cr*p that failed to achieve even one interception during Gulf 1. For his pains, MIT repaid him by allowing 2-3 large agents to visit his office there, tear it up, and push Postol physically around. His voice still shook when I talked to him about it a couple of years afterwards.
Con: Yet if the Hwasong-18 is already MIRVed — as Postol claims — why would the Russians not simply have given the Norkeans the RS-24 Yars, which is essentially the same design with the MIRV capability already integrated?
[3] Aurelien writes: ‘a near miss with a nuclear weapon is of less and less use today, with warhead yields getting increasingly smaller.’
That assumption of a smaller warhead yield may NOT apply in the Norkean case. Here’s why.
Smaller warhead yields — along with effects like precisely calibrated types of radiation release — are only possible as one advances up the ladder of H-bomb design, as the US, Russia, the UK, and France (and presumably Israel) have. It’s easier to do bigger bombs when you have less technical proficiency. And it’s not even clear that Pyongyang has actually achieved the capability to build H-bombs at all, though one would guess that they have or else are very near.
Moreover, the Topol-M in its original design was meant to carry a single 800 kiloton warhead. (For comparison the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were 15 kilotons and 20 kilotons respectively).
I can’t find a link at the moment but a couple of weeks ago on Twitter there were some detailed discussions among some aerospace peeps that I follow on this topic. 38North also had an article on it. A very convincing case was made that the new Hwasong is significantly larger than the Topol and is not derived from it (of course, being larger doesn’t make it better).
I find it very unlikely that the Russians would provide the North Koreans with ICBM tech, especially since they can’t be trusted not to sell it onwards to someone else in the Middle East or Central Asia.
There is one precedent though for transferring ICBM’s from one state to another…. a certain Trident missile…..
DPRK supposedly has a warhead. If not, it’s a simple engineering matter (at least, as simple as such engineering matters ever are). If nothing else, now they have a spec to work to.
>with warhead yields getting increasingly smaller
Begging the question. DPRK can design as big a warhead as they see fit, and “small warheads” don’t seem to have any place in their order of battle. Why do they need to participate in whatever “progress” you’re selling here?
You’re turning into a pundit, David. Not a good sign.
hunkerdown: DPRK supposedly has a warhead. If not, it’s a simple engineering matter.
No. It’s not a ‘simple engineering matter.’ You couldn’t be more wrong.
Sure, fission bombs — atomic bombs, as were dropped on Japan — are relatively simple. No nation (e.g. South Africa) that seriously set out to develop them ever failed to .
Conversely, a Ulam-Teller H-bomb — a three-stage device in which a radiation-imploded fusion second stage boosts a first stage fission explosion, producing a third-stage thermonuclear blast — is, ironically, one of the most complex technologies humanity has ever created.
It required a half-dozen years of work by some of the brightest human minds there’ve ever been and John von Neumann, who was so smart he’d been flown into Los Alamos on a weekend and came up with the implosion solution to detonating the atomic bomb —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann
— to develop the first electronic computer in order to run the calculations necessary to model the fluid dynamics of such a three-stage explosion.
That said, Pyongyang quite likely does have an H-bomb at this stage and, yes, it’s likely not necessarily smaller along the lines that David/Aurelien suggests. That’s because:-
[1] In 2023 the Norkeans don’t need to invest the massive time and material expenditures that the US did to discover whether such devices were even possible, while computers of infinitely more capability than von Neumann’s are commonly available to carry out the necessary calculations today.
[2] Precisely because an H-bomb isn’t a simple engineering matter — is so complex — advancing the technology to create smaller warheads and lower yields might not be something the Norkeans have progressed to. Bigger bombs would be easier for them.
Furthermore, the Russian Topol-M design that Pyongyang has apparently adapted for its Hwasong-18 is designed to carry a single 800 kiloton warhead, which is — yes — substantial.
I hope not! The point I was trying to make (badly, I was in a hurry) is that if the NK have/will soon have, either actual Topol-M missiles or missiles of their own using some of the technology, that only gets them part of the way. You need a warhead which, as others more knowledgeable than me have pointed out, is a fearsomely complex and sophisticated piece of engineering. But you also need, and I don’t think this gets enough publicly, a very precise guidance system, as well as targeting data. To the extent that your missile is not very accurate, you need a much bigger warhead to achieve anything. The tendency among established nuclear powers over recent decades has been to move to smaller warheads (which have their own engineering challenges) which are much more accurate, and to put more of them on the missile, these days generally independently targeted. (Thus the acronym MIRV). So it comes down to whether the Topol-M (or its design) can carry the smallest bomb the NK can make, with enough accuracy to really pose a threat by landing close enough to a specific target.
McGovern said in his Judge Napolitano talk that this ICBM could reach any target in Europe. so it must go polar route. He has this from missile expert Ted Postol. It is pretty clear that Russia has or will soon be providing either the hardware to deliver it or the tech to build it.
Ted Postol’s work on this has been severely criticized by other missile experts. I think Postol went too far in identifying it as a Topol-M clone.
That said, its clearly a long range ICBM, but only the North Koreans really know its capabilities as the two test flights used unusual trajectories, presumably to hide its real range. Building a big rocket is maybe the easiest part of building a functional long range ICBM.
The British use US-made Tridents (the closest analogue in US arsenal to Topol-M, I believe).
The consequence of this, if true, is that this subverts US alliance system in NE Asia.
1. SK and Japan cannot be confident if US will aid them at risk of being nuked itself. Especially applicable since NK has established a reputation for itsy trigger fingers unlike Russia or China.
2. Possible use of nuclear weapons on NK drives Japan and, far more so, SK, extremely nervous. It’s not just sentiments: the collateral damage to neighbors from nuclear weapons will be enormous and that possibility will erode confidence in US (especially given how hawkish US is nowadays)–the “ally” would be as dangerous as the “enemy.” (This was one of the major factors influencing SK decisions back in 1990s when the Clinton admin was acting super hawkish).
I see this move entirely direct ed at the US, not SK or Japan. The entire Ukraine debacle has proved, once again, that the US will utterly abandon an ‘ally’ when the going gets tough. So NK having nukes was not as strong a deterrent to US adventurism in the far east as Russia and China would like.
NK being able to hit US population centres completely changes the calculus. That is where the all important *political donors* live, and they must be protected at all cost! I’m waiting for NK propaganda trolls to publish a map with cross hairs on Hollywood and the Hamptons.
Re expressen article on money laundering via spotify
“You don’t do this if you want to wash a hundred salmon”
Machine translation fail
Salmon, or lax in Swedish, is slang for 1000 kronor
On a different note, i do wonder how much if this is going on via various gaming platforms.
“G20 summit: US urges China not to ‘play spoiler’ at leader’s meet”
According to the boys at the Duran, Xi just wants to have nothing to with Biden. They have said publicaly that Biden will say one thing to them in private but then his administration will do the opposite to harm China right afterwards.That is why they refuse to answer the call when Biden rings. The past coupla months a series of US officials have gone to China but they never actually brought anything solid with then so the Chinese sent them back with nothing. There is suspicions that the Biden regime has been doing this so that they can pretend that they tried a series of diplomatic contacts with the Chinese for when trouble breaks out. One thing that Xi would not want is to have Biden confront China at the G20 summit and do his tough guy act or something. Something that would put Xi and China in a bad light, even if it was only for the benefit of western countries. In short, for Xi it would be a no win-lose situation so giving it a miss may be the best that can be expected. They have representation there so will nix any western attempt to have the G20 put out a political anti-Russia statement in their final communique.
And after the performance of the G7 at the G20 in Indonesia last year, with people buttonholing them in hallways for PR stunts, who would want a repeat of that? Their presence would be more of a distraction than anything else. As the Duran guys said, BRICS meetings are now much more constructive, so why waste your time being insulted at the G20?
Maybe memories are still raw in China how Obama used his SS goons to physically push his way into a private meeting uninvited and forced the Brazilian leader to stand after taking his chair-
‘A famous incident narrated by Bob Woodward in his book Obama’s Wars comes to mind: President Barack Obama, disregarding the protestations of Chinese protocol officials, burst into a closed-door meeting of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian leaders on a late Friday afternoon in Copenhagen, a week before Christmas in 2009, where the three BRIC leaders (this was before South Africa joined and the group became BRICS) were negotiating in secret a common position at the climate talks, which were on the verge of complete meltdown. Obama had wanted the three leaders of the most powerful nations of the “Global South” – and South African President Jacob Zuma – to meet him individually rather than collectively, and was frantic that his ploy was upended.’
I would not put it past Biden to try to pull the same sort of stunt if Xi was at the G20. He was Obama’s VP after all.
Now that’s an incident that i do not recall making the mainstream headlines.
I hadn’t heard of that one, either. We really do know how to breed them, but breeding for obnoxious behavior has its’ clear downsides. When we become the new North Korea we will still have huge swathes of people wondering why no one wants to talk to us.
It is just Karens all the way down.
Classical aggressive diplomacy practiced as far back as the Romans. But in the US it has been SOP since the founding of the country. Washington sent a diplomatic mission to the native tribes and their brief was similar to this behavior with China. Pretend to negotiate in good faith as pretext for conflict when those empty negotiations failed.
Again, for the patriots, it’s not a US only behavior historically or currently. It is however the only form of diplomacy the US has ever practiced. The few and minor exceptions prove the rule.
This was not “according to the boys”. It was according to the Chinese readout of a Xi-Biden call initiated by Biden .
Whales will be saying “hey our big brother is arriving in a couple of centuries…. You better hope Bill Shatner is around to pull off some crazy stunt to save you”
Re: North Korean ICBMs
The analysis in question is probably this one by Ted Postol
https://beyondparallel.csis.org/the-transfer-of-a-russian-icbm-to-north-korea/
The claim is that “[t]he reported physical dimensions and flight trajectory data of the Hwasong-18 is nearly identical to that of the Russian Topol-M ICBM”.
Color me sceptical, e.g.
https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1218663/errors-in-postols-analysis-of-the-hwasong-18/
https://www.38north.org/2023/08/dont-judge-a-book-by-its-cover-north-koreas-hs-18-is-not-a-russian-icbm/
Thank you for those links.
I did find the original claim hard to believe – if not for other reason than I doubt Mr. Putin would violate NPT without first making a case for the violation. Also, if North Korea would have acquired proper ICBM technology from Russia, they surely would have made it know they have a missile that can reach USA – that’s how nuclear deterrence works and deterrence is the only reason to have ICBMs.
As Gilbert Doctorow points out, the real “bomb” is that apparently Kim Young Un will participate in Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok next week. Looks like Russia is bringing North Korea in from the cold, one could say.
That’s one reason I insisted on the missile/warhead/guidance issue. Transferring missile technology, or even missiles, is not against the NPT, but it would be a violation of the Missile Technology Control Regime a voluntary, non-treaty based regime of which the Russians are members. The MTCR is particularly aimed at preventing transfer of whole systems, which makes me suspect that there is less to this story than meets the eye. As for the NPT, it’s hard to imagine that the Russians would be willing to take the political flak for a violation without some kind of massive payoff, and maybe not even then.
“McConnell does not have seizure disorder, did not suffer stroke, says Capitol physician ‘
I’m not sure but I might have seen Brian Monahan, the Capitol’s attending physician, give a brief conference on TV tonight assuring people that Mitch McConnell was just fine and that there was nothing to see here-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NNOrp_83RU
When Hillary had a similar kind of seizure and had to be hoisted into a taxi like a corpse stiff with rigor mortis, during her campaign against Trump in 2016, that was also dismissed as nothing to see here, I seem to recall.
I remember that incident. It was at the 9/11 commemorations in New York and she went wobbly. They almost threw her into the opened side of a van and said that she overheated, even though it was noted that it was not a hot day at all. Just found a clip of it-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnbDZXoA78k (41 secs)
I guess the LMDs are getting way past their warranty period, but USA no longer have the capability to maintain them without foreign parts.
Heh… I was always partial to the other headline for that incident:
“Hillary Clinton is Being TOSSED into a Van like a sack of potatoes”
I’ll take a minor ‘absence’ seizure of focal epilepsy for ten, thanks Rev.
Re: A top reason people go to jail is a technicality. Here’s how to fix it. Big Think
What if, instead of sending reminders to people…just humor me here…what if we just stopped locking people up for missing court dates for misdemeanors? It seems crazy I know, but I think it just might work.
I think there are a few too many misdemeanors and petty felonies and too much enthusiasm for citing and prosecuting them.
Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria! Next thing you know, they’ll be letting people out on PR bonds.
In the near future, your digital dollar will be suspended until you show up for a court appointment. Easy Peesy.
How will religious nuts “reform” and “improve” society if they don’t have a license to bully people without having their bullying organs destroyed?
Re Cochrane. It is important to put Cochrane’s travails into context, in terms of the health economics “sort-of-equivalent-bodies” in many European and Australasian bodies that make judgments (*ahem* “recommendations”) as to what new medical interventions “deserve” funding, given their cost-effectiveness.
Cochrane and bodies like NICE (the UK one, though Australia has its own, as do mainland European/EU countries) have worked closely since around 2000. “Cost-effectiveness” and the “rule” that the postcode lottery should end (so your local health authority should be following NICE guidance and should NOT be using any local funding issues as excuses for availability) was “the thing” during the Blair/Brown govts in the UK.
Those “glory days” (although in retrospect, now known to be based on a lot of “funny money” aka Public-Private Partnerships) at least got the UK NHS back up the rankings to be a really good service. The objective data I saw in my day job matched my subjective experiences, as a patient in areas like cardiology (though in retrospect the UK jumped the gun on certain keyhole surgeries like cardiac ablation, which Australia, notably, refused to endorse for several years until efficacy rates improved).
We now have a situation where I don’t understand if NICE has ANY “proper” influence at all, with the Cochrane group also producing results that I don’t see in the MSM and which, therefore, appear to be ignored and which are consistent with the “evidence ignored” medicine that NC has drawn attention to when it comes to things in public health like masking.
I really fail to see ANY articles of the same impact that appeared in early 2000s that really “shook things up” in terms of “levelling up service provision” across the UK. I have to ask: “Does NICE, and the Cochrane group, DO anything these days?” Because I see no evidence that their recommendations change anything in the NHS. Where are the “trailblazers” who always kept them “honest”? (Answer – maybe retired in disgust but maybe they have some reason they’ll argue makes their “lack of bolshiness” a case of “nothing to see here”).
Thanks Terry
This paragraph caught my eye.
Referring to research synthesis as an industry is troubling as it acknowledges and accepts the presence of profit in the review of research. Reminds me of “alternative facts” as a thing. Here would be a good time to remember the recent HICPAC “Evidence Review”, which couldn’t be called a systematic review because it doesn’t conform to some of the most basic guidelines within the scientific community for performing said review, and instead looks like a manufactured outcome designed to give legitimacy to questionable public health guidelines.
Another front of the War on Science.
Forgive me, but I have to ask, who did the cochrane group lately defenestrate?
They have been doing it regularly, even miltarily.
From my grazing,IMDoc and KLG would be gone in a multinational minute
Forgive me but I have to ask, what relevance does that have to funding preferences?
(Answer – none). Perhaps look at what I actually wrote,rather than what you think I wrote. Cost-effectiveness is The major issue determining funding across Europe yet curiously has disappeared since 2008 (anybody recognise that date?)
when I try to donate using credit card I get spinning wheel of death
I am so sorry. You could send a check or use Wise, or clear cookies for PayPal and open a new browser window.
I had this problem with Safari, but it worked in Chrome with just a few seconds of the wheel.
Turley on the Dem embrace of the authoritarianism that they once opposed
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/09/06/fighting-monsters-how-many-democrats-are-adopting-rationales-once-used-against-the-left-to-silence-orjail-critics/
Or, as Orwell put it, two legs good, four legs bad.
Surely intellectual honesty demands that in ths fuzzy headed era one should refuse to be a member of either party. It’s all dueling PR.
One would think, as Turley admitted he came from a family of Democrats, that he could distinguish between “the left” and a Democratic orthodoxy that is now nearly synonymous with GWBs Republican party. I certainly see no difference, and one would think someone brought up in a party still devoted to New Deal and Great Society aspirations he might as well.
The Democratic party has not been a left party for decades now; he is trying to explain trends without recognizing realities that undercut his entire argument.
Left-capitalism and right-capitalism are aesthetic treatments on capitalism. Both sides live for a pietous middle stratum of bullies to police morality and enforce subordination to their religious delusions. The only question “elections” answer is which theology should rule. They should both be made to lose, decisively.
Turley is not perfect but seems to be legit when it comes to legal analysis.
For example he’s a typical Fox News China hater like Tucker and–as it seems after reading today’s Caitlin–Ramaswamy. Thanks to Yves for this link which is an eye opener for those of use who have barely been paying attention to the Repub candidates.
Trump is also bad on China so maybe that’s why he was praising Ramaswamy the other day. While some of us complain about the incessant “narrative” of current culture one could point out that there was once a different narrative–call it John Wayne America–that says we are good at war because Germany and Japan lost. Arguably this myth is what got us into Vietnam and now addles the brains of the Swamp who don’t seem to realize that the Russians beat Hitler, not us. Only crazy people would take on a country willing to sacrifice millions of lives to defeat an invader. Now the even crazier want to take on a country multiple times larger in population.
Our war toys are not going to do this for us although certainly we have the ability, like Samson, to destroy everything. The Israelis have one of these too. They call it The Samson Option.
My complaint about the Turley piece is the lack of historical perspective. Wilson, the Espionage Act and the Palmer Raids? The House Un-American Activities Committee, the one under the Dems that preceded McCarthy? And in Chicago, did Turley not hear about Daley and the ’68 convention? No courtroom niceties there, just a club to the head.
This is who Democrats have always been, the most vicious enemies of the Left. Now the Right is feeling their wrath for a change.
We need new vocabulary. Here’s an interesting take:
The Radical Center is more Dangerous than the Radical Right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss8yYV8o7bE
“The Radical Center”. That’s not too bad.
And pay special attention to which billionaire is funding all the NGOs that are “fact checking” the truth. I suspect it’s more important to know which facts to check, and which to never discuss at all.
What happened is Team D got the whip hand.
“Russia-Ukraine war live news: US’s Blinken visits Kyiv to announce more aid”
‘Ukraine’s parliament approves Rustem Umerov as defence minister’
Reports are that a lot of Ukrainians are very unhappy about his appointment due to his, ahem, reputation. What reputation? As Alex Christoforou put it, he would have a lot in common with Hunter Biden-
https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1698818409536934356
Beyond that, I’ve read conflicting reports about his connections with Turkiye. Most western sources are painting it as a diplomatic advantage but some sources have claimed he’s tied to FETO, which would be um the opposite of winning friends in Erdogan’s circle.
At least it’s said that the high school he studied at (some boarding “lyceum for bright kids”) was a Gülen-associated one.
Umerov is sleazy, even by Ukrainian oligarch standards, but nobody cares what Ukrainians think.
In Mammoth now after another fabulous Burning Man, and we like to rail against the mainstream media on NC, and how reliable they are in getting the details all wrong on other newsfronts, and its no different in regards to BM, I couldn’t believe the drivel I was reading that had no basis in reality, compared to what I was witnessing, 98.4% bullshit often oriented in a direction to push agendas.
As luck would have it, Trevor Hughes from USA Today was camped a few hundred feet away from us, and he related that he was the only mainstream media reporter on the playa, the other quote, unquote news media living vicariously through social media posts from afar.
Never mentioned is the amazing vibe @ Burning Man, you’ll rarely hear a discouraging word, and I wondered if that would survive the mudfest (there was no flooding, despite feverish claims to the contrary) and it most certainly did, and when the man burned on Monday, it was a just reward for suffering through a couple days of everybody essentially sheltering in place because you couldn’t go anywhere.
Things dried up quickly and it took us 3 hours and 15 minutes to exodus, just a little longer than last year, with no trying circumstances to contend with.
This onus on only ultra rich (family blogs) is missing the big picture of who attends, but who wants to hear from a typical attendee that had a good time and shared experience?
Couda been worse. You could have had climate activists try to block the roads out of Burning Man in order to save the planet or something. They did do that a coupla days ago leading to a miles long traffic jam but it seems that tribal Rangers don’t go in for that sort of thing-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgEdt0SRaeg (2:56 mins)
I saw your friend WonderHussy in the DM yesterday, Wuk.
Burning Man reveler is partying on as she says flooding has ‘weeded out the weak’ and plans to stay until Thursday as exodus sparks ‘unsafe’ 5-hour traffic jam in Nevada desert
I would call Lee Fang a journalist. He was there and here is his report:
https://www.leefang.com/p/escaping-the-online-discourse-to
From Fang:
This sounds a lot more like I imagine Wuk to be like in person than a Gates or Thiel.
Unless you’re trying to proselytize him. ;)
Glad you had fun, Wuk, and glad you made it through with no major nicks or bruises.
Fang nails it, the mood is upbeat and accepting of everybody, with generosity a given, which never wavered on account of the weather.
From the guardian link:
Ouch.
What say ye, Wuk? Time for some good, old-fashioned shunning to reclaim the honor and glory of “burning man?”
I’d not disagree that there are elites there, I’ll regale you with a tale of an e-bike ride (my 2009 Schwinn Sting-Ray that a good friend who was with me at the burn, made into an e-Ray that looked so cool as my playa encrusted sandals stood propped on the front tires, its a chopper, baby) we did on Monday going out to the entrance-exit gate to see how Exodus was faring, and then rode to the Black Rock City Airport (about 40 planes were on the ‘tarmac almost all small single engines, a few King-Airs and 5 other twin engine planes and nary a jet)
As we approached the bike stand, a volunteer for the airport asked if we had tickets for the event and were we going to leave our e-bikes there?
We told him we’d been at the burn for a week, and he apologized and explained that rich (family blogs) just left their e-bikes and got on a plane,and they had a haul of around a dozen, and I looked the part of a tech mogul, so there you have it.
I’m glad you had fun. Sometimes I worry about you because you don’t seem to get out much.
Musta been a kick in the pants being mistaken for an e-bike-dumping tech titan expecting a local sherpa to clean up their mess.
Glad NC’s Giant Sequoia correspondent survived. Not many blogs have one.
And hey you were the one talking about cholera.
As for roughing it, my philosophy is that if you want to be comfortable then stay home. Those feeble imitators with their slide outs and golf carts and all night generators gripe my a**. Glamping is the opposite of camping.
Who are we kidding that anybody is roughing it at Burning Man, you are limited to what your vehicle can carry.
Compare that to a week on the trail with a 35 pound backpack walking 40 miles, truly self-sufficient with no chance of a resupply.
My buddy and I spent around $4K, and he happens to have a small RV, a huge bonus over the tents I was in for 6 other burns.
My ne plus ultra was a tent within a tent within a tent, think Russian nesting doll.
The playa dust still got in.
p.s.
The measure between your thumb parallel in widest width outstretched to your index finger was the distance between seat and meet of the matter in a port-a-potty where something liquid that way came when I went in on Monday after the deluge.
Good for you, man. I’m glad to hear something real and not the schadenfreude OD that was all over the place. Take care.
MTG is my favorite heroine addiction now, she hit it out of the park compared to lesser talents pushing presstiditation.
Maui fires. It’s a mystery. utube. ~1 hr.
48-yr Arborist questions Maui WildFire and shares insights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs3o3z0G8tw
I almost didn’t click your link. But I’m glad I did.
I remember looking at some before and after aerial pics of Lahaina, and guessing incorrectly which was which. The houses in the burned pictures seemed all white, while the before picture was darker which I had assumed was burned. Fooled me.
People should give this vid a view. Give them a bit of a startle.
Why did a great many trees in the city not burn, when houses did right next to them? Why were cars incinerated and the asphalt pavement next to them show no melting. Why did free-standing plastic like trash bins not catch fire? How did boats in the harbour catch fire but not burn to the waterline? Flying embers doesn’t explain it, I agree with the arborist. Or the trees would all have gone up in flames, but did not.
We had a huge wildfire here not ten miles from me in Nova Scotia in May that caused the evacuation of 14,000 from suburbs. It doesn’t look like this Lahaina aftermath. 150 houses went up, and the whole place looks burned as you’d expect. Most houses were saved by valiant firefighting efforts in freak 90 degree weather and weeks of no rain. Those who escaped took video — roadside ditch vegetation was burning, let alone the woods behind. But the Lahaina aftermath does look weird. Unburnt highly flammable eucalyptus leaves, but piles of molten steel and aluminum and melted glass in vehicles? Microwaves sounds farfetched but so does the result. Haven’t a clue as to the anomaly. Apparently many California wildfires recently have been similar. Rather sinister.
As I say, more people should watch this video. While the interviewer seems a bit scatterbrained, the arborist is a solid guy.
‘McConnell does not have seizure disorder, did not suffer stroke, says Capitol physician’
I’ve been wondering if what he’s experiencing is something like my late neighbor, maybe 10 years ago now.
I went out to breakfast with her and another neighbor, at her favorite cafe, we were just winding up our meal when suddenly she was unable to speak. She had warned me that she was having episodes and had described what happened… she was rendered unable to speak in intelligible sentences, it came out as gobbledygook. She was thinking the words she wanted to say but it just turned into alphabet soup.
After one of those episodes she would try to get in to be checked out by a physician, but of course any evidence of what was happening was gone. Over the next year her mobility went down hill and her son moved in with her to help out, especially when she couldn’t form intelligible sentences. Eventually she was diagnosed with metastatic cancer; I don’t think I ever heard of what origin.
At the time we were having breakfast, cancer was my first thought but I had only recently recovered from two and to say so would sound like a projection of my own experience, and would only serve to frighten her with no evidence to back it up. Same thoughts regarding Mitch, that cancer can mess with you for years before it’s finally nailed down and addressed, and in elderly patients especially it may be too late. She was probably in her early eighties. She lived a few more years after that breakfast and then she was gone; her husband preceded her in that time… alzheimers.
Let’s say it’s an elusive cancer messing with his brain function… Mitch is in a tight spot, given the likely press he’d receive for suddenly speaking gobbledygook into a hot mic. His best bet is to muddle along as best he can and shut up entirely when necessary and keep a cancer diagnosis to himself as long as possible. He has lived for his party.
I believe IM Doc described his symptoms as consistent with sequelae to a head injury. It’s reported that McConnell has post-polio syndrome and has had some bad falls.
It’s slicing the sausage pretty thin, but I guess if you take his seizures as transient sequelae to a head injury you could assert that he doesn’t have a seizure disorder.
I wonder why they haven’t found an effective anticonvulsant for him?
I’m less interested in what has happened to Mitch McConnell than the shift in political winds given that Nancy says she will not be running for reelection. These have been two major players in Washington for as long as I can remember.
Cancer too can be a slippery dog. It’s hard to find what you’re not looking for. I remember feeling bad I didn’t say anything to my neighbor, maybe earlier treatment would have bought her more time.
https://www.christopherreeve.org/todays-care/living-with-paralysis/health/causes-of-paralysis/post-polio-syndrome-poliomyelitis/
I don’t care what affliction he does or does not suffer from–he is no longer capable of doing the job, to the extent he ever did it at all.
Ditto for feinstein, fetterman and biden.
I’d say that the “voters” of Kentucky should recall the guy, but they most likely can’t tell the difference between a “functional” then and a dysfunctional now. What a colossal joke that he freezes when asked a question about running for reelection four years from now. I suppose the questioner figured to give him a break and ask an “easy” one.
“Impersonators or Legal Canvassers? NY Citizens Audit Answers NYSBOE”… A must read for anyone clinging to the idea that US elections are still a mostly accurate reflection of the will of the people.
Update from an industry newsletter on theft from grocery stores in DC and mida
-Atlantic. I hadn’t heard the Target estimate that shrink could cost them 500 million $ this year. Something is seriously wrong here.
Anecdote, #2 son, 30 years of age, member of the “hustle” economy, told me that his people have no moral qualms about shoplifting food from corporate monoliths like Walmart, but don’t steal from mom and pops and don’t steal to resell. I have mixed feelings about this, but it’s hard not to see the reality of his surroundings requiring modifications to the moral code.
Moral codes are based on fundamental circumstances.
When corporations purposely destroy small businesses in an area by selling at a loss until Mom and Pops gone, then raise prices, when corporate profits are sent out of town, instead of local businesses keeping money spent and circulating locally through the multiplier effect, moral codes are obsolete.
It’s important that as well as supporting local small businesses, that people spend cash within them for “paperwork simplification purposes.”
When a business pays 4%, soon approaching 8% swipe fees, and a business makes 4 to 8% profits, credit cards mean selling at a loss.
Cash is king. Use it or lose it.
Good reminder, thanks.
The article indicates that Target is replacing the name brand products with Target brand products in that store. Seems unlikely that would significantly deter theft. But it might be the only way to break agreements with name brand distributors and boost the Target brand, helping the bottom line.
Re: Running for President would be racist:
“Biden allies warned that the party could face a racial conundrum if other candidates alienate non-white voters by running against Harris. NBC noted that past candidates who failed to win over black voters, such as Hillary Clinton in 2008 and Bernie Sanders in 2016, lost their races for the party’s nomination.”
Seems like black people were the least of Bernie Sanders electoral problems in ’16. He had the black youth vote locked up in that primary. What they should be saying, but can’t, is that they need to stop fixing their primaries for people no one can stand except for the donor class and then maybe they would have fewer problems getting black people (or anyone else) to show up at the pols.
Harris failed spectacularly to win over black voters, FFS
From the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative, a not so nice forecast for US Covid, based apparently on updated waste water sampling.
https://twitter.com/michael_hoerger/status/1699289117622685930
They also have an interesting chart where they calculate the risk, they say, of having an infectious person present in groups of various sizes, from 1 person to 500. I could not figure out what the basis if the chart is, but apparently using it to argue for accomodations has been successful.
Thanks Verifyfirst.
Here’s the Pandemic Mitigation Collaborative website for examination. A quick look at the Projects page indicates opinions and values shared here. Note the Swiss cheese.
‘Lions enjoying the sea’
Was that lion on the right trying to bodysurf his way in?
I went to my piggybank to fund a donation, but alas, I found that I had already broken into it last month. However, there were a few pennies lying about so, well, I sent them.
>Our Earth, shaped by life – aeon
A very nice piece on the ways that life has built the wonderful earth we know and love (but the capitalists are racing to obliterate – not in the piece).
Another piece came to mind as an adjunct to the Darwinian view:
A New Physics Theory of Life
And speaking of entropy and thinking back to a piece yesterday (I think), on Naps and Snoozes, I’m going back to bed.
‘Philip Pilkington
@philippilk
The oil price cap was the fakest of all the sanctions. It was imposed as global prices were falling due to sluggish growth. Now that global prices are rising the G7 are just looking the other way. Brent-Urals spread, meanwhile, has fallen ~50% since cap was imposed. 🛢️’
The EU initially agreed to review the price cap every two months but now they have just given up and the G7 had not reviewed prices since March. The laws of supply and demand said that it was a lunatic idea but they went with Yellen’s idea anyway. The Duran did a short video on this topic about two days ago-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfXorTM8e94 (12:34 mins)
LOL!!! Janet is an economist, mainstream economist! She’s and idiot or a lunatic by definition!
If she says left, I’d recommend you go right.
“No respite for France as a ‘New Africa’ rises”
Check out these choice lines from this article-
‘The Central Bank of each African nation was initially required to keep at least 65 percent of their annual foreign exchange reserves in an “operation account” held at the French Treasury, plus another 20 percent to cover financial “liabilities.”
Even after some mild “reforms” were enacted since September 2005, these nations were still required to transfer 50 percent of their foreign exchange to Paris, plus 20 percent V.A.T.
But the theft doesn’t stop there: the French Treasury uses African reserves as if they were French capital, as collateral in pledging assets to French payments to the EU and the ECB.’
So if Africa finally kicks France out, what shape will it be in if it does not get these ultra-cheap resources but has to pay market prices for them? And what happens if all that free money to play with goes away as well? Could France survive?
More choice lines:
“ Moscow has never sought to rob or enslave Africa.
Russia treats Africans as sovereign people, does not engage in Forever Wars, and does not drain Africa of resources while paying a pittance for them. ”
I suppose Wagner isn’t Moscow then?
And of course the Belt and Road is not designed to channel African resources back to Beijing, no, it’s pure altruism.
Just logging off tonight but thought people might be interest in this follow up. Remember that skinhead Nazi with his buddies in Florida that was pro-Biden because he was sending rockets to the Ukraine. They had red shirts on and the full kit. Turns out that this guy has solid links with both the FBI and the CIA. Imagine my surprise-
https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1698381772268900512
“Jordan Peterson being professionally canceled for trans stance New York Post (furzy). Notice URL for original headline.”
I vehemently disagree with Peterson on many things, especially his stance on trans issues, but I think his twitter bans were totally uncalled for. Its a public forum, he should be allowed to air his stupid opinions. So I tried my hardest to read his response without letting his more colorful phrasing hit a nerve (donno how successful I was).
There is one thing that hit me throughout the piece: Peterson often relies on his credentials as a clinical psychologist to argue his points: “I hypothetically have not only the right but the responsibility to express…”, “I have an explicit professional obligation…”, “I am speaking my mind because, as a professional — and a highly qualified and experienced professional at that, with a worldwide reputation and influence…” The issue at hand is that his credentials as a psychologist could be revoked by the College of Psychologists of Ontario, which I assume has implications related to his legal right to practice as a psychologist in Ontario.
This raises an interesting question: If a College of Psychologists of Ontario revokes his license, what weight will his future claims to be a professional psychologist carry? In one respect, you could argue it makes no difference – he has been trained in psychiatry, practiced for 18 years, and was certified until (what he might call) political persecution robbed him of that. But on the other hand, psychiatry is an inherently value-ladened and normative profession. Its legitimacy in the medical field is in many ways predicated on the strictly managed ethical and regulatory practices.
In short, I think Peterson is trying to have his cake and eat it too. He wants to retain his accreditation as a psychologist to argue from a position of expertise, but at the same time he does not want to be subject to the norms and regulations which he must accept in order to be accredited.
I entirely agree. I think Peterson is both wrong in this case and kind of a clown. Reading his piece was a sort of fascinating exercise for me. But the heavy-handedness of his treatment by Twitter and in general really disturbs me. I think actual trans people are just a plaything for the elites and all the more so in Canada. I say let the man speak! It’s his right first and foremost, and as someone who disagrees with him, I think he undermines his own cause by doing so.
Canada is different from the US, there are categories of restricted speech under our Constitution.
So, no, unlike the US it is not his right to say whatever he wants.
Yeah, fair. Though private companies like Twitter are also free to restrict who uses their service as they choose, so there’s no right there either. I think the more that public life is mediated through the private internet or any other technological medium, the more our rights are in general are kind of moot. I guess I just support his ability to spout his opinion on the same channels as the rest of us, regardless of legal right or not.
If a College of Psychologists of Ontario revokes his license, what weight will his future claims to be a professional psychologist carry?
It would be illegal in Ontario. I am not sure abut the rest of the country.
My late father hated Carl Jung. Should I shun him for ever too? Guardian (furzy). This person appears to have missed the bit in Jung where he argues that people don’t truly individuate until both parents have died.
Jung obliviously did not attend a UK boarding school. where one might see one’s parents less than once a month, or maybe the whole term.. Especially when when they were in some 3fd world country.
Re; Our No Longer Free Press
Developing: A bad month for Resistance media just got much worse
Mint Press News suspended on TikTok, The Grayzone’s fundraising campaign frozen by GoFundme, and now The Cradle’s Facebook page is unpublished. Independent journalism is losing a war and few people seem to notice.
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/features/developing:-a-bad-month-for-resistance-media-just-got-much-w
Let me add to this list of casualties that I’ve observed recently during web wanderings; wounded, KIA, and MIA:
NewsFront
StrategicCultureFoundation
Southfront
Infobrics
CaitlinJohnstone
And Alex Christaforu and Alexander Mercouris, who seemed well diversified and are still holding forth on YouTube, just had their accounts wiped by Rumble, the supposed free speech platform (see very last minute here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otNlqhiq4bM). WTF?
But InfoBRICS is fine, unless you are referring to Twitter or FB or somesuch. They don’t say anything about their funding and I assumed it came from NGOs or even government agencies.
http://infobrics.org/
No videos on rumble come up for me, not even their own picks. I think it is a tech problem on rumble’s end.
Rumble seems to be headquartered in Canada/US .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumble_(company)
So i think any law enforcement agency could pay them a visit and get these issues straightened out in a flash.
Thanks, infobrics seems to work as http, but not https, and https is how I originally bookmarked it– now I get this message:
NET::ERR_CERT_AUTHORITY_INVALID
I’ll also note that on some networks I cannot get to Interfax, Sputnik, or Tass, but I’ll chalk this up to local security protocol– not like when RT disappeared for several days.
These efforts to silence alt/non-MSM media are simply attempts to prevent the sharing of information, the comparing of notes, and to keep us dumb and unlearned… weren’t there laws on the books that made it a crime to teach slaves to read?
Anti-literacy laws, 1700s:
“Teaching slaves to read and write, tends to excite dissatisfaction in their minds, and to produce insurrection and rebellion.”
“Be it therefore Enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That all and every Person and Persons whatsoever, who shall hereafter teach or cause any Slave to be taught to write, or shall use to employ any slave as a Scribe in any Manner of Writing whatsoever, hereafter taught to write, every such offense forfeit the Sum of One Hundred Pounds current Money.”
I lost access to RT a few weeks ago and can’t get it back/find it. I was in Mexico when the link stopped working (and still am), maybe it will work again when I return to Canada, but I am not optimistic. (Can’t connect in English or Spanish.)
Ahh, living in the free world — ain’t it grand!
For those that think this is the stupidest timeline, give Covid a chance!
FLOTUS officially has Covid for the second time and Brandon has a really bad Summer cold…
How would you like to be the person who told Scranton Joe he has Covid?
It strikes me that if you wanted to ease the old man out, ensuring he was reinfected with Covid frequently might be a way of doing so without creating too much of a fuss.
He could even Pardon Beau on the way out ( Another dose of Covid and he may not remember who Hunter is, but he’s been milking Beau’s death so long that name is deeply imprinted on what passes for his brain).
The Goths… more like the fall of Rome as we see the decline of the West/US today!
I was amazed that in about 250 AD/CE one of the first major Gothic advances into a Roman area destroyed 3 Roman Legions, AND it took Rome 20 years to recover?!?! Rome is more or less at it’s zenith and yes it is in a period of “civil war” and chronic plague (sound familiar), but it’s got ALL of its empirical resources to bring to bear and it takes 20 years to recover the loss of 3 legions?!?!? Granted that is not a small task, but given it’s near peak power and resource access it seems much more like a deliberate/political bad choice… like the feigning we’re broke every time the “debt ceiling” approaches or anyone asks about Medicare for All.
Dunno if it was a fever dream or something, but it seemed like the site went down for a couple of minutes right now. I saw the cloudflare “can’t reach the server” message. Dunno if it’s a big deal, but I felt like I should say it anyway, in case it turns out to be important. If not, then well, no harm no foul.
So . . .Russia has given advanced ICBM to North Korea? If it was “given” and not “sold”, could that get around sanctions for “selling” such things?
And if North Korea gives a bunch of artillery shells and stuff to Russia as a free expression of gratitude, would that get around sanctions for “buying” and “selling” weapons between Russia and North Korea?
Exquisitely legal?
So Biden’s surrogates and party spokescreeps are warning White male nominee-wannabes that running in a primary against Kamalabama will be spun as being racist and misogynist? That sounds like the Inner Party people are indeed already thinking of ” what if Biden leaves by choice or by force”? If the White nominee-wannabes given in to those threats, they are reaping the Wages of Wokeness. If they give in to such Racemail, Race-stortion, call it what you will; it will keep the DemParty all Woked up for some time to come.
I hope the White nominee-wannabes in the DemParty learn to craft a language of rejection of genderacial extortion and genderacial blackmail. Maybe Kennedy will figure out how to do it. Maybe Williamson will pose the embarrassing question in the most embarrassing way about whether she is too White to be permitted to run, even if she is Female enough to be permitted to run. Make the genderacial extortionists and moral blackmailers answer that one on camera. Preferrably in a debate.
This would be a fine time form West to stick a spoke in the DemParty’s bicycle wheel by openly stating that Harris deserves zero credit or deferrence for her race or her gender. Perhaps he could even have his oppo research team go over her entire record before becoming VP and point out how she is a traitor to her race and a traitor to her gender, using the kind of language that Gingrich, Luntz and Rove would use.
Or is he too smarmy and ” brother this” and “brother that” to do such a thing?
In fact, it would be good if West and the Greens could find a plausible ” Black progressive” to run in the DemParty primaries if the DemParty permits any, with the express purpose of daring the DemParty to call him “racist” and “misogynist” for running in the primary against Harris. Of course, it would have to be a “Black progressive” who understands strategy, tactics, and views his run as an effort to wedge the DemParty into several pieces in order to destroy some pieces of it and render other pieces vulnerable to conquest and takeover by “progressive” political warfighters.
I think West would view this as running against himself. And I doubt anyone who would have a snowball’s chance in hell of being noticed as a candidate would want to be his cat’s paw.
I had more envisioned such a “Black progressive” as being West’s tire iron or crowbar or jackhammer. But upon reflection I see that is just another form of cat’s paw anyway.
So I am left to wonder. . . . what is West’s motivation and goal for running? To grow an actual movement which does things between elections? To prevent either brand name candidate from getting an electoral vote election-winning majority? To take a self-indulgent “speaking truth to power” trip? What will the actual point end up being here?
Yes, it will be interesting to see if West amplifies his language and goes after people like Harris. In the current climate, it could serve his cause well to call out the frauds in the DemParty for who and what they are. However, West and the Greens likely have their hands full just fighting their way onto the ballots and into the general consciousness. Too many voters will be persuaded by the usual strategy of manipulation that “a vote for West is a vote for Trump”. I’ve already been hearing this from liberals in my own social circle.
As Henry Moon Pie put it, above, regarding Turley:
Agree, but good luck getting this point through to millions of TDS-addled liberals, who will believe now is the time to circle the wagons against a return of the “Evil Orange Man”.
Perhaps they finally let Mitch meet the aliens, lol